Experience shows that the relationship between Business Developers (BDs) and the sales people who ultimately are our primary constituents is very important to the success of a business development effort.  A basic element in this relationship is the need to foster bi-directional communication as a regular discipline.

Remember, the goal is not to hand off a qualified lead or set appointments and let you battle it out on your own.  The BD team (at eti) is in your corner because they share a collective responsibility to see that every sales opportunity represents real potential.

The identification of new sales opportunities is not what defines our success; it is the generation of more revenue and an ROI that justifies a long standing partnership. You want to be sure, therefore, that you get everything you need to enable the opportunities that are handed off to your sales team to be as strong as possible.

We know full well that the sales opportunity pipeline (and the prospect pipeline) is a fluid, dynamic process.  At eti, this understanding is what distinguishes us from our competitors.

Therefore  . . .

1. When you have a question or concern, please call us to discuss.
2. When you need more information about an opportunity we have identified, let us know.  We’ll call the prospect again to obtain what you need to move the opportunity forward.
3. If you want anyone else on the prospect side to be in on an appointment, tell us, and we will work to arrange that.
4. If you have had an initial call with a matching prospect not yet ready to engage or buy, and want us to take back the opportunity to nurture and move it further along, our BD team is ready and willing to do so.
5. Our BDs will not be too shy to call you if they need clarification in order to move a prospect forward, or see an opportunity to brain storm prospect-specific next step strategies.
6. Your success is our success and we will do whatever it takes to make us both successful.

We at eti have no desire to be your “vendor.”  We will work much harder and smarter to earn the status of “partner.”

What are the primary differences between Appointment Setting and Lead Generation efforts?

• It’s relatively easy to get appointments.  Even with top decision makers in large companies.
• It’s generally much harder to identify genuine purchase potential in addition to setting an appointment with the key  individuals who would ultimately be involved in making a purchasing decision.

Why?

Appointment Setting:

Assuming the solutions you offer and your brand is well positioned in the marketplace, then many executives may be at least willing to “learn” more about what you might be able to do for them.

If you’re brand is not well known, then it’s certainly much harder.

However, when little or no commitment is involved, it’s an easier row to hoe.

This does not, however, signal that they have real buying interest.  They may have a need.  They may even have some pain.  But that’s not what’s being asked of them.  They’re simply being asked to say yes to “learning more.”  Most of all, it doen’t mean that their organization has the capacity to implement the required change in the near term.

Yes, a good sales person who is worth his or her salt might take this opportunity and, over time, develop it to the point that a sale can take place.  However, rarely do appointment setting programs generate near-term sales.  And rarely are sales persons efficient and patient enough to nurture leads over time to ensure their long-term success.

Of course, you can always get lucky.  But luck is not a strategy.
It’s always useful to remember in this context that in any given sales force the 80/20 rule generally applies.  80% of the sales force is comprised of order takers (or farmers) and only 20% are real hunters.  Moreover, generally speaking, 80% of the sales force generates 20% of the sales revenue.

So is an appointment with a decision maker in and of itself a “bad” result?  No.  It’s just not an efficient or productive one, because the productivity of the sales person is not maximized and the cost per sale, ultimately, is more expensive   even if your cost per appointment is lower.

Lead Generation:
Consider on the other hand a lead generation effort that is focused on maximizing sales productivity.  It emphasizes identifying real “ready to engage “opportunities, enabling the sales person to spend more time selling to the right prospects at the right time.  In other words, lead generation effort should not just open the door,they should open a door only where real potential to purchase exists.

Why it comes down to sales productivity.

Sales productivity has been addressed many times in this blog.  In fact, for the past 20 years it has consistently been eti Sales Support’s motto.  (You may find the 3 part blog entitled  Rethinking BANT by Sheldon Sachs, eti’s VP of Business Development, of interest.)

Table 1:

So even though the cost per opportunity is higher ($1,000 vs. $600) via a Lead Generation effort, the number of “sales” over the equivalent period is double and the actual cost per sale is $455 less than the result of an Appointment Setting effort.

Lastly, let’s also not forget the Lost Opportunity factor.  If your sales people are not calling on those prospects that have real buying potential and the competition is, then your poor investments in Appointment Setting are just that much more costly because they are spinning their wheels talking to the wrong people and the wrong prospect companies.

So think twice about wasting precious selling time on plain old appointments.  A better choice would be to invest in a highly effective and sustained lead generation effort that will result in real sales sooner.

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

We’re pleased to announce that I will be hosting a workshop entitled Tough Times Demand Smarter Sales Strategies at this year’s MIT Sloan Sales Conference which is to be held on April 17th, 2009 in Cambridge, MA.

Workshop Description:

Keeping your business afloat in tough times requires disciplined sales strategies to prevent being overwhelmed.

Most companies have areas of weakness in their sales and marketing processes.  When times are good, no one wants to upset the applecart so there’s less incentive to be introspective.

Tough times present a good opportunity to examine areas within your company most likely to benefit from introspective examination.   In the current environment, where fewer dollars are chasing fewer prospects in smaller and shrinking marketplaces, some questions virtually ask themselves.

In this session we’ll explore:

• Whether the sales organization is coping with the downturn.

•  Whether the sales opportunity pipeline is filled with genuine sales ready opportunities.

• Whether there is a solution to decreasing New Customer Acquisition (NCA) closing rates.

• Whether the marketing teams are fully aligned to sales’ needs.  

• Whether marketing and sales are ROI accountable.

• Whether there are leaks in the sales opportunity pipelines and, if so, how you can minimize their impact.

We’ll also take a hard look at marketing activity, lead generation, lead qualification and lead nurturing and how they can have a marked impact on maximizing sales productivity. 

To register click here.

Tough times require all expenditures to be examined for possible reduction or elimination. Marketing is not exempt from such investigation and will undoubtedly reveal areas where cuts can and will be made.

One example is Brand Advertising which for the most part is not an immediate result producing expenditure. On the other hand it would be unwise to cut advertising oriented to generate demand activity for your goods/services. Or to generate inquiries for goods/services since such sales leads can effectively be converted to new customers.

The following strategies should be implemented:

• Focus on generating quality inquiries as distinct from large numbers of inquiries.
• Analyze inquiry response by media to check on the effectiveness (front and back end) of both ad and media. Save money by canceling or revising ineffective ads and/or media.
• Cancel advertising that is not generating satisfactory revenue and invest the funds in strategies that are creating revenues.
• Analyze effectiveness of costly Trade Shows and Webinars and other Event driven activities. Not only by volume of actual inquiries but more importantly by actual conversion rates.   (Typically the return on investment from such activities is lower than other more organic marketing tactics.)
• Be cautious about offering free or premium offers. These often drive high volume of inquiries.  That’s natural – but they are seldom effective in helping the sales force to sell more.
• Large volumes of email can be sent at very low cost but actual readership is in doubt. Too much depends on factors over which senders have no control.
  • Use sparingly and wisely to maximize the impact.
  • Make sure your messaging is targeted to applicable prospect companies.
  • Personalize if possible with TEXT (not html) based content.
  • Where possible mail only to OPT IN contacts.
  • Track each and every email open and click through to ascertain readership and traffic driven to your website and or micro-site.
• The management of inquiries and follow through is complex and requires a strong database infrastructure for effective control. Outsourced CRM solutions may well be helpful. eti clients derive immense benefits using our thoroughly reliable in-house CRM solutions – provided at no extra cost. An advantage worth its weight in gold!

Edited transcript of a telephone conversation initiated by Michael Falkson, Pres. eti Sales Support Inc, with Mr. Ostrow 08/02/08.

The Aberdeen group recently undertook a study of the B2B Teleservices Industry - the first of its kind to my knowledge.  I recently had an opportunity to talk with Peter Ostrow, the author, about some of his findings.

Mike:  In your view Peter, what are the critical elements a best in class company should look for when seeking an outsourced business development partner?

Peter: They should look for a partner who offers flexibility around deliverables.

The overall deliverables should be carefully quantified and reevaluated on a regular basis.  They should look for flexibility in compensation methodology, which we’ve ratified through our research, and that too should be reevaluated on a regular basis.  They should look for a company which allows them to micromanage the process. 

Now that may sound counter productive to efficient program execution, but on a personal note when I look at my career, I have been least successful when I did not have the customer fairly closely involved in my day-to-day activity.  Going away with a script and a list and then simply coming back with the results is in my opinion least likely to satisfy the client.

There are some vendors in your space who don’t worry what their clients think of how they work, whose customers don’t get involved or want to know how you produce their results. They’re just concerned with the final outcome. And that there may even be an implication that “we use a special ingredient or a secret sauce.”

To be honest Mike, I think there are some proprietary best practices unique to various providers, though not patent worthy.  I think it’s interesting that some companies try to figure out how you get the job done and I’m ok with that. I also believe it’s wrong to keep the customer from accessing the callers, the messaging, and some of the processes. These are bad signals to clients.

Finally, I think clients should certainly look for domain expertise. That’s very important.

However, it’s not always feasible that the provider of teleservices can say, ” Yes! We have exactly the experience your company needs. We’ve worked for companies with the same demographics and which faced the same challenges. In fact we’ve scored a wonderful success story.”  That would be too tall an order.

But for a small versus large company, for a less or more costly solution, for a situation where the brand was not well known -  or some less specific criteria, I would imagine it’s permissible and acceptable to tell a particular story which provides a little insider domain expertise to indicate we have been there before.

Mike:  How important is longevity, breadth and depth of an outsource partner’s experience in establishing desirability of the vendor?

Peter:  I would say moderately important.  People want to get in bed with someone that they know or heard good things about, but being in the business for 20 years or five years doesn’t really matter that much.

Mike:  What are the vital personnel qualities of a top notch outsource partner?

Peter:  I would say staff who are strong enough to do without the script and speak from the heart about the value proposition, will be preferred,   Callers with advanced degrees,  maybe multilingual, they’re usually very good. Still these qualities are not uniformly essential as you know. 

Probably the most important quality one needs are folks who are comfortable getting on a phone on a regular basis and interacting with the sales force.  That’s probably the #1 criterion that end-users look for. Turnaround is not that big an issue.  If people trust the outsourcing company and trust the process management then it does not matter that the folks who actually make the calls come and go. Clients won’t really fret about that . . . it’s pretty far down the list.

Mike:  How important is it that the outsource partner has access to powerful flexible technology to manage real time reporting and communication?

Peter:  There are two answers to that.  I see no difference between the best in class and other companies, so I can’t say that smarter companies will integrate with the customer’s CRM and other tools.

But I can also tell you that the majority of best in class companies either currently or in the near future definitely plan to deploy exactly that. 

Mike:  Would you say that most teleservices providers rated in that survey were essentially meeting the expectations of their client base?

Peter:  Actually, most were.  Respondents choose whether they are either very dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, neutral, somewhat satisfied or very satisfied. Everyone came out somewhere between somewhat and very. The respondents were satisfied with the lead quality. They are generally less satisfied with lead quantity.

Quality . . . lead quality . . . lead quantity . . . all count. Clients are most satisfied with messaging accuracy; they are least satisfied with reporting metrics, business intelligence gathering and cost per lead.

Thanks a span, Peter, much appreciate your valuable input.

The tail that wags the dog.

Any military commander will tell you that intelligence is probably the most significantly important tool they have when developing a winning strategy. Good intelligence helps, bad intelligence doesn’t.

Interestingly enough when we look at Marketing and Sales groups it is seldom Sales (the foot soldiers) who understand the value of business intelligence and how it can contribute to successful selling.

As a group Marketing certainly does … but in my experience they rarely make effective use of the valuable information they have at their fingertips.

Too few companies are willing to make a specific, sizeable investment in gathering business intelligence as a strategic tool in their sales and marketing arsenals.

Contrary to that lackadaisical attitude we at eti take the business of intelligence gathering very seriously.  We have long learned that there is always an opportunity to garner something of value during every business conversation.

We have also learned that such business information (intelligence) can be a key element in our success in the initial task of targeting and qualifying sales leads as definite and worthy new customers for clients.

And how our clients’ sales force can use this information in their presentations aimed at converting prospects to new customers. 

Business intelligence is too wide a subject to be classified into a handful of columns/titles in the database.  On the contrary it is the cumulative knowledge of what we know about the prospect and his needs.  Some intelligence is gathered simply by engaging in an interactive discussion. Or through the electronic communication behavior of prospects (.e.g, what links they clicked, or which web pages they visited, and the white papers they requested etc.) 

It’s the ability of a business development solution provider like eti to deliver a 360 degree of data to empower your sales people to know how they should approach each prospect or customer. 

To see a demonstration of how we achieve this result please call Shelley Sachs, eti Global VP of Marketing, at 1.800-466.4384. Select option 1.

Aberdeen consulting has released a ground breaking study into the B2B Teleservices Industry.

Readers of this blog can obtain a free copy by clicking here.

The following press release provides some background.

B2B TELESERVICES: THE 2008 BUYER’S GUIDE

BOSTON, MA – May 28, 2008 – In a first-time, comprehensive research study of the B2B TeleServices industry, Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS) examines the lead discovery and qualification pressures faced by marketing and sales practitioners, the actions they consider to drive peak performance in their marketing investments, and how Best-in-Class performers utilize outsourced teleservices methodologies to drive maximum pipeline content and bid-to-win performance ratios. As an end-user’s “buyer’s guide” to a sector rarely covered by objective research methodologies, this April 2008 study reveals leading practices in lead lifecycle management deployed by teleservices customers, as well as exploring blended human / technology solutions they have managed to ROMI success.

Data acquired from over 200 enterprises reveals a number of impactful data points, according to Peter Ostrow, VP/Group Director, Customer Management at Aberdeen, the study’s author.  “Best-in-Class companies place a premium on lead quality, whereas Laggards reveal an interest in utilizing services to help address an out-of-control lead generation process — too many leads to handle — at a pace more than five times as high as that of top-performing organizations,” he explains.  “This reflects a lack of organizational and vendor management capabilities among Laggards, who benefit the least from their efforts to drive actionable intelligence to the sales team.” 

In addition to the quality/quantity balance necessary to achieve Marketing/Sales harmony, the Best-in-Class companies in Aberdeen’s research demonstrate a preference for the well-defined deliverables provided by appointment-setting methodologies.  “Top performers clearly wish to tee-up ready-booked appointments or conference calls for their sales team,” Ostrow says, “ but only if the meetings are highly substantiated by relevant account intelligence, identification of appropriate business pressures and the involvement of powerful influencers or decision-makers in the conversation.”  He also cautions against an over-reliance on appointment-setting as a sole methodology, pointing out that survey respondents who do so actually experience losses in year-over-year metrics such as sales performance against quota, and average deal size.  “Best-in-Class companies who remain flexible about their execution, compensation and delivery model from B2B teleservices providers,” concludes Ostrow, “realize 15 to 20% increases in these crucial performance metrics.”

The required actions for companies seeking to gain the most benefit from external tele-provider services, according to Ostrow, include adopting a high degree of collaboration between outsourced calling staff and the customer’s marketing and even sales personnel, preferably building 1-1 relationships that maximize their potential to improve on account penetration strategies, messaging quality and overall program ROI.

To obtain a complimentary copy, visit:

http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30411182&cid=4883

 

Michael Falkson

On April 25, I was honored to serve as the moderator of a stimulating panel discussion at the 2008 MIT Sloan School of Management Sales Conference entitled Enterprise Sales: Winning Complex Large Accounts.  The panel consisted of some industry heavyweights including:

• David Chan, Chief Operating Officer, Rainbow Semiconductor

• Lee Levitt, Program Director Sales Advisory Service, IDC 

• Michael Lock, Director, Enterprise Sales, Google

• Steven Meyers, Director, Sales, Pega Systems

It turned into a spirited discussion.  After I kicked things off with the first question, the audience took over asking question after question until our time was exhausted.  In the end, we covered as best we could, three areas of interest to attendees:

1. Identifying and managing diverse stakeholders

2. Techniques for winning large and complex accounts

3. How to turn those sales into long-term relationships

Some brief observations from the panelists:

• The sales process has changed.  Customers know more about your product and or service than they ever will.  

• Sales cycles are longer.

• More decision makers are involved in decision making than ever before.

• It’s still personal.

• Speed of business has increased.  Large companies are not built for speed and have trouble keeping up.  Yet they have a desire to be fast.

• Google trying to make sales less complex.  Smaller transactions and grow the accounts.

• Always formulate ROI.  Why should they buy?  What’s the USE case?

• Maximize existing relationships … opportunity management.

• Walk away if it is not a fit.

• After the sale, handholding is an essential component.

• In Government sales, secrecy is a problem.  Develop an ally and feed them all the information so that they can help you make the sale.

• Foreign companies selling into large US enterprises don’t face the same hurdles as US companies selling internationally.

• If you don’t ask the question, you won’t get the sale.

• Prioritize sales opportunities.  Focus on high probability prospects.  Get rid of those that have a low probability of closing.

• If there is no pain, there is no opportunity.

The session can be heard here.

The entire conference can be heard at http://www.sloansalesconference.com/media/media_player.htm.

Sheldon Sachs

eti Sales Support is proud to again sponsor this spectacular sales driven leadership event to be hosted by the MIT Sloan School of Business. The conference focuses on proven science and strategies of champion rainmakers from leading experts and prominent academics. 

The conference offers you the opportunity to participate in lively panel discussions, learn powerful new sales strategies, and network with senior executives and top business students.

Join over 400 senior executives, entrepreneurs, professors, and graduate students from leading business schools at this unique event. This event will sell out so Register now to reserve your spot at this event.

Who: Anyone who understands the critical importance of sales.

Attendees: C-Level Executives, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and professors, MBAs, PhDs, and graduate students from leading institutions in a fully interactive forum to learn network, and share ideas and best practices.

Features:

• Prominent keynote speakers, including
  • Andy Mattes, SVP of Enterprise Sales, Hewlett Packard
  • Greg Schofield, EVP of Global Sales, Novartis
• Panel discussions with leading sales executives and management experts
• Highlights include topics such as …
  • Lead Generation
  • Lead Qualification
  • Lead Nurturing
  • Sales Automation and Management
  • Enterprise Sales: Winning Complex Large Accounts
  • Leading the High Performance Sales Team
  • And much much more

For more information or the register click here.

Seth Goldin just posted a very insightful blog concerning resumes.

“A resume,” he says, “is an excuse to reject you. Once you send me your resume, I can say, “oh, they’re missing this or they’re missing that,” and boom, you’re out.”

I believe Godin’s insight applies equally when a client notifies you that he intends calling for RFPs and asks you also to participate.

I can understand this when the sale of commodities is involved. But it has to be different where services are being bought. Because services involve standards and these do not lend themselves to straightforward comparisons.

Take a very simple situation of the business we’re in. The essence of our service is to investigate the target market for clients and to qualify and define the ‘ready to buy’ new customers. This involves much research, phone discussions, questions, answers and evaluation. All of which take up scads of time and one can simply not enter the cumulative set of activities into columns on a spreadsheet.

Godin’s point holds just as true for RFP’s.   It’s just an excuse to pigeonhole you as another commodity.

He goes on to say ….

“Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for… those jobs don’t get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.”

The same goes for selecting a new service provider.  Rarely are great solutions delivered by those who present well written responses to RFP’s. Offer and execution are not the same.

Michael Falkson

Brian Carroll recently posted a blog on Lead Nurturing in which he makes the following comment:

While I agree that sending out campaign related messages is not a substitute for personalized lead nurturing, I believe automated (yet non campaign related) activities are essential in the nurturing process.

“The human touch” is a fine phrase and makes the reader feel good, but the problem is the decision maker does not want someone keep touching him unless perhaps they have something new and helpful to communicate. From a practical standpoint however, this is unlikely. So too many additional calls (if this is what Mr. Carroll means by “human touch”) might not be welcome.

In our view it is as wrong to rely on personal nurturing calls only, as it is to rely on an automated electronic process only. eti offers a sensible mix of the two methods in which low cost, automated, electronic, personalized messages, together with relevant content, are interspersed with higher cost phone communication.

eti’s i*collaborator system has an automated feature to manage follow up activities. It is capable of triggering individualized lead nurturing activities based on the each prospect’s actions and reactions. And also when there are no reactions.

When a prospect for example, receives information related to his inquiry … and this results in a click on an embedded link, i*collaborator will trigger a series of time based activities relative to the interest of the inquirer.  This might include ….

• A relevant personalized email follow up 7 days later.

• Followed by a personal phone call 7 or 14 days later.

• Followed up by a relevant 3^rd party white paper 15 or 30 days later.

• Followed by a relevant link to the client’s blog.

• And so on.

Different triggers result from:

• Click throughs

• Email Opens

• Email Bounces

• Event Registrations

• WEB Form Inquiries

• Business Intelligence gathering activities

• No reactions.

• Etc.

It is impractical to handle the complexity of such a range of “if he does this, we do that” interactions manually (on a large scale). It can be way too costly if not hair-raising to track and respond, relevantly and timeously, to so many different responses. Unless the complexity has been logically automated.

Moreover, such complexity can only be successfully programmed when there is an integrated, tried and tested technology in place. And to the best of my knowledge there is no CRM with this trigger based technology integrated into their systems.

Nurturing is a time and content based activity, linked to a goal. Lead nurturing is an aspect of Lead Generation (i.e it’s not an activity unto its own) and the ultimate goal is mostly to get prospects to the point where they are ready to hear a sales rep’s presentation. It is not just to build a relationship, as Mr. Caroll suggests, but a series of confidence building activities to earn the trust as well as the agreement of the prospect to meet with a sales representative. 

And lead nurturing does not stop once the lead has been generated.  For unless the decision maker says ‘no’, he remains a prospective customer.

Michael Falkson

We recently posted an important article on the eti Sales Support site entitled “What costs less costs more”. 

The article examines the importance of measuring the cost per new customer acquired versus cost per lead, inquiry, click, impression etc.  Click on the link above to request a copy or call 1.800.466.4384.

Michae Falkson

Recently we’ve been involved in a flurry of RFP’s.  And this got me thinking about whether it’s a good idea to buy business development services via an RFP.

Here are some broad principles:

• If you’re buying a commodity then an RFP is a good idea.
• If you’re buying expertise then an RFP is not a good idea.
•  If you’re buying knowhow and knowledge then an RFP is a bad idea.
• If you’re buying systems and integration capabilities then an RFP may be a good idea.  It may also be a bad idea.  Depends.
• If you’re buying all of the above then an RFP is a real bad way to make a good decision.

Let’s examine the process.  Usually an RFP is designed to get prospective “vendors” to provide in writing comprehensive information about the company.  While this is an opportunity to shine, that really depends on their ability to write responses to an RFP.  It does not demonstrate an ability to deliver a great solution.  (Too wit there is now a whole industry of so called experts who make a living helping companies write RFP responses.)

Can an RFP provide insight into the vendor’s ability to deliver a solution?  Yes it can – but side by side comparisons of all the participants – when you’re buying complex solutions – is not going to give you this insight.  The only way to garner a comprehensive understanding of the company’s solutions and expertise is to get under the hood.  You need to understand the players … the environment … the systems etc.  You need to understand how these systems flow … and how they integrate.    And how the synergistic effect of the combined set of solutions comes together for your benefit.  You simply cannot get this from an RFP.  And you will not get this from the well prepared follow up presentations that usually follow.

In truth many companies simply issue RFP’s to protect their backsides.  The protagonists have usually already decided who they want … and are going through this process in order to be able to say they were fair.  In fact one can usually see who is going to win simply by looking at the questions and layout of the RFP.  Why?  Because the RFP is many times written and developed by the “probable” vendor.  Not the issuer of the RFP.

Is this fair game?  I suppose so.  It just depends on whose side of the equation you are on.  If you’re the friend of the decision maker who is issuing the RFP then you’re in the pound seats.  If say you’re the incumbent who is shortly to be unseated, then this is a patently unfair process.  And generally speaking a waste of time for all.  You might as well save everyone the trouble and make a decision.

So what is the best strategy? 

If you really think that other vendors can provide better solutions then you need to test.  Testing is the only way to make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.  Give the prospect companies a piece of the action and see who can beat the incumbent.  If they do – then you’re basing your decision on actual results.  Not fancy copy in an RFP.  Or pretty pictures in a well made presentation.  If the incumbent still beats them, then no harm no foul.  And you’ve saved your backside (and your company) from making a poor decision.

Testing however, needs to be done realistically.  You cannot compare apples with oranges.  You can only do side by side comparisons if the criteria for measurement are the same for all participants.  You must look at all elements that ultimately are important to the success of the effort.  This could cover issues such as developing a rating system for every opportunity identified (as rated by the sales force).  Or the conversion rates from “leads” to “opportunities”.  Or cost per new customer acquired which is the ultimate meaningful metric.  (I have written an article entitled What costs less costs more that deals with this topic in more detail. 

eti Sales Support has never shied away from a contest.  We’ll be more than happy to be compared side by side with any competitor.  Any time! 

Michael Falkson

At our recent Christmas party a consultant friend and past client joined our annual celebration.  He told us an interesting story. 

About a year ago a new client of his (a small startup) decided to hire 2 salespeople in order to boost sales.  Our consultant friend advised against this strategy suggesting the company should rather invest in a lead generation effort using a specialist lead generation service agency to develop a pipeline of qualified sales opportunities.  Once that pipeline started filling he should then employ the necessary sales assets productively to close the awaiting business.  In other words, the consultant saw this very much as a productivity issue – not purely a selling issue. 

His client decided against this strategy and opted to rather invest in the new sales people.  About a year later the client met with our friend to review this decision.  The client somewhat reluctantly admitted his strategy was an expensive mistake which cost his company in excess of $250,000. This figure did not factor in the overhead including management, recruitment, training etc.  So the true loss was probably closer to $400k+.

The lesson here is simple.  Sales people are your most expensive assets.  Employing them to undertake work that can be outsourced to a professional lead generation and (superior) lead qualification outfit such as eti Sales Support, is expensive and unproductive. 

Bear in mind that the average cost of a technology or industrial based sales call today is north of $1000 dollars in real terms. It is essential therefore that the preparatory work be professional in all respects: identifying the decision makers … probing for pain … eliciting critical business intelligence … and finally selling the sales presentation appointment.  eti has developed a very useful and easy to use Sales Cost Calculator This Calculator will instantly figure your actual cost per sale.  Please give it a try.To learn more about maximizing your sales force’s productivity by developing a pipeline of sales ready opportunities please click here.  Or call us at 1.800.466.4384 (914.747.3030).Michael Falkson

Many businesses have multiple product lines or divisions. Many of these operate as separate entities within the corporation. What then happens when inquiries come in to a centralized call center? To which department should you route the inquiry?  

These are vital questions because experience shows that inquiries which wind up in the wrong department or with the incorrect channel partner, can drop into a black hole never again to see the light of day.   

Business Developers (BDs) at eti Sales Support for example, encounter these scenarios daily as part of our role in fielding inquiries from print, TV, WEB and Direct Marketing promotions for a variety of clients. 

Let’s take a typical example of an inquiry that comes to us on behalf of a large multinational hi tech client.   

The call might go like this. 

“Hello … just saw your advertisement about XYZ product.  Could you tell me how much it costs?”We would typically respond by saying “sorry, we cannot provide a price because sales of this product are handled by our channel partners.”   

The caller may then ask a technical question about the product.  Again we are not technical specialists (our task is to identify the total opportunity and qualify potential) so again we cannot answer with any specificity. 

The prospect may then get testy and ask “Then what good are you? Why does your advertising tell prospective buyers like me to call your number?” 

We train our staff to handle these difficult situations by explaining our role: 

 “Mr. _____, we’re here to prevent you from getting the run-around when you call us direct. We actually want to prevent you from becoming frustrated as you get bounced from one department to another searching for the right person to help you.”  

Most prospects react positively when we explain that our role is to find out what his needs are and that we’ll get the appropriate person in the company to call him with the information he needs, and to answer additional questions. In short, to resolve his problems.   

What’s more we can do this in real-time if the prospect indicates urgency. 

A good Business Development Center such as eti’s  requires the Corporation to cross train our Business Developers so that we can correctly identify (qualify and quantify) all incoming inquiries. And connect the qualified ones to the right person in the right department within the Corporation.  

This also allows the Corporation to use a centralized team (such as provided by eti) to probe callers and correctly route opportunities to the right department for follow up. It’s like triage in a MASH unit. Someone comes in with a problem and the first medic’s job is to assess the “pain”, decide the urgency, and call the right doctor to treat the problem – or route the patient to ward (department) where that that specialist consults. Getting the patient to the right treatment in a timely manner can make all the difference between life and death. 

Determining what product set would satisfy the need, urgency and scope of the project in a positively friendly manner is key. Getting the right salesman/specialist /Channel partner to contact the prospect ASAP can make the difference between making a sale to a new customer, or losing the customer to a competitor. (Perish the thought.) 

Lane Farber

We’ve observed that “Smart Landing Pages” are being used increasingly as a way of prioritizing and pre-qualifying inquiries. Landing pages are set up on the web with a series of questions that when answered in a certain way create a path for the visitor to obtain pertinent information.

But how valid is the information submitted by the visitor and how accurate a picture do the results present to the advertiser?

Recently the ad agency of one of our clients incorporated a “Smart Landing Page” in their website. The client had high expectations from the number of visitors who had completed the offer page, having been told that a high number of inquiries had checked a time frame. These, maintained the ad agency, clearly represented qualified leads.

“Why else would they have provided the information requested? And completed the time frame?” said the agency.

But the client was wary of giving these “qualified” leads to his sales force, whose time was too valuable to be sent on a wild goose chases. He had been bitten before and had lost good sales-persons in doing just that.

eti was asked to check them out and present an analysis of the results. We distributed the leads to our Business Developers who followed them up in their positive, experienced way.

Sadly the numbers did not hold up to the harsh light of day. The results were not what the agency had led our client to expect.

Analyzing the actual outcome of the Smart Landing Page data produced the following interesting results.

1. 25% of the so called “qualified leads” (as determined by the agency) that came from the “Smart Landing Page” consisted of invalid leads and bad data such as wrong phone numbers, competitors and channel partners.
2. 4% of the inquiries came from beyond the target market, from other countries in fact.
3. 22% were just looking for information. Or had no need of the product at this time. Some were already working with a Business Partner. Others felt our client did not have the solution they needed.
4. 15% of all the inquiries did actually turn into sales opportunities after eti’s Business Developer called and spoke to them. This in itself is a great result, but because of the significant cost of weeding through all the chaff, the cost per qualified lead was actually higher than normal.
5. The remaining inquiries were kept in the prospect pipeline as possibly having longer term potential. Or were still in process of qualification.

There was also no difference in the percentage of qualified leads from the top three time frames (i.e entered by the prospect on the smart landing page – Immediate need, 3 months or less and 6 months or less).

We found that people have a tendency to answer questions online in the manner they feel will get them better attention and quicker response. Many just wanted the download or offer and did not hesitate to provide false information to obtain the offer.

Conclusion: the landing page may well be a smart idea but it still requires a skilled Business Developer to carry out the essential work of lead qualification. Namely:

• To confirm the decision making process and the role of the inquirer therein.
• To confirm the company’s need and probe for the pain.
• To elicit business intelligence to help the sales person acquire a new customer.
• To provide a detailed profile containing essential information for the sales rep who will make the sale.
• To nurture decision makers who are not yet in “ready to buy” mode.

We believe it would be fatal to consider Landing Page Forms as a means of generating qualified leads. The only valid purpose they serve is that of another source of generating potential prospects, who will require professional follow up. Which happens to be the vocation to which yours truly and the eti Sales Support organization are 100% committed.

Attempting to quantify how much effort should be invested in a prospect can often be a contentious issue when budgets are limited or strained.  However, as the following example details, the consequences of your decision could have a substantial impact on the bottom line.

The scenario: 

1.       Client spends $XXXX developing an inquiry via a variety of demand generation activities.

2.       Once the prospect raises their hand and indicates some interest, how many times should we attempt to contact him before calling it a day?

Over the years we’ve developed some statistical models that essentially tell us the following:

1.       About 20% of the inquiries will in the short term represent a “ready to buy” opportunity.

2.       In terms of the lead qualification effort about 3 completed contacts are generated per hour and within this period we will identify just less than one opportunity.

3.       We further know that once distributed to a channel partner and or field sales person, about 25% of these opportunities will close with an initial average sale of about $25k.

4.       We also know that ..

a.       25% of the opportunities will be developed within the first 3 call attempts.

b.      Another 50% will be identified between attempts 3 and 8.

c.       And another 8% between attempts 9 and 10.

So therefore some 83% of the opportunities are identified within 10 attempts.

Now for the kicker.  The client reduces the budget and decides only to invest 3 attempts in every inquiry.

What are the probable consequences?

Quite simple.  75% of the opportunities will not be identified as only 25% are qualified and quantified within 3 attempts. 

Let’s dive into the numbers more closely (and conservatively).

·         Let’s say that only 10% (not 75%) of the leads are lost.  This means that for every 1000 inquiries, 100 opportunities will not be identified and 25 sales will be lost.  At $25k initial revenue this means the client will have lost $625,000 in revenues – for a saving of a few percent in cost.

Does it therefore make any sense for the client to make this decision?  Of course not!  On the contrary if he increased his budget, the incremental revenue to the company could be substantial.

Ten lost sales also probably means the loss of 10 lifetime customers.  Over a period of years, each and every one of these companies could represent potentially millions of dollars to this company.  And the competition more than likely would be the beneficiary of their short sightedness. 

Lastly if the actual result of lost opportunities is 75% as projected, then the actual loss in revenue (never mind lost opportunities) is between $4mil and $10mil. 

But who’s counting?

Michael Falkson

Coverage – ensuring you have a strategy to contact all the prospects or named accounts in your territory – is definitely a challenge. Without the experience of a lead generation strategy you’re unlikely to cultivate and respond to most of your prospects on a timely basis.   

Salespeople are often expected to cold call suspects, weed out and qualify the prospects and generate genuine b2b opportunities – and close business. Whether you are required to source your own prospects or targeted accounts are mapped out for you, given say that you have 250 companies to cover, what is your strategy? 

• Here are some guidelines to quantifying the effort:-
  Use an hour of ‘dedicated’ calling time as a measure.
• Assume that your goal is a 5 minute introductory conversation. Of course if under your guidance it extends longer, all the better.
  • Dispel the notion that ‘dials per hour’ is a measure of productivity in high-end b2b sales lead generation.
• A high number of dials per hour is definitely a measure of the number of attempts to reach someone. But high dials per hour is also a strong indication of the lack of any meaningful conversations per hour.
• A call every 2 minutes is an unrealistic metric.  Thus trying to call 30 numbers an hour is only possible if no one is answering and you’re not engaging in any conversations. A great statistic perhaps, but no way to achieve your objective of engaging in meaningful in- depth conversations. 

Back to the challenge at hand – how to cover your prospect list.  Ideally, if every contact was with the correct decision maker and he/she was willing to converse with you for about 5 minutes, you could speak to some 10 people an hour.  

Now let’s get real -what percentage of the prospects you’d be calling, at large companies, answer their phone, are the correct decision maker and are willing to talk to you? You’d be lucky to connect to 10% – 15 % max! Realistically that means 1 or possibly 2 persons an hour for your ‘introductory conversation’. You’d need around 200 hours of calling time to get through to each of the 250 companies on your prospect list. 

How long will that take? Well if you put in 3 uninterrupted hours a day to call, you would need over 3-4 months to get to speak with each company just once!  

Given you have current pipeline activity – opportunities at the forefront and others you’re keeping warm, what professional sales person has the time or inclination to call 3 solid hours a day to cover the prospect list? This is hardly an effective or efficient use of a sales person’s time. 

Professional sales people want to be engaged in face-to-face opportunities with properly qualified opportunities. What they want above all are appointments with decision makers who’ve indicated an interest and may be “ready to buy” in the short term.  This serves the mutual interest of the sales force, sales management, marketing management and the enterprise overall. 

Though management recognizes the importance of a strategy for coverage in the marketplace, it doesn’t always know how to offer help – or where to get it. 

An experienced b2b sales lead generation partner is the answer. eti Sales Support can help in a very practical way – 20 Years of successful experience is our testament.  

    �

Should your company be using one of your product experts (engineers, specialists etc.) to handle sales lead generation and lead qualification applications for your company?  

Or should you be using a Business Developer who might not be as informed on the specifications of the product (and its technical performance) but is schooled in peeling-the-onion probing. And eliciting the important information needed to close large and complex sales. 

As a best practice our experience has been that the most effective conversation we can have with a prospect or customer is not about the technical details of our product or service. Instead we need to engage the prospect in a dialog that allows us to better understand … 

• the pain,
• the application,
• the environment,
• the decision making process,
• the prospect’s ability to purchase (budgets),
• timing,
• And more, as becomes apparent, when the conversation progresses.

It very rarely about bits and bytes, weight and size.  It’s ALWAYS about the customer and his problems. Too bad that engineers and product specialists rarely understand this.   

I recall a situation recently where I called a leading computer manufacturer to purchase a database server.  The salesperson – instead of finding out what I needed – opted immediately to bring on a product specialist.  And so began a litany of how great their systems were … has big … how fast etc.  The problem was that no one asked me what I needed the server for … the applications … the environment … my budget etc.  I had to go elsewhere to find a company that wanted to know my problems and how to help me out of them. 

In an age of commoditization it is increasingly more difficult to differentiate one product from another.  The only way to sell more effectively is to clearly demonstrate how your products and services can solve their issues. But understanding their needs comes first. 

So technical expertise is not a hindrance provided the nature of the conversation is geared to moving a sale forward.  However, many technical engineers are not trained to achieve this objective and hence steer the conversation in the direction of their own knowledge and experiences.  For the most part therefore they will kill the opportunity because they do not focus on the customer and his needs. 

Lane Farber

Let’s review a situation which happens all too often.

eti has confirmed the lead as a genuine B2B Sales Opportunity meeting our client’s criteria.

We have held serious phone discussions with the decision maker (dm) and succeeded in probing for the pain and obtaining other useful business intelligence to help the sales person convert the lead into a New Customer.
Moreover the dm has agreed to an appointment for the sales rep to make his/her presentation. (Generally regarded as being in ‘ready-to-buy’ mode, except when the dm sees the presentation filling an educational need.)

So what should be the outcome after the sales person takes over?

1. The best result of course is a sale.
2. Or when the dm gives the sales person an introductory order for the product or service.
3. Often times however, the dm may delay a final decision for reasons best known to himself. In which case follow up nurturing of the lead should be instituted. (We regard ourselves at eti as nurturing specialists.)
4. Sometimes unfortunately, the response may be “thanks, but no thanks”. And we may or may not get to know the real reason why.

Are Your Leads Being Abused?

The successful handling of B2B sales leads isn’t simple because there are many variations on a theme.

Researchers for instance continue to report that sales leads are still being abused by a section of the selling community. Many valid leads are not being followed up even though they have been identified as worthy and genuine prospects during the lead qualification process.

Apparently many a salesperson looks at lead qualification reports somewhat derisively. And decide, somewhat arrogantly, which leads deserves their follow up attention – or otherwise. It boggles the mind that this can happen even when an appointment has actually been set.

Have you heard similar remarks?

• “Well I got the lead … read the transcript and determined there was no potential so I threw it away.”
• “Yes – I went on the appointment and it was a waste of my time.”
• “Yes – I got the lead but decided to call ahead. When the guy came on the phone he told me he wasn’t interested.”
• “I was traveling so I could not keep the appointment.”
• “I never got the lead.”
• And worst of all – “The opportunity was not qualified.

Let me be the first to admit that “you can’t win them all”. But that’s only valid when the sales person has done his hand-on-heart best to make the sale.

Our client has a stake in every lead because new customers are a necessity not a luxury. And because each qualified lead represents a significant cost. Salespersons should be all the more accountable for each opportunity. They should not be permitted to blow them away. Sales managers need to be harder on those who don’t keep appointments to present.

Michael Falkson

A prospect with whom I spoke for the first time last summer called me back. They had selected a Pay for Performance solution and it hadn’t work for them. It wasn’t costing them $ because Pay for Performance wasn’t providing appointments. But, as I pointed out to him, the lost opportunity cost was killing them. And the Pay for Performance agency had no incentive to keep doing it because they weren’t earning anything. It was a lose/lose scenario. That message obviously resonated.
We can’t forget that when we sell against Pay for Performance solutions.  It’s a real puzzle – “what do you think will happen once (or if) they don’t have success at setting appointments for you? Will they work harder, or simply move you down their list of priorities?” My guess is the latter. We, on the other hand, would work harder because, although we’re earning revenue, keeping you as a successful client is alot easier than finding another one.

Sheldon Sachs