Even though Open Leads does not limit the number of leads you can have in your account, that does not mean it is a good idea not to limit your leads. In reality, there is a set number of legitimate sales leads you should have in your account – having tens of thousands of “leads” is not only not practical, it is untenable in real-world sales environs.

Open Leads provides tools to allow you to segment your leads (using Types, or creating a view to show all of the leads in a certain city or state, for exmple), which is a very useful tool when managing larger lists. As a user, you can only look at certain leads segments at a single time, so keeping these separate, and working them in blocks can make for more productive time management.

Outside of these segments that you can create, you may also “archive” your inactive leads. These archived leads are removed from your active lead lists, and can be restored at a later date.

Essentially what this amounts to is removing clutter from your active lists. Clutter (inactive, or otherwise unneeded lead data) gets in the way of your important data – and can lead to very poor sales habits. For example – users with excessive leads tend to scan over the list of leads to seek out the “good” ones, unconsciously training themselves to rush through their list and miss opportunities. Even worse, is the huge lists that result in a sales process that just involves “blasting” out emails – which is a really good way of alienating your prospects.

Maintaining a clean and manageable lead list is easily the best thing you can do to increase your productivity, and ultimately your sales success. Look over your leads, qualify them, categorize them, and don’t be afraid to either archive or delete those that are not going to be used.