Defining software leads has to be the most ancient struggle between sales and marketers inside the industry (and outside it for that matter). While marketers struggle to hit quotas, their lack of consideration for the sales perspective is a common complaint. Meanwhile, another common complaint is that salespeople are too picky and too dismissive of leads coming from their marketing department.

You’ve heard this story before but when trying to get both sides to get along, exactly how have you defined picky when it came to qualified software leads?

As much as I hate hearing the phrase ‘beggars can’t be choosers,’ there are times when it really applies. But there’s no doubt, there could be a lot of sales professionals who would take greater offense at it than I would. Why is that? What is the psychology of being picky? Particularly, being a picky sales rep?

  • A sense of experience – Generally speaking, salespeople have more up close experience with prospects. They’re the ones conducting the actual meetings. They’re the ones having a longer conversation than your telemarketers and emailers combined. It makes sense that they feel more like the experienced expert. (And if SEO is any indication, everyone loves an expert.) That in turn, makes them doubt people who haven’t really connected as much.
  • A sense of difficulty – This part is really the trickiest and it’s really important for you to discern. Are your salespeople simply picking leads that give them all the answers or do you think you’re giving them a hard time with too little information? This should be one main topic of discussion between marketers and sales when it comes to defining software leads.
  • A sense of connection – By connection, I mean connection with both your company and that of your prospects.’ Elements like good call scripts are built on telling the story of your company. Yet why do some marketers presume that this is more of a sales responsibility? Connecting with a prospect should be everyone’s task no matter where they are in the process.
  • A sense of pride – Now nobody roll their eyes just yet. Giving credit to a lead and a sale is also another common cause of conflict. More importantly though, it shows that everyone should be given credit where it’s due. Neither salespeople nor marketers want leads if the process doesn’t give them any credit for contribution.

Sales reps end up looking other lead sources when they feel like marketers aren’t giving them much of a choice. For marketers to really work closely with them, they need to understand what can really compete with the sales reps standards for good software leads.