The term ‘call guide’ is often mistakenly considered synonymous with the term ’script.’  Perhaps in some circles, that is, indeed the case, but not at eti.  Since our inception in 1987, we have never used scripts.

Scripts are intended to be delivered verbatim by Telephone Sales Representatives (TSR’s) as they conduct their interactions with prospects.  Most times these scripts are TELL-type documents that essentially require the TSR to deliver/read the exact canned message regardless of the responses or needs of the person they are calling.  The key skills for the caller are outwardly focused on reading a message as opposed to engaging in a dialog, probing and listening for need, pain and interest and being able to adjust accordingly.

Why a script?  Because TSR’s working in such environments usually cannot be trusted to engage in a meaningful discussion with their prospects.  Neither their educational background nor their business experience gives them the ability to undertake the essential consultative dialog that is required.

Typically, the script structure has a fixed blurb about the product / service / charity / politician being sold or promoted and then some responses are provided for the most frequent questions and or objections.  Scripts are generally used in low-cost consumer and fund raising environments or in commodity Business-to-Business (B2B) applications where brand and market positioning are not as important as breadth of coverage.  They are also often used in high-pressure boiler rooms where ‘dialing for dollars is the name of the game.

Call Guides, on the other hand, are used to engage a prospect in a focused discussion (a consultative dialog) between a Business Developer (BD) and a prospect.  Call Guides do not dictate in any way exactly what must be said, how or in what sequence.  Instead, they set a framework for the prospective conversation.  In our world, a call guide is comprised of probing questions that are designed to stimulate a discussion about the product, service or solution about which we are calling and how it might benefit their organization.  The idea is to seek and develop a “mutual perception of need” between our clients’ offerings and the needs of the prospect organization.  Ultimately, it is there to provide a road map for the BD to navigate the prospecting waters in order for both parties to assess the potential for a mutually valuable business relationship.

Generally, Call Guides are used in sophisticated B2B environments for more complex lead generation and qualification programs.  Using call guides requires BD’s with solid education, intelligence, relationship development skills, business acumen, aptitude and comfort engaging in a consultative relationship with someone who typically knows far more than they do about the topics being discussed.  These are precisely the characteristics that we seek when evaluating people to work as BDs at eti Sales Support.

The Aberdeen group is out with their 2009 buyers guide.  This study focuses on the Best Practices of Best-in-class companies who deploy outsourced B2B Teleservices.

Some highlights …

Best-in-Class companies have sales teams with an average of 90% achievement of the overall sales team quota

Best-in-Class companies increased their average revenue per sales rep by 10% on a year-over-year basis

Best-in-Class companies experienced an average 7% year-over-year improvement of their bid-to-win ratio

Here is the press release:

SOURCE: Aberdeen Group

  

Dec 10, 2009 10:00 ET

B2B TeleServices: The 2009 Buyer’s Guide

Going Beyond the Simple Acquisition of Flat Data or Sales Appointments

BOSTON, MA–(Marketwire – December 10, 2009) – Top performing sales organizations are meeting the challenges of increasing the quality of incoming leads, as well as the overall size of their pipeline, by turning to external providers of business-to-business (B2B) teleservices for a wide variety of deliverables, according to a new research study published by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS).

“B2B TeleServices: The 2009 Buyer’s Guide,” which examined 206 organizations deploying outsourced B2B teleservices, found that the sales teams of Best-in-Class companies achieved an average of 90% of the overall sales team quota.

“When organizations deploy an outsourced B2B teleservices provider to acquire and deliver some form of sales opportunities, they are essentially seeking to fill the selling pipeline with as many qualified leads as possible,” says Peter Ostrow, Research Director, Sales Effectiveness, Aberdeen Group, the report’s author. “Leading companies are building substantial, multi-faceted relationships with solution providers that go far beyond the simple acquisition of flat data or sales appointments.”

The report reveals what leading companies have been able to achieve through deployment of outsourced B2B teleservices, such as:

 

--  7% yearly increase on average in bid-to-win ratio

--  Average annual revenue per sales rep has increased 11% year-over-year

Click here to obtain your copy.

Final part of a three-part blog

Part 1 | Part 2

In Part 1 of my three-part “BANT rant,” I expressed doubts about BANT being sufficient as the determinant of qualified sales opportunities.  First and foremost, BANT takes a seller-centric perspective that doesn’t consider the ways in which buyers think, at least not with respect to purchases that are not commodities.  Second, I suggested that while the BANT elements might be necessary for a buying decision, by themselves they are not sufficient to ensure that a purchase decision will ever be made, or if that purchase decision will be favorable to you.

In the second part, I reviewed each of the BANT elements, exploring in sequence why I felt that the BANT model is overly simplistic and fails to consider the buyer’s perspective.  I argued that requiring a Budget, for example, was less relevant than having adequate Resources (to acquire your solution), and might even work against you if that budget was determined without your input.

Then, I suggested that Need was also seller-oriented; the buyer is focused more on having a reason to act…now if the problems are imperative.  We have a multitude of needs that often remain unfulfilled for lack of impetus.  And, depending on how vital it is to obtain an adequate solution, the resources will flow accordingly.  Finally, I argued that decisions (perhaps for anything other than commodities) are virtually never made by a single individual, especially in the enterprise.

In all, I thought the following questions were far more buyer-oriented and relevant to how and when a decision would be made:

• Is there a compelling reason to do something?
• Are the stakeholders who would feel the impact included in decision-making?
• Is there a solution out there that can resolve the problem using the resources available?
• And, are there substantial consequences for failure to act timely?

Perhaps the very best place to start is by taking a hard look at the sales process and analyzing the critical stages.  First, a statement that may seem, on the surface to be overly simplistic, but when you consider it carefully, you may find yourself in full agreement.

The biggest impediment to closing a sale is inertia.  And, overcoming inertia is the primary challenge.
Look at some of the language of selling: “value is more important than cost,” “it’s vital to provide clear ROI,” “establish mutual perception of need,” “where’s the pain?” and so on.  These are all perfectly legitimate perspectives, and I have made similar statements like that many times in coaching sales people.

But, the fact is, you can definitively establish value and pain and need and ROI and yet the prospective buyer simply doesn’t buy.  They continue the status quo with all of its inherent costs and pain (all of which they have openly acknowledged).

I can’t help believing that the reason for inaction is that the perceived cost of changing the way in which they currently operate – financially, emotionally (more likely) or both – exceeds the cost of maintaining the status quo, even to the point where status quo leads to the failure of the company.  It may not be rational, but it is quite human.

So, if inertia is the critical factor that a sales person needs to overcome in order to successfully conclude a sale, then it is vital for them to have an understanding of the prospect company’s orientation to change.  Wouldn’t it be important for them to know if a company is risk averse or, alternatively, is an early adopter, or somewhere else along the continuum?  And wouldn’t that be a valuable element to capture and rate relative to the qualifying characteristics?

This is clearly the missing element in the traditional BANT paradigm because, regardless of whether you view the sales process from a buyer or seller’s perspective, an opportunity can’t be seen as fully sales qualified unless there is a legitimate possibility that the prospect company will make the necessary changes.
So what we do have?  I suggest “I CARE”:

• Imperative – a compelling reason to consider a new solution
• Consequences of inaction
• Agreement among stakeholders
• Resources to obtain a solution
• Environment conducive to change (overcoming inertia)

This acronym represents a more practical and accurate method for defining a qualified sales opportunity and it is equally applicable to both seller and buyer.

First, it’s important to uncover a compelling reason for a company to take an action to meet a need or resolve a challenge.  Next, the consequences of inaction need to be sufficient to warrant a search for a solution.  Is there consensus for taking action among all the key constituents (stakeholders) who are feeling the impact of the need/challenge as well as those responsible for resolving it?  Then, a solution needs to available and the capacity to obtain the resources needed for a solution needs to exist (remember, if it’s important enough, the resources can be found, regardless of budgetary considerations).  And, last and most important, how amenable is the organization to effecting change?

Before I end this, I don’t want to forget the promise I made at the end of the first part.  Here is the setting:

You are walking down the street on your way to an important meeting.  It is lunchtime and you are hungry, you have the resources and sufficient time to eat.  There are a multitude of restaurants and street vendors, including some of your favorites.  Although you are hungry, eating is not your highest priority.

Your decision to stop and eat is reasonably complex.  There are competing needs, at varying levels of urgency.  You are hungry (a function of an early breakfast), abetted by a regular ritual of eating lunch at the prescribed time.  So your internal debate will take a multitude of factors into account.  For example:

• I’m hungry
• This meeting is very important
• I always eat at this time of the day
• I have sufficient time to eat before my meeting
• I would love a few moments to check my email and voice messages before my meeting, (but I could do that without eating)
• If I don’t eat, my growing hunger may become a distraction during the meeting
• I have more than enough money in my pocket and, besides, my bill for lunch will be covered as a reimbursable expense

While considering your options, these and other questions will arise until you make a decision.  And, of course, making no decision is equally a decision.  In complex businesses, making no decision is what happens all too frequently – because the cost of doing something has ripple effects throughout the organization.  Inertia – maintaining the status quo (sometimes even in the face of all rationality such as unquestionable ROI) – is too often the easiest course of action.

How would this decision-making process be represented in the I CARE model?

• Imperative: hunger, time of day (lunchtime)
• Consequences of inaction: poor meeting performance, distraction
• Agreement among stakeholders: You (and your growling stomach)
• Resources: money is not an issue, and it’s a reimbursable expense
• Environment conducive to change:  it boils down to inertia, doesn’t it?

How can a proprietor get you to stop and eat?  What can they do to raise the threshold high enough to overcome inertia?

You experience the answer all the time in those situations, don’t you?  Some vendors and restaurants pump out tantalizing smells of their luscious offerings and tease you with them.  Others do something with their display; maybe they toss the pizza in the front window, or display the desserts or even offer you a complimentary taste in front of their establishment.  Maybe they offer free Wi-Fi that enables you to easily and quickly check your messages.

All of those actions and offerings are designed to entice you to into their establishment and overcome inertia.  When they hit the right hot buttons for you, you’re sold.  But even having decided where you may eat, unless all the other factors are aligned you still may not physically go in (inertia).  It’s only at the point that you decide to CHANGE the course you’re on right now that the sale may actually get consummated.

To conclude what we’ve been exploring over the past few weeks, BANT has been a useful and important early model for focusing the qualification process.  But it needs some rethinking because it fails to consider the prospective buyer’s viewpoint and is inadequate in identifying the elements that are the key determinants for concluding a sale.

When a seller has a clear understanding of how a prospective buyer makes their decisions, and solid insight into how the prospect views the issues and their proclivity to change the way in which they behave, they have more chance of success.  This more closely aligns their goals with those of the prospect and provides them with far better insight as to the hot buttons that will serve to overcome inertia (which is, after all, the heart of the sales challenge).

And isn’t the purpose of defining a qualified lead all about providing sales people with opportunities that offer them a better chance of closing more sales in less time?  Success in that endeavor is the basis for enhancing sales productivity, maximizing ROI and increasing sales revenue.

BANT, however time tested, does not necessarily increase the chance of sales success.  I CARE does it better.

Part two of a three-part blog:

(See first part.)

In Part 1 of our three-part “BANT rant,” I began by raising some doubts about the efficacy of the BANT approach being the defining factor in determining a qualified sales opportunity.  I offered two main reasons why I felt that BANT wasn’t sufficient as a definition.

First and foremost, BANT offers a seller-centric perspective.  Budget, Authority, Need and Timing are not the ways in which buyers think, at least not with respect to purchases that are not commodities.  They think about business challenges, resources, relationships and the potential (and actual) consequences of action and inaction.  And organizational politics come into play, as tends to happen all too frequently with real people in real life, even when there is alignment within an organization as to goals and objectives.

Second, I suggested that while the BANT elements might be necessary for a buying decision, by themselves they are not sufficient to ensure that a decision will ever be made to purchase, or if that purchase decisions will be favorable to you.

Let’s look at each of the elements independently:

B (Budget)
Plainly, if a prospect already has a defined budget, then you are probably too late to the party.  They may have already been in discussion with one or more of your competitors, and that’s how they came up with that budget..  Or they may have established a budget based upon some other basis (research), but it is not likely to be the budget you would preferably craft for them, nor does it consider the value of your solution (remember, it’s rarely about price and generally about value).

It’s akin to the RFP dilemma.  If a company has issued an RFP, and you were not involved in setting those standards, then it was established based upon a vision that did not include your solution.  And, unless your solution matches the requirements to a tee, you may not want to get involved.  RFP’s, for the most part, create commoditized procurement decisions, not value-based decisions.  If you are not selling a commodity, and if you don’t want a decision made essentially on the basis of price, then you need an opportunity to demonstrate your value.

The bottom line is that it may be preferable for them not to have a budget (just as you’d prefer them not to have an RFP).  Yet you do want them to have the resources needed to fund a solution to the needs they have and the challenges they are facing, preferably at a level that makes your solution affordable.

Ideally, however, you want to help them craft both a solution and a budget and you should want to be there before that process is initiated.  So, the very best time to get involved is before they have a budget and before they have envisioned a solution.

Given all of that, is Budget truly a qualifying criterion?  Now we’re left with ANT or, if we substitute Resources for Budget, we have RANT.

A (Authority)
Most people assume that this means that you have identified or (preferably) are engaged with the decision-maker.  This is way too simplistic for the real world.  The problem is that, in virtually every situation imaginable (especially in a complex B2B setting), there is no single decision-maker.  Decisions are never made by a single person and, perhaps, never even by a single department.  The truth is that most enterprises have matrix relationships in which anyone, at virtually any level, can raise their hands and put the brakes on a decision or a shift in direction.

Even in small “mom and pop” businesses, decisions are rarely made by a single person, even the owner.  In almost every situation, there are trusted advisors, spouses, key staff and even business colleagues outside of the company who can influence a buying decision significantly.

What is vital is to gain an understanding of how decisions in areas related to your solution are made within organizations.  You need to know who is typically involved in that process and gain an understanding of the relationships (from both a personal and business perspective) among the key people involved.

Finally, you also want to understand another critical element:  the company’s orientation to change.  Is this a company that takes risks, or are they risk averse?  Are they somewhere in the middle?  Their orientation toward change will tell you a great deal more than you can imagine about the strategies you should employ to move them toward adopting your solution.

N (Need)
Of all of the BANT elements, this is the most seller-centric of all.  I can’t begin to count all the times that a sales representative has come to me and said, “It’s a slam dunk … they NEED our solution.”  In the story I related at the end of the first segment about walking down the street at lunchtime on the way to a meeting, the need for food is clear.  We need it to live and we need it to satisfy and resolve pangs of hunger.  But, do we need it NOW?  It may be lunchtime, but there are competing needs and demands that have greater urgency at present and render that need less vital.

So, it’s not about need, it’s about some compelling event or reason that raises the urgency of that need to an “act now” level.  Absent that level of motivation, there is no credible impetus for change and no substantive reason for the resources to be expended, even if the money is available and someone is willing to spend it.

T (Time frame)
This is also a seller-centric view.  What is really meant here is, “is this opportunity going to come to fruition in the near-term so it becomes worthwhile for me, as a salesperson, to spend my time on it?”  And, the truth is, in and of itself, it is meaningless.  Time is only important in the context of all of the other elements.

Do we have a compelling event?  Is everyone who is feeling the impact of this event involved in the decision making process?  Is there a solution out there that can resolve our problem using the resources we have available?  And, what is the consequence to us (as a company) if we fail to act timely?

Those are the more important determinants of the relative value of a potential sales opportunity.

In the third and last segment of this discussion, we’ll focus in on putting this all together into a practical framework.  And then, perhaps, we can begin to consider an answer to the question I raised at the end of my walk in the city at lunchtime story:  what can a proprietor do to get you to eat at his or her establishment?

Part one of a three-part blog

Four commonly accepted parameters are almost universally used to define a qualified lead.  The folks at IBM are widely credited for the development of an acronym for those parameters – BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe).

More formally, the acronym is applied as follows:

• Is there a Budget allocated for a solution (and is it sufficient for your solution)?
• Has the Authority for the purchasing process been identified (and are you in touch)?
• Is the Need for a solution well defined (and does it match your capabilities)?
• What is the Timeframe for purchasing and implementing a solution?  Is it in the next six months, 12 months, or over a year?

Many companies use this paradigm as the heart of their lead scoring process.  It helps them decide how and where to focus their resources to bring revenue into the pipeline.  So it’s important to confirm that the BANT approach is both valid and sufficient to meet that need.

I plan on exploring these issues in detail in this three-part blog.  You can think of it as my three-part BANT rant, starting with this segment as an overview.

From my vantage point, there are two obvious problems with BANT.  First and foremost, it is seller-centric.  And, as every successful sales person with experience knows, it’s never about you (the seller), it’s ALWAYS about them (the prospect).

If you fail to look at the relationship from the prospect’s (buyer’s) perspective, the likelihood of making a sale is diminished – unless, of course, your offering is so far superior to the competition that the decision is a no-brainer.  But if that were the case, then your closing ratio would be very close to 100%!  Correct?

The second problem is that this seller vs. prospect perspective pushes BANT off the mark.  You do need money, a decision-making process, a need and (assuming it’s important), a time frame for making a decision and implementing a solution.  But the BANT parameters themselves are only tangential to what’s truly important in selling.  And, as a whole, while these parameters are arguably necessary, by themselves they are not sufficient as qualifying criteria.  They lack essential characteristics that are, perhaps, even more important than those four.

Let me offer one simple example as “food for thought” (sorry in advance for this).

Food is a universal need for all living things.  No argument there, I presume.  We can survive without food for a reasonably long time; maybe even weeks.  But, without food, we will end up just a dead as we would without oxygen.  There’s the “N” in BANT.

So let’s consider this scenario:

You’re walking down a busy city street around lunchtime.  You’re hungry, but you’re also on your way to a very important meeting with a new client or a hot prospect.  You’ve got plenty of money in your pocket and a budget reserved for lunch (there’s the “B”) and you need to make a decision (you are obviously the “A”) as to whether or not to stop to eat before the meeting.  You’ve got 30 minutes until your meeting starts and you’re five minutes away from the location, so time is more than sufficient (“T”).

You pass a multitude of restaurants and street vendors along the way.  How can the owner of a food establishment predict how likely you are to stop and eat?  And, what, if anything, can the proprietor do to get you to eat at his or her establishment?  (By the way, this example would be just a valid if there were only one food source along the route – and it was your favorite.)

If you think about this dilemma from the perspective of the proprietor as well as your own, you’ll begin to understand the case I plan to make over the next two weeks.  I plan to focus more directly on why I think BANT is only part of the story and, specifically, what those shortcomings are.  And then, I’ll explore ways to add value to BANT so that you are more aligned with the buyer’s perspective.

Finally, I’ll offer an alternative viewpoint on how to better define a qualified lead – identifying the factors that are both necessary and sufficient – and one that should enable sales people to focus their energy on opportunities with greater potential for success.

 Sheldon Sachs

How much are you investing in organizing and conducting events such as Trade Shows, Webinars, Seminars and conferences?  Do you have a plan for maximizing attendance and optimizing the ROI on that investment?Quite often, companies feel compelled to create and attend events, in spite of their high cost and (all too) frequently low ROI, because that’s what their competition is doing.

Instead of developing a plan to maximize the ROI on their investment they choose, instead, to reduce their investment to a bare minimum. The strategy is just to be there to “show their faces.”

That investment has now been reduced to a cost of doing business and is quite unlikely to provide any tangible return at all.At eti, we provide a range of support services designed to maximize attendance in their events.    And optimize their investments, big or small.  Over the years we’ve had some great success in “lifting” average attendance by as much as 100%  or more by engaging in a systematic person-to-person interaction with key prospects.  And we’ve also had success in identifying qualified sales opportunities as a by-product of that process.  So our client gets more eyes and ears for their message and some fully qualified sales opportunities to boot that might otherwise not have been identified as quickly (if at all).

Successes such as this require a cohesive strategy up front.  So here are some simple suggestions that you may want to think about when planning your next event.  (Just to be clear the ideas here refer to direct event recruitment not PR and marketing promotional activity which are also essential to enhancing success)

Integrated Email/Telemarketing Tactics

• Start early (6 weeks out) and email often�
  • Incentives
    • Offer an early bird discount to motivate early registration
    • Offer a volume registration discount
  • Segment your list.
    • Mail less to known customers and prospects.  No need to inundate the ones that already respect your brand and have your solutions (unless the purpose of the event is specifically directed at clients)
    • Mail more to ‘cold’ prospects to promote both your brand as well as the event
  • Mail weekly for 2-3 weeks to the same audience making sure to remove registrants and opt outs before production
  • Provide a toll free hotline for prospects to call .. ask questions and register.  Or better still if they can’t attend then to let you know they have a need
    • Have an infrastructure ready and trained to handle these inquiries
  • Make sure to track email opens and click throughs and leverage the data to increase registration
    • Orchestrate an outbound call to people who clicked through to the website but did not register
  • Outbound calling effort to focus on the 20% that will produce 80% of the revenue to start immediately after the first email
    • Develop custom call guides
      • Track why prospects respond positively or not to your offer
      • Gather market intelligence on what would attract prospects to future events
      • Capture new contacts and verify that emails have reached the prospects you targeted andthat they are the correct targets
    • Extend the above offers
      • Trade shows specific …
        • Offer an exclusive appointment with key executives.
        • If you’re having an extra event (party) invite your key prospects personally.
        • Focus on geography.  It’s more likely you will get greater attendance from the key executives you want to talk to, if they do not have to travel great distances.
    • Confirm registrations 24 hours before the event

After the event:

Depending on the type of event you should consider including the following in your post event tactics in order to maximize ROI by identifying “sales ready” prospects and nurturing those that may convert over time.

Trade Shows:

• Segment the prospects:
  Actual discussions or registrations at the booth
  • These prospects should be called via an outbound effort ASAP.  
  • Time here is of the essence (within 24-48 hours is ideal) as it is likely these prospects are also looking at your competitors.
• Dropped card in the bowl
  • Less productive segment.  
  • Send an email with thanks for visiting and then test an outbound calling strategy to evaluate the quality of these inquiries.
• Trade Show attendees
  • Unless able to be segmented these lists rarely are productive. 
  • However, a low cost outbound email as well as and some outbound calling may be productive in some circumstances and should be tested
• Webinars/Seminars/Conferences:
  • Attendees:
    • Email immediately after the event thanking them for attending
    • Conduct an outbound program to further qualify interest and sales potential
    • Those participants who represent the 20% that could generate 80% of the revenues should be called within 48 hours.
  • Non Attendees:
    • Email … “Sorry you could not make it …”
    • Call, qualify, stimulate interest and awareness and drive into your lead pipeline
      • Note:  eti’s experience is that non-attendees often produce better qualified leads/opportunities than the attendee group.  Ignore these prospects at your own risk.

eti has significant experience managing the entire recruitment effort.  As well as the post event lead generation elements.  IN addition, we offer a comprehensive registration capability to manage multiple events/locations and more.  Please call Sheldon Sachs (1.800.466.4384) to discuss how eti can help you maximize your event ROI.

What is rarely taken into account in lead generation and lead qualification programs is the ultimate value of developing and building a prospect pipeline.

For example, for every lead that is generated by eti for our clients, we estimate some four to six additional prospects that require nurturing over time and of these a high percentage will develop into valid sales-ready opportunities at some point.

Few companies have the infrastructure (let alone the patience) to effectively undertake the task of nurturing future prospects. However, the rewards for those companies which accomplish this task successfully are potentially immense.

Our statistics reliably indicate that for every 100 or so prospects nurtured in the prospect pipeline, will render some 20-40 more sales-ready opportunities over time.   (Yes 20%+.)

Only you know the average value of each new customer.  And only you know the average number of years new customers will remain active purchasers. But the incremental profits from those extra sales minimize the nurturing costs and maximize the return on your overall marketing investments (ROMI).

Too few companies recognize the inherent future value of this pipeline and therefore the costs of nurturing appear to be disproportionately high.This could be a serious mistake. It is also short sighted because there has already been a substantial investment made in identifying these prospects.  So why waste and discard them?

Let’s take the following simple scenario:

Now if you factor in some average revenues – say $20,000 with a conversion rate of 25% – the total revenues from the Opportunity Pipeline will be some $500,000. And the revenues from the prospect pipeline in the first year will therefore total $250,000.  The sum is $750k.

In the first instance the ROI (cost of sales) is 10%,

Together with the sales from the prospect pipeline, the sum is reduced to only 8%.  i.e. An incremental increase of 20%.

But it probably gets better.  Our experience shows that opportunities coming out of the prospect pipeline that have been nurtured over time enjoy great sales conversion ratios.  So ultimately the ROI may even be substantially better than in the above example.

For more information on how eti can develop an effective and profitable lead nurturing effort and maximize your sales opportunity pipelines please call 1.800.466.4384.

Have you gone to a website … filled in a form to request further information on a product or service?  I have.

In fact yesterday I went to a website that offered a solution I had an interest in purchasing and wanted pricing information.  When I clicked on the link it required me to fill out a detailed form – which I was happy to do.

I then received the following email:

“We have received your email message with the subject:

   “Pricing Plan Information Request

“If you do not receive a response within 48 hours, please send your message again.

“Thank you,”
Company Name

What a turn off.  Can you believe the last sentence?  They want me to get back to them if they could not be bothered to call me or send me the requested information.  Give me a break – their chances of getting my business are zilch, zero.

Here at eti we primarily deliver outsourced lead generation and lead qualification solutions for clients. So we also often get what I call the dreaded ‘Send me more information’ request.  Generally speaking we recognize this is an attempt to get our Business Developer off the phone and we introduce some subtle responses to control the conversation and guide into a more meaningful direction.

However, that being said it is certainly necessary at times to send out information via email and it’s essential to do this professionally to move the prospect closer to the point where he or she may be ready to engage.  It certainly should not be done in a way that turns the prospect off!

Here are some rules we suggest you follow:

1. Use plain text rather than HTML.  
2. Personalize.  Dear Mike or Dear Mr. Falkson is far more effective than impersonal mail that starts out ‘We have received your email message on the subject . . .”
3. To ensure readership use a meaningful subject title which will be instantly recognized as relating to the discussion that motivated your email fulfillment.
4. Be comprehensive.  The tendency to be very brief could be unproductive whereas longer but relevant personalized email (as also in personalized direct mail) is more effective.
5. Add links to relevant content that help make your case.  Don’t include any that are not directly applicable.
6. Maintain interest.  Suggest you’ll follow up with in the next day or so.  Include a direct line for the prospect to call you.
7. The signatory must be a person with a name and a title.  Must be someone the prospect can reach out to via email or phone.

Some further guidelines:

1. You need to track (if possible) email opens.  (Only possible from html email).
2. You do need to track every click through and link it back to your prospect records in the CRM system.  In fact you may want to develop dynamic triggers that alert your Business Developers and other salesforce participants of the prospect’s click throughs and the content accessed.  Furthermore integration into a lead nurturing process can be extremely lucrative.�
   1. Develop metrics to calculate how many people converted into high level or regular sales prospects after receiving your email.
   2. Metrics should also enable tracking click through conversions.
   3. Consider hiring a free lance professional copywriter. Effective copy is at the heart of the matter and should be well worth the investment.

At eti we take care of our client’s email fulfillment emails as part of our service. 

We’ll be happy to talk to you about improving your sales lead generation and qualification programs. Call V.P. Business Developement Shelley Sachs   at 914.747.3030 ext. 3450  for more information.

B2BOnline has just published an article written by me entitles ‘The value of traditional outbound direct marketing’.

Client here to view it.

 Michael Falkson

Having viewed the development of social networking in the past year from the sidelines I think it’s time I had my say.

The main question needing an answer is, does Social Networking as a lead generation medium, work? 

Networking has always been an obvious way to develop business and business opportunities.  What’s more it’s very effective. However, the fact is that this activity is rapidly moving from the club or the golf course, or the local business network to the WEB.  This provides you with the opportunity to expand your contacts substantially, unhampered by geography or company size.

Networking for lead generation reminds me of the insurance sales rep who’s just out of training.  He’s all gung ho and motivated to make it happen.  Yet where does he first turn? To no one’s surprise he turns to his natural environment – his personal network.  First to the family, then to friends and acquaintances. Then to the prospects they recommend.

However, there’s no doubt that as he ventures farther afield to include strangers, his network will yield fewer genuine opportunities. Though he swims manfully against the stream, absent good luck the new recruit may not survive. His only hope for the future is to engage in an effective lead generation effort before his money runs out. Or to hope the company he works for will slip him a few sales ready leads to help him stay afloat.

LinkedIn

I’ve subscribed to a number of groups on LinkedIn these past few years. Frankly it’s been a big disappointment.  There are large numbers of participants out there trying to sell whatever it is they sell. They contribute nothing or very little to the dialogue.  Others are there to recruit.  These groups do seem to constitute fertile ground to find staff – much as happens in regular social networks.�
From time to time I also notice people posting topics for discussion that are on point. But for the most part it’s fairly obvious that the questions posed are self serving – designed more than anything else to promote the reputation of the poster.

Twitter

Twitter is another phenomenon I have struggled with.  I suppose if you admire and respect someone and want to know what he/she is thinking or doing every day, then being a follower is useful.  On the other hand if you’re a thought leader on a particular subject – with many followers – it’s also likely that being a twitterer could be useful. 

I tend to think of myself as a thought leader.  I write, I hold a goodly variety of opinions and I’m capable of communicating thoughts to my clients and prospects via a variety of channels.  So I ask myself – do I want to sit and post tweets day in and day out for my followers?  Fact is I don’t and being a follower or being followed 24×7 is really not my thing.

There could however, be some potential in Twitter in terms of Lead Generation. But this depends how numerous your “follower” network is and how motivated they are to become buyers or recommenders.

How is eti embracing the new networks to improve lead generation results for its clients?

eti’s primary business is focused on B2B (complex) lead generation.  Our ultimate goal is to to maximize client’s sales force productivity. Here then are some of the things we’re doing to exploit the new resources.

Firstly it needs to be appreciated that these networks are often fantastic information resources. That, technically, is the business we’re in.  Because we engage with prospects in consultative dialogues for the purpose of identifying information and characteristics which indicates the prospect’s ability and need to purchase our clients’ solutions.  To achieve that purpose our Business Developers actively participate in the networks to better understand the market places our clients do business in. 

Secondly, we link directly to these resources from i*collaborator – eti’s CRM/PRM framework. This enables us to search dynamically within LinkedIn, Plaxo and Facebook, to extract third party information that could be leveraged to reveal big fish prospects. Nor are we shy to hook smaller fish which have good growth potential.

Thirdly, we make these facilities directly available to our clients via their Opportunity Dashboards so that their sales persons are motivated to leverage the new opportunities without their having to do the research themselves. 

What else might we do?  Well we’re always open to new ideas and would welcome and appreciate your thoughts.

Conclusion

As a lead generation tool for the most part the networks mentioned remain on the periphery.  In their current incarnations they will probably not become mainstream lead generation tools.

However they do have enormous potential as tools to build influence and credibility. And that’s the best use of a network.  Because with that credibility will come the desired recommendations and referrals that will help you maximize your lead generation efforts.