Book Review: Lead Generation for the Complex Sale
7:04 AM PDT, April 17, 2008
Karl Goldfield at "The Sales Coach Blog" wrote a well thought out review for executives, marketers and sales people. Here's a short snippet. "Brian Carroll has written the text book on lead generation. The subject matter in this book should be taught in EVERY BUSINESS SCHOOL WORLDWIDE! He leaves little to the imagination as he lays out the methodology behind a successful lead campaign in detail. He takes the onus to marketing to deliver sales ready leads, and then kicks back at sales to close the loop and give feedback on leads. ....A nice and handy read for the sales executive, but a mandatory read for marketing and top level executives. You want to understand how to drive leads to your pipeline, well, Brian tells you." Read Karl Goldield's full review and check out his blog.
Lead Nurturing as trusted advisors with the Human Touch
11:51 AM PST, February 7, 2008
In today’s commoditized business climate I think what sets companies apart with a complex sale is how well they build and cultivate relationships. Over the years, I’ve observed a truth; and this truth will requires many sales people to reconsider how they think selling should be done. The truth is, average sales people think they are most effective when they talk with someone WHEN they are ready to buy, but top performers seek to build relationships with the right people in the right companies BEFORE they're ready to buy. This is where marketing can have a profound impact by helping their sales team go beyond the lead. Today’s prospects have a general lack of trust and they simply don’t want to be sold. They are weary of pitches, hype, pushy sales people and manipulative marketing tactics. They are time constrained and too busy to think or strategize. So what do they do with most sales and marketing messages? They simply ignore them. For this reason, I think it’s critical to contact and have initial conversations with our future customers that are devoid of sales pitches. Quite literally when we begin a conversation with them, their attitudes and beliefs are being shaped, primed by the information they have already soaked up through various sources. Be a resource to them regardless of their timing to buy. Otherwise, they are likely to get information from the internet or uninformed colleagues, trade publications or heaven forbid your competitors. In other words, we need to move from lead generation campaigns to conversations. Sellers can make the biggest impact early on in the buying process, or before it happens by developing relationships with potential clients and becoming a trusted advisor. The best way to do this is by starting with what we call the “human touch.” A personal phone call to the right person that is free of sales hype is the best way to build relationships that lead to positive sales results. Relationship building with prospects is part of the overall lead nurturing process. The goal of lead nurturing is to maintain a relevant and consistent dialog with viable leads - regardless of their timing to buy - until they are sales ready. A key aspect of lead nurturing is the ability to provide valuable education and information to prospects up front. In this way you will be able to position yourself as a trusted advisor and perhaps even a thought leader. I was honored to speak at the Jill Konrath's Sales Shebang. Jill posted a summary of what I shared on the Selling to Big Companies blog. It includes specific tips on how you can leverage thought leadership to win more sales with lead nurturing. 7 Tips to Improve Sales Follow-up, Close More Leads and Track ROI
2:51 PM PDT, August 16, 2007
If you are like most B2B marketers, lead generation is at top of your priority list. But as you may already know, generating tons of “leads” doesn’t guarantee sales will follow. Does the sales team either ignore your hard-won leads or complain about their quality? Do you ever wonder was the lead even contacted? If so, what’s the status? Could you have helped move it along by going deeper in the sales cycle? This chronic lack of visibility has a snowball effect of making it challenging for marketers to measure their effectiveness and understand their return on marketing investment (ROMI). So what can be done about it? Here's 7 Tips to Improve Sales Follow-up
How often do you close the loop? I’ve found the most powerful way to improve sales follow-up on marketing generated leads is doing more frequent sales and marketing huddles. Also, Register for my complimentary webinar Achieve a Closed-Loop System for Sales Lead Generation and Management This webinar is presented by the American Marketing Association, sponsored by ON24. Finally, if you’re using these tips already and still feel that your marketing and sales teams are working against each other instead of being on the same team, you could have some challenges with office politics read on.
How Lead Nurturing Improves Lead Generation ROI
7:08 PM PDT, July 3, 2007
I know there's a lot of emphasis on lead generation (that's a good thing) but, getting a ton of leads doesn't guarantee that increased sales will follow. In a complex sale, my experience is, most of the selling actually happens when the sales person isn't there. Startling as it may seem, recent research (and even studies from ten years ago) shows that longer-term leads (future opportunities), often ignored by salespeople, represent almost 80% of potential sales. You can increase your odds success by adding a lead nurturing program. What’s lead nurturing? Lead nurturing is all about having consistent and meaningful communication with viable prospects (those that are “a fit” for your solution) regardless of their timing to buy. It’s not “following-up” every few months to find out if a prospect is “ready to buy yet?” Lead nurturing about building trusted relationships with the right people. Continue Reading "How Lead Nurturing Improves Lead Generation ROI" on my blog.
10 Lead Generation (Prospecting) Tips for Sales People
3:02 PM PDT, May 21, 2007
Sales people often lack the support of a dedicated marketing team that is able to execute lead generation programs on their behalf. This is particularity true in small companies. Still, those sales people succeed in spite of it all. They must, in one way or another, generate their own leads to meet their revenue and sales targets that’s independent of corporate marketing programs. In fact, they may be obligated as a part of their role to develop and execute localized lead generation programs. And instead of calling it lead generation, sales people will probably call it prospecting. All of which means investment of time and proficiencies frequently beyond their realm, and sooner or later, one way or another, there must be a shift from prospecting back to selling. In lead generation, the job of the marketing department is to develop leads to match the buyer’s readiness to buy and the seller’s expectations of selling. Marketing to sales: “We get the leads, you get the sales.” Nevertheless, there are some organizations that for various reasons still place the responsibility of lead creation with the sales sector. While I disagree that this is the most effective way to generate leads, it’s important to note that the tenets offered in this post can be just as valuable to sales people doing their own personal lead generation as it to a dedicated marketing team. Here are a few tips that I often share with sales people who are doing their own lead generation: 1. Build an ideal customer profile – Focus your energy on leads that best fit your ideal customer profile. Both the companies and the individuals you covet as customers. What separates your best and worst customers? What are their attributes and demographics? What organizations/associations do they belong to? 2. Talk to your best customers – How much do you really know about your customers? A simple phone call can generate plenty of useful information. Ask your customers why they chose to work with you? Is that the same reason they keep doing business with you? How has working with you helped their business? Would they refer you to other people? Use this information to refine your message to identify more leads just like your best customers. Once you understand why clients chose your products or service you can tailor your message around the needs you solve. 3. Build your personal prospecting engine - Leverage these activities by communicating with your prospects, customers, networks and alliance partners in a consistent manner by using traditional direct marketing methods such as direct mail, phone calls, personal publicity, and email campaigns. 4. Develop a lead generation calendar - Map out your activities for each month and then really follow it! And don’t just make irrelevant pitches more often! Create a plan to add value every time you touch your future customers with relevant ideas, content and resources. 5. Act like a good financial manager - Your lead generation efforts should include a portfolio of tactics that you apply consistently over time. You're not in it for the big hit. You’re investing in planting seeds that will eventually grow into relationships. 6. Define your goals for lead generation – Be clear on what you want. Do you want 200 more leads in your database? Do you want to generate $600K in new business in revenue this year? Do you want to add 26 new customers this quarter? 7. Rigorously qualify - Every sales opportunity to make sure they fit your ideal client/customer profile before you starts to develop a proposal or agree to do work. 8. Be consistent - Remember the fable about the tortoise and the hare? Dig your well before you’re thirsty. No matter how busy you are, be sure to make time to do personal lead generation activities especially, if you don’t have a marketing team supporting you. 9. Develop a lead nurturing plan – While you may generate leads from your initial campaign, you will generate more by following up with additional touches just be sure that are meaningful and relevant to your audience. 10. Develop and maintain your own database – Even the best lists are not 100% accurate. During the planning phase you should make sure your list fits your ideal customer profile. Also, don’t create the biggest database possible. Instead, seek to create the most relevant database possible which contains the right companies and contacts that influence the buying decision. In the beginning, you won’t have all the data you need. Be patient and you'll build the opportunity profile over time.
Collaboration Huddles and 35 Other Ways to Improve Sales and Marketing Teamwork
3:23 PM PDT, May 18, 2007
I just got back from speaking at the New Marketing Summit and it was great. But it seems that I can’t attend a marketing conference with out hearing marketers swap complaints about their sales teams. I don’t know about you but I’m fed up with the same old story. Companies continue to waste millions of dollars because of poor teamwork and collaboration between marketing and sales. Even the very best lead generation program cannot compensate for poor teamwork and collaboration, but unfortunately we continue hear about it time and again. Sales and marketing often believe they are working together but collaboration takes more than annual or even quarterly planning meetings. Teamwork is something that must exist in a very real way each day. I’ve found the most powerful way to foster teamwork and collaboration is to do more frequent and effective meetings. At InTouch we call them “huddles." We have short huddles daily and weekly between the marketing and sales team. In our huddles we do three things: Talk. Understand. Execute. (Repeat again) Talk. Understand. Execute. (Repeat again) Talk. Understand. Execute. Okay got it? (Repeat again). In addition to huddles, there are other ways that sales and marketing can and should collaborate together. This is just one list of 35 possibilities that we’ve tackled in our huddles and I hope you’ll add to it too. During huddles, you can brainstorm, go over marketing and sales programs, and accomplish or think about any or all of the things on the list below:
I’m wondering what you do in your company to foster better sales and marketing collaboration? Please share your thoughts and comments. Who knows? You could be included in my next book.
Going beyond the sales lead
1:09 PM PDT, April 2, 2007
Ultimately, the purpose of B2B marketing is to help the sales team sell. But marketers often get so wrapped up in driving activity that they seem to forget it's about driving sales conversion. For example, ask most executives and marketers what sales people need and they will say, "more leads." Your sales people don’t want more leads actually, what they want is "more effective selling time." It's not about more activity. It's about helping the sales team achieve better results. After working with hundreds of sales people and seeing their sales processes first hand, I frequently hear this "stuck point." They often ask, “How do I advance the lead when there isn’t an immediate need?” Sales people are often stuck wondering, “What else can I talk to them about?” With out your input, sales people often resort to boring or irrelevant messaging that don't position them as trusted advisors. Phone calls such as, “I’m just calling to touch base” or emails that say, “I’m just checking in…” are like saying “Are you ready to buy yet?” This is not because they lack creatively, it a simple matter of time or perspective. Sales people need to spend their time selling, not building content and messaging. With or without your knowledge, sales reps are altering your messaging and creating their own collateral. Remember: The first impression matters. So does the second. So does every single touch after that. This is especially true with complex sales that require multiple conversations on the phone before you may get your first face to face meeting in the later stages of their buying process. B2B marketers need to do more for their sales team than just throwing leads over the wall. If marketing wants to view sales as their customer, they need to be much more involved from the customer's perspective to understand their buying process and go beyond the lead. This is an opportunity for marketing leaders to shine. To do this you need to be thinking strategically, which involves getting more than one perspective. That means that sales must provide input to marketing (and marketing needs to accept and value the input) on the development of things such as sales collateral, white papers, case studies, articles, advertising, e-mail campaigns, value proposition development etc. as a joint team. It also means getting out in the field with your team to really understand how you can help them sell. If you go beyond the lead, you’ll generate much greater return from your lead generation investment and you’ll be doing what you’re meant to do… help the sales team sell. Here's 9 ideas to help you go beyond the lead:
Now Announcing the "Start With A Lead" Podcast Show
4:07 PM PDT, April 1, 2007
I am pleased to announce that I'll be hosting a new podcast show called "Start with a Lead" debuting in April. See the logo here The show will have content specifically for marketers and those who care about B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing strategies focused on the complex sale. In the show, you’ll hear from thought leading experts on a variety of marketing and lead generation topics. You'll get the latest tips and strategies; and learn what really works and what doesn't to generate high quality leads in the complex sale. Why a new show? Over the past few years, I’ve experimented with podcasting, (you can see my old podcast here) but now like Emeril, I’m ready to 'kick it up a notch’ and apply what I’ve learned from experience and listener feedback. Also, I’m going to “open the phone lines” to listeners who’d like to ask questions in advance of the show so we can be more interactive and get your specific questions answered. I’m looking forward to learning with you as I interview leading experts (and ask your questions) to get the latest contemporary thinking on lead generation. Stay tuned!
Webinar Series - Part 2 of 5: The Eight Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation
4:04 PM PDT, April 1, 2007
In the past, lead generation campaigns have been largely based on sending out unfocused direct mail campaigns, flashy websites, sporadic tradeshow appearances, innumerable email blasts, and on and off telemarketing campaigns ...in the hope that something works. Marketers must move away from these "random acts of marketing" to a "consistent lead generation" model to maximize marketing ROI and company sales. Register for my complimentary webcast and on the Eight critical success factors for lead generation. In this webcast you'll learn:
See my other upcoming events here.
Selling Power Magazine: Take the Lead
1:32 PM PST, March 10, 2007, updated at 6:48 PM PST, March 10, 2007
Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, was mentioned in the article, "Take the Lead," by Selling Power Magazine. Take the Lead stresses the necessity for the alignment of marketing and sales so there is a clear understanding of what a lead is to ensure that leads are being followed up on and not being disregarded as a "waste of time" by the sales team. Watch my complimentary webcast on, "How to Precisely Define a Lead Before Marketing Begins." In this session you'll learn:
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Bio
Brian J. Carroll is founder and CEO of InTouch Incorporated, one of the first companies to provide lead generation solutions for the complex sale and recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of America's fastest growing companies. He speaks to 20,000 people a year on improving sales effectiveness and lead generation strategies.
Carroll has been featured in publications such as Business Week, BtoB Magazine, CMO Magazine, The Wall Street Transcript, Inc. magazine, Marketing News, DM News, Marketing Profs, MarketingSherpa, and Rain Today. His B2B Lead Generation blog (http://blog.startwithalead.com) is read by thousands each week.
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