Imagine a fisherman on a boat in a pond. He casts the bait and waits, hoping for a bite. If he’s lucky, the pond is stocked full of fish ready to take the line. If he’s not, he’ll have to work a bit harder for the catch.
In the world of business, things don’t operate so differently. We have a CRM waiting to be stocked, a Marketing team doing the stocking, and a Sales team ready to make the catch. The only question is, how much bait does Sales need to catch the big one?
To my understanding, the amount of bait you need to catch a fish depends on how many fish are swimming near your boat and how hungry they are, which are conditions primarily generated by the Marketing department. If Marketing is doing it’s job right, Sales will do less selling and more catching, because the right fish are swimming by at the right time.
Makes sense, right? We all want leads delivered on a silver platter. The only trouble is, many businesses can’t always afford to have their marketing department nurture and qualify leads for Sales as well as they’d like. Or they don’t always have a clear process defined between the two roles. I’ve worked with companies both large and small, and it’s universally agreed that the line between Sales and Marketing gets a little fuzzy from time to time. At what point does a lead get passed to Sales? How do you know when it’s ”qualified?” When do you stop nurturing and start selling? Knowing the answer to these questions will ultimately determine if your Sales team will be sitting in an empty boat or taking home the big catch for the company to enjoy.
(Pardon my art).
