Lead_generation_contracts_and _performance_metric

A lead generation contract should contain a performance metric. There are three commonly used methods of measurement:

An outsourcing company is often paid on an hourly or daily rate to provide a resource of an agreed quality. Although this arrangement helps to guarantee results for the customer and works well once success and trust have developed, it also holds a degree of risk in the early days of a contract.

The outsourcing company undertakes a given number of sales presentations or pitches with the appropriate, decision making, target contacts. This method is particularly effective because it focuses on survey results taken from a well targeted, authoritative audience. However, a sense of realism must be maintained, as the survey results will include those who are "not interested"

A particularly popular approach measuring results by the number of appointments arranged with contacts in the target organisations. This appears to be the most attractive method of lead generation but two issues are frequently overlooked.

1. The cold caller pushes hard to arrange meetings. As a result, a proportion is often poorly qualified. This is perpetuated when the calling is contracted to overseas organisations, frequently operating from USA, China, India and Eastern Europe. Insufficient briefing results in a poor understanding of the client's proposition and so, in these cases, the low rates become a false economy

2. In addition to wasting time at poorly qualified meetings, the client normally only receives information surrounding the appointments and nothing on all the other calls which often turn out to be potential opportunities. The data and intelligence gathered in these exercices are usually sold to other interested parties - your competitors. These lower grade leads are a good source of revenue if followed up by the client who has in depth knowledge of the proposition. Spending half an hour each day talking to interested people is a good use of sales force time.

There are strenghts and weaknesses with each of these methods, however, we believe that in most situations, the Survey is the best approach for both the client and supplier.

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