Lead

What is a lead?

A lead is a person or company that may buy but has not yet been qualified as a real sales opportunity. Leads come from inquiries, events, referrals, lists and, in field services, technicians who spot work on site. Salesforce's object reference describes the lead record as a prospect or lead. In Dynamics 365, qualifying a lead creates an opportunity linked to an account and contact.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Lead volume is easy to inflate and hard to trust, so conversion and follow-up speed say more about lead health than raw counts do, and every lead needs a clear owner. In fire, life safety and mechanical services, some of the best leads come from inspection deficiencies, and they lose value as the customer's attention moves on. A leader who tracks lead-to-opportunity conversion by source learns where pipeline really starts.

A fire protection company logs 200 deficiency leads from inspections in a quarter. Sellers follow up on 120 of them within two weeks and turn 48 into quoted opportunities, a 40% conversion on the leads they touched. The other 80 leads sit untouched, and they are the cheapest pipeline the company has.