New Business Leads

The next step of the sales pipeline is the New Business Lead. A sales representative will have some kind of follow up meetings/conversations with people from the interested company. They will then fill out parts of the New Business Lead form. This form is very similar to the previous one, although it has a few extra sections and fields.

Status

The form now contains fields for statuses as well as prior/upcoming contact dates and product interests for your business lead. These are going to be the
main indicators to be looked at before deciding whether or not to convert the
business lead into a business prospect.

A.C.T.I.O.N

A.C.T.I.O.N is an acronym used in sales to help keep things clarified and straight-to-the-point.

Authority: Who is making the decisions? Are we talking to right person?

Criteria: What factors are they basing their decision on (Price/Quality/Speed, Etc)?

Timeline: Do they have a specific target date or deadline?

Intent: What are they trying to achieve? Understanding the bigger picture
helps us overcome possible objections.

Objections: Any specific objections or hesitations expressed.

Next Steps: Specific actions to be taken next and when. Helps prevent the
lead going cold.

This is the most important of the new sections. This is where the
representative can summarise their conversations to provide valuable information about the current progress of this business lead.

Touch Points

Moreover, a section for repeatable fields has been added called "Touch Points". This is where the details from every single meeting between the two parties can be recorded. You can add as many touch points as necessary.

Next Steps

The other additions to the form are mainly extra general information about the company. There are a few fields that go into more detail as now that the business lead is looking more promising it'd be good to have that information.

Once you're ready to enter the final stages of negotiation you can convert
the item into a "New Business Prospect". The button is on the form once again.