Working with Leads

Overview

You can use the Lead Document to capture details about sales enquiries from prospective or existing customers. You can capture details about the marketing or prospecting activity that caused the lead (the source) and classify and score the lead to help you prioritize your sales activities. You can attach information about interactions between you and the lead using Memos.

When required, a Lead can be converted into a Customer.

Prerequisites

Using salesorder.com - the basics

Working with Lists

Leads, Prospects and Customers

Entering and Editing

Creating a new Lead

A Lead can be created in a number of ways. However there are two main distinctions. The Lead can either be created stand-alone, or alternatively belonging to an existing Customer.

Stand-alone

If the Lead does not have an associated Customer already in the system you can simply click 'New' on the Lead Shortcut. Alternatively, from the Explorer click Sales->Leads to display the Lead List, then click 'New Lead'. This will display a new Lead Document.

For Existing Customer

For an existing Customer you can either follow the procedure for stand-alone and attach to the desired Customer using the Customer List lookup on the Company field. To do this simply click the icon and select from the Customer List. Or alternatively locate the Customer and from the Action drop-down click 'New Lead'. The Customer field will automatically be filled.

Via either method the resultant Lead Document is shown below.

New Lead Document

Some fields are worth noting:

Status

Different companies have different ways of processing Leads. The Lead Status defines the various stages that a Lead can be in depending on your process. Typically ranging from Pre-Qualification to either Converted to Customer or Discarded.

Rating and Rating Score

Sometimes it is desirable to be able to rate a Lead. In simple terms this could be Cold, Warm Hot etc. depending on how close the Lead is to becoming a fully fledged Customer. Moreover associated with each rating you may wish to define a numerical score. This gives a more tangible and formal method of categorizing Leads within your company. You can configure as many Lead Rating's and associated scores as you like, see Configuring Leads.

Source

This field simply states the source where the Lead originated. For example, Word of mouth, Conference, Times Newspaper etc.

Campaign

This field identifies the marketing campaign associated with this Lead.

Lead Key Facts

•	Leads can be created as either Stand-alone, or associated with a Customer.

•	Leads can be initially created as Stand alone and subsequently attached to a Customer.

•	Leads have an associated Status which allows you to specify where the Lead is in the sales pipeline.

•	Leads have a Rating and associated numerical score which signifies the relative potential for converting the Lead to a real Customer.

Related tasks and information

Leads, Prospects and Customers

Configuring Leads

Create a Prospect/Customer from a Lead

Working with Prospects

Working with Customers

Working with Memos

Working with Classifications

Importing Data

Working with Emails