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Current sales industry research by Marketing Sherpa recently brought to light that 75% of all sales leads generated will eventually turn into paying customers in less than two years.

In other words, the frequently heard whining from sales reps about their marketing-generated leads are at least moderately misguided. Some prospects won’t turn into revenue overnight, or even in the time frame the rep wants. But contrary to popular belief, it’s relatively rare for a sales lead to be total garbage.

The data is proof positive that it’s critical to to use effective lead management and nurturing, even if they aren’t going to move farther down the pipeline for some time—and a sales CRM can act as a important part of a prospect development program.

However, sales managers need to be careful that a drip campaign program doesn’t become a crutch, or a fallback for initial contacting, qualifying, and lead generation activities.. Why make prospecting calls and respond immediately to new leads when you can simply “nurture” them instead?

This is a dangerous state of affairs, because as the Sales 2.0 Network observes, when a rep fails to close a deal, it’s almost always a result of one of two things—you shouldn’t have been pursuing the opportunity to begin with because you weren’t the right fit, or you got outworked by a rival.

“Drip” marketing is potentially valuable, but immediate response principles are just as crucial, because they inoculate companies against both causes of lost sales. Immediate response means reps have a much higher probability of making contact. Your ability to set an appointment and start a viable needs analysis increases, and it happens in less time. Furthermore, fast lead response makes a better impression for the contact. You’ll have a greater ability to know immediately whether you’re you actually have a realistic shot of closing the deal, and generate an environment of trust in both the short- and long-term.

If your organization is like most, come first of the year you’re going to be hit with a new, or revised set of "goals" for the coming year.

And if your company is also like most, the results are sometimes inconsistent. Some are decent, but others are terribly conceived, ill-defined, or utterly useless.

When the situation arises, there’s ultimately only two alternatives: deal with it, or get them changed.

The specifics vary, but in our experience unusable metrics rear their heads in one of three ways:

1. The real bottom-line result isn’t represented by what’s being measured.The concept is simple–if you want to change employee behavior, the metrics have to incentivize the change. Whether you want it to or not, when you change the unit of measurement, tactical and strategic approaches change with it.

   The majority of the time when the metric is getting the wrong results, it’s because it wasn’t built to get them.

2. No defined time frame.Even if the metric itself seems to be correct, the time frame for getting the results is completely off.

   Consider, for instance, that daily goal metrics shifts employee focus to the immediate, and away from the long-term. If you change measurement to weekly or monthly approaches it gives agents the chance to adapt their processes, because their entire focus isn’t on hitting the daily requirements.

   Neither is good nor bad depending on the context, just understand that the time frame affects employee processes.

3. Failing to recognize that when you add a new measurement, you’re also naturally taking something else away.When time is paramount, it’s easy to forget that employee time constraints are real. Choices have to be made about what they can get done in the time they have at work.

   Beyond a certain point, building new, more complex metrics no longer creates value; it merely forces people to ditch activities to meet the expectations most relevant to what they do.

   There’s no rule for determining what the limit is, just understand that employees without any other choice will finagle the sustem to keep their jobs.

It’s first of the year in the business world, and we all know what that means — new management goals and metrics.

And if other companies are any indication, the results are sometimes inconsistent. Some are good, but others are terribly designed, ill-defined, or utterly confusing.

When the situation arises, your choice is to simply live with it, or if possible change them into something more useful.

The specifics vary, but usually bad metrics rear their heads in one of three ways:

1. The real bottom-line result isn’t defined.

The concept is simple–if you want to change employee behavior, the metrics have to incentivize the change. Whether good or bad, when you change the definition of your metric, tactical and strategic approaches change with it.

The majority of the time if the metric is producing the wrong results, it’s because it wasn’t built to get them.

2. The time expectations are wrong.

Even if the measurement seems to be correct, the time frame for getting the results is completely off.

For example, daily goal metrics shifts employee focus to the immediate, and away from the long-term. If you change the metrics to a longer-term agenda — weekly or monthly — it allows them the chance to adapt their processes, because they’re not being “punished” for missing daily metrics.

There’s no right or wrong answer here, just understand that the time frame affects employee processes.

3. Trying to track everything, ultimately forcing employees to pick and choose which battles are “winnable.”

In the face of a deadline, it’s easy to forget that an employee’s time is limited. There’s realistically only so many tasks they will be able to get done in the time they have at work.

After a while, creating metrics no longer adds value; it merely drives people to get rid of activities to meet their highest priorities.

There’s no rule for setting what the limit is, just understand that your people are going to start “gaming the system” if they don’t have any other choice.