The Speed-to-Lead Scorecard for Sales Managers
Key Takeaways
- 1Track six columns per salesperson and per source, from minutes-to-a-person to sold and gross.
- 2Use the median, not the average, for response time.
- 3Fix the worst hour first, then the worst source, then the biggest gap between people.
Table of Contents
Every sales manager says speed to lead matters. Few can tell you, right now, what the store's number was yesterday, or whose it was.
Here's a one-page scorecard you can run every Monday, with or without software.
Quick answer
A speed-to-lead scorecard tracks, per salesperson and per lead source: median minutes until a person responds, the share of leads answered inside your target, after-hours leads handled by morning, appointments set, appointments shown, and units sold with gross. Review it weekly, in public, and fix the worst hour of the day first.
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The six columns
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Median minutes to a person | How fast a typical lead hears from a human. Use the median; one two-day lead wrecks an average. |
| % inside target | Whether your rule is kept. Pick a target (we like four minutes) and count the hits. |
| After-hours leads handled by 9 am | Who covers the night, and whether anyone does. |
| Appointments set | Speed is worthless if it doesn't become a visit. |
| Appointments shown | Whether those appointments were real. |
| Sold and gross | The column the owner asks about. Keep it on the same page so the others make sense. |
Run it two ways
By salesperson tells you who needs coaching. By lead source tells you which sources you're wasting. A source with slow response and low shows might not be a bad source. It might just be the one that lands at 7 pm when nobody's watching.
Read it in this order
- The worst hour of the day. Group response times by hour. It's usually lunch and after 6. Fix the hour before you fix a person.
- The worst source. Slow response, low shows and a high cost per sale make it the first one to fix or cut.
- The biggest gap between people. If one salesperson answers in 2 minutes and another in 90, that's a conversation, not a system problem.
Make it public, keep it short
Put it on the screen at the Monday meeting. Five minutes. Call out the fastest. Ask the slowest what got in the way, and believe the answer the first time. Usually it's a process gap: a shared inbox, a shift change, a lead source that sends an email nobody watches.
Keep it fair
Split weekdays from weekends; a salesperson who works every Saturday faces a different lead flow than one who doesn't. Give new hires a few weeks before they go on the board. And count only leads that were actually assigned to the person, or you'll punish someone for a lead nobody gave them.
Where the numbers come from in CarSales AI
The Sales Scoreboard shows speed to lead, appointments, sold units and gross by salesperson and by lead source, with cost per sale by lead source next to it and a Report Builder for anything else. When a lead waits too long you're alerted and the lead is reassigned, so the number stops getting worse while you're in a meeting. The morning brief texts you at 8:15 am with new leads, today's appointments, overdue tasks and aging units.
The speed-to-lead play texts every new lead in seconds, which covers the first touch. Your scorecard should then measure how fast a person picks up the conversation.
See everything a sales manager sees, read the 4-minute rule, or start free for 14 days.
Jared Casper
ExpertSold cars and ran F&I for nearly a decade, then built CarSales AI. Writes about what works on a real lot.
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