Method Community

I am trying to figure out the best way to use the lead/CRM status.

Does this make sense?

Leads are open and active when being worked.

If you associate and opportunity with the lead and win the opportunity the lead is converted into a customer and is no longer a lead - it goes away.

If you never get in touch with the lead you change the lead to 'inactive' and leave the status as open and change rating to cold

If you get in touch with a  lead - and create and opportunity - and lose the opportunity - the lead stays a lead (but the opportunity is lost). At that point what should you do to the lead? I don't see "Closed," or lost as an available lead status?

Thank you - Jacob

HI jdaniello,

If your company will never offer the products and services that the lead was requiring, then you will need to set the status of the lead to inactive.

If your company will sometimes in the future offer the products and services that they were looking for, but doesn’t currently offer it then I would leave the lead as active on the lead list so they can be called later on in the future. 

I hope that helps. 

Ronen

Hi jdaniello,

I just wanted to give you additional information on my previous response. I just wanted to touch base on the way a lead is managed in Method.

1. A lead can be generated from advertisements, employee referrals, external referrals, trade shows, websites, call center lists, and seminars. 

2. These can then be entered into Method manually or imported using our “Import/Export” tool. 

3. Once they are imported, they are considered unqualified and cold. They are unqualified because we didn’t initiate to contact them yet and cold because we don’t know if our products and services match their needs.  

4. Once they have been contacted, we can change their Lead Status to “Qualified” from “Open”. 

5. Depending if our products and services match their requirements, we give the lead a Lead Status rating of either “Cold”, “Warm”, or “Hot”. 

a. Cold means that our products or services don’t match their requirements at this time

b. Warm means that we match some of their requirements at this time, but we could still persuade them to purchase the products that do meet their needs. 

c. Hot means that we match all of their requirements at this time and we should contact them as soon as possible. 

6. We can then attach this qualified lead to a new opportunity and manage our activity with them while we go through the sales lifecycle with them hopefully leading to an “Opportunity” stage of “Closed Won”

7. If this opportunity was lost, as it was in your case, it could have been because of two reasons:

a. Your products and services don’t meet their requirements at this time and probably won’t meet them in the near future  In this case, it would be beneficial to mark the lead as “Inactive”. 

b. Your products and services don’t meet their requirements at this time, but probably could meet them in the future. In this case, we would return the lead status to “Open”, return the lead rating to “Cold”, but keep them “Active” in the list. This would return this list to the general lead list where the sales representative can use them in the future to prospect products and services. 

I hope this explanation of how a lead is managed in Method helps you out a bit further. 

Ronen

Ronen,

I had been thinking about this in a different way, and wanted to reply to this thread and ask if there was any background logic that would prohibit using the same lead status values in this manner.

Our company generates leads from several sources, but must verify them based on territory.

My plan was to bring in new leads as "Open", then change them to "Qualified" once we made sure their territory was OK.  Anyone who was not accepted based on territory would become "Unqualified."

It seems pretty straightforward, but I was just hoping for a sanity check.

Thanks,

Matt

Hi BungalowMatt,

You can turn a lead from a "Qualified" lead to an "Unqualified" lead if you don't see them as a good fit for your business at the current time. I would though put into consideration the Active and Inactive concept as i explained before. 

The lead can certainly be considered unqualified after you have contacted them, but they should remain active if they have expressed an interest in products and services that you plan to offer in the near future or is in your short term plan. 

The inactive option should still be utilized if they are unqualified and have a need for product and services for example that are not even offered in your industry and probably never will in the long term.  

I hope that helps. 

Ronen. 

The Lead status is used to indicate where your sales team is in the process of qualifying a lead into an opportunity. It allows you to see the status of a lead as it is being managed by your sales team. There are many different reasons to use the CRM lead status-

• It enables you to segment your leads based on previous sales activities and prioritize your outreach.
• It keeps your sales reps on top of their funnel and ensures that no lead falls through the cracks due to lack of follow-up. 
• It allows you to nurture or remarket to people who are not yet ready.