Salesforce.com For Dummies, 5th Edition

Chapter 9

Prospecting Leads

In This Chapter

Defining important lead terms

Creating, importing, and sharing leads

Arranging your leads

Converting leads

Keeping your leads database up to date

Building your leads database with Data.com

Often, we hear frustrated salespeople say, “We could hit our numbers if we just had enough leads to fill our pipeline.” Leads are the building blocks by which many companies drive their sales.

Loosely defined, a lead is a person or a company that might be interested in your services. Some organizations refer to them as visitors because those persons haven’t shared any information about themselves yet. Others call them prospects because a lead has to be someone who has expressed interest in your service. Whatever your favorite terminology is, you can use leads to efficiently follow up on sales inquiries, aggressively attack new markets, and vastly improve ...