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Leads vs Prospects in Distribution

AJ Traver

Hi everyone,

I was speaking with  , at EIS Inc (Distribution industry,) and we were discussing the difference between how EIS thinks about Leads and Prospects. In the Manufacturing and Distribution industry, there seems to be some variability in how 'leads' and 'prospects' are defined and managed. Aadil shared that a lead signifies someone interested in your offerings, while a prospect refers to a potential customer who fits your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) but hasn't requested a quote yet.

I'm curious to learn if others in the industry share the same distinction. How do you define and differentiate between leads and prospects in your manufacturing or distribution business? And how does your lead routing process accommodate these distinctions?

Thanks for sharing!

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  • Leads vs Prospect
    No right or wrong term, however here are some interesting facts that may help you decide:

    Back in the old days, Prospectors went searching for gold. They didn't know if they'd find any, but with experience some of them knew what type of terrain or rivers to look for.

    Similarly, 'old school' sales, Prospecting was a term used for various types of cold calling, hoping to find somebody that may be interested in what you're selling.

    So it stands to reason that even modern Social media marketing is in fact Prospecting.

    The remainder I'm sure everyone here knows, but for completeness;
    When somebody responds to the ads i.e filling a form, it would be considered a 'Lead'. Some would call this 'unqualified Lead'. Moving on, if a sales person contacts these they become 'sales qualified' and either Closed Lost or Converted into an Opportunity.

    All the modules and basics for the above is included in SugarCRM out-of-the-box. Some may have not noticed that if you click on the menu for 'Targets', and look at the URL it is in fact /#Prospects.
    (I personally rename Targets to Prospects because Targets get users confused thinking they are part of Target Lists.)
    When you create a Target/Prospect, you also get the option to convert it into a Lead.

    I think the lines between Lead and Prospect became blurred because some started treating the act of Prospecting and the term Prospect to mean different things, and some as the same thing.

    I believe this is possible because so much content on the web is generated by copying or refactoring existing content, depending either on which came up top during initial Google search or preferred source.

    Ultimately the choice is yours, although I prefer the old fashion terminology because it makes sense to me, and also because it's mostly out-of-the-box with SugarCRM.

    .

    CRM Business Consultant

  • in reply to Vincent Amari

    To add to  's explanation, specifically the out-of-the-box comments, we have a podcast episode ( Season 1 Episode 2: What's the difference between Targets, Leads, and Contacts in Sugar?) and a getting started Help Article (https://support.sugarcrm.com/knowledge_base/getting_started/introduction_to_contacts_leads_and_targets/) on this topic that may help as well. Also, here's the documentation section on Renaming Modules (https://support.sugarcrm.com/documentation/sugar_versions/13.3/sell/administration_guide/developer_tools/#Configuring_Module_Names) if anyone would like to investigate this process further. 

    I hope this helps!

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