Nov 10, 2006
Lead management webinar
I've just finished pulling together a webinar for my client GuideMark called "Five Tips for Improving Sales."
Full disclosure: this IS a lead generation vehicle for my client, who sells CRM systems, however, a large chunk of the presentation is based on my lead management philosophy and rating model. My posts here on these topics have received a number of comments, both public and private, so given the apparent interest, I figured I'd let you all know about it.
Here's the pitch:
One of the most important things you can do to improve your sales is to close the gap between your sales and marketing teams. One salesperson or fifty, one marketer or a whole team, they often have diverging views of the task at hand. This gets in the way of growing your business and increasing your profits. This webinar will help you get these two critical teams working together toward the same goals. Topics include lead management and a brief demo of GuideMark's SalesDRIVE CRM.
The content is about 2/3 lead management, 1/3 CRM. I go through a lead rating model step by step, so if you're interested in how this works, you might want to listen. Bonus if you are also interested in getting a CRM system :-)
Dates and times: Wednesday November 29th at 10am, Monday December 4th at 10am and Wednesday December 6th at 2pm
Tags: CRM, lead management, sales lead management, lead tracking, sales, marketing
Posted @ 10:11AM in Business Management, Integrated Sales & Marketing | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Jul 7, 2006
one hand, other hand: why companies need CRM
July 7, 3:10pm EDT: Inbound telephone call from what must have been a monster.com call center or telemarketing vendor since the area code shown on caller ID was Broward County, Florida, not global HQ in NY nor the local (Maynard Mass.) office. Caller wondered about my business recruiting needs, was getting ready to do the pitch for monster. Fair enough. Everybody has to make a living.
Except:
I currently have an ad running on monster.com for a marketing/pr assistant. Which my caller did not know. Hmmm.....
Now to be fair, we do have two businesses operating from our lovely Hudson headquarters, GetGood Strategic Marketing and my husband's computer consulting business, Active Oak LLC. We share the phone number, which was of course in the ad listing :-)
The monster.com telemarketer had to dial my number somehow, but even if it was a call list generated using a random number generator versus a directory, there is really no excuse, in my mind, for failing to check the numbers against the monster client list. Especially current advertisers :-)
All that said, I am extremely happy with the responses to my ad, and am willing to forgive monster this slight lapse in business acumen. But.... were it a service that I was less happy with, and I got an equally clueless telemarketing call, I would be far less likely to let it go.
Lesson: if you are doing outbound prospecting or even customer service calling, you should be using an enterprisewide CRM. There is no excuse for a telemarketer not knowing someone they are calling is already a customer.
My .02
YMMV
Tags: customer service, CRM, marketing, telemarketing
Posted @ 3:07PM in Business Management, Customers, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Mar 26, 2006
Blog recommendations for sales people
Since PR is apparently passe (link found on Burningbird) and marketing is a dirty word, I figured I go for broke today and write about the third topic area of this blog, sales. Because, hey, sales is probably the only corporate function that gets dumped on more than PR and marketing :-) As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.
Right now, I am working on the first issue of a newsletter of sales/marketing tips for my client GuideMark. GuideMark specializes in CRM for banks. Central to the value proposition for CRM is that it will help the bank improve its sales process. The newsletter is an additional tool in the toolkit (or weapon in the arsenal if you prefer the Art of War metaphor). It will be distributed to our clients' sales people as well as prospects and anyone else who chooses to sign up on the Website.
The newsletter is written for the line of business sales person. It must be short, so they'll read the first issue, and value laden, so they'll read the second. Sales people are busy folks -- on the road, meeting prospects, solving customer problems, closing business. They don't have a lot of time to spare for business reading unless it directly helps them get the job done.
It also looks like they don't spend too much time writing blogs either. A Technorati search on the tag 'sales' delivers mostly marketing and PR blogs, including this one in 8th place. Now, I'm barely a Technorati blip in my main business areas of marketing and PR. There are lots and lots of marketing and PR bloggers, and since I don't worry too much about my ranking, I don't expect to be terribly high.**
The fact that this blog ranks that highly for 'sales' is a clear indication (to me) that there are not too many folks blogging about sales issues. Lots of Websites selling sales training and professional development but not many blogs. Combining this little bit of data with what I already know about the sales process, I will guess that there aren't too many sales folks reading business blogs either. But there is a lot of information in blogs that really could help our mortgage account executive and small business banker clients. So we are going to have a regular feature that covers valuable free online resources. And rather than just a list of resources, or a blog description, we are going to link the reader directly to a specific post or page that will provide immediate value.
Here's the first article:
Online Resources that Help You Sell
Let’s face it. There is a lot of sales “stuff” online, and much of it isn’t worth the time it takes to read it. Or it is just trying to sell you something, and you don’t have time for that. You need to be on the phone, on the road, talking to customers, closing business.
So we’ll help you cut through the clutter. Every issue, we will introduce you to some online resources worth your time. And if you have a site or a blog that you find useful, please send it our way.
This issue, we have two blogs to tell you about:
Guy Kawasaki’s Bona tempura volvantur. One of the original Apple evangelists, Kawasaki is now a venture capitalist and author of a number of well known business books. His blog is fairly new, and chock full of advice, some taken from his previously published works, some new. All useful. One recent post worth checking out: The Art of Sucking Down. How to get people on your side, for the reservation, the upgrade, the access to your prospect. Follow his advice and your life will get easier.
Selling to Big Companies blog, by Jill Konrath. Even though Konrath’s focus is on the high ticket sale, her advice is good for most B2B sales situations. One of her most useful posts, from last December is Why this voicemail failed. She gives some great tips on how to leave a voice mail that just might get a call back.
And on the topic of voicemail, if there is a decent chance that the person you are calling might actually remember you, leave your phone number in the very beginning part of the message. “Hi, this is Susan Getgood from GuideMark 978-555-1212…” and then proceed with the rest of the message. That way, if the person is busy and doesn’t have time to listen to your whole message, she quickly has your callback number and can delete the message.
I'd love your feedback on this feature as well as any recommendations for blogs we should cover.
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** Special note to my readers and commenters: I may not have quantity in my readership, but you guys are definitely quality. Thanks!
Tags: sales, sales management, CRM, GuideMark, bank marketing, sales blogs, blogging, newsletter, sales tips, marketing tips
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Posted @ 11:03AM in Blogging, Customers, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, Newsletter | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Dec 28, 2005
Grab bag: Good Marketing Stuff
And for the final grab bag entry this week, a few posts that caught my eye:
Toby Bloomberg on 5 ways to combat negative blog comments. I particularly liked this reminder:
"One of the benefits of a marketing blog is the opportunity to dialogue with customers, prospects and stakeholders. Sorry y'all, no comments does not make a conversation. It's called a monologue. [...] One person takes center stage with no opportunity for direct feedback. For my money, a blog without comments and trackbacks is an on-line newsletter. And that's not a negative comment."
She's absolutely right (that's why she's the diva) -- there are places for both sorts of things, blogs and blog-like newsletters without comments.
The way I see it, companies just have to decide which thing they want to have and make sure it fits their culture and yes,their marketing plan. If you REALLY can't handle the comments, don't put up a blog with comments and then selectively delete the ones you don't like. You WILL get caught out, and you would have been better off doing a monologue.
I have commented in the past that I (like Toby) do not recommend turning off comments. Rather, use the comments on a blog to have a conversation with the reader. Even negative comments. As we all well know, your BEST customer often is the formerly unhappy customer who you turned around. Of course... you DO have to be willing to do what it takes to turn the customer around....
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If you use TypePad, archive this post from Neville Hobson on how to republish and back-up your blog.
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Two thought provoking posts from John Wagner: Open your eyes to the next wave of PR bloggers and Can the big agencies be thought leaders in a changing marketplace? John has links to commentary by Shel Israel and Trevor Cook among others. Start from his post and follow the trail. I think John is on to something. It is very hard for the big guns, in any industry, to open the country club doors and let the "rest of us" in. The minute they do, they have lost the cachet of their leadership position. They aren't "special" any more. However, more disturbing to me than the old school leaders having this "club" attitude is when I see similar behavior cropping up in the blogosphere.... Isn't it a bit soon (and contrary to the spirit of the blogosphere) for there to be authoritative voices on anything? To identify anyone as "So and So, the voice of X in the blogosphere" strikes me as odd.
Just my .02.
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A great post by Jill Konrath on the Selling to Big Companies Blog: Why this voicemail failed. Follow her advice and I'll bet you'll have more of your calls returned.
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And finally, from Elisa Camahort at Worker Bees (one of my must-read blogs by the way), some additional commentary on conferences. We've both noted a trend where conferences are becoming less about the content and more about the contacts. Which may be okay for dot-com millionaires and folks who don't pay their own way to these things, but as a small business owner who funds myself (whether I am a speaker or an attendee), I need to find value in the program as well as the people. I can't afford to attend a conference where I already know most of the content and my only takeaway is to have a few meals with people I already know. And much as I'd love to submit my name as a speaker for some of these things, well, I'm not as well known as others in my field, and can't afford to pay my own way (or take the time out from billable work) to the extent that others can, so I guess I'll remain not as well known. So it goes.
And, yeah, I guess I'll be staying home a lot too!
That's it for the grab bag. Next up for the marketing plan series of posts are some words about channel marketing.
Posted @ 10:12AM in Blogging, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, PR | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Dec 27, 2005
Marketing Plan: Trade Shows
Hope everyone is having a spectacular holiday season, whichever holidays you celebrate. We will now resume the regular programming that was interrupted by puppies and Christmas.
Puppies and Christmas... wasn't that the call to arms issued by a favorite television character a few years ago.... mmm. I know at least one of my readers will get this pop culture reference :-)
But I digress. Today's promised marketing plan topic is trade shows -- how and when DO they fit into a marketing plan? When I began my career 20+ years ago (ouch), big annual trade shows were a large part of the plan. One big event per quarter (sometimes two), where you pulled out all the stops, booth, giveways, contests etc., was not unusual. This is still true in some industries, particularly business to consumer products on a regional basis, but for many B2B marketers, the trade show is far less a fixture in the plan than it used to be.
Why? Unless your product REALLY needs to be seen and is too cumbersome to ship out for trial -- for example capital equipment like printing presses -- trade shows often are not as cost effective as other tools at our disposal. With the Internet to provide pre-purchase information and all the options for fast shipping if a product does need to be sent out for physical trial, signing up for a big expensive trade show is far less attractive. If the product can be delivered through the Internet itself in a form acceptable to the buyer, trade shows are a very hard sell. In my opinion, that is one of the reasons for the demise of big computer shows like Comdex, and why I don't think Internet World ever caught on. Too much money, too much investment of human capital and far too little return.
Now there are some exceptions to this phenomenon, even for computer products. Trade shows can still be an attractive venue if they are associated with an association meeting/convention. And I mean a real association meeting, with an active membership and a real education program that provides tangible value to the attendees. Big trade shows that stand apart from a real convention, even if they have the trappings of one, will not attract attendees the way the real thing does. Comdex. It started as a dealer show, morphed into an end user show, and eventually died (and IMO it was code blue for a few years before it was called.)
So trade show rule number one: unless a trade show is still the only option you have to show your product to potential buyers and dealers, make absolutely sure a BIG show is associated with an association meeting that will truly attract the attendees. [BTW, for these big capital products, the most popular trade shows do usually meet this criteria. Budget is ALWAYS an issue. In order to attract the big equipment manufacturers for whom drayage is a BIG BIG BIG expense, shows really need to pull the attendees, or the companies would find another way.]
Word of caution: affinity is not enough (example: Macworld) to develop a sustainable "big show." In my opinion, you must have an actual association connected to the show to guarantee the attendance, year in, year out.
In addition to the "really big show," there have always been a number of smaller shows, meetings and conferences to consider. Often held on a regional basis. These have proliferated in the past few years, even as the big big shows have somewhat declined. These may or may not be affiliated with an association meeting, and given that the investment is much less, it is much less critical as well. I prefer events that are affiliated but I have seen some good independent ones as well.
Here affinity and solid programming are often enough to get the audience necessary for a decent ROI. Your display, if any, is a tabletop that can be staffed by a couple of people. Sometimes, it is just a sponsorship -- coffee break, tote bag etc. -- with a corresponding lower total cost.
The audience may be small, but is usually highly selected. So the challenge here is to pick carefully, and sign up for the conferences that will actually deliver YOUR prospects. Don't do a conference aimed at C-level executives if your principal buyer is an IT director. Yes, you want to talk to the C-level guy, but guaranteed, the conference isn't the most cost effective place for you to do it. The president of the prospect company may be interested in meeting your CEO, but she doesn't want the sales pitch.
So my trade show rule number two is look for these smaller, more targeted events. If you can find the right audience for your value proposition and you have adequate staff to work the show, they are an excellent addition to the marketing plan. However, no matter how cheap the event is, if you can't give it sufficient resources, both promotional and staff, I still say, don't bother. It is not worth doing if you aren't going to do it right.
And that is our final rule: whatever you decide to do about integrating trade shows into your marketing plan, make sure you allocate sufficient resources to do it right. It is better to stay home and figure out another way to reach your targets than to go to a show and look like shit.
Posted @ 4:12PM in Business Management, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Nov 3, 2005
Lead Gen with Seminars
Part 2 of the content from my recent lead generation workshop
Seminars are a great way to educate your prospect about your product, can be a great offer/action for your direct mail program, and are definitely productive venues for meeting prospects. They tend to work better for products and services that can be complex – B2B and B2C – like computer products and financial services, or products/services that can be demonstrated effectively and/or taught in groups - gardening, wood working, cooking.
Typically, the goal of the seminar is to move the prospect along the sales cycle, and closer to trial or purchase.
I’m not going to go into the logistics of setting up a seminar. There are a lot of options, from setting up your own live seminar series, to webcasts, to offering your content to associations and the like. Run ii yourself, you have more control. Participate in someone else’s, you have less control, but less overall responsibility for logistics and audience as well.
What I really want to focus on is the content of the seminar.
People will not attend a seminar that is a thinly disguised product demonstration with little added value. If they are going to take the time to attend your seminar, whether IRL or virtually, the session has got to address a REAL problem they have and put your product in the context as part of the solution.
An example. My business is marketing consulting. When I give seminars or speeches, it is imperative that I give the audience value it can use, whether or not they ever engage a marketing consultant. If all I did was talk about the problems, and then said, to solve this, you need my product… I’d have an unhappy audience and I wouldn’t be asked back.
It is perfectly fine to talk about what you do… as long as the workshop has independent value as well. So, when you start down the seminar route, look for the independent value to your audience FIRST, and then add your product or service to the program.
Posted @ 9:11AM in Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Oct 29, 2005
A bit about direct mail
Lots of work lately, and little time to blog. Which I guess was fairly good timing on my part, given the problems Six Apart apparently has had the last week or so. If I had been trying to post, I would have been irritated. As it was I didn't even know until I got the explanatory email last night.
Anyway, about 2 weeks ago, I gave a lead generation seminar at our local Chamber of Commerce, covering the tactics of direct mail, seminars and blogs. Reviewing my notes, the direct mail and seminar sections are new content that I haven't covered to death in the blog already, so I've decided to post them in two parts. Here's the direct mail section:
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In my opinion, direct mail is by far the most cost efficient marketing method for presenting an offer directly to the prospect. These days it can be direct snail mail or direct email – each has its place. But you have to have an offer of some kind. A direct mail flyer sent out with information but no imperative rarely registers with a prospect. The offer doesn’t have to be time sensitive, but it helps. It also does NOT have to be a discount – it can be all sorts of things: free or reduced price education/training on a product, a premium, a white paper, added value to the product for a limited time. Etc.
It is a simple formula:
Present the problem… quickly.
Identify the solution… your product.
Make the offer
Deliver three solid benefits… WIIFM.
Call to action.
You close with the call to action, and you typically start with the problem. The order of the other elements varies, depending on the product, program, promotion etc. You use the order that stands the best chance of getting the prospect to take the action.
You can offer two choices of action, but preferably no more than that – too many choices is confusing for the recipient. Example: have sales person call and send more information. One is a strong call, the other is the back-up for milder interest and helps build your database for prospect nurturing and conversion.
The form of your direct mail package is very important. You should do the highest quality package your budget can stand. If you can justify the standard (and most successful) package of 1-2 page letter in a #10 envelope, with an included informational brochure or flyer, response card and lift note (the last chance message) by all means do it. But if you can’t do it well, ratchet back your piece so you can deliver a high quality package. A well written letter with a strong call to action on good quality paper will get you a lot farther than 3 xeroxed pages or a cheaply printed brochure. Yes, the package is important, but the marketing is in the MESSAGE not in the paper stock and color inks.
A word about that call to action – define success metrics in advance and clearly communicate expectations to the sales force regarding the next step. Don’t let a disconnect develop between the promise made in the marketing piece, and the sales process.
A few final points;
- Mail with a first class stamp is more likely to get opened that mail using franking or bulk rate
- Lists are better with odd numbers than even. 3,5,7. The top 3 reasons to.... The 5 things to do for X... 7 ways to improve network security...
- Self mailers can be effective, although they are rarely my first choice. They work best when the audience already knows it has the problem you solve. Can also be a good choice for customer upsell promotions.
Posted @ 10:10AM in Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jul 7, 2005
Marketing Roadsigns newsletter
Yes, I too have decided to launch a monthly newsletter. Since it will be a companion piece to the Roadmap, it will be called Marketing Roadsigns. You can sign up here on the Roadmap and on my website www.getgood.com
First issue will be sometime this week, and it will be archived on the website.
Update: July 2005 issue posted.
Posted @ 6:07PM in Blogging, Business Management, Customers, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, PR, Web Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jun 29, 2005
Roadmaps Round-up
Adrants on the promotion campaign for the John Twelve Hawks' book The Traveler. Program includes a character blog, and as I said in my comments on Adrants, I've long believed that fans of books/tv/film will embrace well written character blogs. This is slightly different, as it is promo for a new book, not a build-on to an existing franchise, but it will be very interesting to watch this play out. From my quick glance, the program looks very well done, and there is certainly no subterfuge.
Amy Gahran over at Contentious has a great idea for a unique gift: the gift of conversation.
From Creating Passionate Users, Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak Main takeaway: give the right features and make them usable as well as useful. Don't provide a feature just because you can. Make sure it is something that your user actually wants.
Finally, from Jim Logan, some thoughts about CRM -- CRM is an attitude and a set of processes, not a piece of software Main takeaway: Focus on doing active customer relationship management, using whatever software tools you want, versus on a piece of software as savior.
Posted @ 12:06AM in Blogging, Business Management, Customers, Fake/Fictional Blogs, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, Mathom Room | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jun 13, 2005
Summertime blues
It is hot... damn hot ... here in Massachusetts. I cannot wait for the hardwood pollen season to end so I can go out of my house again for more than 10 minutes at a time.
Random rant on: We all know it is possible to simultaneously love and hate a tech gadget. Today it is my iPod that I despise. Why? Because through an initial operator error (mine) followed by what I will call bad software design, the laptop (empty library) wiped out about 20 hours of music on my iPod. Including four CDs which I just can't find, and rather than tear my house apart, I just re-ordered. Which means of course I will find them the day after the Amazon order arrives... All compounded by the fact that I have first generation iPod with the crappy battery, and all Apple offered in the class action settlement was $50, which could not be used at iTunes. Hmm. Anyway, suffice it to say that my iPod no longer automatically synchronizes.
So should I just scrap it, use the $50 bucks toward a new player for my music and just use the old one for podcasts? Advice most welcome.
Two quick items, and more later:
Check out Bob Bly's blog-- great question about whether the Internet has killed writing and reduced literacy.
And as always, don't miss the Revenue Roundtable. Jill Konrath is lead poster this week.
UPDATE: Well, okay, Apple is on my s*** list this week, but here's the latest. First, I have 2 CDs that for some reason my CD drive can't read, but my husband's can. Bizarre-o, but you know that's where I am with this these days. So I go to the Apple iTunes store just to see if they have these 2 disks -- maybe it will be easier to just buy the damn things again than deal with all this crap. So, I need to update my info in the Apple records, and (caps intentional) THEY REJECT MY VALID AREA CODE FOR MY CELL PHONE NUMBER BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MATCH MY HOME PHONE NUMBER. So I type in the same area code as my home phone, which is wrong, and they accept it. Whoa Nelly. This is not good practice, people. Somebody needs to fix an algorithm....
Posted @ 1:06PM in Integrated Sales & Marketing, Mathom Room | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Jun 9, 2005
Roadmaps Roundup - June 9
Sorry for the lack of posts in the last week. As some of my readers know, I am in the early stages of building a consulting practice. This week I have been beyond busy, between client deliverables and new client prospecting. Anyway, some interesting stuff for this week's Roadmaps' Roundup.
First, be sure to check out the Revenue Roundtable -- Brian Carroll is lead poster this week and has some good stuff on lead gen and thought leadership.
Frederik over at CorporateBloggingBlog has a GREAT analysis of corporate blogging policies. After reading his analysis, I am more than ever convinced that smart companies will figure out how to give media/sensitivity training for their employees who blog, whether or not the blog is company sponsored. It is far easier to help people understand how to deal with media attention than it is to deal with the repercussions of an employee who got it wrong, irrespective of company policy. I'm really thinking about this... more to come....
Tris Hussey links to tips for the great 10-minute podcast. This is key for corporate marketers. One hour shows won't make a lot of sense in the corporate space; how to maximize this new form in short bursts will.
Excellent post from BusinessLogs on full posts in RSS feeds. Mike Rundle makes some excellent points about how people will, and should, use RSS feeds as gateways into blogs. I scan Bloglines every day to read the 300 or so blogs I monitor. If a post really interests me, I almost always clock over to the blog, even if there is a full feed. Either I want to leave a comment or trackback to the post, or I am curious if comments have been left... No matter what, if I had to use favorites/bookmarks to accomplish same, I would be far less informed. And btw I scanned the full post in Bloglines, but read it fully on the blog.
Super post from Mike Manuel on "Joe Blogger" and the importance of understanding that it is as (more?) valuable to reach the blogger with 5 (or even 50) readers who REALLY believe in the source as it is to reach the "Big Blogger" who may have lots of readers but no more (or even less) buying influence than Joe Blogger. This is critical: marketers need to remember: it is about reaching buyers, not reaching everybody.
Posted @ 10:06PM in Blogging, Business Management, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, Weblogs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jun 6, 2005
Communication between Sales & Marketing
Today's post is cross-posted from the Revenue Roundtable.
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Kevin's post yesterday was spot on about Marketing with a capital "M" as the core of the business. At the root, the Marketing Plan is the Business Plan. The marketing team is simply a functional team responsible for carrying out actions that deliver to the business plan. And as Kevin points out, there are other functions also responsible for their part of the delivery: sales, finance, operations, etc.
Quite frankly, I think the main reason we lose sight of the Marketing Plan being the Business Plan is fear that this gives too much organizational power to the marketing function.
But whatever the reason, it happens. Each of the separate but equal functions -- sales, finance, marketing, operations, customer service -- organize around their areas of responsibility and expertise into silos. The measures of success of each function -- lead volumes, sales quotas, DSOs, call volumes etc etc. - become their primary goals. In the trenches, the teams lose sight of the macro orgainzational goals - Revenue and Profitability. And they lose sight of the fact that they are all on the same overall team, the company.
And worst of all, they stop talking TO each other, except in the executive suite, where organizational politics tends to hold sway, reducing the likelihood of actual meaningful exchanges of information.
So, if what we have here is a failure to communicate.... then what we need to do is start talking again. Easier said than done. It requires a deep organizational commitment and strong leadership to break down the barriers, eliminate politics and empire building, and reset everyone back to the shared business goals.
It is well beyond the scope of this post to provide a prescription for how to fix a broken organization. Every situation, every team is different. One size does not fit all.
What I can do, however, is provide a simple suggestion on how to break down the barriers between the sales and marketing teams and get them more in sync with each other. It won't fill in the sales and marketing chasm, but it will build a better bridge :-)
Here goes.
The second most often heard complaint from sales reps (after #1, not enough leads) is that marketing never listens to all their good ideas for ads, direct mail campaigns etc. etc.
Marketing's biggest complaint? That people are always telling them all their great ideas that would be so much better than what the marketing team has done/has planned. You know: everyone is an advertising expert :-)
Net result: the marketing team tunes out everything from the sales reps, when instead it should be listening, filtering out the non-useful information, and using the data from the field to improve marketing programs. Remember the old cliche about advertising: I know 50 percent of my advertising works, I just don't know which 50 percent. A similar rule applies to the feedback from sales teams: a good 50 percent is complaints and extraneous information. But buried in the bull is great information about what is actually happening in the field. We need to mine that information to improve marketing programs.
Here's my recommendation: implement regular focus groups with the sales reps. You don't have to do expensive "scientific" focus groups with third-party facilitators. A directed conversation facilitated by the marketing team can be just as (and sometimes more) productive, as it fosters conversation among the teams as well as delivering data. But.. the session has to follow fairly strict rules so it doesn't degenerate into a "bitch session."
You also have to go down to the rep level. I have found that sales managers don't give the kind of unfiltered feedback about what is happening in the field that we need.
Here is a model that I have successfully used in the past:
- Once per quarter, within the first few weeks so as to not impinge on serious selling time, assemble a small group of sales reps. Rotate the groups quarter to quarter so you can get feedback from the largest number of reps possible. About 8 sales reps per session is a good number. Get buy-in and public commitment from the senior sales manager (VP, Director, whichever title is appropriate in your firm.) This ensures that the reps will participate and eliminates objections from line sales managers :-)
- The session is one hour, with four directed questions, 15 minutes for each question. The sales reps should clearly understand that the marketing team is NOT looking for their recommendations on the marketing plan, but rather feedback on specific questions which will be used to develop new marketing programs. This won't prevent the reps from telling marketing what they should do, but it is clear warning that this is not the purpose of the session.
- The questions should be <strong>actionable </strong>. DO NOT ask about something that you will not be able to change, regardless of the sales and field feedback.
- Marketing managers are the facilitators. When marketing programs are attacked (and they will be), they can't defend or get defensive. They have to soak up the feedback and deal with the negative offline from the focus group session. It is okay to be factual -- if someone complains about something that has been or will shortly be changed, it is perfectly okay to share the factual information. Otherwise, the marketing guys need to stick with the program, and the four defined questions, and not get sidetracked into defending their record
- Sales managers and executives should NOT be present. Period. The results of the session can and should be shared, but the presence of the bosses will change the session. People will be worried about impressing the honchos, not giving unvarnished feedback. When the results are presented, the feedback must not be attributed.
- The results of the session, including any actions that will be taken as a result, should be shared with the sales participants as soon as possible. Once the sales reps believe that their feedback has made a difference in the marketing plan, the chasm will start to close. They will start to buy-in, rather than complain. And the marketing team will be more open to the sales feedback. They will be better able to listen for the useful. The marketing programs will be better for it. And, over time, the relationship between your sales and marketing teams should improve.
If any of our readers decide to try this tactic, I would be happy to chat more about the model, just drop me a note. And I would most definitely love to hear your results.
Posted @ 9:06PM in Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
Jun 1, 2005
Deep Throat, blogging tips, asking for the order (and lions and tigers and bears, oh my)
As expected, I am really busy this week with the Revenue Roundtable and client work (hurrah), plus trying to jam everything in by COB Thursday as Friday is the Scottish Terrier Club of New England Specialty Show, and I will be there all day.
However, I do have a few things to share before I race off to prepare for a new prospect meeting tomorrow.
First, the big reveal of Deep Throat. I came of political age during Watergate. I think my first adult non-fiction book was All the President's Men and I definitely remember going to see the movie on a hot summer day in whatever year it was. It is hard to believe that all that took place more than 30 years ago.... when it still colors so much of what we feel about politics, regardless of what we believe or how we vote.
For my part, I am glad that Mark Felt, and his family, didn't wait until after his death. For whatever reason, and however it came about, I'm glad Felt will get the accolades due him while he lives. If his family benefits, that's great. He did a courageous thing, whatever his personal reasons were, and he deserves to get the praise in life. He'll certainly be criticized as well -- I can see the revisionist wagons circling.
So often, we wait to honor great men and women until after their deaths. I for one am pleased when the subject of the praise actually gets to hear it themselves. I remember a few years ago, here in our town, the local chamber of commerce had an event to honor an elderly civic leader who had done a tremendous amount for the town and the area. Literally put us on the map.
As my husband and I were waiting in the long line to greet the man and his wife, it crossed my mind that the whole event was a bit like a wake, except in this case, the man who actually KNEW everybody was still alive, and could enjoy the love of his community. I thought it was wonderful, and wished that we as a society were better at thanking our elders in life, not just honoring them in death.
Wakes and funerals serve an important religious and grieving function. But they aren't really for the person who has died. So... moral of the story: take time to thank and honor people today.
Thank you, Mr. Felt.
This story will be all over the blogosphere and the media today, tomorrow, the next day, but do read Dan Gillmor's post, Deep Throat: America owes Gratitude.
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Now a few little housekeeping things, items that caught my interest over the last week. If I had more time, I'd write more about them, but the clock is ticking.....
Standing Out from the Blogging Crowd, an item on BusinessWeek's Blogspotting, linked to tips for better blog writing from Robin Good.
Jim Logan on the importance of asking for the order.
Scottie Claiborne on links that drive search engine rankings (seen originally on Micro Persuasion). I need to get serious about promoting this blog ... one of these days.
Posted @ 10:06AM in Blogging, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Mathom Room, Politics/Policy, Web Marketing, Weblogs | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
May 30, 2005
Revenue Roundtable, week of May 30th
As I mentioned a week or so ago, I am one of six contributors to a new business blog, the Revenue Roundtable. This week is my week as "lead blogger" so I am liable to be light on the Roadmap as a result.
Check out the Roundtable -- my topic for the week is "Why can't sales and marketing get along?"
Posted @ 10:05PM in Business Management, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 23, 2005
Back on the grid from Camp WorldWIT
Well, I have been off the grid for the past few days at Camp WorldWIT in Lake Geneva Wisconsin. It was a terrific weekend of meeting smart successful women from all over the country, and in fact from overseas as well. Of course, I had withdrawal symptoms from not having Internet access until I hit the Admiral’s Club on Sunday morning before my flight home.
Some of my highlights:
All three keynote speakers were excellent: Sheila Cavanaugh, SVP at Fidelity, Dr. Sheila Dugan from Rush University Medical Center and Rosalyn Wesley, Director of Corporate HR at Fortune Brands.
Kathleen Ameche’s tale of the process to publish her new book, The Woman Road Warrior.
The wonderful women who attended the panel on which I was a speaker. They had terrific questions about blogging, and I really enjoyed meeting and speaking with them. Below I have posted the additional links I promised during the session.
Sunrise yoga.
Some really great sessions on sales and marketing issues. It is great to meet people of like mind who believe in a sales and marketing partnership, versus a war.
And last but not least, all the terrific women I met during the weekend.
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Links
Typepad and Blogger, two well known hosted services for blogs. Blogger is free, but I think less functional for business blogging. I use Typepad.
Two search engines for blogs: Technorati and PubSub
I also want include the WorldWIT blogs: Business Mom, Networking for Success, PRGirl, The Customer Clique and The Male Perspective
As I start hearing back from the women I met at Camp WorldWIT about their new blogs, I will create a new category on my blogroll, and include the WorldWIT ones as well.
Posted @ 10:05AM in Blogging, Business Management, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Mathom Room | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)
May 18, 2005
Announcing The Revenue Roundtable
A few weeks, Jim Logan asked if I would be interested in joining with him and a few others on a new group blog called The Revenue Roundtable. After a few weeks of round robin e-mails, telephone calls and a lot of work on Jim's part (thanks Jim), the Roundtable launched yesterday.
The Roundtable bloggers are Jim Logan, Michael McLaughlin, Jill Konrath, Brian Carroll, Kevin Stirtz and me. Our backgrounds in sales, marketing, business develoment and small business management are different, but we all share a results-oriented approach to business problems, so you can expect a practical, goal-oriented Roundtable. I'll keep my philosophical musings and fake blog rants on the Roadmap :-)
From the introductory post:
"We’ve joined together as a team to focus on a single objective: helping you grow a profitable business—while maintaining your sanity. Our panel of experts will help you clear the path to prosperity by sharing winning strategies for building a business, and by pointing out the inevitable traps you’ll encounter along the way.
The Revenue Roundtable team’s saying is “Be practical, or be quiet.” So, head off to academia if you want to read jargon-laden management theory. Stick with us if you want specific advice on marketing strategy, lead generation, managing a complex sale, and expanding your business with your existing customers. And that’s just the start.
The team will write on one topic each week so you’ll get an in-depth view of an issue. And, we want your comments, suggestions and participation so we can tailor the blog’s content to match what you ask for.
Come back often. Let the Revenue Roundtable be your Swiss army knife for growing your business."
Check it out -- the first week's topic is Customers!
Posted @ 9:05AM in Blogging, Integrated Sales & Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 10, 2005
Where the Roadmap is taking me
Just a few places where the Roadmap is taking me.
Next week, I will be at Camp WorldWIT: Women in the Lead from May 19-22, speaking on a marketing panel, "First to Market: Make Your Name Hit and Stick," Friday, May 20 from 2 – 3:15pm.
In late July, I will be at the blogher conference in Santa Clara. I am very excited to be a panelist on the Blogging for Business panel (Saturday July 30 at 2:30pm)
Posted @ 11:05AM in Blogging, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Apr 15, 2005
Roadmaps Round-up
Just a bunch of good stuff. Have a great weekend!
Fusion Brand: Great post on Brand vs. Customer Architecture: Which is More Effective?
How to Blog for Fun and Profit has a short post about a Cnet comparison of Typepad and Blogger
Quite some time ago, Steve Rubel (and others) blogged about InfoWorld’s special report on blogs and wikis. I have been intending to include it in a link round-up for weeks, so here is the link to Steve’s post.
Another great resource post that I have been sitting on is from NevOn: Tips for successful media relations This post Introduced me to David Tebbut’s Teblog.
Yahoo is offering free 5-page websites to small US businesses, to be hosted in Yahoo! Local. Thanks to Nick W at Threadwatch for the info.
Posted @ 9:04AM in Blogging, Business Management, Customers, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, PR, Web Marketing, Weblogs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Mar 26, 2005
Lead Rating System
At reader request, here is more detail on lead rating systems. Fair warning: this is a long post.
Before I get into numbers, let’s start with some baseline assumptions:
A prospect is defined as someone who has demonstrated specific interest in your offering, usually by taking some action relative to a marketing program. In other words, they have raised their hand.
In any pool of prospects, roughly 15% are really ready to take action in the near term. We’ll call those sales leads.
Of the balance, about 20% are probably junk, and the other 80% are longer term. Let’s continue to call that longer term group, prospects.
The goal of an integrated sales and marketing program is to:
- Classify the prospects. This is what the lead rating system does.
- Assign the sales leads immediately to sales.
- Develop nurturing programs for prospects to convert them to leads
I have a number of previous posts on this process, here and here and here. Today we’ll focus on the lead rating.
Okay, so how do we classify our prospects?
For just about every product, there are three common questions:
What is the timeframe of purchase?
Does the prospect have a budget?
Does the prospect have purchase authority? (decisionmaker)
These three questions form the basis of a lead rating questionnaire.
In addition to these basic questions, there are additional parameters that help us determine the lead rating. Two important ones are whether the prospect is a present/past customer, and the specific action they took when they indicated interest. Requesting a sales call is usually indicative of greater interest than downloading a brochure. Likewise a returning customer is generally more likely to purchase than a completely new prospect.
Finally, every company will have one or two things that the sales and marketing team believes is absolutely crucial to know for the lead rating. Personally, I have yet to be convinced that to calculate a lead rating, you really need more than the five variables I listed here first, but it is easy enough to accommodate them in my model, so I do J
Step one is to develop the questionnaire that will surface the necessary answers to calculate the rating. For many of you, it will be a web questionnaire, but it could also be completed at a trade show or by a tele-marketing or tele-sales rep.
You will need to map the answers to the lead ranking model. The lead ranking model is a numerical system, with a maximum score of 100. Here is the basic framework. You MUST tailor it to your situation.
Total points: 100
Timeframe: 25
Action: 25
Budget: 20
Authority: 10
Customer: 10
Custom value: 5
Custom value: 5
Timeframe scores: You may adjust your Timeframe ranges based on your sales cycle, but the total value must not exceed 25 points. Here is a place to start.
Immediate: 25
1-3 months: 25
3-6 months: 15
6-12 months: 5
> 12 months: 0
Action scores: You will use your actual “actions” here, but the model is:
The most indicative actions get 25 points.
Mid-range actions get 15 points.
Common actions (download a brochure, trade show booth) get 10 points.
Any time you need to calculate a rating with no action, assign 0 points.
Only one action is counted – there are huge implications to this for automated systems like CRM which go way beyond this post. My opinion: if you can get an initial lead ranking done, you will be light years ahead of most companies J
Budget:
Yes: 20
No: 0
“Don’t know”: 10
Don’t know gets points because a lower level person assigned to do research might not know the budget but other factors may push the opportunity up the scale.
Authority: This is the only additive score, with up to 10 points possible
Research alternatives: 0
Perform technical evaluation: 2
Recommend vendor/product: 2
Approve budget: 3
Approve purchase: 3
You can also make this a binary question, Yes/No With purchase authority equal to 10 points and No equal to 0. It really depends on your product and sales cycle.
Customer: 10 points for past/current customer
Custom values: The custom values are allowed a total of 10 points. You can have two at 5 points each or a single one at 10 points. No matter what you choose, I recommend you select binary yes/no questions. Yes equals all the points, No equals zero. You can also add these points back into one of the other variables.
In the end, what you want is a framework that will help you rate your prospects according to your business.
Step Two:
Use the rating framework to assign a ranking to your prospects. Your mileage may vary, and you should develop test cases to validate the ranges, but here is a starting point:
“A” lead: 76-100 points
“B” lead: 51-75 points
“C” prospect: 30-50 points
“D” prospect: 0-29 points
For example, a top A lead with 100 points: has immediate timeframe, budget, is a past/present customer, has purchase authority, scores high on the Action variable and the 2 custom values. Typically, B leads will score low on one of the high-valued variables, C prospects, low on two of the high-valued variables. This reflects the reality that your best leads are ready to buy right now,with immediate timeframe, budget and authority to buy, and the next best group typically is missing something like budget or has a longer timeframe. And so on.
All the mathematical model does is quantify the reality.
To fine-tune the system to your needs, your sales and marketing team should profile their good leads and prospects against the system to validate the numerical values.
Please DO NOT take this framework as gospel. This is just one way to structure the lead rating framework, and I hope it gives you a good place to start.
Posted @ 7:03PM in Business Management, Customers, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Mar 19, 2005
RoundUp: Marketing, Direct Mail and Blogs
This week's links are short items that relate to things I have written about recently.
From Jim Logan, a great post on Paper Direct Mail is Not Dead He provides specific, and excellent, examples on how to integrate direct mail with web marketing for an integrated marketing program. More proof that it isn't about one marketing tool or another being the magic bullet, it is about using, and combining, all the necessary and available marketing tactics to raise that prospect. Also be sure to read a follow-on post from Brian Carroll that has further recommendations.
From A Consuming Experience: Blogging - and your job This is particularly interesting as this blog is an excellent example of a well-written, interesting, anonymous blog. The author goes into some of the reasons why she has chosen anonymity in this post.
Posted @ 8:03AM in Blogging, Business Management, Customers, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Mar 1, 2005
Leads. leads, leads
Earlier today, I was working on another post (ie not this one). I spent a bit of time on getting my words just right and so on. It was getting kind of long, so I re-read the post to do some editing. And realized that after a number of paragraphs, I hadn't gotten to the point, and even worse, it was just ****ing boring. I had shed no new light on my subject, and my post bored me. I can only imagine how dreadfully dull all of you would have found it.
So, you are spared my boring post.
Instead I am going to write about leads! Over the past couple of weeks, a few of my favorite sales/marketing bloggers have written some thoughtful posts about leads. Here's a sampling:
- Qualified lead programs need to be trashed (Jim Logan)
- A lead generation fable (Brian Carroll)
- Do you have thirsty sales people (Dana VanDen Heuvel)
You know you've read a good post when it REALLY gets you thinking, and these three posts, well, they led to this post :-)
Leads are the lifeblood of every business, and the source of more misunderstandings, confusion and strife between sales and marketing teams than just about ANY OTHER issue in the business. And the sad truth is, all it takes to avoid the battles is a well thought out integrated lead program. So why don't more companies do this? Quite a while ago, I suggested some reasons why this is so, and promised to go into more detail in a follow-up post.
Well, two months later, here we are. As clearly as I can, without a whiteboard and visual aids, I am going to give you a model for lead rating and nurturing that delivers the filtered leads (without the crap) that Brian and Dana referred to in their posts. And will end the sales/marketing war....
First Step: Definitions and Responsibilities. It is marketing's job to identify, qualify and nurture sales prospects to the point where the prospect becomes a sales lead. Sales then takes over and is responsible for converting the lead into a sale. So you say! Seems simple, how come we have so much confusion?
Diagnosis:
- We don't have a clear, unambiguous, agreed definition of PROSPECT and LEAD.
- We don't have a clearly defined "hand-off" point. Things shift around depending on how busy the sales team is or how much budget is available for telemarketing this quarter.
- We don't have a clear, tested process for nurturing leads, from mild interest to avid adopter. So, it is feast or famine for the sales team, depending on how well a particular lead gen program did this week in generating folks that are ready to buy.
Second Step: Stop doing all that bad stuff in my diagnosis. Instead:
- Implement a lead rating system. Your sales and marketing teams KNOW how to define a qualified lead and a qualified prospect. Put them together and have them develop a lead rating system that can be applied to all incoming prospects. The lead rating should be based on three basic parameters, although it may require more than three questions to accurately define this for your business.
Some people like the MAN model, Money - Authority - Need. I prefer Budget - Timeframe - Decisionmaker (Need is assumed by the fact that the prospect responded to an offer, and the more important dimension to surface is the Timeframe of the purchase.)
But it doesn't matter which of these you prefer - pick one and develop the lead rating questions for your business that will let you classify your prospects appropriately. - Build a mathematical model that classifies leads as A, B, C and D based on your important parameters. Using my preferred Budget, Timeframe, Decisionmaker model, A leads are the hot leads, with budget, immediate timeframe, and the prospect is the decisionmaker. B leads typically have a longer timeframe.
C and D are prospects -- they typically are missing some key ingredient in the mix, or have a much longer timeframe. And they shouldn't go to your sales people. Cs and Ds should be nurtured in marketing.
There is a lot of detail in this process, more than I want to go into here. If you are interested, please feel free to drop me an e-mail at sgetgood@getgood.com. I'd love to talk leads with you. - Use your model to assign A and B leads to sales people, and C and D prospects to marketing. Sales focuses on converting hot lead to sales and marketing works on nurturing longer term prospects into leads.
Step Three: Nurture prospects. This is where companies usually miss. They may do the work of classifying leads, but they don't assign the responsibilities appropriately. Everything goes to sales, even the folks who aren't ready to buy. Somehow, the company imagines that all the prospect needs is to talk to our excellent sales reps and they'll cut the PO. Wrong. In fact, it may do more damage to put a prospect in the sales queue. If all you want is to start the conversation, you really don't want someone trying to close you.
Depending on your product set, you could have a simple or complex lead nurturing process. The key: make sure your prospect is engaged by, and engaging with, the appropriate folks in your sales/marketing team at the appropriate points in the sales cycle.
Leads to sales, prospects to marketing, clear definitions, and a clear handoff point.
Much better than bitching about lead quality or bad conversion rates, isn't it?
Posted @ 5:03PM in Business Management, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
Feb 10, 2005
Weekly round-up
Just a few things still in my "to write about" box for this week.
Great post on Brian Carroll's B2B Lead Generation Blog: Tips for better webinars. His advice is terrific. Two key takeaways:
- Webinars and webcasts are part of the overall marketing strategy, not standalone events. They work well when they are integrated with the program, not when seen as some sort of quick fix to a lead generation problem.
- Web events are great for prospecting, lead nurturing and building an expert reputation for your firm. They are NOT a source of hot leads that will close tomorrow, so set the right expectation for your sales team.
Part 7 of Christopher Carfi's Business Blogging Field Guide, the CEO Blog. Be sure to go back and read the whole series, very well done.
Lastly, congratulations, Ellen MacArthur: Englishwoman Sails Globe in 71 Days, a Record
Posted @ 11:02AM in Blogging, Integrated Sales & Marketing, Marketing, Web Marketing, Weblogs | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)