Inside Sales Experts Blog

B2B Friday: Persistence & The Golden Question

Matt Bertuzzi — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:54:00 GMT

On this day in 1989, American professional football (aka "soccer player") Jozy Altodore was born. Wait, people born in 1989 are professional anythings? Scary!

Now onto our B2B Friday thoughts!

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B2B Thought #1: Don't forget the Golden Question

Every day I talk to Marketers struggling with the modern lead management dilmena: "When should I pass a lead as sales-ready?" Unfortunately, the 3 most common practices I encounter are:

Firehose
Trickle
-and-
Alternating firehose & trickle

Then I ran into this post by Dale Underwood that really got me thinking: Before Nurturing a New B2B Lead, Ask the Golden Question. Dale argues that the "only thing worse than sending a non-qualified lead to sales is not passing one and finding out 6 months later that the lead turned into a customer...for your competition."

To make sure that doesn't happen, Dale shares this example of the golden question:

Mr./Ms.,
My name is YYY and I approved your request for ZZZ. This is a courtesy follow-up to make sure you received it. If you have not received it, please check your spam filter.

May I ask you one question? Have you defined the requirements for your XYZ project, or no? For future reference, we have compiled a "Top 20 Customer Requirements List" from our customers and would be happy to share it with you.

Thank you for your interest in WWW.

YYY

Matt here: I really love this approach.

First, it's personalized. It's a message from an actual person, who I can call or reply to.
Second, it makes sure I received what I requested. I am sure we all think our sites are perfectly designed for the visitor, but let's face it - requested item fullfillment is never as easy for a first time visitor as we imagine.
Third, it promises an additional piece of highly valuable content that should interest me IF I'm a serious buyer. But, I have to reach out to the Rep and begin a dialogue to receive it.
Fourth (golden question time), think of this as the lead management trump card. If "yes," nothing else matters - the lead goes to Sales- period.

Am I crazy to think a single question can trump the mighty scoring model? Please let me know if you are using anything similar in your organizations.

B2B Thought #2: Persistence & Process

Garth over at the Jigsaw blog had a post this week on Persistence. It's a great read with funny tidbits about persistence being the key to success. Here's an excerpt:

It sounds so annoyingly simple, but persistence is the only trait that I have seen common in all successful people- from salespeople to CEOs to founders of companies.

When it comes to sales, I'm not talking about a penchant for annoying and aggressive communications. Nothing is more pathetic than a sales guy who tries to talk someone into something. Don't put that idiot pan on your head and repeatedly slam yourself into a brick wall by ignoring it when a specific individual tells you "no." But do make sure you that you have exhausted all other avenues and connections, and that you have in fact been given a "no" for good

Debbie here: I could not agree more that persistence is a key selling trait. I'll add to that with the need for a rock solid sales process behind it. So you aren't "stalking" your prospect by leaving a voicemail every day or WORSE not leaving one at all (the phantom caller ID trail).

I believe in a 4x4 calling methodology:

Put "4" contacts from a target companies through a "4" touch process - all within
10 business days. Hey, if you don't have a sense of urgency why should your prospect?
If you don't connect, make sure you kick them into your company's nurture strategy.

Persistence & process - far from magic, but it gives you something that is repeatable and measurable.

Think about the most successful sales people you know, are they persistent? Do they have a solid process?

(Photo Credit: priskiller)

B2B Friday: Pipeline, Opportunity & The Smurfs

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:27:00 GMT

On this day in 1958, The Smurfs appeared for the 1st time. But not until the 1980s did Hanna-Barbera Productions bring them to the US audience.

Now onto our B2B Friday thoughts!

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B2B Thought #1: Opportunity is the goal, not pipeline

Your company's pipeline is probably scrutinized daily. So why are close dates getting pushed out, deals getting stuck along the way and some never hitting the "commit" list?

Mike Damphousse provides an insight into why this may be occurring in Introductory Appointments: Your Goal is Meeting Number Two.

He begins by giving two Sales scenarios and asks us to choose better of the two:

Proposal: The prospect let you pitch him for 30 minutes, told you to send a proposal and CC his director, who handles these types of projects.
2nd Meeting: The prospect discussed her business issues with you, you asked good questions, you shared some anecdotal stories about how some of your clients have similar issues, and she asked for a second meeting.

Debbie here: OK, I have to ask, which one did you choose? Which one moves us towards real opportunity? And which one focuses narrowly on "fuller" pipelines?

What are your thoughts?

B2B Thought #2: Finishing 2009 Strong

I stumbled across this blog posting and, language(!), typos and all, it resonated. The title is 10 Things A Sales Rep Must Do to Finish Strong in 2009. Here are my top 3 (note: the author is a tad irreverent and the language a bit blue):

#5 - Pick up the God Dam Phone - October is the best month to chat up those cold and lukewarm accounts that you have ignored - get them engaged and close em out. They have money and if you don't call them someone else will.

#3 Lighten Up - We get it the economy sucks, unemployment is skyhigh and you most likely had a career low in sales. Guess what - you are not alone, you still have a job, you still have a chance to finish strong. Cut the bullshit and happy up.

#2 - Cut Bait - Having shit in your pipeline to fool a boss is one thing but chasing that same crap with emails, calls, lunches and in -person meetings is bad business and total waste of time. Sit down and do a honest gut check.

Trish here: Did I mention that the author was a tad irreverent? Funny though, right? What would you add to this list?

(Photo Credit: magoexperto)

SaaS and the Hunter Farmer Debate

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:11:00 GMT

We recently wrote a post called SaaS and the Evolution of Inside Sales. We got great feedback in the form of comments, but what I found most interesting was that so much of the dialogue focused on the challenge that arises from SaaS and that challenge centers on the hunter v. farmer model.

Here are some select comments:

Having been a VP of Sales for 5 years with a SaaS company and now a Founder of SaaS company I have found that two things to be true:

1) People still buy from people and want to know who they are working with
2) The line between inside sales and account management has become blurred.

With a SaaS product I have seen that a inside sales person can make @ $10K sale via the phone and webex (I have not seen a higher sale without someone having to jump on a plane) but once that sale is made that same inside sales person then becomes the account manager also.

The customer only wants to "deal" with the same person who sold them the product. As most SaaS sales are a subscription, account management becomes critical. The SaaS model falls apart if the renewal dip below say 85%.

So, while you may be able to make the sale inside, you will eventually have to have some kind of field team continually building and strengthening customer relationships

posted @ Wednesday, September 23, 2009 8:19 AM by Jonathan

A little personal rant, I have purchased a few SaaS offerings, and I have to tell you that it is very frustrating how little attention I received after the purchase is completed. I want my insides sales rep/account manager to care about me after I sign that contract and pay my bill. Don't assume I am going to sign a contract for year 2 if you treat me so poorly. I have 2 contracts due this month and I have had the rep forget to call me at a time that we scheduled, assume that an email is enough information, and arrogantly assume I am going to sign up because you did all this. Better processes are needed, better coaching is required - I will not buy from a robot but a respectful person on the other end of the phone. Rant over. ; )

posted @ Wednesday, September 23, 2009 9:41 AM by Noreen Vincent

I would add that SaaS is beneficial to buyers in that their risk is reduced by only renting for a short period of time (typically a year) and that this puts pressure on vendors to bend over backwards for buyers to encourage renewals.

posted @ Wednesday, September 23, 2009 9:43 AM by Robert Lesser, Direct Impact Marketing

Good point about the blur between SaaS inside sales and account management. With many SaaS products, as opposed to being locked in, customers pay as they go. This makes account management, as you cite, very critical. The relationship needs to be continually nurtured to maintain the existing subscriptions and grow ("farm") subscriptions from within. The hand-off can be a tough one; when clients get used to talking to one person, they want to continue that. We have similar blurring going on between inside sales and support.

posted @ Thursday, September 24, 2009 8:57 AM by Shawn

So, it appears customers don't see us as hunters and/or farmers they see us as suppliers. I came across this quote from Sam Walton the founder of Wal-Mart.

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

So, with all of our talk about buyer centricity, when we segment hunters and farmers are we shooting ourselves in the foot by not giving the customer what they want?

And, if we don't segment the model, do we eventually turn our hunters into farmers and what does that do to our growth strategy?

This is a complex issue so I would love to hear your feedback. I'll post again with what we find. Thanks for listening and sharing.

Building Inside Sales: A Roadmap

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:12:00 GMT

We recently released our ebook Building Inside Sales: Your Roadmap to a Best Practice Group. I thought I would share a brief slideshare overview below.

I wrote the ebook to address some of the most critical questions around starting an Inside Sales team. Such as:

Why Inside Sales?
Which model is right for me?
Fundamentals of successful hiring
Ramping new hires
Much more...

Building Inside Sales

So, who should read this ebook?
Well, everyone of course! If you are considering Inside Sales, this will give you some of the basics to consider. If you have Inside Sales, well you probably know a lot of this already but if you walk away with one new and interesting idea then our job is done.

Please bear in mind this is a roadmap not an owner's manual. Every company out there has their own set of specific market dynamics that can and will impact their unique implementation. Inside Sales is science, not art. The key to being successful with Inside Sales lies in:

Figuring out your unique formula and then executing flawlessly!

If, after reading the ebook, you have a particular question you would like to ask please feel free to post it in the comments section. We have a very knowledgeable readership and I know you will get some great answers!

Happy Selling!

Voicemails: Why You? Why You Now?

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:32:00 GMT

The question of whether or not to leave a voicemail in prospecting efforts is a very hot topic right now. There was an excellent discussion at Focus on Does anyone leave voicemails anymore? which I recommend you take a look at.

Now, I've already shared a little rant on what not to do when leaving voicemails: Do Your Team's Voicemails Sell the Conversation? But more importantly, if probably less buzz-worthy, I wanted to share a recent example of someone who did it right.

I receive a fair amount of cold calls and almost never pick up my phone for an unfamiliar / blocked number. I do, however, listen to my messages up to the point that the seller loses my interest. But the other day, I received a voicemail that held my interest and really sold the conversation. The seller addressed two hugely important things for me within the 1^st 10 seconds:

Why me?
Of all the people you could be calling, what makes me so perfect for your solution?

How did he do that? He told me, upfront, that his solution was for B2B Marketers who use Salesforce.com and care about lead management. I thought: I am. We do. And I do.
Why me now?
With everything else I have on my to-do list, why is now the time to listen to what you have to say?

So how did he do that? He quoted me a MarketingSherpa stat (this is my rough recollection) that only 35% of B2B Marketers were using a tool for xyz. But those that did, saw a 125% increase in their abc conversions.

So what did I, the buyer, hear?

If only 35% of all B2B Marketer are doing this, I can stay ahead of the noise out there and make sure my messaging is really being heard. 125% increase in conversions?! Let me take a look at Salesforce.com metrics now and see where that would put us from a revenue perspective with this tool.

If you'll allow me, I want to share a quick story about Why You? / Why You Now? (WY? WYN?). First off, it's not my concept. Somewhere in '04 / '05 I took a sales training class with Jeff Hoffman from Basho Strategies. He introduced me to WY? WYN? And it's something I have thought about weekly for the better part of the last 5 years. Talk about sales training with legs!

The strategy is simple - outbound messaging must revolve around that fact that buyers don't care what you have to say unless you answer for them directly and up-front Why Me? / Why Me Now?

I would love to hear your thoughts? What do you think of WY? WYN? How does your team deliver outbound messaging that get prospects to move?

(Photo Credit: Kaptain Kobold)

B2B Friday: Is it a Lead or Is it Not?

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:36:00 GMT

Welcome to the 4th Quarter. Or as IDC's Lee Levitt put it "the most important quarter of the decade." Now onto today's B2B thought.

B2B Thought: Addressing the Definition of a "Lead"

I participated in a conversation over at Robert Lesser's blog on An Identity Crisis for the Sales Lead. Here is Robert's premise:

Do you find it startling that many sales and marketing teams still cannot agree on the definition of a sales lead?

The irony of course, is that the deliverable for sales is crystal clear - the sale. The contract is signed and the PO received. The heavy lifting from sales is finished and that of accounts receivable begins.

But for marketing, whose key deliverable is often the qualified lead, the picture is confusing: the definition of a sales lead can be all over the map. Is a lead an appointment a qualified lead(or both)? Is a lead an inquiry, a trade show visitor, a webinar registrant, a downloader of a white paper or a referral?

Good question and one that organizations ask themselves on a regular basis!

Here is how I responded:

Let me add a twist. Lead definitions are fluid. Sometimes sales cares more about "activity" and other times more about "opportunity".

"Activity" based lead definitions often occur when you have just introduced a new product and need to talk to anyone and everyone. Or, when you have a significant number of new sales reps and need to get them out there talking to prospects as quickly as possible.

"Opportunity" based lead definitions often occur when you have a mature and stable product and sales organization that want well qualified leads that have true potential.

I agree with Brian Carroll when he talks about the need for sales and marketing to have consistent huddles to discuss this topic because the requirements of sales are often fluid and they need to communicate that effectively to and with marketing.

So, what do you think and how do you address lead definition in your organization?

Ask The Experts - Creating Territories

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:44:00 GMT

(This post is part or our ongoing series of Ask the Experts questions, please share your thoughts and experiences by posting comments!)

Keith Nealon, VP of Worldwide Sales for Conductor has a question he would like to pose to Inside Sales practitioners.

Background:

Keith's team is comprised of Demand Generation Reps that are responsible for setting meetings for a primarily Inside Sales force, with a small field sales force.

Question:

I'm interested in thoughts on innovative ways to setup territories (besides the usual geo, vertical, revenue splits) when you have a constantly growing (therefore resizing) Inside Sales team.

Does anybody have some ideas that are unusual and/or different and have created solid results? (e.g. example setting up a model based on first come first serve for new leads to the lead queue)

B2B Friday: Last one in Q3

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:30:00 GMT

It's the final Friday of Q3. Good selling to everyone out there working hard to bring in business.

Now on to our B2B Thoughts...

B2B Thought #1: Ch-ch-changes in the seller/buyer relationship

In Nailing Down Evidence That the Nature of the B2B Buyer Has Changed, Adam Needles share his thoughts around the fundamental changes in the B2B buyer/seller relationship. Adam argues that:

Buyers increasingly set the ground rules on when and where they will engage. Buyers also increasingly turn to trusted third parties for education, not sales people … whom they engage as an almost final stage in their process. This means B2B marketers must focus heavily on ‘getting found,’ nurturing prospects and managing pre-sales buyer dialogue.

This is a critical re-framing of the B2B buyer/seller relationship. Much has been written about how sales and marketing strategy is evolving — becoming more sophisticated via CRM and marketing automation. Yet this is not an asynchronous evolution, and buyers are setting the pace … and getting ahead of sales and marketing organizations.

Matt here: Adam goes on to lay out evidence in the following areas:

Buyers turning to online sources
Increased leveraging of social media
A multi-channel buying process
The rise of the savvry buying unit

It's a very good read, and the first attempt (I've seen) to show hard data around the changing buyer/seller relationship. I am really interested in what you think!

B2B Thought #2: The magic of the not-to-do list

Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power wrote a great piece this week on 15 Things Salespeople And Sales Managers Should Put On Their Not-To-Do List. Here is his thought process:

Think of your to-do list. It takes a lot of work to get things done. Chances are that you are starting the day with 7-10 major action items, and you are lucky if you are able to cross off the first three items by the end of the day. Start a fresh to-do list every day. Don't agonize, prioritize.

The not-to-do list doesn't change every day. This list doesn't take more work on your part; it creates less work for you. It helps you recognize new patterns. It helps you prevent self-defeating actions. Like Michelangelo chipped away all the unnecessary marble from a gigantic block to create a masterpiece, your not-to-do list will bring out the best in you.

Trish here: great advice. There are 15 tips in each category and I have selected my favorite 5 from each.

5 things salespeople should have on their daily not-to-do list:

Don't waste time chasing unprofitable leads.
Don't pretend to listen; stay focused.
Don't talk about features without explaining the benefits.
Don't quote price before establishing value.
Don't lie; build trust.

5 things sales managers should have on their daily not-to-do list:

Don't make hiring decisions based on your gut instincts alone.
Don't slip back into the role of the super-salesperson.
Don't resist change, embrace it.
Don't reject technology because you don't understand it.
Don't think that your sales process is perfect; it needs to be renovated all the time.

Great list, huh? But now let's turn the tables around and we want to hear from you. What are your top 2 things you want your sales reps or sales manager to think about on a daily basis?

What should a "To Do" list look like? Thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to your thoughts!

(Photo credit: Tim Yates)

SaaS and the Evolution of Inside Sales

Trish Bertuzzi — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:06:00 GMT

In the olden days

It used to be that selling software was always an Enterprise deal that required Enterprise activities. You needed to develop relationships with multiple buyers, educate them on your value proposition, demonstrate technical expertise and show them that changing the way they did business was a good thing. A lot of those activities required face time so you had to be onsite with the prospect developing that relationship of trust.

Along came SaaS

It is not so much that software-as-a-service (SaaS) has changed how we sell - as how it has dramatically lowered the barrier to buy. Enterprise and on-premise deals that require a more traditional sales model are not going anywhere - no matter how much hype you hear to the contrary. But, the movement towards SaaS does dictate an evolved selling model.

What are some of the factors impacting the evolution?

The New Buyer Role
According to SiriusDecisions, buyers are more informed and seek information independent of sales. The amount of information (product, competitor, user, etc.) now available allows Buyers to self-educate like never before. Just like in our personal lives, people are more comfortable using the phone and web to gather the information that allows them to make decisions and engage with sellers much more freely.

Fewer Barriers to Entry
Price points have fallen and the month-to-month mentality in much of SaaS makes Buyers much more comfortable with making a purchasing decision. Additionally, many companies now allow Buyers to trial their solutions. As a matter of fact, some have built their entire Sales & Marketing strategy around pushing demos and trials into the market.

Their sales model is formulaic: x number of trials will convert at y% with a z price point - resulting in a revenue stream of xyz. They have figured out their "formula" and now their key to success lies in executing flawlessly.

Inside Sales is now a "career"

Sirius Decisions just released a note on the topic of Inside Sales and growth strategies for 2010. They argue:

As sales leaders look beyond the missed revenue targets, headcount reductions and budget cuts that typified the sub-prime recession of 2008-9, they need to consider further expanding the role of inside sales as they adapt their organization to capitalize on the next growth cycle."

Sales leaders evaluating their coverage model need to consider three inside sales realities:

Inside sales will grow as a percent of total revenue
Inside sales can handle larger/ more complex accounts
Inside sales can sell more complex products/solution with higher ASPs

The reality is that although Field Sales is never going to go away, our Buyers no longer need as much face time with us. They do much of their own research, communicate with us via a non-traditional methods (blogs, LinkedIn, webinars, etc.) and are as time and resource constrained as we are.

Inside Sales is a viable strategy (whether or not your company offers SaaS) you just have to figure out your "formula".

I plan to share some additional thoughts about SaaS companies implementing Inside Sales in the future. Stay tuned and share your thoughts please!

(Photo credit: ionushi & TW Collins)

B2B Friday: Tiffany's & Co's B-Day

Matt Bertuzzi — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:53:00 GMT

On this day in 1837, Tiffany & Co. was born. Here's a Seth Godin (not word for word) insight about those light blue box-ers:

Tiffany's gives the jewelry away for free. It's the box that costs money. Because the box is all the person getting the thing talks about. They say "I can't believe you cared enough to spend 3-4x as much."

B2B Thought #1: It's not them it's us

In Is Your Follow-up Communication Guilty of Prospecticide?, Paul McCord discusses how follow-up communications teach prospects to either value us as an attention-worthy resource or train them to avoid us as self-interested timewasters. Paul argues that:

Prospects don't have their calls screened, ignore voice mail messages and e-mails, and throw written correspondence in the trash without reading it to be rude. They do these things because they have been taught by salespeople that answering and returning calls and reading the material salespeople send have no value. Salespeople have taught them to avoid salespeople at all costs.

Does that mean you can't communicate with your prospects?

Certainly, you can. However, your first job is to teach your prospect that you, unlike other salespeople, value of their time; and that when you call, when you send an e-mail, when you request a return call, when you send a letter or package, it adds value for the prospect and that spending a few minutes speaking with you or reading your communications is worth the time spent.

Matt here: This one really got me thinking. Lead generation is a contact sport. When we expend huge effort and dollars to drive inquiries, are we subsequently shooting ourselves in the foot on follow-up?

I am really interested what you think!

B2B Thought #2: Is relationship sales an oxymoron?

The post “A Random Walk Up Sales Street – 12” by Tibor Shanto caught my attention this week. Tibor and his friend Trevor (also a Sales guy) were discussing the real goal of selling activity:

Which brings up an interesting question, what should a seller aspire to, winning a deal or winning a client, are the two compatible or mutually exclusive? Trevor felt that the two are not mutually exclusive, but if he had to choose he would take the deal. As he tells it, much of the relationship talk in his estimate is just political correctness creeping into sales. There are a lot of different sayings in sales, and they all serve a purpose, but they also tend to be contradictory. For example, he referred to the common notion that incentives drive behaviour, “if my company wanted me to have relationships, they’d pay me for that, but they pay me for solid orders that can be invoiced.

Debbie here: Can “building the relationship” and “winning the deal” go hand in hand? Trevor makes an excellent point that he is paid to make sales, not relationships.

What’s your viewpoint?

(Photo credit: minxlj)

Prospecting 2.0: Applying New Tools

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:47:00 GMT

I was just catching up on some blogs & tweets from last week's Sales 2.0 Conference in Chicago. At the conference, Lee Levitt of IDC's Sales Advisory Practice, stated, "The 4th Quarter of 2009 is the most important quarter of the decade." Wow - no pressure!

There is and will continue to be significant discussion about Sales 2.0 (and its implications), the new sales economy and how much selling has changed. But, it is not just the science of selling that has changed but also the basic art of prospecting.

Now for the four of you who know me well and read this blog (Hi Nana!), you know I love backpacking, hiking & camping. So I thought I might share a simple (if not perfect) analogy: taking a walk.

Back in the day

A quick Google search tells me that humans take around 780k steps a year. Now let's say prospecting is like a familiar walk around a favorite park. We are on auto-pilot. Our journey doesn't take significant levels of active thought as we've done this literally hundreds of times before. We start our walk and the end result holds no surprises.

Today

Now let's say its mid-January in New England. That familiar trail is now covered in ice & snow. That favorite walk is a lot more complicated and requires more preparation and much more active attention. If you are not prepared for the conditions, you can end up on your rear wondering what happened to the lovely walk you envisioned.

This is the reality of prospecting today. Buyers are smarter, they can find out as much about you as you can about them. You can't just go sail out the door unprepared and expect to not lose your footing. Did you ever hang up after a prospect call and think "Well, that didn't go as well as I thought it would"?

Does this mean we should proclaim "taking a walk is scary and to be avoided at all costs"? Of course not!

But what we might do is to apply new tools to this challenge: trekking poles, show shoes, winter boots, crampons, etc. to regain effectiveness and ensure we stay on our feet.

This is the fundamental reality of prospecting 2.0.

On a related note, Trish is participating in a live webinar on Prospecting 2.0 on September 23^rd. She and the panel will be discussing addressing this new reality and sharing insight on applying the appropriate tools to improve prospecting effectiveness.

The Details:

Prospecting 2.0: Bridging the Sales & Marketing Chasm
Date: September 23, 2009
Time: 2PM Eastern, 11AM Pacific

Featured Speakers:
Lorri Freifeld, Editor of Sales and Marketing
Trish Bertuzzi, President, The Bridge Group, Inc.
David Fitzgerald, EVP, Sales and Marketing Services, Brainshark

Register Now

So join the webinar and learn how to get ready for the most important quarter of the decade!

B2B Friday: Short Week – Great Thoughts

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:46:00 GMT

Welcome to B2B Friday, sharing the best most & most useful content we've recently run across.

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B2B Thought #1: You can't increase "conversion rate" and ignore "connect rate"

Craig Rosenberg at the Funnelholic blog threw down the gauntlet yet again with his post on Increase in Connect Rate = Increase in Conversion Rate. I love Craig...he gets a conversation going! Here's an excerpt:

To be clear, it is my firm belief that demand generation is the art of getting the right person connected with the right sales rep at the right time. Just take that in for a second. Marketers ALWAYS try to achieve too much with their campaigns and in most cases they are trying to sell the product when what they really need to do is sell the next step. I have said this a million times and I will say it again: The number one tool for conversion is the PHONE. You can run campaigns until the cows come home and they will fail if your lead qualification or sales team is not on the phone converting them.

Trish here: I left this comment on the post:

Amen brother! The only thing a phone based lead generation team should be selling is the next step in the process. Arouse curiosity, close on the next step, arouse curiosity, close on the next step - rinse and repeat.

Now, that doesn't mean lead gen teams are drive by "appointment-setters" and then their job is done. The human touch should be integrated with effective delivery of content and all steps should move the process along. MOVE being the operative word. A lead is only good when it converts to a customer and to get them to do that, you have to move it through your well defined and repeatable process.

So, I am on your bus...connect and connect again - that is how you win.

Your thoughts?

B2B Thought #2: Take 5 minutes to congratulate yourself

In There's Light at the End of the Tunnel-But It Isn't the Time to Celebrate, Paul McCord warns us against letting up one iota even if we notice a "slight feeling that the weight of the past year may be easing". Paul delivers a hopeful and motivating thought:

Don't let your guard down but don't despair either. You can get through this. The demands of slogging through this recession and then taking aggressive advantage of an improving market won't last a lifetime (although it may seem that way now). You've come a long way in the past year or so. You've done what so many haven't-survived a terrible recession.

No, it isn't over.

No, you can't let up.

But you're winning the battle and when the economy does recover, you'll be in a position to expand your sales business-and your income.

Take five minutes to congratulate yourself for your endurance, your determination and commitment to succeed.

OK, now back to work.

Matt here: Given what we've all been through and remembering today's somber anniversary, take those 5 minutes. Congratulate your team. Congratulate yourself. Like Paul says, "OK, now back to work."

Thanks for listening. Please share your thoughts.

(Photo credit: Cathérine)

Do Your Team's Voicemails Sell the Conversation?

Matt Bertuzzi — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:39:00 GMT

On the blog last Friday I shared a post that I found interesting. It did a great job of laying out the case for B2B websites to "sell a conversation". There are some thoughtful comments so please check them out.

I want to pick up the "selling the conversation" notion again but this time as it relates to voicemail.

I stepped out of the office yesterday and returned to the following voicemail. (Note: I changed the name, company and whitepaper title to protect the innocent.) The left side is what they said and the right side is what I heard.

WHAT THEY SAID	WHAT I HEARD
HI Matt, This is First Longlastname from ABC.	Your company name sounds somewhat familiar. You - I don't know. That name I'd remember.
My phone number is 617-555-1234 extension 617.	Are you really calling me to give me your phone number? (My left hand makes a swift move towards the "7" key to delete the message) But I thought what the heck; I'll give them another chance.
Last week you download our Whitepaper "Leveraging LinkedIn for Lead Generation".	OK, that rings a bell. But so what? Why the call? (My hand backs away from the "7" key)
The reason for my call is that we generally follow up to see if you might....	What?! You're taking up my time because that is what you generally do? (At this point and seemingly without any instruction from my conscious mind, my finger hits the "7" key and message is deleted.)

Does this voicemail sell the conversation to you? Would you have felt compelled to return this call? Is that what you generally do?

Every interaction with a prospect needs to deliver a compelling reason for them to take action. Whether warm, cold calling or inbound follow-up, we have to sell the conversation.

So what might First Longlastname have done differently? Here's a few ideas:

Focus on buyer personas
If I'm worth a follow up phone call, I must be a high probability lead for ABC. If they had constructed buyer personas, they'd understand more about my motivation, goals and challenges.

So rather than:
Last week you download our Whitepaper "Leveraging LinkedIn for Lead Generation".

They might say:
Many of the Marketers I work with are focused on optimizing their use of social networks like LinkedIn for lead generation. I would assume, based on your download of our White Paper, that this is also an issue for you.
What's the return for returning the call?
Also based on my buyer persona, First Longlastname would have a better idea of what other resources ABC has that might be of interest me.

So rather than:
The reason for my call is that we generally follow up to see if you might....

They might say:
I have a research report on how other professional services firms are using LinkedIn to great effect. It isn't generally available on our site, but if you return my call I'd be happy to share it with you. If appropriate perhaps we might discuss how ABC has worked with Marketing Executives, like you, to....

You get the idea. If your team's voicemails:

focus on the buyer
address their goals
share what you can offer them

Then you are well on your way to selling the conversation in your prospecting process.

Am I expecting too much? Are there any other ideas on what First Longlastname could/should have done?

(Photo credit: dorseygraphics)

B2B Friday: Before Labor Day

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:39:00 GMT

Welcome to our 1^st B2B Friday post. We are excited to share some of the best and most useful content that we've recently run across. (This is a new idea for our blog. I hope you'll enjoy. If you do or don't please let us know.)

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B2B Thought #1: Are Marketer's Priorities Skewed?

In Are Marketer's Priorities Skewed?, Ardath Albee discusses her reactions to the results of a recent B2B Marketing Survey:

From the title I thought, wow, they're really getting it. Marketing needs to prove contribution to downstream revenues. Yeah!

But, what I learned instead was that their intentions may be great, but their strategy for getting there leaves me wondering how they ever will.

One of the things that told me they won't overwhelmingly prove their value is this:

"When asked what metrics they report to senior management, 59% said email opens and clicks and 49% said number of inquiries."

Say what? And then I came to this:

"18% said filling the top of the sales pipeline with as many "inquiries" as possible would be their top goal going forward. More concerning, of those who plan to focus on the top of the pipeline, 53% don't score leads and 69% don't nurture them."

Oh, my. There's definitely lots of work to be done. How is it possible in this day and age that jamming as many contacts as possible into the top of the funnel is a valid goal? Then again, since they don't score or nurture, what else would they focus on achieving?

Trish here: Ardath makes a great point. Here's my take - I've said it before and I'll say it again. I blame the CEO (unless you are a client and then of course I don't blame you!). When you compensate a Marketing Executive on quality v. quantity....you get crap poured into the top of the funnel. We talk about sales and marketing alignment but how about "C" level executive alignment with goals that are meaningful?

Definitely check out all the comments- great conversation.

B2B Thought #2: Your website should sell the sales conversation, not the product

In Effective B2B Lead Generation Means Selling the Conversation, Dale Underwood discusses the evolution in responsibilities between Marketing & Sales:

Tasks that were handled by sales (presentations, customer references, etc.) are recorded electronically by the marketing team in the form of webinars and case studies respectively; sales usually isn't even involved in these activities.

Less sales involvement puts more pressure on marketing to "sell".

To reverse this trend, marketers must rethink the goal of their marketing programs. Since most B2B companies do not sell products directly on their sites, the first goal should be to sell the sales conversation, not the product

Matt here: I read this post early Tuesday morning. At about 12:30, while eating lunch at my desk, Dale's point hit home. In B2B we are all working hard to educate the market and establish thought leadership. That is good.

But what are we really trying to accomplish? For me it isn't about self promotion or getting the most links (or nowadays re-tweets), it is about encouraging a prospect to return a voicemail, respond to email, or pick up the phone when The Bridge Group calls. To me that is selling the conversation, not the product.

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But more importantly, what do you think?

American Association of Inside Sales Professionals

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:18:00 GMT

Today's post is about a new organization that I know will be of interest to everyone - the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. This organization was founded by Bob Perkins and Larry Reeves. Today we interviewed Larry.

Full disclosure, I am on the Board of Advisors for the AA-ISP and think it is a great organization!

----------------------------------------------------

AA-ISP is such a great idea. What is the vision you and Bob share?

The vision has multiple facets but at its core we want to provide a centralized, trusted resource where inside sales professionals can go to get information that will assist them with their careers, performance and productivity.

Who are you targeting for membership?

Anybody in the inside sales community all the way from entry level rep's to senior executives. Our goal is to provide information and resources that provide value to everyone.

We know this is a very broad scenario but we feel we can address it in a variety of ways. Nothing will be segregated but things will be classified in a way that will allow people to get access to the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

Some information is of value to all categories. For instance our Member Directory and Regional Chapters are great networking tools that everyone can utilize.

Talk to me about the value of being a member. What do I get?

There is a number of ways members get value from their AA-ISP membership. These include:

Access to an ever growing library of white papers, best practices and articles from a variety of contributors so you get a collective view of the industry - all in one place.
We just introduced the AAISP Contact Exchange. Member's have access to the data collective of over 1 Million contacts being built by mywayinteractive. In a nutshell, it is a crm tool that is completely social media enabled and allows sale reps to trade select contacts.
We are building a community via our open member directory, member forums, and regional chapters. We've had great interest in Chapters and a number are being formed (note to readers - we are very privileged to have Trish as President of the Boston chapter so please reach out to her for more info on our October meeting).
Ask the Experts provides personalized 1 x1 consulting. Members can go online and post very specific questions and get responses from the AA-ISP Panel of Experts which is comprised of a variety of hand selected industry experts.
We provide a Career Center which provides a portal to search all the major job boards from one centralized location.
In August we presented our first webinar, "The Emergence of the Hybrid Role". Many more webinars will follow.
We will conduct an annual Spring Leadership Summit focused specifically on inside sales managers, directors and executives. The 2010 Summit is planned for May in Minneapolis. In addition a Member Conference is being planned for the fall of 2010.
Monthly newsletters and activity updates keep members up on the latest.
A week ago we launched another new service, the AA-ISP Service Provider Directory where we list best of breed consultants, trainers, authors, vendors etc. Members can also rate and comment on providers.

Is there a way for people to sample the value? What do they get for free?

We provide a variety of ways for non-members to sample the value. These include:

Sample download reports
Utilize the new Service Provider Directory - view only
Chapter meetings
Webinars

Thanks so much for your time Larry. How can our readers learn more?

Thank you Trish, I appreciate you having me. We would like to extend a membership discount for your readers - we'd like to offer annual memberships for $99 (normally $250) through the end of September. Readers use the promo code "TBG2009".

For more information on the AA-ISP visit http://www.aa-isp.org/

(Trish here: if you are already a member, would love to hear about your experiences!)

Preliminary Results: Survey on Sales 2.0 Tools

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:38:00 GMT

Last Friday we launched our survey on Technology's Impact on Sales & Marketing Effectiveness. So far, Executives from 50 companies have responded - thanks for that!

I thought it would be interesting to share preliminary and very high level results in each of the 4 categories we targeted:

CRM
Sales and Prospect Data
Lead Tracking and Marketing Automation
Sales Enablement and Productivity

The data below reflects answers to this specific question:

How positive an impact has this tool had on your organization?

On a scale of 1 to 4 with 1 being "Minimal Impact" and 4 being "Significant Impact".

CRM
-tools in this category include:
Salesforce.com
SalesLogix
Siebel
SugarCRM
Homegrown

Sales and Prospect Data
-tools in this category include:
Dow Jones
Hoovers
InsideView
Jigsaw
ZoomInfo

Lead Tracking and Marketing Automation
-tools in this category include:
ActiveConversion
Eloqua
Genius / SalesGenius
LeadLander
Marketo
Pardot
Silverpop

Sales Enablement and Productivity
-tools in this category include:
ConnectAndSell
iCentera
InsideView
Kadient
SAVO

For those of you that have not yet taken the survey, you can do so by emailing Matt at insidesalesreport@bridgegroupinc.com. Participation will get you the full report and analysis to be released in October.

So what do you think of the data so far? Any surprises? I saw a couple things that made me say hmmm.....

Looking forward to your reaction and please participate if you haven't done so yet!

Do Sales Tools Equal Sales Effectiveness?

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:26:00 GMT

Steve Harper, is today's guest blogger. He also blogs at plan2win.
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With the explosion of "Sales 2.0" mentions, how do we evaluate the tools that are available? Which ones will really drive better effectiveness?

According to CSO Insights, the #1 issue that worries VP Sales and CEOs, behind increasing revenue, is increasing sales effectiveness.

In a different survey, 97% of CEOs interviewed are planning on increasing revenue this year. More interestingly, 67% plan on increasing revenue while REDUCING headcount in the sales department.

Now, I am not a math major, but, if you want to increase sales and decrease sales people, each sales person has to sell more than they were selling. Right? So increasing the productivity of each sales person has to be the utmost priority. The real question is exactly HOW do you do that? Enter Sales 2.0 tools.

First, let's back up and talk about what Sales 2.0 IS... With all the stuff written, you would think that there is a new Facebook that sells the stuff for you. The reality is that selling is just as hard (more so) than ever before. The other reality is that buyers are more informed than ever before, and they EXPECT you to be. Therefore the first 2 sales calls (introduction, learning about the business, etc.) are gone. Sales 2.0 is the acceleration and abrupt deceleration of the sales process. It is also the incredible number of tools and services available.

So what are the tools? Salesforce.com is the most visible tool that sales teams are now using, but InsideView, Connect and Sell, DemandBase, and Kadient are excellent examples of where sales tools are headed. The key is having the information that you need, when you need it, in a place that you need it, so you can ACT ON IT! And this is where things sometimes fall down.

For today, let's start with ConnectAndSell.

(Trish here: ConnectAndSell is a combination of switching technology and virtual sales agents that connect Sales Reps to prospects. They guarantee 5 live connects per hour to each of your Reps and typically average 7-10.)

This is a great tool, technology and service... BUT, for it to work, the team has to be ready and trained to use it. If they just throw up on the individuals that they get on the phone, then all you did was add efficiency to a bad selling experience and process. You will get more conversations, so by simple math you will get more deals, but you haven't really made the sales process an engine. So a few things to make this a success:

Have a plan and a VERY TARGETED list. Without a good target list based on a good sales plan, then this is automated "Spray and Pray"
Have an Excellent 15 second introduction. Get their attention fast and keep the conversation about them, their issues, and their success.
Know what your goal is. 99% of companies are not going to close anything on one call. You are probably just trying to set up a time to have a more detailed conversation. Get their attention, generate some interest, set up a time, get off the phone, move to the next one
Stack industries, verticals or product lines. This makes the introduction and the conversation easier for the rep to focus on. If the first call is a bank and the next call is an engineering firm, the mental shift in a few seconds is tough. Make sure that the list is focused every time you use the service.
Turn off your cell phone and forward to voicemail your desk phone. Close your email client. FOCUS on the calls and you will be much better.

These tips should help you increase your effectiveness with ConnectAndSell. Good Selling!

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Trish here again: Steve mentioned that he will be sharing his thoughts on other tools over the next several weeks. I'll be sure to share them when he does.

(Photo by: mixergirl)

New Survey: The Impact of Sales 2.0 Tools

Trish Bertuzzi — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:24:00 GMT

I am very excited to announce the launch of our Technology's Impact on Sales & Marketing Effectiveness survey. We will be using this data to produce a research report - due to be released by mid-October.

I would like to extend an invitation to participate (in the 4 minute web survey) to Sales and Marketing Leaders. We will reward your participation with a FREE copy of the report when published. Here are a few requirements for participation:

Selling in a B2B environment
Survey participants are Director, VP or C-level (Sales or Marketing)

If you are interested, please email Matt at insidesalesreport@bridgegroupinc.com and he will send you the links.

The report will focus on technologies in the following core areas:

CRM tools
Sales & prospect data sources
Lead tracking & marketing automation
Sales enablement & productivity

The topics we will be investigating include:

The overall impact of these tools on corporate objectives
Perceptions of effectiveness - compared between Marketing and Sales
Adoption and usage rates across the organization

I know you will find the information to be of great value. I am looking forward to having readers of this blog participate so thanks in advance!

(Photo credit: jannem)

Sales 2.0 – You Have to Walk the Walk

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:23:00 GMT

I recently had the pleasure of attending a conference where one of the topics was Sales 2.0. As everyone who reads our blog knows, we are proponents of the 2.0 movement and believe that (though a buzzword) if you implement Sales 2.0 correctly you will build a better sales and marketing machine. I wanted to share a story with you about how even Sales 2.0 Evangelists can get the application of this new approach wrong.

Here is our definition of Sales 2.0:

Sales 2.0 is an approach not a sales process. It requires you to transform your business from one that is focused on selling to one that is focused on letting the market buy from you.

Sales 2.0 requires a change in mindset. It requires focus on buyer personas, lead nurturing, content development, social networking, web 2.0 tools, etc.

So my story involves a Marketing executive (and client) who also happened to attend this conference. After the conference, she sent me this email (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).

Trish - This sort of email drives me crazy, and it is from a vendor at the event no less. Seems like the vendors were not very savvy.

I never spoke with this company - and yet they are writing a "personalized" email thanking me for speaking with them.

Lesson learned - make sure I don't make the same mistake.

Here is the copy of the email she received from a vendor at the conference who must have been given all of the attendees contact information as part of their sponsorship package:

Hi NameRemoved,

I wanted to follow up and thank you for attending ABC and speaking with Guy TradeShow. If you recall XYZ automates blah, blah, blah.

Link to Quick Flash Demo

Does it make sense for us to connect and discuss further our xyz solution. If you are not the appropriate person to hold this discussion, would you mind referring me to that contact?

Thank you for your time. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

So, what made her crazy about this email?

She never spoke to the vendor. How could they discuss something further if they had never had a conversation in the first place?
They included a link to a flash demo. How old fashioned is that?
They asked for her time (and if not then a referral) without establishing any credibility.

I thought to myself: OK, so they do not have a flawless process in place. Too bad especially considering the wasted time, effort and energy they put into attending the conference. Then I received the following email...

Hi Trish,

I wanted to follow up on your attendance to the ABC event and touch base to learn where improving and automating your xyz process might stack up in your 2009 priorities.

If you aren't familiar with Xyz, we are the leader in xyz. Xyz provides a cost-effective solution to manage xyz, eliminating the pain-staking process of xyz, therefore composing error-free, real-time visibility of xyz. Our 200+ customers include BigSoftware, BigB2C, BigInternet, BigBiotech and many more.

Please let me know if you have time for a quick conversation this week or next. If there is someone else that I should contact, I greatly appreciate in advance any assistance you can provide.

Check out a quick flash demonstration here

Hmmm....at least they didn't say I had spoken with them at the conference. But where did they go wrong with this one?

The foundation of the Sales 2.0 value proposition is based on knowing and understanding your unique buyer personas. In this situation, my client (the Marketing executive) and I (the President of a small professional services organization) are in no way the right target conatcts.

What should the vendor have done? First of all, figure out if we meet your Ideal Customer Profile based on vertical, size of company, size of staff or whatever the right criteria may be. Second, one of the biggest mistakes companies make is in qualifying the contact not the company. They do this with inbound leads all the time and we are ever vigilant with our clients to make sure this doesn't happen.

What the vendor should have done is said...hmmm ABC Company attended this conference. That means they have a potential interest in xyz. I am going to pick up the phone and call (insert relevant buyer title here) and see if they are interested in having a dialogue about this particular problem that we solve. See, attendance at the conference was the trigger event not the lead. See Uncover a New Lead Source: Trigger Events for Sales for more ideas along those lines.
The 2nd paragraph goes off the rails for two reasons. First, it is all about them and filled with what David Meerman Scott calls "gobbledygook" (see 09 Resolution: No More Marketing Gobbledygook).

Then it gets even worse by referencing customers that in no way, shape or form even remotely resemble my company or that of my client. As a matter of fact, they serve to make us say "Oh, you don't work with companies like ours so I won't even bother to respond or refer you".
Finally, the emails were sent by their Inside Sales Manager. Dude...pick up the phone! The first communication with me is via email and a bad one at that? Pick up the phone, deliver your value proposition, do a bit of qualification and then ask for a referral if not within my company then maybe within my client base.

OK, rant over but you get where I am going. You can't just stick the 2.0 tag at the end of whatever you do or say you are a key player in this revolution and think you are all good. You need to "Walk the Walk".

Does your Sales 2.0 strategy match your tactics? When was the last time you took a peek at the emails going out to your prospects? Makes you want to run right down the hall and do so doesn't it? Thanks for listening!

Slow Selling v. Shiny Object Syndrome

Matt Bertuzzi — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

(I have been sitting on this post for a few weeks trying to figure out if it is just a rant. Well I just read the umpteenth "XYZ notion is dead" post and it set me off. So here you go...)

A couple weeks ago I was in the car and caught part of an NPR interview with Irish writer Nick Laird.

The following is a snippet that caught my attention because it was so illustrative of our society:

"... in the age of Twitter and Facebook, and all the rest of it, language is just witty and snappy, and quick, and meant to amuse rather than be profound in any way, and certainly the brevity of it sort of precludes that..."

He went on to give examples (I've added a few) that illustrate the modern clash between fast & slow:

FAST	SLOW
Fast Food	The Slow Food Movement
Tweets/Status Updates	Sharing stories and anecdotes
Email	Voicemail
Movie Adaptations	Novels

He really got me thinking. While not a perfect analogy, I feel we are witnessing a battle between the fast & slow camps in the world of B2B selling.

On the fast side, we are focused on those portions of the sales process than can be quantified by hard metrics. Today we are increasingly concerned with:

more intelligence about Buyers
more scoring of prospect interest
more metrics on campaigns, conversion, Rep activity, ROI, etc.

There are countless points of measurement in every step in the marketing/sales process.

On the slow side, many soft benefits have fallen by the wayside. We are devoting far less time to:

formalized (as opposed to tribal) knowledge
sales interactions based on information & engagement as opposed to data & activity
having conversations as opposed to emailing/texting
face to face meetings that still make sense in many situations
customer service that is actually a service and delivers value

Can we calculate a hard ROI in:

demonstrating why our solutions are the low risk option
voicemail that probes into the issues surrounding a white paper download v. just noting the download itself
ferociously pursuing customer service to support our reputations
conversations that move the sales process forward v. emails that "touch base/check in/see what's new"

If we cannot, does that mean they are unimportant?

On a related note, I ran into Scott Santucci's article A Story of Empathy - The Lost Art of Selling? . In it Scott discusses a Forrester study that presented 150+ Executives with the following question:

"When you meet with a vendor sales person, in general how often are they prepared for the meeting in the following ways:" (% are for respondents who answered 'usually')

Knowledgeable about their company and products - 88%

Knowledgeable about my industry - 55%

Can relate to my role and responsibility in the organization - 34%

Knowledgeable about my specific business - 29%

Scott highlights what separates the knowledgeable 29% from the other 71%:

"This ability - to connect the dots - between an organizational issue, the points of view of all the impacted stakeholders, and the capabilities you bring to the table is what your top sales people are doing."

Call it what you will, but my point is this: connecting the dots is slow selling.

Slow selling cannot be automated, scored, ROI modeled or put neatly into a vertical stack chart.

Please note, I am not arguing against metrics and ROI. They are crucial. But I am arguing against any religiosity that argues "everything you know about sales is wrong" or that "Sales and Marketing is 100% science (or alternatively 100% art)".

Much energy and effort is being spent today proclaiming

The elevator pitch is dead! Long live the mini-pitch/buyer-pitch/twitter-pitch.
Cold calling is dead! Long live inbound marketing/warm-calling.
Social Networking is where business happens. Sales and marketing guys are obsolete.

Here's my take: just because you're a bad driver, doesn't mean your car is broken.

Elevator pitches don't need a character limit, sales people need to improve their game, communicate more effectively and think in terms of their buyers and not themselves. Times are tough, but chasing shiny objects is a distraction.

People, tools & process: improve and overcome! Probably as true in 2009 as it was in 1909.

Thanks for listening. I am really eager to hear what you think. Please share!

(Photo credit: selva & miss bliss 55)

Golf's Lessons for Sales

Cindy Littlefield — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:43:00 GMT

Selling in this economic climate is a job requiring fortitude. That's why I was so excited recently by the little gift I received in the Selling Power video: The Hero Within.

During this conversation, CSO Insights's Barry Trailer discusses the need to change our orientation in Sales and realize that a Sales Rep is not just their number. Barry points to Tiger Woods as a positive example. He discusses how during his road to recovery, Tiger effectively "focused on what he was doing well" and didn't equate bad performance too closely with himself.

I play golf so the topic really hit home for me. As Sales professionals we do measure ourselves by results.

How close is my team to making the number?
How will I look to my VP, the CEO, the Board?
How do results make me feel?

Good numbers mean I am a good Sales Leader. Bad numbers mean I am not so good. Self worth is so tied to the numbers!

I took a series of golf lessons this season and my game really improved. It improved because I learned not only what I was doing wrong and ways to correct it, but also, I learned how to look at what I was doing right and focus on that. I learned a routine that I can repeat and practice over and over again.

For all of the golfers out there, you know what I am talking about and it is the good shots, the surprise shots, the great putt you just sank that keeps you coming back to the game.

Continuing the golf analogy, here are some bits of advice to share with your Reps:

Hit the practice range
Highly successful Sales Reps build pipeline every day. How do they do that? They spend at least one hour a day reaching out to brand new prospects. These are their power hours, no emails, no chatting, no twitter or facebook, just outbound prospecting.
Drive it down the fairway
When a Rep schedules a meeting with a target account, that's their great drive down the fairway. Help them understand that you don't always have a great drive. They must accept this and try again on the next hole.
The short game
Effectively moving the sales process forward, much like the short game, is the most difficult part in my opinion. Reps have so much to strategize about. Reading a lie badly or choosing the wrong club can severely hurt the score (or sales opportunity).

Also, different Reps have different comfort zones. I'm a great long hitter, but up close to the pin, not so confident. Similarly, some are excellent at presentation while weak on the close. Have your Reps identify their weaknesses and work with them on those skills.
Putting
Everything is going great but at the last second the ball goes left and not in the hole. Does that make me a loser? No, does that mean I am a bad sales person? No. Sometimes the decision making process just goes awry and circumstances are out of your control. Know your job, do it well and let the missed opportunities go.

My point is this: Golf is a game. It is a practice. Just the same for Sales, it is a game where we know the rules but sometimes our ball goes left and we don't get the sale.

Jack Nicklaus once said "focus on remedies, not faults". That is exactly what we must encourage our Reps to do.

At the end of the day, they need to focus on what went right that day, and how they can improve their "drive", "short game" and "putting" going forward. And since I've quoted Jack, here is another by him: "Resolve never to quit, never to give up, no matter what the situation".

Now go out there and help your Sales team close some business.

(Photo Credit: SvendO)

The Secret Sauce of Outbound Marketing

Trish Bertuzzi — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:17:00 GMT

I recently read a great post Robert Lesser, of Direct Impact Marketing, wrote called Use Outbound Marketing to Target These Buyer Types. It coordinates nicely with our recent discussion around The Flaw In Calculating Inbound v. Outbound Marketing.

The meat of Robert's argument is that having an intimate knowledge of your buyer has never been more important. It is key to understand:

The challenges they face on a day to day basis
The projects that are important to them
How their boss measures success

These data points should serve as the foundation for outbound messaging.

Some buyers will reach out to you...that is the power and the beauty of inbound marketing. But, like it or not, some buyers require that you do the reaching. Understanding how, how often and with what medium to reach out - that is the secret sauce of outbound.

Effective outbound also mandates you understand what kind of buyer you are targeting. Robert did a great job defining different buyer types and we added our two cents on how to sell to them:

The Unaware Buyer - is evaluating but is unaware of your solution despite your high level of marketing activity.

With this buyer you are late to the game. The other vendors have already set the agenda so you need to go in with guns blazing. Don't waste time on fluff, go right to the meat of your competitive advantage and be relentless.

The Buyer with Unmet Needs - may have underlying needs that have not been openly discussed with a third party. Or perhaps, the buyer was unaware of a solution that would address their needs so had not initiated an evaluation. Early stage solutions that are new-to-market often target buyers with latent needs.

Even in a Sales 2.0 world there remain sales situations that require taking latent pain to recognized pain. This is most especially true if you are selling to the innovator and early adopter space. Here is where drip marketing and lead nurturing are critical. Identify your buyer, arouse curiosity, begin a conversation and then delver relevant content combined with the human touch to educate them and position your solution. Not an easy task but with the advent of some of the great technologies out there like Eloqua, Genius, Marketo, Silverpop and others, it is a lot easier than it has ever been before.

The Tuned-out Buyer - not all buyers participate in social media or conduct online searches. Some buyers expect that some vendors must reach out to them as a precondition to considering their solution.

A typical decision maker will get a minimum of 30 unsolicited calls and/or emails a day. Cutting through the noise is key to success in outbound marketing. Note what your Reps are communicating in their voice and email messages. Is it all about you or is it about the buyer and what they care about? If you don't know or it is all about you, now is time to step back and spend some time redrafting your message.

The Buyer at the Tipping Point - B2B marketing is part art and part science. Given the length of the marketing and sales cycle, we can often identify many of the touches that led to a closed sale but we are unable to pinpoint the catalyst that converted the buyer.

The moral of the story here is "Know Thy Trigger Events". Spend some time knowing what trigger events would lead a buyer to look at you. Then invest in a technology like InsideView to deliver notifications to your sales organization of those events. To make this work, make sure your sales organization is prepared with messaging that incorporates the trigger events into their outreach. Don't waste an event opportunity by delivering vanilla messaging.

So, thanks Robert for a great post. And readers, please feel free to share your comments and thoughts on how buyer types impact the inbound/outbound marketing mix!

(Photo Credit: mbgrigby)

The Flaw In Calculating Inbound v. Outbound Marketing

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:55:00 GMT

Mike Damphousse of Green Leads wrote a great post on Inbound v. Outbound Marketing and really got me thinking. Here is an excerpt:

This past week I was reading HubSpot's study on the state of inbound marketing, and understandably, with HubSpot being in the inbound marketing business, the study showed that the marketing spend on inbound marketing is rising. It also determines that the price of an inbound generated lead is 3x less than the price of an outbound generated lead, $84 versus $220. (Inbound: SEO, SEM, Blogs. Outbound: Telemarketing, Email, Events).

(Trish here:) What a great piece of data! I would be interested in knowing what you the readers calculate for these numbers. If you have them, please share. Also, bigger question, do you differentiate the costs associated with your inbound v. outbound leads?

Back to Mike:

I accept that, and I truly believe there is a place for inbound marketing in all of our marketing budgets. I do, however, challenge the value of that inbound lead versus the value of the outbound lead, and that was not discussed. In simple terms, how far along is each of those generated leads in the pipeline and what is the value of that lead against the amount you have invested in it so far?

The question we should ask ourselves is how many $84 leads does it take to get to pipeline, an active sales opportunity, and how many $220 leads does it take to get to pipeline.

In my own business, where we do about equal billing on inbound/outbound spending, we have found that the increased quality of the outbound leads justifies the expense. For argument's sake, let's just say it takes 10 inbound leads to get one pipeline opportunity, and 3 outbound leads to do the same. That's $840 for inbound, $660 for outbound. We attribute it to the fact that the outbound work does much of the screening and vetting and sometimes even the first steps of selling, thereby increasing the quality of the lead.

(Trish here again:) Hmmm...this got me thinking. I don't track cost per lead (I know...shoot me now), but I do track lead sources closely. Here are my results 2009 YTD for New Business.

Inbound	25%
Outbound	14%
Referrals/Partners/Networking	61%

So, what does this tell me? Well, our inbound efforts will yield long tail results - that I know for a fact. But, even though the debate rages around inbound v. outbound and the cost/budgets associated with each, good old fashioned personal/professional networking is the lead source that will drive the most business.

I have a great mentor, a gentleman by the name of Bill Drummey. He networks like no one I have ever seen - he returns every phone call, he stays in touch with past employees, he is a Master Networker and a great guy to boot! He told me very early on in my career that a good investment would to be spend a part of every day networking and I took him at his word and it has paid off for my business.

This leads us to the big question:
Are we getting so caught up in the inbound v. outbound debate that we are forgetting the basics of good old fashioned human interaction?

Developing relationships with people you respect and then sharing information with them so that you become a trusted advisor and they can potentially refer you? What part of budget goes into that bucket or how much time do we tell our salespeople to invest there?

On Mike's blog, there are some great comments but I think a comment by Justin Hitt sums it up beautifully:

It doesn't matter where customers come from, as long as you are profitably bringing them on board and providing value worth having.

For best b2b sales results, it is all about building a portfolio of lead generation activities then optimizing the numbers. Leads don't mean anything if they don't convert into profitable customers.

By tracking lead source and campaign you'll know which profitable customers came from where, but that doesn't mean you only do b2b lead generation in that channel. Instead you've established a baseline for comparison.

Smart guy Justin. Now, where do you weigh in?

(Photo credit: Mundoo)

Perspective on Prospecting: Call High or Call Low?

Cindy Littlefield — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:54:00 GMT

The other night I saw the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness." (Note: their spelling not mine.) It is a brilliant father/son movie that was a real tearjerker. At times hard to watch.

It's a true story about Chris Gardner, who is in a dead-end job selling door to door in the early 80's. He can hardly pay his bills and put food on the table. He discovers a highly competitive internship at Dean Witter and applies - 6 months, a "training period" & no salary.

In the internship, he has to sell investment products into large companies. He is given a list of prospects and told to start making calls from the bottom of the list to the top. The list was in order of total capital investment.

He soon learns that starting at the bottom of the list is getting him nowhere. So bucking his instructions, he goes directly to the top of the list and makes a call. He gets a meeting with a top level executive and develops a relationship. He doesn't get the executive's business, but he networks his way through the executive's friends and (SPOILER ALERT) earns himself the single position. When I saw that I thought what a brilliant move, starting at the top of the list.

It got me thinking: In your Reps outbound calling efforts, who do they start calling first? Do they call the top of the food chain or somewhere in the middle? Or do they call both?

Nigel Edelshain shares his point of view in his ebook; Prospecting is Changing: Ideas to harness this change and tilt the playing field your way. Nigel argues:

Call "high" or call "low"? Both!

"High" or "low" is relative. Depending on the type of product you are selling "high" does not always mean the CEO!

I've noticed in the technology industry specifically that to counteract lengthening sales-cycles companies have repositioned their products so they can be purchased at a lower level in an organization. In these circumstances it does not make sense to call the CxO suite when appropriate decision-makers who are more accessible reside at lower levels in your target accounts.

On the other hand, you do not want to call too low for your product and "work your way up" to the decision-maker you need. This approach inevitably fails. You have to convince people at lower levels to give you access to their boss - something people rarely feel comfortable with.

Nigel talks about focusing tightly on the highest probability buyers and the need to develop a "prospect profile" identifying: which markets and which individuals you are targeting within those markets.

So should your Reps be selling top-down or bottom-up? It depends on your market. Ask yourself these questions:

Will calling high lengthen or shorten the sales cycle?
Will calling low require your Reps to bargain for access to the decision maker?
Should you tell your Reps to be a Chris Gardner and throw caution to the wind and just go for it or do you want them to follow a process?

I would love to hear your thoughts on what is most effective. Thanks for sharing!

(Photo credit: A-m-z-xO)

Uncover a New Lead Source: Trigger Events for Sales

Trish Bertuzzi — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 08:22:00 GMT

Craig Elias, the creator of Trigger Event Selling is today's guest blogger.
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In your team's efforts to keep their prospect list clean, does a bounced email, or a returned piece of direct mail, trigger them to delete this person from their lists? If so, you are missing one of the biggest opportunities to increase sales.

Here's why...

One of the three keys to sales success is timing - getting to right person at EXACTLY the right time.

When you have the right timing the sale almost happens by itself - no challenges getting to the Decision Maker, understanding their dissatisfaction, presenting a solution, or closing the sale.

So how is a bounced email relevant to timing? Because it's a sign there has been a change in people at the organization. A change in people is the #2 Trigger Event to create timing.

When you harness a bounced email you can:

Increase close ratios
Shorten sales cycles
Sell at higher prices

So how does Sales harness this trigger event? Read on...

Timing and the Window of Dissatisfaction

The best timing is after a Decision Maker realizes that the Status Quo is no longer sufficient but before they start the process of Searching for Alternatives.

During this powerful selling window - the Window of Dissatisfaction - the Decision Maker wants to solve this problem but they are so busy that they haven't gotten to this problem, YET!

According to my research, the average sales person is 5x more likely to make a sale simply by getting to Decision Makers who are in the Window of Dissatisfaction, before the competition.

The Window of Dissatisfaction and Trigger Events

The Trigger Events that shift a Decision Maker from the buying mode of Status Quo into the Window of Dissatisfaction typically fall into one of three categories:

Bad Experience: A decision maker has a bad experience with a product/service, with people, or with a provider.
Change or Transition: There has been a change or transition in people, places, or priorities within an organization.
Awareness: A decision maker becomes aware of the need to change for legal, risk-avoidance, or economic reasons.

I'm willing to bet that any Inside Sales person (with 3+ years selling) already has had several prospects become customers when a buyer, or decision maker, changed.

This change in people is the 2nd most powerful Trigger Event that creates sales opportunities for savvy Inside Sales teams.

The unfortunate thing is that the vast, vast, majority of Inside Sales Reps miss the Trigger Event of a bounced email to get in front of Decision Makers who recently entered the Window of Dissatisfaction.

Harnessing the Trigger Events That Create a Window of Dissatisfaction

Don't miss one of the biggest opportunities to create new customers or generate additional revenue from existing customers.

Know that the Trigger Event of a change in people creates a minimum of three opportunities for a savvy Inside Sales Rep to follow up on.

The next time you get a bounced email, don`t let this trigger you to take people off your direct mail or email newsletter list AND doing nothing else, have your finger on the #2 Trigger Event and follow up on:

The person who left - where did they go?
The person who left - who took their place?
The person who took their place - where did they come from?

You can read more about Trigger Events by visiting http://www.triggereventselling.com/

(Trish here again) Thanks Craig. I have been in sales a long time and never thought about email bounces as a potential lead source. So I ask you our readers, what other lead sources have been sitting right under our noses? Share your thoughts please!