I work with a lot of software companies on marketing assessments, evaluating just where they are in their marketing efforts and what they have to do to get where they want to be. Many companies are struggling to follow up on leads and increase their sales.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that all of the software companies I work with need a standard process for working with leads to increase conversion rates, a system for communicating where a lead is in the selling process. Part of that process needs to be improved communication between sales and marketing. Extraordinary partnerships need to happen with departments within a company, not just between companies. Sales and marketing need to partner together to identify the lead generation process and how to maximize that process.

In software companies large enough for both sales and marketing people, communication is key to successfully converting leads. Sales people frequently complain that marketing doesn’t provide the collateral materials they need to move the prospect closer to the sale, so they have to create their own. Yet they don’t communicate back to marketing why the original materials won’t work with the customer, nor do they provide copies of the materials they created so other sales people don’t have to recreate the wheel. Marketing needs to provide a means of allowing sales people to customize sales presentations for specific customer segments with interchangeable case studies, product or service information, benefits for different market segments, and other materials that might be helpful in the process. Most companies have a wealth of information, but not in one centralized location. Its scattered across the company on multiple computers, and in most cases, amazingly, not backed up. It needs to be kept in a central database or CRM.

This is a problem even if one person is the entire sales and marketing group. There’s no central repository of case studies, product or service information, or previously used sales presentations to use for the next prospect. Materials are kept in separate folders so finding materials quickly is difficult.

A key part of any lead generation plan is identifying a central location to house the materials, as well as a template with interchangeable supporting materials to customize presentations for prospects. Fully utilizing a lead generations plan requires two-way communication between marketing, to generate the materials, and sales, for feedback as to what works and what doesn’t. I use Xeesm to communicate with members of my team. It provides a method of communication that keeps everyone in the loop. Check my profile at http://xeesm.com/TrippBraden or contact me for more information.