Bill Rice Internet Marketing > kaleidico

Top 100 Tips for Lead Management and Sales Success

March 26, 2008 By

I have been thinking about a resource like this for months. Being in the business of providing lead management software to hundreds of sales forces, I am constantly ask for resources on how to get the best out of lead management and build top performing sales teams. So, here it is the top 100 answers and resources in no particular order (feel free to add to this list with your comments):

  1. First, get the lead management lead providers like to brag about
  2. Keep it simple. Start with a simple sales process. Then execute, measure, adjust, re-execute
  3. Learn about Internet lead generation and how to leverage them to grow your business
  4. Don’t call them leads. You will start treating them like leads, and leads don’t buy anything
  5. Make sure your lead management process help foreshadow and set expectations for your customer
  6. Don’t forget to tell past clients what is going on in the market
  7. Read books by these guys: Jeffrey Gitomer, Seth Godin, Robert Cialdini, Zig Ziglar
  8. Lead management is not easy, but it can be broken into critical key performance indicators
  9. Leads will not convert instantly or magically. Lead nurturing is critical to an effective customer experience and sales success
  10. Don’t get caught in a rut of commitment to consistency. Your current “system” may be your weakness [Read more...]
Filed Under: Lead Management, Social Selling Tagged With: kaleidico, Lead Management, leads, marketing, mortgage, social selling

Lead Providers Pitch the Value of Lead Management

February 26, 2008 By

My new favorite mortgage podcast is ZipSearch Radio! They start just a few weeks ago and have already put together several top notch shows on the mortgage market, mortgage leads, and now mortgage lead management.

Although they feature one of Kaleidico’s (my company) competitors during the show I encourage you to listen. Key points to listen for in the ZipSearch lead management podcast:

  • Mortgage lead success is connected to the management of lead distribution, salesforce, and follow-up
  • Lead management can help you optimize lead buying, lead distribution, and sales processes
  • Brief conversation on the debate between push and pull distribution, the debate between accumulating aging inventory (leads) or just-in-time manufacturing (sales)

Top line (that’s right REVENUE!) point seems to be that even to most simplistic lead management process and system will begin to improve and scale your sales success. The question then becomes what system can help you get the maximum results with the least complexity and maintenance.

Filed Under: Lead Management, Social Selling Tagged With: kaleidico, Lead Management, leads360, podcast, zipsearch

Lead Marketwatch–Scammers Beware!

December 14, 2007 By

Sorry I have been on a brief hiatus, but we are working on some very exciting stuff at Kaleidico and it has absorbed my undivided attention. I am wrapping most of those projects up and will be back to my regular schedule. However, I thought a couple of recent events warranted a quick post.

As most of you know Kaleidico hosts an increasingly important tool for both lead buyers (brokers, lenders, and banks) and lead providers (lead exchanges and lead generators)–Lead Marketwatch. This simple widget is the only live performance metric on Internet leads in the market. Lead buyers use it actively in their lead buying decisions, other websites have picked up the Lead Marketwatch widget through Google Gadget syndication, lead providers are given free links in the widget, and some even actively market their performance rankings.

Needless to say, for that reason, we take that responsibility VERY seriously!

This weekend and throughout the week we detected a lead provider attempting to collude with one of our clients to manipulate the application rate for their leads. Upon detection their results were immediately suppressed.

Here is the warning: If you are willing to compromise your integrity in the marketplace we will not allow you to leverage the Lead Marketwatch in that scam. If you are a lead provider your data will be indefinitely suppressed in Lead Marketwatch with no appeal. If you are a lender you will be terminated from the lead management network as a violation of our terms of service.

I hope everyone is enjoying Lead Marketwatch and can be confident in its objectivity, credibility, and integrity!

P.S., If the scammers are reading…our rock-star developers have written a detection module that will automatically catch that scam and a couple more we thought of so suppress is automatic if detected.

Tags: lead marketwatch, leadmarketwatch, internet leads, ,

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Management Tagged With: kaleidico, Lead Management, lead marketwatch, lead providers

Lead Quality Decline or Market Change?

October 16, 2007 By

There has been a bit of discussion over “declining” lead quality. Of course, it is easy to lay the blame of declining app and funding rates at the feet of lead providers. I must admit this was my initial reaction.  However, I then got curious and decided to think a bit broader and dive into the data from our client network and tie it to market news during the period of decline.

Here is the chart:

The most notable observable points in this summary is that lead providers tend to stay very close to their general trend line; however, there was a general trend of decline on or about August 18, 2007. I would also suspect as we look at final September data we will see all of the lead providers returning to their typical trend lines.

So, I am not certain that the general assertion that lead quality has declined over the past several months is supported by market data.

However, if you do make the hypothesis that there has been a sudden precipitous decline in lead quality something must have changed–methodology, market, or consumer. We often assume and stop at lead generation methodology. Did lead providers radically alter their techniques and methodologies on August 18, 2007? No, but your application rates did decline in the short-term.

Something obviously changed. That leaves market conditions and consumer behavior. This is where I put my chips (I am currently in Vegas and down $100).

On that day, the mortgage market was being shook to the bone by Countrywide’s announcement they were tapping a credit line to fund loans. Notice the relative correlation between the Countrywide stock trend line and the lead provider application rate trend lines. At the same time, general news and panic media coverage is shaking the confidence of the consumer. Then, the for the triple threat–loan programs are disappearing for the majority of the borrowers needing financing and FHASecure has not arrived yet.

This is what happened to lead conversion rates. Not poor marketing, but poor market conditions and consumer confidence. They inquired, but got shocked, paralyzed, or left without a program.

The ironic part of this story? As rates stay flat, the mortgage market stabilizes, confidence returns, and programs come back, who is going to write about the dramatic, mysterious improvement in lead quality?

By the way, hopefully you have a good lead management system that is allowing you to manage these consumer inquiries over this longer sales cycle because they are ready to apply now!

Tags: lead quality, , , , ,

Filed Under: Lead Generation, Lead Management Tagged With: kaleidico, Lead Management, lead marketwatch, lead providers, lead quality, leadqual

about |  contact |  disclosure