1. Lead

This is a potential customer you believe can use your products. You now have to qualify the potential customer (for example, are they one of your right customers, do they have the funds, can you meet their needs, and so forth). Depending upon the industry, the time from identifying a lead to securing a sale can be measured in minutes (retail) to years (for example, certain professional services and big-ticket items).

Your focus here is to generate a continuous flow of leads. Because the probability of securing a sale from any specific lead usually is relatively low (often below 20 percent, and sometimes much less), you’ll need to have plenty of high-quality leads to hit your sales and revenue targets. Through time, you should be able to quantify the number of leads you need, on average, to generate a certain level of sales.