How to Build a Simple Lead Management Process

A lead management process is an agreed answer to four questions. Where do enquiries go? Who deals with each one? What happens next? How do we know it happened?

You can answer those in one afternoon. Below are eight steps, each with something to write down. To keep it concrete, say the business is a three-person bathroom fitter: an owner who quotes, a fitter and a part-time office manager.

Step 1: List every way an enquiry reaches you

Go through last month and write down each route, with a rough count. Include the awkward ones, because that's where leads go missing.

For the bathroom fitter, the list might be:

• Facebook ads: 20 a month
• Website form: 12
• Calls from the Google Business Profile: 8
• Referrals to the owner's mobile: 5
• Facebook Page messages: 3

Write down: your own list. Most firms find one or two routes they'd stopped thinking about.

Step 2: Pick one home

Every lead, whichever way it arrives, ends up in one list. That's the rule that makes everything else possible.

A spreadsheet can work if one person handles a small number of leads and sits at a desk most days. Once you're working from a van, have several people involved or need reminders, it starts to creak. If you're weighing up tools, see lead management software vs CRM.

Then split your list from step 1 into two groups:

• Automatic: forms and ad platforms that can post to your list. See the connection options.
• By hand: phone calls, referrals and messages. Each of these needs a named person and a rule, such as "logged before you start your next job".

Write down: the home, and which routes are automatic or by hand.

Step 3: Decide what you record

Keep it short. For each field, ask: would anyone do something differently because of this? If not, leave it out.

A good starting list is name, phone, email, service, postcode, source, date received, owner, status, next follow-up date and job value. The bathroom fitter adds one more: fitted or supply only, because it changes who calls back.

Write down: your field list. If it's more than a dozen, cut it.

Step 4: Define your stages

A stage should describe a fact, so that two people looking at the same lead would agree. "Hot" and "warm" are opinions, so they make poor stages.

Stage	What must be true	What must happen next
New	Enquiry received, nobody has been in touch	First attempt within your target time
Contacted	You've called or messaged them	Keep trying until you've spoken, then arrange a visit, send a quote or close it
Quoted	A price has been sent	A chase date is set
Booked	A visit or job date is agreed	Attend, or do the job
Won	The customer said yes	Record the value
Lost	No sale	Record the reason

Decide the awkward cases now. If you rang and nobody answered, the lead is Contacted but not finished, so it needs a follow-up date to keep it moving. Add your lost reasons too. Six is plenty: outside the area, wrong job, budget, went elsewhere, no response, not a real enquiry.

Write down: this table, adjusted to your words.

Step 5: Name an owner

Each lead has one named owner at any moment. Two owners means no owner.

For the bathroom fitter, the office manager owns each lead until someone has spoken to the customer. The owner takes over after that first conversation, because he does the quotes. Write down who covers holidays and days off as well, since that's when things go wrong.

Write down: who owns what, and who covers.

Step 6: Write your timing rules

Three rules are enough:

1. First attempt: for example, within 30 minutes in working hours, and by 9am for anything overnight.
2. Attempts before closing: for example, five attempts over seven days, then Lost with the reason "no response". Our follow-up guide has a cadence to copy.
3. Next date: every open lead has a next follow-up date. No exceptions.

Pick numbers you can hit in your busiest week. A rule that gets broken every Thursday soon stops being a rule.

Write down: your three rules.

Step 7: Prepare the words

Write three messages and save them where they can be sent in a tap or two: a first text, a no-answer text and a quote chase. You'll find examples in how to respond to new leads faster. Nobody should be composing a message from scratch in a car park.

Write down: the three messages.

Step 8: Set a weekly 15-minute review

Same time each week, standing up if you like. Look at five numbers:

• New leads this week
• Open leads with no owner or no next date (this should be zero)
• Overdue follow-ups
• Quotes older than 14 days with no contact
• Won value this week

Then ask one question: what went wrong last week that a small change would prevent? Change one thing, and leave the rest alone.

Write down: the day, the time and who runs it.

The finished process on one page

Here's how the bathroom fitter's page might read. Yours should fit on one side too.

• Home: all leads go in one list.
• Automatic routes: Facebook ads and the website form.
• By hand: calls and referrals are logged by whoever took them, before the next job.
• New leads: the office manager owns them and makes a first attempt within 30 minutes, or the owner texts if she's off.
• After the first conversation: the owner takes over. A visit is booked or a quote date is given on every call.
• Chasing: five attempts in seven days for new leads. Quotes are chased on days 2, 5, 10 and 21.
• Closing: Won gets a value, Lost gets one of six reasons.
• The rule: no open lead without an owner and a next date.
• Review: Friday at 8am, 15 minutes, run by the office manager.

Test it before you trust it

Run a test enquiry through each automatic route. Did it land in the list? Was the right person told? Did the first attempt happen in time? Did someone set a next date?

Then try the holiday test. Ask someone who doesn't usually handle leads to look at three open leads and tell you what's happening with each. If they can't, your notes or next dates aren't clear enough yet.

Mistakes to avoid

• Too many stages. If people can't remember them, they'll leave everything at the first one.
• Too many fields. Each extra field makes logging a lead a bit less likely.
• Building for the business you might be in five years. You can always add a stage later.
• Skipping the review. Without it, the process slowly stops being followed and nobody notices.

Running this in LeadCentre

You can run all of this on paper or in a spreadsheet. If you want it on your phone instead, LeadCentre's lead management follows the same shape. The six stages above are its statuses. Webhook connections bring in forms and ads. Custom fields cover things like fitted or supply only. Admins and Users can be added in the portal, leads can be assigned, and follow-up reminders go to the assigned person.

If you get five leads a month and one person handles them, a sheet may be all you need. It's worth moving when the sheet stops being looked at.