Cherry Picking is the terminology used by the Lead Generation, Distribution, Routing and Sales practitioners to represent the choices provided to the sales agents or lead buyers while choosing their leads for purchase or active followup. Comprehensive Lead Distribution and Routing Software systems such as LeadPro247 includes Cherry Picking method as an option for sellers and lead generation businesses.

Businesses can also provide choices for their inside sales or field sale representatives to cherry pick leads available in the distribution queue. This is generally used in the Lead Pull method of the assignment process. Sales reps can pull the prospects when they are ready for next follow up. However, businesses have the option to specify if the reps can choose their prospects or accept without any choice. If the reps can review and accept or reject the prospects in the Lead Pull method, then the process is referred to as cherry picking leads.

When the term Cherry Picking is used in general by the Lead Generation industry, it refers to the usage in the Lead Selling scenarios rather than the internal distribution scenario within an organization.

Why Allow Cherry Picking Leads?

The process allows the lead buyers to evaluate the conversion probability of the prospect and then decide to purchase or reject the same. This helps the buyers to pick and choose the prospects suitable for their specific requirements. Hence this process is generally not feasible when hundreds or thousands of  leads are purchased at a time.

Also, Lead Filters used in the automated lead distribution processes (by setting up an order or profile) can only filter quantitative properties. Where as the Cherry Picking process allows the buyer to apply qualitative decision making based on the available lead parameters.

Lead Filters Vs Cherry Picking

Lead Filters and Cherry Picking are used as complimentary distribution procedures. For example, if thousands of prospects are generated daily and available in the sales / distribution queue, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to cherry pick individual leads manually. In such a case, the potential buyers will specify one or more lead filters or criteria based on lead profile properties to zero in specific group of leads. This is carried out by setting up a Lead Order or Buyer Profile (depending on the database / software system that you use) and passing the leads through the criteria.

For instance, in the case of Mortgage Leads, the buyer could specify the basic criteria such as geography (i.e. State) and type of leads (mortgage, refinance, credit range, etc.). When the user (buyer) logs in, the system will filter the records and display only the leads meeting the specified criteria.

When to Allow Cherry Picking for Lead Sales

As a thumb rule, picking and choosing selectively works well in the scenarios where the individual lead prices are reasonably high. While there is no hard and fast rule to determine the threshold for the lead sales value, a per lead price of $50 or above will be suitable for allowing cherry picking.

It is also noticed that the number of leads purchased by individual buyer is quite low, when cherry picking is employed. As mentioned earlier, if the lead buying volume is very large, cherry picking leads is a cumbersome process and hence generally avoided.

For example, specialized financial services leads sold to investment / financial consultants are good candidates for this method. The buyer can look at the available lead properties and then decide to buy the lead.

Notice that the critical information such as prospect’s name, physical address, phone number or email address will never be revealed (or displayed) to the buyer looking to cherry pick. Other meaningful data which would be useful for the buyer’s decision making process will be displayed by the system in the pick list screen.

Each business has to weigh the pros and cons of allowing the freedom to the buyers to choose their records. What  works for one business may not be suitable for other businesses. Also, some high value verticals work well with this method leading to higher customer satisfaction, while other verticals do not.

Sales Lead Distribution takes various connotations with various constituents. If you are completely new to the Lead Management domain, I would suggest that you take a look at the Wikipedia page on Lead Management. Once you have some basics in mind, you will come up with more questions!

If you are in business or a marketing professionals, then you know how various terms and definitions are used. There is no one ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ usage. Hence understanding the variations will help you doing research on the Internet, discussing with your peers in networking events or talking to your lead management software supplier.

Also, the experts use “Sales Lead” instead of using just “Lead” in order to minimize the confusion and increase the clarity. Some marketers also use terms such as “inquiry” and “opportunity”. Again, these terms might be interpreted differently. However, internet marketers generally use the term “lead”. Another term used is “prospect”.

Hence the following phrases may represent the same; or differ slightly depending on who you talk to! I will be using these terms without any major differentiation.

• Lead Management
• Prospect Management
• Inquiry Management
• Opportunity Management

However Contact Management is different from the above. You may use software applications such as Outlook, ACT or Goldmine for Contact Management.

Lead Management is also much wider in scope when compared with Lead Distribution. Since businesses and marketers use these two terms in a similar fashion, we will also expand the scope of the Lead Distribution i.e. the scope of this web site.

Again, several terms such as Lead Routing and Lead Assignment are widely used to refer to Lead Distribution. Let us explore the subtle differences in the terminology in future posts.

Lead Distribution can be defined as the process of assigning responsibility to a specific sales entity for the purpose of following up with the prospect and convert the lead to a customer by completing the sale of a product or service. The process may involve the application of simple or complex business rules based on the nature and complexity of the business.

The sales lead distribution can be carried out manually (as was done traditionally by small business professionals) or automated using a lead distribution software solution. If you are using internet for generating and capturing leads (directly or indirectly), it may not be feasible to carry out the process manually. In other words, you may not be really leveraging the advantages of the internet leads.

As mentioned earlier, depending on the nature of your business operations, you will be looking at the functions and requirements of the lead distribution software differently. Let us look at the various permutations and combinations of lead distribution on these pages in future.