
Ask HN: How do you manage your sales leads?  - chrisacky
I don&#x27;t want to make this sound like a scene out of Glengarry, but as a early stage how do you manage your high quality leads?<p>(I&#x27;ve got about 40,000 leads that I pulled together. There&#x27;s a good blog post in this story if I get the time).<p>At the moment, I have a excel document with lots of fields and contact information, and I essentially work my way through it individually emailing each recipient.<p>Each converted lead is worth upwards of several hundred (to a few thousand $ per year)... so it totally makes sense to research each customer correctly and spend the time to approach them with a highly customised email about why our product is a great fit for them.<p>The problem I have is keeping track of where I am and who I have already emailed. Once you start getting one hundred names down the list, and then you start having an open discussion with a few dozen customers, it becomes a minefield to remember each conversation chain you are having.<p>Do you use CRMs for this and handle the emailing through the CRM, or do you use a sales pipeline management tool?<p>What are your thoughts (and possible experiences with existing CRMs)?
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codva
40,000 leads is about 38,000 too many. The first thing you need to decide is
who are your tier I target customers, and prune the list appropriately. If you
product / service is good and solves a real problem for a properly targeted
client, it may be quite a while before you bother with the other 38,000. The
other 38,000 are marketing leads, not sales leads. They need to do something
to identify themselves as tier I sales leads via some set of trigger events
that you ID as beacons that could be indicators that the timing is right to
contact them. At some point as you succeed you'll grow into a full time
marketing staff that spends all day thinking about how to move the suspects
over to the sales lead list. But in terms of generating revenue now, you need
to prune the hell out of the list so that you are spending your time chasing
the highest value prospects.

~~~
forgingahead
Wish I could upvote this again. codva is absolutely right, you need to be
smart about your targets and close potential for each one. Segmenting the list
now into "high-priority" and "my-email-marketing-list" will help you be much
more productive and will lead to better close rates.

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suhail
We use Salesforce (combined with ecquire.com) at Mixpanel - it's not a very
friendly UI but it has every feature you'll need in the future. You learn to
love it. Plus, every sales person you may hire in the future will already know
how to use it (or should). Salesforce, like most CRM tools, has a way to bcc
your emails to keep track of the conversations you're having.

You need to start hiring another sales rep too if you're handling 100s of
leads by yourself.

You should begin building a qualification framework to understand which leads
are valuable and worth your time: Do they have budget? Who has the authority
to get this deal done? Do they have a serious need? When will they buy if
everything about your product was perfect? And any other unique factors
related to your business. Then, get this information into Salesforce!

It's probably time to start using marketing automation/drip campaigns to keep
your leads warm too.

Depending on how long your phone calls/meetings run - you'll usually only be
able to handle 5-6/day assuming you're doing this full-time so you should
consider calculating how many things you can juggle at once.

Use CRM to build a forecast so you can measure your effectiveness. A forecast
is as simple as taking the amount of money you might make from each customer
that month and multiplying it by the probability you'll close that customer.
That'll force you to prioritize.

~~~
Snail_Commando
How could the UI be improved?

~~~
dave5104
One of the biggest nitpicks I've always had is the calendar. Whenever I click
the quick link from the home page (Chatter summary + dashboards, after logging
in), it takes me to the last calendar page I viewed. I don't use the SF
calendar all the time, so sometimes it's from weeks ago. Why doesn't it show
/today/?

Another thing is scheduling SF meetings/events. In order to invite anyone,
they need to be inside our system as a user or contact. Most of the time when
I'm scheduling a call, I need to end up adding a new contact because they're
not in our system (and I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone I talk
to to be in there as a contact).

If Salesforce would reconsider the UX around their calendar, I would love
them. I'm a UX designer myself, and my company uses SF. I typically use it
when reaching out to clients to schedule calls--and I avoid it otherwise.

------
buro9
We're currently using [http://www.streak.com/](http://www.streak.com/)

It's working fine for us right now, but I'm fairly sure that once we build a
decent sized sales team we'll be struggling and looking for something else.

The pros are those good pipelines that they have. The cons are that it can be
a bit tricky to manage anything other than a basic flat pipeline and if leads
start with a contact or phonecall we send ourselves blank emails to build the
stub in Streak.

Oh, and it doesn't work on mobile devices (it relies on a Chrome extension
today, so you need to use your laptop/desktop)

Edit: Apparently there's an iPhone app, but our company is 100% Linux/Android
so we're just using the Chrome plugin.

~~~
alooPotato
Founder of Streak here. Happy to answer questions about the product from the
OP or anyone else - reach me directly at aleem at streak.

"The cons are that it can be a bit tricky to manage anything other than a
basic flat pipeline"

We just launched the ability to link boxes together to allow for more
complicated relationships. See: [http://blog.streak.com/2014/01/linked-
boxes.html](http://blog.streak.com/2014/01/linked-boxes.html)

"...and if leads start with a contact or phonecall we send ourselves blank
emails to build the stub in Streak."

We have some ideas about how we can do a way better job here. It basically
boils down to letting you log meetings or phone calls really easily, but under
the hood, its still an email (and all the benefits that come with it).

We also have an iOS app as well as an android app in beta. If you'd like to
join the beta, shoot me an email.

~~~
buro9
I'd be interested in beta testing the android app, but there is no email in
your profile and googling turns up a lot of curry recipes.

~~~
d0m
Email already in his post: "Founder of Streak here. Happy to answer questions
about the product from the OP or anyone else - reach me directly at aleem at
streak." : )

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alooPotato
I'm a co-founder at Streak.com, and I think the problem you're describing is
especially well suited for Streak (if you're using gmail). Obviously I'm
biased but here's why:

1) We show you the context of your lead right next to the email you're reading
in your inbox

2) Our primary interface to your leads is very spreadsheet like. You can
search, sort, filter, group, etc to slide and dice your deals in different
ways.

3) We extract useful information about your leads automatically (like the date
you last emailed them). Combine this with (2) and you can filter and sort your
leads so that you know exactly who you need to get back to next.

4) Our saved views feature might be especially useful to you - effectively you
can put the leads that need attention right now at the top of your inbox, see
here: [http://blog.streak.com/2013/07/using-saved-views-to-
organize...](http://blog.streak.com/2013/07/using-saved-views-to-organize-
yourself.html)

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dan_sim
A CRM is the memory of a business. You will never remember what you forget and
it's amazing the number of opportunities we forget.

Import your contact list, put _each_ conversation and email in your CRM.
Before calling a client, take a look at what happened recently. Your clients
will be amazed of how much things you remember.

If someone is talking about a future project/dream, add it to your CRM with a
low priority (I use % of probability of winning). Add a task (in the CRM) to
call about the project in a couple of months.

When a conversation ends with the client saying "I'll get back to you", ask
when you should follow up on the project and add a task at this date. When it
is time, follow up! Clients don't call back and it's ok because it means they
are busy with their business.

A CRM is not a task manager but it's essential to add tasks related to
contacting your clients in there.

I use CapsuleCRM. Not because it's the best but because it was the easiest to
use at that time. I tried the old version of ZohoCRM and it wasn't that good,
but they changed it recently so you should take a look. Try them all, you'll
find the one that fits you best.

------
joeroot
Streak ([http://www.streak.com/](http://www.streak.com/)) has been a good
start for us. Upsides are that it's flexible enough to match most pipeline
progressions, exports to CSV, supports mail merge, and allows you to easily
track emails.

Our main issue has been that in person meetings and calls are difficult to log
and keep track of, and as we've progressed towards those its become less and
less useful.

If most of your interactions happen via email however, Streak is a great
flexible (and currently free) tool.

~~~
alooPotato
"Our main issue has been that in person meetings and calls are difficult to
log and keep track of, and as we've progressed towards those its become less
and less useful."

We're working on handling this better - the main idea will be to let you log
meetings or phone calls really easily, but under the hood, its still an email
(and all the benefits that come with it).

~~~
blak3r
Hey, founder of callinize
([http://www.callinize.com](http://www.callinize.com)) here. We developed an
integration for streak.com which will allow you to log calls to boxes
automatically!

+1 for streak, we use it here internally and love it.

Feel free to reach out to me at blake [at] callinize.com

------
trey_swann
+1 Streak ([http://www.streak.com](http://www.streak.com))

Streak is great! We were looking for a lightweight CRM that our team would
actually use. Streak does everything we need it to and it does not require our
team to dramatically change their work flow.

Everything is right inside Gmail and so for us, at this stage, Streak is
perfect. Plus, tracking feature is cool. Easy way to see if an email has been
read.

Rapportive ([https://rapportive.com](https://rapportive.com)) is really what
makes our direct sales possible. And, Streak plays nice with Rapportive.

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kareemm
I extensively researched CRMs a few months back. We were looking for
simplicity, cost, and a few key features. Pipedrive was the best we found and
it's been really effective for us. If we had a larger sales team (just one
person now) we'd consider moving to Salesforce - every sales person you'd hire
should know how to use it.

~~~
dbuxton
We like Pipedrive's overall structure (in particular for the way it looks a
bit like a Trello board) a lot for the types of sales we do (multi $k/month
deals).

The interface is kind of slow and laggy which for something that our sales
team spends all day in, is very annoying... For our purposes we can probably
live with it but if we were really sweating call volume then I think we'd get
something snappier.

We looked at a lot of alternatives and I was blown away by how un-blown-away I
was by anything we looked at.

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collin128
Congrats on the 40k leads, that's an impressive number given your estimated
ACV. Maybe you could share a few secrets with us as to how you've managed to
generate so many.

Depending on the source and your definition of warm lead you have lots of
options. I caution you, as a salesperson myself, not to just throw them all
into a CRM willy nilly. Doing so will be information overload and can
potentially make things harder on yourself. Excel is the fastest/lightest
(non-techincal) UI for viewing and manipulating that size of data.

Your best bet is to come up with some qualification criteria and, as someone
already suggested above, try to filter it down to 2k of the best (highest
value) leads. From here, I'd work out an approach strategy (read the book:
Predictable Revenue) and get working.

Using conservative numbers, 2k leads per month will keep very busy and your
pipeline full.

Happy selling.

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kposehn
Close.io

The platform is great - with built in voip - and does everything I need in one
interface. I highly recommend it.

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archemike_
I've heard of close.io and the event based features make it look really
promising..

~~~
grep
And you just signed up to write that.

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jseliger
_What are your thoughts (and possible experiences with existing CRMs)?_

You might be too big for it, but Seliger + Associates [1] uses Highrise:
[https://highrisehq.com/](https://highrisehq.com/) . It's intuitive and easy
to use but surprisingly fully featured.

It may or may not be appropriate for your use pattern, but I'm surprised no
one has mentioned it yet.

[1] See www.seliger.com if you're curious; we're grant writing consultants who
work primarily for nonprofit and public agencies.

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rasengan
Definitely just use whatever CRM with which you feel the most comfortable.
I've been comfortable with a variety from the traditional ACT/Sage and
Goldmine to the robust SugarCRM.

You can also setup a powerful set of google docs/forms to achieve the exact
same thing of course.

That said, always bare in mind how, where, and with who you are storing your
data. All it takes is 1 unscrupulous or 1 completely insecure/socially
engineer-able individual to make life bad.

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amowat
I see a lot of options listed below but there really is no substitute for
Salesforce.com. The basic editions are quite reasonably priced and Salesforce
has more integrations than any other platform. Here is a great simple guide on
Salesforce basics

[http://blog.prialto.com/essential-crm-management-
toolkit/](http://blog.prialto.com/essential-crm-management-toolkit/)

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archemike_
I find regardless of CRM or chickenscratch everyday you're going to have to go
through at least 5 minutes of masterminding and maintaining the list. For
outgoing I use sendy with SES and you can use variables in the template so
your .csv of names can auto load to quickly personalize an email to each lead.
If you'd like to mastermind more I'd love to! mike@crawfordandobrien.com

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hopeless
Since the title asks, I manage my sales leads with
[http://www.onepagecrm.com/](http://www.onepagecrm.com/) because it's simple,
I can CC email conversations, make notes etc and it basically does the job a
small business needs done (in my case, consultancy)

Having said that, it really isn't the place where I'd put 40,000 leads and
custom fields.

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enegdo
Try Nimble CRM. We use them at my consulting shop. The product definitely has
it's warts, but can help in pulling together (social media) information about
leads in your pipeline. You can log calls emails etc but it's a bit more of a
pain.

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tsycho
My wife's company uses Marketo, though that might be more of an enterprise
product. not sure if it's cost effective for a single founder. My wife thinks
it is a great product and it integrates well with Salesforce.

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mindcrime
We use SugarCRM, complemented with our own custom sales-intelligence tooling
(which we are probably going to turn into a SaaS offering in it's own right
soon. Keep a look out).

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iamjbean
Try Base ([http://getbase.com](http://getbase.com)) You'll be able to connect
your inbox and automatically track and sort your conversations. Creating a
customized sales pipeline is also important so your CRM matches your actual
sales process. Strong iOS and Android apps as well.

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jason_wang
+1 for Streak.

It's really simple and frictionless if you are using Gmail.

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osmnshkh
We use Close.io

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johns
RelateIQ

