Are Old Software Sales Leads Like Bragging Rights?

Are Old Software Sales Leads Like Bragging Rights?:from Business 2 Community by Lawrence Anderson
What is the best way you can use software sales leads that brought you great success? Most often the answer is to tell the world. You request a testimony from the happy client and then include it for all marketing purposes imaginable. It is almost like your software leads have become bragging rights. The question is: Should they be?

Citing Old Software Leads For Street Cred

You may not use the terms in more professional settings but software lead generation is more than just getting information. The tools you use are also for the sake of building your reputation, your street cred. Just because you work in an industry like, say, business intelligence software does not mean reputation is any less important than knowledge. If anything, they are both interconnected.
See, it is easy to see how old software leads can become bragging rights when it means you are attracting potential sales leads by presenting the different people who have bought from you in the past. You are showing to them the kind of clientele who know you very well and liked what you gave their business.
Despite all that though, there are in fact limits to using old software leads like bragging rights:

• Achievements must be real – Obviously, they should be based on reality. Making bluffs works in poker but its bad for marketing and business once someone calls them. At the very least, make sure these old software leads are in fact using and improving as the result of your BI technology.

• The past can still just be past – A lot can still happen from then up to now. Your competitors could also be keeping an eye on your old BI software leads and looking for a chance to do better than what you accomplished for them. Draw attention to improvements as well!

• Not all are impressed – Sometimes your old software leads are not even recognizable to your current set of prospects (and this can happen with either big or small businesses). Stop abusing your bragging rights and find something else be open to other means of convincing.

Like any tactic or tool you use in business lead generation, bragging rights have their limits. There are other ways you can use your old software leads without always counting on them to put in a good word for you. This does not mean you should not try but expand your options all the same.