How will you handle Lead Management in 2025?

Okay, this year has been quite turbulent, and next year will be even more exciting when it comes to automotive leads, especially in new car sales. In the past few weeks, I’ve visited three major dealers and OEMs, and they’ve all raised the storm flag. Despite this, the right questions still aren’t being asked, and priorities are being mishandled. You don’t need a new lead management system to process extra online leads if the process for handling those leads doesn’t exist or isn’t being followed!

What’s Going On?

At a certain premium brand, there’s a massive need to sell more new cars to private customers. The customers are there, as are plenty of leads, yet sales numbers are lagging, and lead conversion is below 6%. The dealer and sales manager are asking for more leads, but that’s the one thing they don’t need. What they need is a process, and if they have one, it needs better execution.

If there’s no process and leads aren’t followed up on, you’ll still hit a 6% conversion rate—simply because an interested customer submitting a lead will buy the car despite all the obstacles, just because they want that specific make and model.

Lead Management

It’s the salesperson’s job to follow up on leads, and the sales manager’s responsibility to manage and achieve a lead conversion goal of at least 13%. Without this minimum conversion, marketing investments can’t be recouped. Lead management starts with setting a clear minimum sales conversion target. After that, the intermediate steps follow, such as the number of leads, conversations, appointments, and showroom visits.

Weak Management

In many conversations, I notice that most sales managers are downright weak in their core task: managing salespeople. If you’re not regularly asking whether the leads have been called, how many conversations have taken place, and how many appointments have been made, you’re managing nothing. You’re merely a spectator… and I encounter too many of those.

It seems like managers are afraid to ask salespeople why they haven’t called the customer a second, third, or fourth time. I understand why: the salesperson is already so busy, doing so many different things. Indeed, they’re ruled by the chaos of the day. The big question is whether all those daily activities actually contribute to more sales. We know the answer, just as we know that following up on leads does lead to more sales!

Tools

The systems you can use to follow up on leads are practical and often necessary, but not a cure-all. Introducing an LMS won’t automatically result in higher lead conversion. It’s the process and adherence to that process that will lead to more sales, regardless of the tool used.

That, combined with the sales manager’s role in inspecting, coaching, training, and rewarding, while seeing lead management as a way of working rather than just a tool, is what makes the difference. Every successful step in the sales process should be celebrated: a conversation, a booked appointment, and ultimately a sale! But to make that happen, you need to manage both your salespeople and your leads!