Many people have difficulty understanding what a lead is and why you would need to nurture them, convert them to actual sales opportunities and track the sales cycle from introduction to closure.

A lead is simply someone who has expressed an interest in your product or service. They are a prospective customer. Once they have inquired you will want to nurture them by keeping in touch, providing information, white papers or materials about your product offering and the value they can realize by conducting business with you. But this does not always happen fast. Some products take a year or more to sell and a lot can happen during that time, which is why it is critical to have a sales tracking software system in place.

Every customer starts off as a lead, and while most CRM software products offer sales tracking, very few offer lead generation as well. Commence Corporation, manufacturer of Commence CRM, has differentiated themselves in this area. Commence says “most CRM systems manage sales, but ours get you sales” and they do this by offering two separate modules. First, a marketing application where you can store lead lists and create and distribute bulk-E-Mail campaigns that serve to generate new business opportunities.

Marketing Campaigns in Commence CRM

This is where the account and lead lists are stored. The marketing application offers an automated business process that ranks and scores new leads based on their behavior. For example, any prospect that opens a campaign is assigned 2 points. If they click on a call to action such as schedule a call, download a free white paper, or ask for a sample or product trial they get 3 points.  The sales team can watch the progress each week then decide when to engage the prospect based on their point totals.

Lead Scoring in Commence CRM

Once the lead is qualified the sales module takes over providing the sales staff and management with the ability to track and manage each step of the sales cycle from the initial introduction through closure.

Managing Sales in Commence CRM

While the Commence CRM software manages the leads and the sales cycle, the company’s professional services team is what really makes the difference.  A team of experienced marketing professionals will generate a targeted list of prospects to mail to, help you to define your value proposition or message, create a series of e-mail marketing campaigns, distribute the campaigns, and import all qualified leads into the Commence CRM system for you. Commence is an “All-In-One Solution” that includes a top-rated CRM system coupled with professional marketing expertise for sales and lead generation. The result of working with Commence is that in just a few weeks you can begin to build brand recognition, generate new business opportunities, and close more sales.

Want to learn more? Contact sales@commence.com or call 877-266-6362.