The challenge these companies face is converting those “cold callers” into the new breed of inside sales rep capable of taking a marketing qualified lead, engaging that prospect in a meaningful conversation and further vetting the opportunity.

At a minimum this transformation process will require an investment in time, training and ongoing coaching and in the end it’s likely you will need to replace some or all of the existing team.  Before you get started we recommend you take a close look at your current approach to find the flaws.

Are You Rewarding Inside Sales for the Wrong Behavior?

Depending on how you originally built your compensation methodology for your inside team you could actually be reducing the effectiveness of your outside team.  Example: many companies gauge the number of appointments set by an inside sales person as a measure of their productivity and they often compensate on this single metric.  This approach has two potential negative impacts.

1. The first impact is that your outside team is chasing unqualified leads which greatly reduces their effectiveness.
2. The second impact is that your outside sales team will lose confidence in the inside team and may not follow-up on leads in a timely basis. This is a worst-case scenario because you are paying out commission dollars and your firm is receiving little to no benefit from it at all.

Since the goal of your internal lead team is to qualify those leads that have the highest likelihood to close, your inside team should focus first on quality and then on quantity.  Rewarding your inside team to do this can sometimes be a challenge.

Two Early Steps to Transforming Inside Sales and Demand Generation

First, challenge the inside team to fully validate a lead’s qualification through an internally developed model.  Then only allow them to pass leads to the outside team when they reach the right score.

Second, the outside team has the responsibility to act on those leads quickly, as time helps no sale.

Since the goal of lead generation is to bring in new prospects, make sure you have the right processes in place to accomplish it.   If you have questions or comments we would love to hear from you.  You may also be interested in looking at 3FORWARD’s Lead Ready offering to get an idea of best-practices to consider in today’s demand generation model.

You will often hear sales complain about the quality and quantity of marketing leads and conversely the marketing teams will typically respond with “you need to sell more effectively.”  If this process is so important why is it so difficult for most firms to figure it out?

The report identifies one of the primary drivers of sales and marketing misalignment stems from varying goals between organizations. The primary sales goals are almost always new business bookings, growth in existing accounts, and renewals.  If marketing’s objectives don’t correlate with at least a couple of these goals you already have a big problem!

According to the Marketing Sherpa B2B Benchmark Report, here are 3 of the top key performance indicators that B2B marketers believe needed to be improved for sales results to improve.

To answer the call for more and higher quality leads both sales and marketing leadership need to establish an ongoing dialog to establish common goals and objectives.

Three Steps to Better Sales and Marketing Coordination

1. The team must measure performance with metrics agreed to by both organizations.
2. These meeting should be a regularly scheduled event and be frequent enough to move these priorities forward.
3. Last and probably most important is that sales and marketing alignment must be a priority of the C-Suite. When the C-Suite is engaged things tend to happen faster, use them to your advantage.

Being at the right place at right time is everything; the question is how can you better predict how to be at the right place at the right time? The answer lies in being able to know when a prospect goes from a status quo environment to some degree of dissatisfaction with their current situation.

According to the Craig Elias and Tibor Shanto, the authors of Shift, Turning Prospects Into Customers, understanding when a prospect has a triggering event that moves them from status quo into the “window of dissatisfaction” can greatly increase your chances of closing a sale. The key is to engage with the prospect as soon as they enter this phase and before your competition does.   Here are some statistics they reference in their book that reinforce their point.

Closing percentages based on prospect buying mode

The close ratio of decision makers in the Window of Dissatisfaction is high because they see the immediate value of becoming one of your customers.  These types of prospects make decision more quickly because they need their pain removed immediately, and they are less likely to shop around because the can see an immediate solution.

When a prospect is forced to actively seek solutions to their problems they will research possible options – and as you can see from the above closing percentages – your likelihood to close is vastly diminished.

The real question for sales is: how do you know when a triggering event occurs and a prospect enters the highly valued Window of Dissatisfaction?  The answer is to stay in reasonable contact with your prospects at all times by feeding them a steady stream of value-added content and tracking when they visit your website and what they are looking at.

This can be accomplished by implementing a lead management solution built on a marketing automation system.  These applications allow you to consistently message your target audience and track their on-line behaviors to understand when they shift from a status quo mode.  Remember, the best practice approach is to provide your targets information that helps them solve problems or informs them of key market trends.  A continuous onslaught of sales message won’t be well received and may cause a high probability target to ignore you completely.

Take the time to investigate how to know when a target becomes dissatisfied, it will allow you to close more sales and improve your bottom line.

For many companies their blog is the hub of their social media efforts with other social media spokes attached to it.  Blogging is hard work; it’s a big investment in terms of time and effort to ensure that you are building quality content that’s of interest and brings value to your target audience.  Aberdeen Group recently released a research brief entitled “Bloggers Paradise-Best Practices For Business Blogging” that shows how best-in-class companies are out-blogging and out-performing their industry average and laggard competitors. Here are just a few of their key findings.

Best in Class Blog More Often

• Best in Class                     85% blog
• Industry Average            73% blog
• Laggard                            57% blog

Best in Class Blog Better Study Weighted Average Unique Blog Visitors Per Month

• Best in Class                     2485 visitors per month
• Industry Average            1713 visitors per month
• Laggard                            1100 visitors per month

Best in Class Out Perform the Competition

• Average annual revenue growth of 20% compared to -3% for laggards
• 10% YOY increase in marketing produced leads that result in closed business compared to a 1% decline for laggards
• 44% of sales forecasted pipeline generated by marketing versus 5% for laggard firms
• 73% customer retention rate compared to 7% for laggard companies

Getting a blogging engine fired up will require discipline and focus.  For many companies, finding subject matter experts capable of producing quality content is there biggest challenge but not an insurmountable one.

Basics of B2B Blogging

Start by building a basic messaging calendar, it does not have to complex but you do need to decide who will be blogging and what the topics are, random blogging on uninteresting topics just wont work.

Consider asking guest bloggers to write for you, alternate viewpoints from partners and clients can really spice up a blog. In fact, 56% of Best in Class companies regularly feature external guest bloggers.

Posting a variety content in a variety of formats such as video, ebooks, whitepapers, and on demand webcasts are an excellent ways of building a loyal following, the key is to stay creative and provide meaningful content.

Blogging is a great way to engage with both customers and prospects. Maintain a good balance of company news, industry related information, and product/services news and your audience should grow nicely over time. If you have any blogging key tips or tricks we would love to hear from you.

That’s the intro to a must-read blog post from Horses for Sources outsourcing analyst Deb Kops.   “Why are outsourcing providers’ websites such an abysmal lot when, for many, they are buyers’ first introduction to a provider?” Deb asks this simple question, then goes on to share her list of “website sins against mankind that our industry regularly commits.”

Whether your role is Sales, Marketing or CEO you need to check your site against Deb’s list and prepare yourself for a rude awakening!

Read the full post here!

This article appears under the title “Hair Extensions” in the May 7, 2012 edition of Forbes.

Full Article on Forbes

by Alex Knapp, you can follow him at: @TheAlexKnapp

Since opening the first Gents Place in Frisco, Tex. in December 2008, Davis has signed up more than 5,000 clients by offering a free haircut through Facebook.   Read More….

While it’s true that some teams sell or trade draft picks in order to position themselves for the best talent, the reality is when it’s time to pick they nearly always go for the best talent available regardless of their specific positional needs.  As an example, say a team is in need desperate need of a quarterback but there are no star quarterbacks available when their time comes up.  If the ‘best player available’ is a star defensive back, they will take that DB.

History has shown winning teams will always take the defensive back because he is the best talent available.

Consider taking the NFL approach as you fill your next open sales position. I know you can’t always trade up to a better pick but you can focus on hiring the best talent available to you at any point in time.  If you are searching for a channel sales manger but discover an inside sales rock star – find a way to make a position on your team for the rock star.  Bringing in new top talent causes your other “A” players to step up their game and really puts the pressure on your “B” players to improve or risk being permanently replaced.  Jack Welch often suggested you should remove your bottom 20% performers every year and this type of ‘best available’ hiring ensures you are constantly upgrading your team.

Just like a football team a sales team requires a wide variety of skills and talents to win consistently.  Make sure that you are continually on the hunt for the right talent and you have a policy of hiring the best talent available.  Don’t wait until you have an open position to fill because tomorrow is the start of the new season!

For many years, sales and marketing organizations have had very specific roles and responsibilities, which often were out of alignment with the each other. Marketing has traditionally focused on branding, messaging, collateral, and program level lead generation.  Meanwhile, the sales team has focused almost exclusively on cold calling, working their Rolodex and managing opportunities.

If the ultimate goal is to increase company revenue why do many sales organizations resist accepting marketing generated leads?  The answer is that in many situations there is no definition of what a qualified lead looks like.

If you are a CEO, and your feel that your sales and marketing teams are misaligned, you must confront them both (nicely) and foster a collaboration effort now.  Citing some of the proof points from a recent Aberdeen Group report entitled “Sales and Marketing Alignment – The New Power Couple” is a good way to get the conversation started.  Here are just a few observations from the report.

Forecasted sales generated by marketing

• Best in class companies                    40%
• Industry average companies           22%
• Laggard companies                           13%

Year over year annual revenue growth

• Best in class companies                    + 31.6%
• Industry average companies           + 18.2%
• Laggard companies                           – 6.7%

Organizations are constantly striving to increase revenues in a challenging business climate with its associated resource constraints.  As it’s unlikely that this environment will change near term – sales and marketing must work more closely together to achieve growth at the lowest possible cost.  If your firm is under-performing on the lead generation front take the time to confront the problem head on and start improving both the quality and quantity of leads for your sales team.

The selling environment however remains difficult and the odds are that you either had to stretch to make the Q1 Sales Plan or you missed it by a mile.

If your miss was significant it’s a natural instinct to try and “share” the responsibility with others. Perhaps the sales portfolio was weak, or you had operational/delivery, issues, or your sales team was not fully staffed. Regardless of the reasons if you are the CEO or the Chief Sales Officer the responsibility is yours alone!  Your board is not interested in excuses – they are interested in the actions and activities you plan to implement to fix the issue.  Whether you made it by just a hair or missed badly, here is a good 3-step approach to articulating the problem and explaining your roadmap for sales improvement.

First, Solve the Sales Equation

How much revenue or bookings are needed between now and the end of the plan year to make the number? Compare this with your current qualified pipeline to determine you unidentified pipeline gap. If you have metrics on your sales cycle time, sales stage velocity, and closing rate you can quickly determine the true unidentified gap in terms of additional new deals to get back on track.

You may determine that you need additional headcount or that you must increase deal size or volumes to cover the gap.  Investment may be needed to catch up and now is the right time to ask the board for some additional support, but make sure your “get-well” plan is grounded in metrics you can back up.  It makes better sense to invest to make the bottom line instead of cutting expenses somewhere downstream and seasoned board members will recognize this.

Second, Solve the Lead Generation Equation

If you don’t have a lead generation process, or if the one you have is not yielding the results needed, you have to investigate this immediately.  It’s common for sales people to complain that the leads provided by marketing are weak.  This often means reps create 100% of their own leads via cold calling.

Sales reps are expensive resources and to be effective they need a steady stream of highly qualified prospects. Take the time to work with your marketing team to jointly define what a good lead looks like and make sure your sale people follow-up on each of them and provide feedback on those leads that are deemed unqualified.

If you don’t have a lead generation program it’s time to establish one. Consider using one of the many marketing automation tools that help you engage and track the behaviors of your prospects. There are many good products available but all will require a good process, useful content on your site and a disciplined approach for a strong ROI.

Third, Solve the Time Equation

Time is the worst enemy of every sales plan.  As each month passes your ability to catch up is diminished, making it difficult or impossible to get your plan back on track. Highly effective executives plan their time at least one quarter out. If you are a CEO, plan on spending one-man week a month in front of existing and prospective accounts.  Impossible you say, but what could be more important than achieving your revenue plan? If you have hired good people trust them to make good decisions and get out and work with the field sales team.  If you are a Chief Sales Officer you should routinely spend 75% of your time working side by side with your field team, working sales opportunities and coaching your team.

Besides, it’s way more fun working deals than dealing with office politics!

In baseball terms it’s the top of the third inning. The score may be 5-0 but there is a lot of game left to play. If you have the right team on the field you just need to adjust your game plan. Tell you board where you are, get the right assets out of the bull-pen and get back to game on!

The answer may be a shock to you; your biggest competitor may actually be the dreaded “No Decision”.

No decisions are usually deals whose decision timeline keeps slipping well past their forecasted close dates without substantive reasons from the account.  The rep will give reasons for the ongoing slippage such as, “Someone is on vacation,” There is a new senior executive that needs to be briefed,” or the client has changed internal processes that must be completed before the sale can close.  The truth is that poor prospect qualification and selling too low in an organization are typically the two main root causes to no decision deals.

Poor Qualification – Cause 1 in Most No Decisions

Poor prospect qualification often results from sales reps self-selecting sales targets.

Each rep has a unique concept of what the perfect prospect looks like.  If your company does not have a lead generation program running in sales or marketing, then every rep is forced to fill their pipeline with any and all possible fits.  (Sales reps know better than to have too few deals next to their name).

As reps try to force fit too many wrong prospects into your products or service two things happen:

1. They waste valuable internal resources pricing and proposing deals.
2. They cause your overall sales pipeline to become bloated with non-qualified deals.

Calling Too Low – Cause 2 in No Decisions

The second major reason for a no decision is calling too low within a target account. You may have the best product or solution but if you rely on another person to articulate the value and benefits your chances of success are greatly reduced. “Call high or die” is true, but despite their best efforts sales reps are often relegated to influencers and researchers. The fastest way to lose a deal can be for a sales person to go over the head of one of these people, but savvy sales leaders know that there are ways to do it in a less threatening ways.  This requires a little research to determine a good strategy.  Getting a current client to sponsor an executive referral or engaging with a decision maker at trade or industry event are a couple of examples but there are many more.  Get creative with your rep, it just requires some thought.

Purging those “No Decisions” from Your Sales Pipeline

Take the time to really inspect your current pipeline. If you have deals that are older than 150% of your average sales cycle it may mean they have gone “no decision” and you pipeline is overstated.  Another way to view it is if more that 15% of your current qualified pipeline has aged more that 150% of your average sales cycle it’s time to flush the pipeline!