New Year brings a renewed focus on Lead Generation and New Business development. Unfortunately most salespeople (up to 50%) will be well short of their target. In most cases targets are reasonable, in line with remuneration and experience and most companies have good products and an effective marketing function. It is a classic situation and one that’s easily remedied.

So what is going wrong?

Systemic failure?

It sounds obvious but most salespeople do not want to fail. They want to hit their targets: professional pride, income (and sometimes jobs) are at risk. The vast majority of sales professionals work extremely hard to close deals. But securing business compromises other activities. Focusing (quite reasonably) on progressing opportunities means that there is no time to complete the important task of qualifying leads and booking appointments: salespeople fail to hit targets because there are not enough hours in the day.

In some organisations a reluctance on behalf of management to acknowledge this simple fact means that the business will continue to underperform.

Do the sums…..

Voicemail, receptionists and meetings can all cause delay but they are not the real reason salespeople rarely hit their target. Take the following example:

A new business salesperson, earning £40K basic and £20k commission. A reasonable target is 10 x salary i.e. £600,000 per annum. With 4 weeks’ holiday (not counting bank holidays) they will have 240 selling days.

Some basic assumptions:

• Average deal value = £20,000.
• It takes 2 meetings to close a deal and a meeting takes up half a day.
• Proposals take half a day to complete.
• Success (proposal to business is 1 in 3).
• 3 out of 4 meetings result in a proposal.

In order to hit target the salesperson has to close 30 deals. With a 1 in 3 success rate, the salesperson has to produce 90 proposals and conduct 240 sales meetings (it takes 2 meetings to close a sale).

Just processing enquiries, conducting meetings and delivering proposals will take 180 days. Leaving only 60 days to book meetings. A working target for most telemarketers is 60 calls a day of which they will speak to 10 decision makers and book a meeting with one (i.e. 60 meetings instead on the required 120).

The example above makes generous assumptions and still the salesperson is only likely to hit 50% of target.

The simple solution

Achieving your targets is not rocket science: you just have to conduct enough sales meetings. Invest in resources (either external or internal) that can secure meetings and your sales team will start to hit their targets.

Salespeople have a hard time.

If you are lucky they will join your organisation with a network of contacts that will help them generate immediate revenue. It may even be enough to cover their first quarter’s wages. However, there comes a point where the low hanging fruit runs out and opportunity generation gets a whole lot more difficult.

Traditional prospecting soaks up newly appointed sales professionals’ time. Attendance at trade shows is time consuming and expensive. But it will help the salesperson connect with several potential clients. Cold calling can be soul destroying (and not particularly productive) but it sometimes delivers results.

The problem is that while salespeople are concentrating on generating opportunities, they are unlikely to progress many sales. In addition, the skill set employed in prospecting is different to the skills required for face to face meetings. So whilst the pipeline of potential meetings is being built, skills are getting rusty and new business revenue is non-existent or at best, minimal.

Field salespeople are most effective when they are in front of potential customers (not when they are researching a database). Separating prospecting from field sales releases your newly appointed sales professional from the drudgery of cold calling and lead nurturing. They get to focus on what they are good at: selling (after all, it is what they get paid for).

Internal salespeople (or an appointed agency) can quickly build databases: verifying email addresses and direct dial telephone numbers. When combined with well structured knowledge based lead nurturing campaigns, internal salespeople can identify potential opportunities and set appointments. Prospects are more likely to agree to a meeting if it is arranged by the individual with whom they have had an ongoing dialogue. So it makes sense to transfer a lead once the appointment has been arranged.

Separating the two distinct disciplines of opportunity generation with sales progression will improve performance. Individuals can hone their respective skills and the whole sales process becomes far more productive.

Businesses spend millions of pounds each year generating opportunities they do not follow up.

In most cases organisations have efficient, effective marketing departments and well trained, skillful sales professionals. But the problem is co-ordination. Trade shows will produce leads and mail shots (physical and email) do result in enquiries. Even cold – call telemarketing can (in the right circumstances) be effective.

What Happens to Marketing Leads?

Co-ordinating marketing and sales effort is challenging for large and small organisations. The act of processing, qualifying and assigning leads to salespeople takes time. Further delays occur when the leads are passed to sales. People are busy and a salesperson may not get through to the prospect for several days.

‘Dropping the baton’ between marketing and sales is a waste of valuable marketing resource. Calling a once warm prospect weeks after the initial contact is the equivalent of a shop assistant turning up at your front door and asking if they can help you with a coat you were looking at three weeks ago. The call is likely to be inappropriate, unwelcome and slightly disorientating.

When to Pass the Baton?

As in athletics, passing the baton at the right time transfers responsibility with no loss of momentum. If your salespeople are responsible for making calls and booking appointments from ‘warm’ marketing leads you are probably passing the baton too early. Complaints about ‘poor quality leads’ certainly indicate premature handover.

Timing the transfer of responsibility is likely to vary between organisations however, there are a couple of principles that should be adhered to.

Who is Responsible?

If marketing are to attract, nurture and get the lead qualified ready for sales then responsibility for oppointment setting should be with your marketing or tele-qualification team. The principle is simple. If contact and relationship building has been done by the inside sales team then it makes sense for that relationship to be leveraged when asking for an appointment.

After all, it is marketing’s job to make sure salespeople have a good pipeline of well qualified opportunites and meetings. It also makes sense from the prospect’s perspective. A clear separation of responsibility: field sales for physical sales meetings and telesales for qualification and appointment setting.

Improving Performance

Getting your marketing department (or external agency) to set appointments delivers two valuable management tools: Quality and quantity management. An appointment is a clear and unambiguous deliverable. No-one can argue of the voracity of the ‘lead’ if they are willing to take an appointment. But the quality of appointments is also important: does the prospect have Authority, Need, Budget?

So, you can measure the quantity and quality (and therefore improve) marketing performance. And if your salespeople are being given good quality appointments, you can also measure their performance: how are they progressing the opportunity and how many appointments turn into business.

Most salespeople miss their targets.

Or put another way: most salespeople fail.

This appalling situation has a detrimental effect on morale, individuals and ultimately the business. The paradox is that sales professionals are by nature competitive; they love winning. The financial and personal benefits associated with hitting the numbers means that they will pull out all the stops to make their targets.

So why are so many failing?

Often businesses blame poor selling skills (but given the financial reward, most salespeople hone their skills to perfection). Salespeople often blame the products, the company or marketing (but most products can be sold and marketing will produce leads).

The real reason sales professionals miss targets because too much time is taken in unproductive activity.

Being Productive

It might sound too simplistic but to hit targets salespeople need to meet prospects only when there is a qualified opportunity. This reduces the actual number of meetings attended and allows the salesperson to focus their attention on managing the opportunity.

Unfortunately salespeople often waste hours and days on non-productive opportunities. One of the greatest wastes is cold calling or prospecting. It does not make economic sense for salespeople to do their own lead and meeting generation. Look at the numbers:

Sales person’s target: £500,000

Average Sale: £20,000

With a generous 1 in 4 win ratio, to hit target your salesperson needs to make 8 good sales appointments per month. If they are generating their own meetings (and just allowing one day per week for the activity) they are likely to average just 4 good sales meetings per month. i.e. they will only hit 50% of target.

Increasing the number of days spent prospecting simply reduces the number of days available for meetings and administration.

Organise for success

Getting field sales professionals in front of qualified prospects is the surest way of hitting targets. But they need support to achieve this.

Telesales teams: internal or external can develop the opportunities needed for your teams to hit their targets but they also need support and direction. Cold calling by telemarketers does not guarantee a stream of well qualified meetings. Targeting these teams simply on numbers can result in poor quality meetings and more unproductive activity.

The surest way of generating qualified opportunities is by co-ordinating marketing and telemarketing efforts. Knowledge based digital marketing campaign will identify individuals with an interest in your proposition. Your telemarketing team are then in a position to call, further qualify and set appointments where appropriate.

Separate appointment setting and field sales, provide marketing support, co-ordinate the activity and you will have a sales team that is motivated, happy and exceeds its targets.

Many companies struggle to get a regular flow of good quality opportunities for their salespeople. The main reasons for this failure are:

1. Poor quality or difficult to use database.
2. Limited regular and consistent marketing.
3. Ineffective cold calling by sales professionals.
4. Mixed experiences with traditional telemarketing.

It all adds up to limited numbers of new business meetings, weakened pipelines and missed targets.

What do Salespeople Want?

Salespeople simply want to do what they do well: sell. And they want as many opportunities to sell as they can sensibly manage. Time taken researching names or cold calling prospects is wasted; it could be put to better use in face to face meetings with qualified prospects.

To be effective your field sales professionals need regular new business appointments with individuals who represent an opportunity. i.e. They have a budget, authority, need and a timescale.

Effective Opportunity Generation

Over the past eight years we have run knowledge based campaigns to subscribers in the UK, EMEA and the USA. Our White Papers and Case Studies, have been written for companies as diverse as IBM, Computer Associates and Siemens. They are read by senior business people. We have built up good relationships and great insights with our readers, many of whom have become clients (or clients of clients).

We have also built up reliable, actionable, business intelligence.

Our systems register when individuals access information and a picture built up over time enables us to identify when individuals and organisations move into the buying cycle.

We call it ‘digital body language’.

Making contact with senior executives when they are ready to explore business solutions is a very effective way of developing opportunities.

What does ‘good’ look like?

An APM Digital lead has been qualified in two ways: first we track behaviour (actions speak louder than words) and see what interests individuals. Then we engage, when the prospect is actively reviewing material and qualify the opportunity fully. If appropriate we will then ‘pencil in’ an appointment.

This is what an APM Digital lead looks like:

Payment by Results

Our payment by results offering is a true win – win – win situation. Our clients win: they only pay for opportunities and meetings they want to progress (if you do not accept the lead, you do not pay). We are incentivised to secure our clients the best possible meetings and finally, the prospects win because they get to speak with knowledgeable salespeople about products and solutions they are interested in.

And our large, warm and responsive database of senior executives ensures that our clients get the best quality opportunities.

If you would like to get more information on our Payment by Results service, call 01252 620206 or email: mark.grey@apmdigital.co.uk

The Challenge of Channel Marketing

Get channel marketing right and companies can enjoy significant growth and improved profitability. But getting your channel ‘right’ is a challenge for many vendors. Selecting and recruiting the right companies is just the start of the process: training, support and MDF (Market Development Funds) take valuable time and resources. And the results are not guaranteed. Here are just a few of the issues faced by vendors pursuing a channel strategy:

Channel Partners have Limited Resources

Most partners have little in the way of their own marketing collateral (White Papers, Case Studies, Video) and many do not have a dedicated marketing manager. With resources tight partners tend to focus their efforts on one or two preferred solutions. Which means that for the majority of vendors the 80-20 rule applies: 80% of revenue generated by just 20% of partners. Improving the ratio by 10 points could dramatically improve vendors’ turnover.

Channel Partners are in Competition

Get three channel partners in a room together and it is odd on that you will have three organisations in direct commercial competition flaring their nostrils at each other. It does not create an environment of openness and collaboration. Which is a shame for the vendor because openness and collaboration is needed to maximise marketing effectiveness and generate opportunities.

This lack of openness means that it can be difficult to accrurately guage the impact of MDF, joint campaigning and your overall marketing efforts. The channel just appears to be a ‘black hole’ into which you pour your marketing funds. And what you cannot measure, you cannot manage. For many vendors, identifying where to focus effort in the channel is impossible.

A Perfect Solution?

Vendors want to support their channel, but can be frustrated by limited resources and partners natural aversion to sharing information.

Wouldn’t it be great if vendors could run regular marketing campaigns directly (and securely) to resellers prospects and automatically route opportunities to the right partner? Well a solution is being rolled out by some international vendors which looks like an answer to a maiden’s prayer. The short video below (just refresh your browser if you cannot see it and make sure your speakers are on) explains all.

If you would like a demo or some case studies forwarded, please just get in touch.

Many organisations dipping their toes into the fast flowing waters of Social Media get cold feet. The medium just does not deliver the returns they expect or worse, they make a social faux pas and wind up with a major PR exercise.

It is a fact that Social Media Marketing is effective, it delivers great results and, as traditional media makes way for the Internet, it is the way all organisations will market in the very near future.

Individuals inevitably fail when they tackle a job with the wrong tools (Ever tried to water a garden with a sieve?). Digital Media Marketing is no different: you need the right set of tools (and experienced tradesmen) if you are going to succeed. This blog outlines the infrastructure we believe organisations need to have in order to execute campaigns effectively.

Basic Infrastructure: The Principles

Social Media is just like any other media; there are assets you own and have complete control of, assets you ‘hire’ and have temporary control of and assets you neither own nor control but which you may be able to influence.

Unfortunately it is this latter group of assets that has the greatest impact upon your success.

The success of any campaign will depend upon the way you employ your owned and hired assets: get it right and you’ll be surfing the face of a social wave with skill and style. Get it wrong and you’ll be wiped out and eating sand.

A sound architecture is needed before launching a successful campaign. Make sure your controlled assets are properly linked to the right ‘uncontrolled assets’ and that you have done your media planning meticulously. Just like in the traditional world, you need to get your message in front of the right audience.

www.get-itadvantage.com

Build for interactivity: independent, unaffiliated assets have interactivity built as part of their core functionality; it is what makes these assets popular. Make sure that when your audience uses your assets, they can exchange ideas freely and chat, preferably in real time.

The old adage ‘the harder I work the luckier I get’ is possibly more appropriate for Social Media. Your contributions to debate have to be regular, thought through and engaging.

Basic Infrastructure: The Assets Interactive ‘Blogsite’ or ‘Micro Site’

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It is highly likely that your website is unsuited for use in Social Media campaigns. Typically websites suffer from a lack of interactivity, inappropriate information structures or insufficient relevant collateral.

But even if everything was perfect, a corporate site is unlikely to ‘work’ in the Social Media space. Put simply: people will not chat and interact if they think they are going to be watched and sold to.

A Micro Site designed for blogging can provide the necessary distance between the audience and the organisation. Micro Sites can be issue or campaign driven and hold a wealth of information and collateral.

Sponsored pages

The company’s Facebook page might not get a lot of activity; it may be good for keeping friends (customers and staff) informed of events but it generally won’t generate the heated and useful discussions that help to develop the next killer product (or sell more of your existing product). There are exceptions, particularly if the product and company are synonymous: Promoting Bands, Celebrities and Events can be very effective on social media sites.

For most organisations, setting pages up which focus on the product or the issue is more effective than ‘The company page’. Product recall, complaint and feedback pages can help organisations get a feel for sentiment in the wider world. Some of these sites will be developed anyway – ‘I hate HP (HP Sucks)’ is a real group on facebook.

Twitter and other Micro Blogs

Too many people take Twitter at its word and just make noise. Don’t. It is annoying, will lose brand value and corporate credibility. Only ‘Twitter’ if you have something important to say that adds value for your target audience.

A good Tweet is the equivalent of a great email subject line.

But you need something to back it up with. Direct followers to your assets: your micro sites, webcasts and blogs. Used effectively Twitter will build your database and audience.

eMail

Do not forget your email audience; many will be waiting for your next instalment: it is how they prefer to consume your material. It is likely years have been spent cultivating a readership of customers and prospects. Do not forget them.

eMail is still the number one lead generation vehicle. Effective marketers are already executing co-ordinated eMail campaigns that incorporate social media and delivering great results.

Non Owned Assets

Perhaps the biggest mistakes are made by organisations experimenting with Social Media through membership of groups such as LinkedIn. They actively promote products or services: a strategy that inevitably backfires. Rather than increasing market share they shrink it. Discussion and interest groups actively exchange ideas on subjects and issues that directly affect your business. To get involved you need to pose questions and offer opinion. Direct discussion as an effective chairperson would.

It is possible to improve your organisations profile and mindshare within the ‘uncontrolled asset’ space. But your contributions will have to demonstrate expertise and your questions will need to precipitate lively debate.

How to get it working

A client recently told me that senior management wanted to get involved in social media because it was free.

Skill and expertise built up over years in digital communications are unlikely to be cheap and they are certainly never ‘free’. Whilst digital media may be more cost effective (and measurable)  than traditional channels, you will need a team of experts actively planning and expediting your campaigns. And it is a full, not a part-time, job.

When it comes to lead generation too many organisations rely on third party lists (or poor quality ‘in-house’ lists).

The results are always disappointing and frequently appalling.

Well designed, updated and administered emailable databases will deliver results well above industry standards. If you are currently experiencing open rates below 15% and ‘click through’ rates lower than 10% then you may wish to read further.

What is an eMailable database?

Well it is more than a list of names and email addresses of ‘prospects’. A database consists of:

1. Individuals with whom you have an active or latent commercial relationship.

2. Individual, personal email addresses.

3. Individual permission to communicate via email.

4. Individual intelligence: you know exactly where the individual is in the buying cycle.

Note the use of individual: email marketing is not mass marketing. Organisations and colleagues who talk of ‘eshots’ and ‘email blasts’ just do not get it; they need education. An emailable database is a valuable resource that delivers regular revenue. A simple list will perform badly, damage your digital reputation and cost you money.

Jonathan Calver’s White Paper on ‘How to Build an eMailable Database‘ provides an insight into what it takes to start improving your campaign rates. If you would like it: Click Here

Building rather than buying your list.

When you build your own database you embed value:

1. It contains historical data: all the interactions you have had with the individuals in the database.

2. It is far more responsive than a ‘bought list’ or sending campaigns via third parties.

5 List Building Strategies:

1. Raid the Sales Team.

They might not like it at first but when you start to deliver real opportunities into their laps they will soon forgive you. Your sales team will have built up some serious intelligence on potential customers: it belongs to the company, not on a sales executives private spreadsheet, outlook file or notebook. Do not underestimate the level of authority you may need to extract this information. But the leads belong to the company, not the individual.

2. Purchase a list to get you started

Working in conjunction with telemarketing (either internally or externally) a bought list can provide you with enough information to start really building intelligence into your database. Remember, at this point you are not selling. You are simply getting enough information and permission to start email campaigns.

3. Telemarketing with a valuable offer

If you cold call someone, ask for their email address and permission to email, you will probably get a ‘No’. Hopefully it will be a polite, ‘not company policy’ rather than a short expletive! However, if you have a valuable offer of interest: a Sample, White Paper’, ‘Case Study’ etc. you are far more likely to get a positive response. And if the individual appreciates the offer, you will have started to build the commercial relationship.

4. Convert your Direct Mail list to an eMail list

Look at your most responsive, regular direct mail contacts. Working with them first to attain their email address should be relatively easy: they already have a relationship with you and should be willing to provide email addresses.

5. Use social media & website interactions to capture data

Many organisations have ‘subscribe to our newsletter’ options on their websites. But they don’t deliver that many quality leads. However, if you provide useful information through social networking sites (blogs, White papers etc). people will access that information and provide you with their email address as a quid pro quo. If you then match your communications to their stage of the buying cycle you will start to build a strong pipeline of potential business.

Take your time

Building a valuable resource like an emailable database takes time. Do not expect to have 30,000 individuals waiting to receive your next email in two weeks time. Rather, focus on quality. 200 good quality emailable records per month will deliver read rates above 40% and click throughs of around 30%. That will significantly improve your digital reputation. It will also improve the quality of the leads that are passed to your sales team.

If you would like to read the full White Paper Click here

Businesses lose thousands every day through ineffective telemarketing.

No matter how well trained or dedicated, telemarketing professionals without proper support and pre-planning will lose opportunities and marketing investment will be wasted. The damage will be significant: poor telemarketing execution damages reputations. There are brands and companies synonymous with ‘hard sell’: you do not want to be counted amongst them.

Where did those leads go?

Most companies have thought leadership campaigns and generate significant interest on their blogs and websites. Direct mail pieces are well thought through and targeted. Email campaigns are effective; white papers are downloaded and visitor numbers increase. But despite doing ‘everything right’ companies still fail to develop a reasonable number of opportunities for the investment made.

The problem is that poor co-ordination and a lack of timely information means that most leads generated by marketing are wasted.

Often, getting a complete record of an individual’s interactions with an organisation is difficult if not impossible. Leads get passed to telemarketing because they ‘downloaded a White Paper’ but the neither telemarketer nor the company know that the prospect accessed the company’s website on several separate occasions, read case studies and product information.

Put simply data collection is not sophisticated enough to spot opportunities. Jonathan Calver discusses how to address this issue in ‘Lead Profiling to Accelerate Sales’.

For a copy: Click here

The second problem is that telemarketing agencies (and even internal sales resources) respond too late.

There is only one thing that cools faster than a ‘warm lead’ and that is a ‘hot lead’.

When someone is pre-disposed to purchase; customer service rules. Take your time over recognising their interest and they are likely to find another vendor. The fact is your prospects are bombarded with information on a daily basis. Getting a spreadsheet with 200 ‘warm leads’ to your telemarketing agency within 48 hours is no longer good enough. You are effectively giving the agency a list to cold call. And the results will be poor.

Telemarketing can only be effective if leads are processed immediately.

Getting it right

With multiple agencies, different departments, products, divisions and campaigns, getting everyone onto the same page may appear to be an impossible task. But it is not. Infrastructure and systems exist that link each element of your campaigns, your team and your marketplace. And they do it securely: you do not have to let third parties into your databases.

The Paper: Marketing Operations, shows how companies can co-ordinate multiple campaigns with feeds from Web Analytics through to eMail and deliver a 360 degree picture of a prospect directly to a telemarketer who can act on it.

If you would like it: Click Here

Telemarketing can be effective when supported by good planning and co-ordinated execution. That way your agents will be calling the right person, at the right time and have the right conversation.

Most telemarketing is ineffective.

Yet in a triumph of hope over experience companies still persist, using a mixture of false logic and assumption to justify the spend. Part of the problem rests with telemarketing agencies themselves. Telemarketing is frequently sold by the man-day. It is simply not in the agencies’ interest to be too successful: it reduces the number of days worked. This has lead to a situation where standard industry performance (80 calls per day, one appointment booked) is seen as acceptable.

This ‘standard’ performance represents failure. It is perfectly possible to regularly deliver call ratios of 1 to 2. That is one appointment for every two telephone calls completed.

And this is how to do it….

Three conditions for success

In last week’s article ‘Why telemarketing fails‘ we identified three conditions that have to be in place before the telemarketing call is made:

1. Call the right number (the decision maker’s direct dial).
2. Catch the decision maker at the right time (make sure they are in ‘buying mode’).
3. Have the right conversation (be on the same page).

If any one of these conditions is not met the call is likely to result in failure.

How humans make friends

No one is going to sign a six figure cheque for your product or service unless they trust your organisation and have the confidence that you can deliver on your promises. Put simply; they have to build a relationship with your company. Most cold calling takes place when there is no relationship.

Information led marketing can help you start to build that relationship. This relies upon good quality, useful material being made available to your target market. Interested individuals will access the information, comment on the content and start to build a relationship with your organisation. We can track this activity. This approach has several built-in advantages:

1. The information you provide enhances your organisation’s reputation for thought leadership in the marketplace.
2. Interested individuals build a relationship with your organisation: they are more likely to accept a ‘phone call.
3. Sales professionals can track individual’s interest in subjects, making the call more focused.
4. Time is not wasted calling the vast majority of the database (who have no interest or need for your product today).
5. We can identify, through browsing patterns, organisations and individuals entering the buying cycle.
6. The number of sales enquiries increases (yes, prospects will call you and request meetings).
7. Good quality information positions you as a business partner: not just a cold calling salesperson.

It ain’t rocket science but it does need co-ordination and work

Of course many companies use a blend of consultative solution selling, white papers and case studies to generate leads. Often with mixed results. Success relies on planning, co-ordination and infrastructure. There is little point in exciting interest only to follow-up several days later. Timeliness is everything.

Campaigning must be blended to include passive and active marketing. Reliance on one channel (PPC, Social, eMail) will reduce the number of opportunities generated. Finally any white papers, case studies and ROI calculators that are commissioned need to develop a logical and compelling business argument.

Our final article in the series looks at the infrastructure, systems and working practices organisations need to develop to deliver effective telemarketing.