Moving to Dynamics CRM: Sales Lead Mgmt Question

[Anonymous]

We are moving to Micosoft Dynamics CRM within the next few months. For the first time ever (yay) our CRM data will sync with Marketo.

Pre-Dynamics, our Account Managers (Sales Reps) have used their own Marketo forms to enter new leads they have generated on their own (via cold calls or inbound calls). This was to ensure that all inquiries went through the same process of starting in Marketo and then syncing with our CRM.

Since the sync will now be more seamless, we were going to eliminate this form and have them enter new leads direclty in our leads table in Dynamics. However, my sales team is asking if they can enter contacts that they haven't yet spoken to. We want to get them away from managing offline spreadsheets and lists of people. But, I would argue that people they haven't yet spoken to aren't necessarily interested, and shouldn't be entered.

Does anyone have a good resource (article, blog post, etc.) that I can point to that backs up that they shouldn't be entering anyone who hasn't expressed an interest? Maybe they will turn into something down the road, but if someone hasn't raised their hand via the phone or an email, they technically don't belong in the leads table?

Or, if you have a good reason as to why I should let them enter anyone, I'm open to that too!

[Kaspersky1_Mark]

I would recommend allowing them to enter the leads into Dynamics, but set them at a different lead status to indicate that they are cold leads, whereas the leads that raised their hand are ready to be contacted. There are a few benefits to doing this:
1.) These leads will then sync over to Marketo and now you can market to them.
2.) If those leads already exist in Marketo, you'll be able to merge the data you have there with what your sales team has in CRM - web activity, email activity, etc. - by merging the leads, so you have a more comprehensive picture of the lead.
3.) If you don't allow them to do it, they'll just keep their contacts separately in an Excel file or their Outlook contacts or their phone and then it'll be really hard for you to transition territories to other people or just to have a comprehensive view of what's going on with a company/account.