Business
rules are in every organization. In sales and
marketing there are rules for order entry, sales
quotas, and booking and shipping orders. But there are
seldom, if any, rules about how the extremely
important corporate asset called sales inquiries
should be managed.
The justification for business rules
for inquiry management is simple: People generally
follow rules. Once a set of rules is in place,
adhering to the rules is less difficult than you might
imagine. The vast majority of us are essentially
law-abiding people and business rules are generally
looked upon as a set of soft laws of business.
The most successful business rules for
sales lead and inquiry management are usually one page
in length and with five to ten rules for marketing and
sales (and their agencies), to follow. A rule should
be specific enough to describe the end result and
general enough to allow for a flexible interpretation
of how the rule will be carried out. If the rules are
properly set, time will not diminish adherence even as
marketing conditions and organizations change.
For instance, you have a rule that
says:
“Sales will follow-up and report on
the resolution of every sales inquiry.”
This statement leaves a lot to
interpretation. Follow-up could be in person, by phone
or even by email. A little specificity might help,
such as:
“Salespeople will follow-up and report
on the resolution of every sales inquiry. At least
four attempts will be made for every inquiry within a
three week period.”
Possibly you can have a rule that
states:
“Marketing will measure and report the
return on investment for every dollar entrusted to
it.”
On the surface this looks good but
upon reflection it is not possible to measure and
report on the effectiveness of soft-dollar
expenditures such as collateral material, investor
relations, PR, branding, etc. So possibly the rule
should be:
“Marketing will measure and report the
return on investment for every dollar spent on lead
generation.”
Ideally marketing and sales
representatives should meet together and hammer out
the business rules for inquiry management. Here is a
sample set of business rules for a B2B company, with
direct and reseller sales channels for products that
are worth more than $1,000. Your rules may be
different.
Typical Business Rules for Inquiry
Management
1. Database: All inquiries and
leads will be entered into a single database and
counted by product, source, source type, and who it
was sent to for follow-up.
2. Profiling: Inquirers will be
asked profile questions that will be used to grade
inquiries.
3. Qualifying: Marketing will
adhere to policies and procedures to qualify all
inquiries prior to distribution to the sales channel.
4. Inquiry Grading: Inquiry
grades will be attached to each inquiry based on the
answers to the profile questions.
5. Inquiry Fulfillment:
Information fulfillment (in hard copy or electronic
form) will be completed within 24 hours from the time
the inquiry is received.
6. Competitors: Every effort
will be made to screen out inquirers who are from
competing companies.
7. Inquiry/Lead Assignments: We
will assign inquires and leads directly to the
salesperson most responsible for the follow-up.
8. 48 hour Opening Rule:
Salespeople will retrieve and open inquiries and sales
leads within 48 hours.
9. 100% Closeout: Sales will
close out and report on investment for every lead
generating dollar spent.
10. Inquiry Retention:
Inquiries will be maintained on the marketing database
for three times the length of the company’s average
sales cycle.
Get the picture? Once you have a set
of business rules for inquiry management, your
organization will be all the richer for it.
*This information has appeared in the
various articles and workshops Obermayer has
presented. Most recently it has appeared in his book,
