@ptwylie Great question Paul. It’s normally best to get your sales and marketing people together (assuming they are separate groups) and work through the process. There a number of marketing automation companies (google the term and you will get a bunch) who have put out educational material on the process. One that comes to mind with good material is Marketo. A couple more would be Eloqua and Hubspot, both have a good number of free reports that you would find helpful.

The key is getting sales to clearly define what is a qualified lead, then map out the different areas where your leads come from and come up with your own scoring – I have yet to see a ‘canned’ approach that works with all industries. But, there are guidelines to follow.

Here’s a link to a blog post I recently did on the lead conversion process – Build a Lead Conversion Process That Drives Your Competition Crazy.

@phil_lauterjung great blog post.  Thank you.

@ptwylie thanks for the link on how to identify your ideal customer.  @phil_lauterjung another great post.