Customers call all the shots: Lead management - striking a balance between marketing and sales

Companies, just like people, trawl the Internet for information before they make purchasing decisions
and they buy at a time that suits them. If companies want to grow successfully, they need to find ways of identifying prospective buyers promptly online and to provide them with precisely the information they need to make that purchasing decision.
However, they will only manage to do so if there is close collaboration between marketing and sales. We all know that up to now rather than working together, marketing and sales have been more inclined to peek over the fence at each other. Marketing's task involves much more than contacting prospects, marketing also needs to help sales identify prospective buyers. Sales therefore needs to reach agreement with marketing on what information it needs about buyers and above all when marketing should provide sales with the necessary information about leads.