Earlier this week I spent time talking with a marketing VP who said the sales reps were complaining that their leads were no good. We took a look at the list, the offer and the response rate. It was pretty good by any standard. Then we took a look at how the leads were handled when they first responded and we noticed a couple of problems. The salespeople were not following up immediately, they didn’t have an approach on how to handle the lead in an optimal way and their belief was the lead is no good so they never took action. Now I am not saying that marketing was perfect because it wasn’t. But as a professional salesperson it is my responsibility to learn my craft whether or not the company provides resources to do so. If you are not in the top 10% of your sales organization then its time to raise the bar!