The short answer is NO! Algorithms do not qualify leads. The difference between raw leads and good—that is, fully qualified—leads is often misunderstood or even ignored.

So when is a lead good? To a salesperson, it’s only really good when it leads to a closed sale, or at least to a closable opportunity. On the other hand many sales managers, especially those distant from the trenches, see the value of a lead in its just being a lead—that is, the mere possibility of it adding some value to the overall equation. How many of us have heard “A lead is a lead is a lead”? Ask any sales professional, though, and they will tell you that a lead generated by an inside sales expert is light years from being just “a lead”. In fact, decades of actual experience of the highest -level sales elite, and the best business practices implemented based on that experience, have confirmed that the very best leads are produced through various direct and indirect efforts. In other words, the automations created by algorithms have their place in the leadgen cycle, but they’re not an A to Z solution. Anyone having to make actual sales will affirm this based on even short firsthand experience: A well-processed lead enters the sales cycle differently, shows glimpses of fruition sooner, and becomes a sale or even when it does not remains a viable opportunity. Results on the ground are what count.

When it comes to marketers, the value of a lead is derived from its impact on market awareness and from the prospect pool of its origination. Marketers understand well that if they can effectively control a lead’s impact and maintain steady the channel(s) from which it came, the inflow of successful leads would be virtually guaranteed.

Predictably, though, many marketers fall into the “goose that laid golden eggs” scenario in an effort to produce large streams of good leads from pools that inevitably prove limited. They do this through trying to totally automate and speed up a process that requires sometimes slow human interaction to remain viable. As the failures of total automation become clear, the effort then shifts to blaming extraneous circumstances or even conjuring shorter shortcuts.

All in all, formulas and automated channels will feed a sales force raw leads, but discovering if that prospect can afford your services, or if they’re educated about your offering, or if they even understand what your business is all about, requires more than just a lead scoring method and something closer to old-fashioned customer service. That work is where it’s at. And that work is what makes a lead into a good lead.

Jameel Saqib
Co-Founder, McCord Solutions – August 15, 2013