“These leads are no good”

“Those PPC leads are terrible”

“White paper leads, in general are good”

“That last list is the best”

This is many times the feedback that sales and marketing teams provide on lead quality. To simplify this discussion and move it beyond finger pointing about what is good or bad,  it is better to start with a simple statement of truth:

All leads are crap.

Why you ask? Clearly some programs are great. How can all leads be crap?

Look at it this way.  A “successful” campaign may generate opportunities between 5 and 25% of the time. Notice how this is defined – opportunity generation.  So in other words, if you provide the sales team with 100 leads, sales will create between 5 and 25 opportunities. Some of these opportunities will close, some will not.  How can anything be considered good where 75-95% of what is provided results in failure?

That is the challenge with leads.  An overwhelming majority of leads that are provided do not result in opportunities. Hence, all leads are crap. Start with this assumption with sales and you can move beyond the gut reaction to what is true and get into the analysis of the smaller numbers to determine what is really working.  Next up: Don’t be fooled by “Those are Great Leads!”