A company tells me they want to improve their sales process.
One of the first questions I ask is:
“How are you using Leads?”
The answer often reveals how well the sales process is defined.
There’s no universal rule that says every company should use Leads.
It depends on how prospects enter the business and how they’re qualified.
Here’s a simple way to think about it:
Use Leads when you need a qualification stage before someone becomes a customer or an active sales opportunity.
For example:
– Website inquiries
– Marketing campaigns
– Purchased prospect lists
– Referral programs
Not every Lead deserves to become a Contact.
Qualifying them first helps keep your CRM cleaner and your sales pipeline more accurate.
On the other hand, if every person entering Salesforce is already a qualified customer or business relationship, you may not need Leads at all.
Some organizations work successfully by creating Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities directly.
The important thing isn’t whether you use Leads.
It’s whether your Salesforce configuration matches the way your sales team actually works.
I’ve seen companies force a Lead process that nobody follows.
I’ve also seen companies skip Leads entirely when they would have benefited from a structured qualification process.
The best design is the one that supports your business process, not the one that follows a generic best practice.
How do you decide whether a new prospect should start as a Lead or go directly into your sales process? I’d be interested to hear the reasoning behind different approaches.