Your sales leads are like the Legos you use to build your business.

And just like with Legos, it’s easy to lose track of your leads.

The difference between Legos and leads is that Legos are easy to find again, even in the dark when you’re walking to the bathroom at night.

But if you don’t keep track of your leads as soon as they come in, you might not be able to find them again before they lose interest.

Because of this, many companies use lead distribution as a way to reach leads that have been ignored.

So how does lead distribution actually work? What good things can it do for your business? And how can you get your sales team to use a strategy for getting leads?

How do you get leads?

Lead distribution is a strategy that involves more than just giving different sales reps the leads that come in.

It means putting each lead in touch with the sales rep who is most likely to close the deal.

You know that every single one of your leads is unique. They all want different things and have different needs. And each of your sales reps has their own skills, experiences, and strengths.

That’s why it’s so important to match each lead with the right rep.

The main goal of lead distribution is to make the process of analyzing, qualifying, and assigning leads to your team as automatic as possible. In an ideal situation, it takes into account different factors, such as a rep’s experience with similar leads, and narrows down the best rep for this particular lead.

A good strategy for distributing leads can do great things for your business.

Why is lead distribution a good idea?

It helps you build a sales process that works better.

And don’t you just love a plan that helps your team win over qualified leads more quickly?

With a good plan for lead distribution, the most qualified sales reps will be put in touch with new leads, which will help them close sales faster.

Also, sales team leaders will save time because they won’t have to give each new lead to a rep by hand. This also makes it less likely that a person will make a mistake or lose a lead.

It makes it possible to make a map of the buyer’s journey, which makes it easier to analyze and attribute.

From the time a company or customer becomes a lead until the sale is made, how many people in your company have they talked to?

Without lead distribution, it’s hard to know who the lead really belongs to or which sales rep really closed the deal.

Lead distribution makes it easier to see who is bringing in the big fish because everyone can see who has the leads.

Every salesperson knows exactly what they need to do.

The handoff between the marketing and sales teams is automated with lead distribution. Through their CRM, new leads that come in through web forms and other online methods are automatically sent to sales reps. This way, every rep knows which leads are coming in and which ones they should focus on.

This makes sure that no one gets confused or wastes time trying to figure out who should follow up on which leads.

It makes things happen faster (which helps you increase sales).

When a potential customer fills out a web form, you have five minutes to call them.

You can call them 10 minutes later, no problem. But your chances of getting in will go down by 400%.

Speed is one of the best things about lead distribution.

Because lead generation is automated, sales reps find out about new leads faster, which lets them reach out to people faster.

If you can respond faster, you’ll get more sales.

Now that you know why it’s good for your sales team to use a lead distribution system, let’s talk about how to set it up.

How to set up a strategy for lead distribution in 6 steps:

1. Get all of your leads and send them out automatically.

If the handoff between Marketing and Sales is messy, you’ll lose leads. In long email chains and spreadsheet lists, it’s easy for important leads to get lost or forgotten.

First, you’ll need to automate lead capture so you can fix this problem. You can do this by capturing leads as people visit your website with tools like Sumo or Leadfeeder.

Many of these tools work with your CRM to send new leads to your sales reps automatically.

You can connect your marketing and lead generation tools to your CRM using the flexible automation tool Zapier.

For example, when someone fills out a web form, your CRM creates a new lead and notifies your sales reps.

That means leads are collected and sent without the marketing team having to send spreadsheets or lists of names to sales reps via email. (Here’s how to stop doing that with Excel.)

2. Check the quality of new leads.

Do you have trouble getting good leads?

Then you’re just like the 45 percent of sales reps who said that getting good leads was their biggest challenge.

To set up a lead distribution strategy, the next step is to automate the process of qualifying leads.

First, you’ll need to figure out what a good lead for your business is. This can be caused by things like:

How big or where a business is

People who make decisions during the buying process

Needs and problems in business right now

Date by which a new solution must be put into place Budgeted

This lead is currently using the following solutions:

Next, you’ll need to have the leads that don’t meet your criteria automatically filtered out, leaving only the most ready-to-buy leads for your sales reps.

For example, you could ask some of the above questions on your web form to find out some of the information. So, before your sales reps talk to sales leads, you’ll know a little bit about the company and why they’re interested.

Or, use a CRM that automatically pulls in information about the company from the web:

Lastly, use this information in your lead distribution plan to make sure that your sales reps get the best leads first.

Obviously, this method for getting sales leads isn’t the same as having a person qualify your leads. But it will help your sales team figure out which leads are worth the most.

3. Make sure the right leads go to the right sales reps by setting requirements.

Once you’ve decided how important your best leads are, it’s time to decide who will get them.

It can be hard to figure out which of your sales reps is best for a certain lead, because there are some things that are unique to your business.

Here are some of the most important things to think about when setting up a lead distribution strategy.

Location on Earth

Some years ago, it may have been more common to match the location of your leads to the location of the sales rep who was given the case. But since online shopping is becoming more popular, this may not work for some businesses.

But some businesses still think that matching by location is a big plus.

For example, an international insurance company would want to match a lead from the UK with a rep who knows about insurance needs and the law in the UK.

Geographic location is also important for companies that work in different time zones and still talk on the phone a lot, or for companies whose sales reps focus on doing product demos in person.

Experience

When dealing with complicated or very large deals that are aimed at qualified leads, a sales rep’s experience is important.

For example, you wouldn’t want to give a relatively new rep a very big fish. Or, if the lead doesn’t have a clear buying process, it may be harder for a newer rep to get the deal set up and close it.

So, when giving out leads, think about how long the rep has been in the job.

Expertise

This is more than just the number of years of experience: it is experience in a certain field or with a certain kind of customer.

For example, let’s say your business sells a product that can be used in different markets. Why would you give one of your sales reps clients in the technology sector when they have proven experience selling to clients in the real estate sector?

When sales reps sell to the same type of business over and over again, they get better at building relationships because they know where this type of business hurts. They will also be better able to predict common objections and roadblocks and get around them to make a sale.

The best part is that they will learn how to do it faster each time.

Performance reward systems can be a great way to get sales reps to work hard. So, distributing leads based on how well they sold in the past can be a powerful way to get more sales.

You’ll have to be careful when you use this, though, because performance is a tricky factor that can easily lead to the best sellers getting the best jobs and the less skilled reps getting the worst ones. To stop this from happening, make sure that performance-based rewards in the lead distribution cycle are small and don’t apply to every lead.

So, people who don’t do well will still want to try, and people who do well will want to try harder.

Availability

This last thing is very important to keep in mind when planning how to distribute leads.

Even if a rep is in the right place, has the most experience, and knows the most about a certain type of lead, if they are already busy with other leads, they won’t be able to give this new lead the attention it needs.

So, before giving a new lead to a rep, make sure they have the time and resources to work on it.

4. Try out different ways to give leads to your team to see what works best.

Each sales team is unique. So, when deciding how to give sales reps leads, it’s important to try out different approaches and see what works best for your team.

Let’s look at some of the most common ways to spread leads.

Back and forth

This push-based method sends your sales team new leads in the same order every time.

This method is good because each sales rep gets the same number of leads. But it doesn’t take into account things like a rep’s knowledge of a certain type of lead or their current availability.

Take your pick

This pull-based method, instead of auto-assigning leads, lets reps take on new leads at their own pace.

Reps know what kinds of leads work best for them, so letting them choose their own leads can help them close deals more quickly.

But leads that don’t look good, like those with smaller budgets and, therefore, a lower commission, can get lost at the bottom of the pile because no one wants them.

Shark Tank

This method is also based on pull, but it has a twist that encourages healthy competition.

In Shark Tank, when a new lead comes in, all sales reps are told. Then, the person who speaks up first takes the lead.

This is a great way to turn lead distribution into a game. But if you have more reps than leads, reps who take longer to answer could get discouraged if they keep missing out on new leads. Or, even worse, it could cause the reps who are the fastest to collect more leads than they can handle.

Mix

Every way to give out leads has its pros and cons. But a strategy that uses a mix of these different methods and the things we talked about above can be much more effective.

For example, you could put sales reps into groups based on how well they know how to deal with a certain type of lead. Then, within each group, you could use the Round Robin method. So, leads are shared evenly, but the experts’ knowledge is still taken into account.

You can find out what works best for your sales team by trying out these different strategies, including those that use inbound leads.

5. Make sure that people know in real time.

We’ve already talked about how important it is for reps to answer new leads within five minutes.

So, for your lead distribution system to work, reps need to know right away when they have been given a new lead.

When new leads come in, it will be easier for all of your sales reps to stay on track if you use a CRM that sends alerts in real time.

6. Don’t hide anything from your sales team about how leads are given out.

If you’re honest about how you’re distributing leads, like by using a CRM for lead distribution, any doubts or bad feelings about sales leadership will go away.

Make sure that your sales reps know that leads are being given out evenly and that no one is getting special treatment.

Reps will only trust your system for giving out leads if they know it works. It might even be a good idea to talk to your salespeople about how you’ll decide which method to use. Their ideas could help a lot in figuring out the best way to help the team work well.

If you share your leads well, your sales will go up.

Lead distribution can directly affect how many sales your team makes.

With a lead distribution system, you can speed up the time it takes for sales reps to respond to leads and make the sales process more efficient.

Remember that automating your lead collection and filtering for quality helps you see which leads should go to which reps. You’ll have to try different things to find the best way for your team to share leads, but it’s important to think about things like expertise and availability.

Lastly, if you use a CRM with real-time alerts, you’ll make sure that every rep knows right away when there are new leads:

Lead distribution is the key to making sales in the future.

 With CRM lead distribution, you’re about to start a strategy that will help your team close deals more quickly.