‘Success: Not Always What it First Appears to Be’.

The article discusses about products that increases the productivity of sales and marketing professionals. The "1,2,3 Lead Prioritizer," uses Lotus's ability to handle limited text and numbers to organize a simple scoring system for prioritizing sales leads. The software sorts out those leads where the prospect has the potential to buy significant quantities of those products where the seller has a distinct competitive advantage. The lead selection criteria are divided into three categories namely "strengths," "sales position", "relative sales potential", and "competitors' strengths/sales position." According to the article, the product is not a good value for the money. Its price of around one hundred dollars makes it appear to be a bargain in the software market. The product is poorly documented and many sales professionals have difficulty understanding the materials provided. Customization is possible but there are no detailed instructions for accomplishing the task. The "Marketing Edge," is a series of sixteen Lotus 1-2-3 templates which can serve as an aid to market planning.