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Posted by Debbie Boucher on Wed, Jul 01, 2009 @ 07:49 AM
I got an email last week with the subject: "Knock Knock - It's the Fourth Quarter." That subject definitely caught my attention.
In it, Lee Levitt from IDC, lays out the case that what we do now will have huge impact on not only the 2nd half of 2009, but future success in 2010. Lee argues:
| What you accomplish in the next quarter...how your organization performs over the next couple of months...will determine not only how your year will conclude, but it will also set the stage for 2010. End this year strong and next year will go well. End this year weak and you will have less budget, less pipeline, less momentum for success in 2010. |
So how can we ensure that Inside Sales is ready to meet these pressures? Here are a few tips you can implement to focus your team:
- Help Them Grow and Cultivate Territories
Give your team the goal of adding 5 to 10 new contacts a day to their calling cycle. The top of the funnel is more important than every before. Reciting the same message to the same prospects just isn't going to get the job done.
- Help Them Focus on High Yield Activities
Everyone gets swamped with meetings, emails and other distractions and before you know it mid morning has arrived and no one has made a single outbound call! Make sure your Reps follow this simple 10 x 10 rule; make 10 calls by 10:00 AM every day.
- Help Them Maximize Leads
Your team just received a batch of leads from a recent marketing event and it's time to follow up. Many times, Reps will look at the list and see that they are all low level prospects.
So how do you satisfy Marketing, best use selling time & add to pipeline? By placing 1 call and 1 email to the low level responder and then letting them self-identify. The key to this strategy is to make sure your Reps remember to focus on the Account and not the Contact. If the account meets your Ideal Customer Profile, then Reps should target the decision makers even if they were not the ones who responded to the marketing event. You still need to talk to them right - so why wait?
- Help Them Tune Up the Messaging
Make sure Reps give prospects a reason to call them back. Is their messaging clear? Is it concise? What about compelling? Lee points out that we "need to rearchitect the sales conversations. Why should a given prospect buy now? Why should a client upgrade now? (Hint - it's not because you need the revenue!)"
- Help Them Be Successful
As Lee says, you are the secret weapon if you are a first line sales manager. When you spend most of your time coaching reps, rep performance soars. After all, your job really should be about coaching for success and not about data management.
As always, I'd love to hear your comments. What steps are you taking to address these issues?
Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Thu, Jun 25, 2009 @ 06:57 AM
Sales 2.0 is getting tons of buzz right now in the technology market. There are lots of different definitions out there, but here's mine:
| Sales 2.0 is an outcome not an event. The process requires you to transform your business from one that is focused on selling to one that is focused on letting the market buy from you.
Sales 2.0 requires a change in mindset. It requires focus on buyer personas, lead nurturing, content development, social networking strategies, web 2.0 tool, etcetera, etcetera. |
Pretty head spinning, right?
So how do you begin to transform your organization?
Take baby steps: you need to master Sales 1.5 before Sales 2.0. You need a solid foundation on which to initiate real change.
We all have limited resources and an organization can only absorb so much at once. Taking a measured approach will result in better outcomes than just throwing yourself into the fray and launching new initiatives, technology or otherwise.
Here are 6 recommendations on how to make sure you have mastered Sales 1.5:
- Take a look at your sales goals
Are they realistic and achievable? Are they based on real world data or were they handed to you?
Now, more than ever, numbers need to be based on real world data defined by how many buyers that fit your ideal customer profile are available in each territory. The days of vanilla quotas are dead. The days of data driven quotas have arrived.
- Take a look at your compensation plans
Are they driving desired behavior? Are they based on opportunity or are they based around activity?
Revenue is always the end game but what other factors drive success in your organization - new logos, increased customer retention, new verticals or products...think about those factors and include them in your compensation plans.
- Take a look at your roles & responsibilities
Is each member of your sales team held accountable for specific goals? What is Inside Sales responsible for v. the Field v. Lead Generation? What are the metrics by which Marketing is measured?
Resources are precious commodities and you can't afford to squander them. Marketing and Sales need to share a common set of definitions, metrics for measurement and goals.
- Take a look at your messaging & sales tools
How do you communicate with the market? Is it all about you or is it about delivering value to your buyers?
Your sales organization must have great content to use throughout the sales process. The education of buyers can't end after they deliver a product overview and a case study.
- Take a look at your talent
When was the last time you profiled your best performers? Have you evaluated your recruiting and interview processes to make sure they are effective?
The economy isn't the only reason you might not be making your number. How much of your budget do you allocate to professional development for your team?
- Take a look at your systems
Do they deliver value to Sales or just require admin work from them? Is the Sales Org actively using all the tools at their disposal?
Make sure Reps are given the tools they need to better understand and serve customers & prospects. Make sure your systems highlight and deliver the right tools at the right time to move Sales opportunities forward.
Okay, do you feel good about all of the above? Great! Now you are ready to start thinking about Sales 2.0 because you have a solid foundation on which to build and initiate change (a blog topic for another day perhaps).
There's no silver bullet. There's nothing but hard work, well thought out strategies and flawless execution.
But you already knew that, right? Happy Selling!
(Photo credit: maxbisschop)
Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Tue, Jun 23, 2009 @ 06:37 AM
Paul McCord was kind enough to invite me to participate in his Boost Your Sales Series. The following is cross-posted from the Sales and Sales Management Blog.
------
I am not a fanatical baseball fan like some of my friends. My friend Linda can quote stats and facts about the Red Sox till your head spins. She lives for the game.
Anyway, the reason I want to talk about why prospecting is like baseball is because I recently saw a quote by Mickey Mantle that struck home:
| "During my 18 years in baseball, I came to bat almost 9,000 times. I struck out over 1,700 times and walked over 1,800 times. That means I played seven years in the major leagues without even hitting a baseball." |
Wow - 7 years without hitting the ball! What dedication, what a positive mental attitude, what a viewpoint that you have to put in the time to get the results you need to be an all star.
Don't you wish your sales organization understood that successful prospecting needs to be based on the same positive attributes?
How many times have you heard Reps say: "I called those leads and they are terrible"? Then you go into the database and see that they lobbed out a few calls to a few of the leads and, big surprise, they got out of that effort what they put in - nothing.
Or, how many of them lament that cold calling yields no results yet they never do it? Or, and this one gets my blood boiling, how many times have you heard them call a prospect and say "Bob, I was just calling to follow-up on a whitepaper you recently downloaded"? Yeah, that's a compelling message!
So, how do you provide them with the dedication, positive mental attitude and the understanding that every prospecting exercise may not result in a home run? You coach them - every great athlete has a great coach behind them.
- Coaching Step 1:
Give them the metrics against which to measure themselves.
Baseball is all about stats and so is prospecting. Set their expectations that they will connect with 20 - 25% of their dials and that 10 - 17% of those connections will result in a qualified opportunity.
- Coaching Step 2:
Provide them with the equipment they need to be successful.
Give them great leads, give them accurate lists and give them great tools. Have you created elevator pitches that are about your buyer persona and not about you? Have you crafted voicemail messages and emails templates that deliver value and resonate with your prospect's issues?
- Coaching Step 3:
Act like a coach.
When was the last time you swung a bat? If you lead a team, you should spend at least 4 hours a month doing their job. Get in there and prospect. There is a double benefit to this - you will walk a mile in their shoes and just as importantly, you will get to hear how the market responds to your messaging. Then take all that great knowledge and coach your team.
- Coaching Step 4:
Let them compete.
Sales Reps like to compete and allowing them to compete at the level of prospecting levels the playing field. Not everyone is a superstar when it comes to revenue but everyone can be a superstar when it comes to prospecting.
Well, I am out of baseball analogies so I guess I will wrap up now, but what I hope you take away from this is that just like Mickey Mantle, your team has to invest time on the playing field if they are going win the game!
(Photo credit: dcJohn)
Posted by Matt Bertuzzi on Thu, Jun 18, 2009 @ 07:16 AM
There are most certainly very strong opinions on the status and future outlook of the Cold Call. Trish's post on Cold Calling 2.0 garnered the most comments this blog has seen in quite some time.
Coincidentally another Brit (I wish I was smart enough to orchestrate this), started an extremely active LinkedIn discussion on the topic.
Jay Powell from Business Intelligence Direct asked:
Cold calling, horrible word isn't it? When was the last time you received a "Cold Call"?
How effective was their call? Did you meet with them, agree to receive literature, or did you simply state you had no interest in their offer?
What prompted that response? |
Jay received 19 answers in 21 hours. This shows me one thing: Cold Calling is as hot a topic for Buyers as for Sellers.
I ran a quick cloud analysis on the keywords used in the 19 answers. Click the image to see the larger version.
Words the buyers used frequently:
- cold
- company
- sales
- vendor
Words the buyers used infrequently:
- information
- listen
- research
- success
- talking
To those that might argue that the Cold Calling 2.0 discussion is being made in a vacuum, I hope this data adds some credibility to the argument. In closing here are few highlights from comments in the LinkedIn discussion.
"The bottom line is that the caller took the time to make this "cold call" into a "warm call" by customizing the information that she presented to me. I haven't decided if I will use their service but I definitely will take the time to learn more about it."
"I have received a number of cold calls from recruiters and they have all completely failed to actually look at my resume or comprehend what it meant I could do."
"They gave no indication that they had any idea who I was, what I do, how this could be a benefit to me or worth my time. It's unlikely that a retun call to them will be a priority."
"Even if the call is truly a cold call the caller can do a better job if they know their material, are respectful of your time and continuously earn the right to go on by providing relevant information."
Thanks for listening and please let me know your thoughts!
(Photo credit: Graham_B)
Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Tue, Jun 16, 2009 @ 08:42 AM
Every day on Linkedin there seems to be a new discussion started on whether or not cold calling still works. I am going to say here what I say there:
There is no such thing as "cold calling" any longer. There is enough information at your disposal to know just about everything there is to know about your buyer except what they had for lunch (unless they are on Twitter!).
Nigel Edelshain just published an ebook called "Don't Cold Call. Social Call." And, he did a "bang up" job laying out this argument (I can say bang up because Nigel is British). The ebook discusses using social networks and Sales 2.0 tools to prospect.
In a nutshell, Nigel argues that:
- The cold call is dead, if it means "smiling and dialing" with little-to-no-preparation on behalf of the sales person. But smart prospecting is very much alive. Sales people can execute "social calls" using the latest in Sales 2.0 tools and social networks.
- There are Sales 2.0 tools now available (including social networks) that help you with the 3 most critical factors in successful prospecting:
Talking to the right people - often the hardest part of the prospecting cycle
Establishing relationships - what do we have in common with our buyers
Using changes in your buyer's environment - what trigger event just occurred that makes now the time to talk to you
- Old fashioned cold calling resulted in 1 meeting for every 100 dials. Nigel contends that with social calling you get dramatically increased results - 1 meeting in 12 dials.
So, if your prospect isn't responding to your marketing efforts, "don't cold call...social call".
What do you think? Can using social networking and Sales 2.0 tools in prospecting increase the ability to "get in" dramatically? Looking forward to your comments!
Posted by Matt Bertuzzi on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 @ 06:57 AM
I have never seen a better way to illustrate the technology adoption lifecycle than the silly video of people dancing below.
It's just over 3 minutes, but worth the view. Feel free to jump around every 30 seconds or so to save time. Here's a short synopsis:
- "Crazy Guy #1" awkwardly dances alone at a music festival
- 19 seconds later, "Also-Crazy Guy #2" joins in
- 60 seconds later, there are 16 dancers
- After 2:30 there is a 100+ person dance party
The technology adoption lifecycle aka Rogers curve aka the Crossing the Chasm chart: 
Here are some of my notes (best effort here folks) on how the people participating in the dance party match up to the adoption lifecycle. 
|
Innovators
|
Guys 1 & 2 |
0:01-0:54 |
No fear of going it alone |
|
Early Adopters |
Dancers 3-18 |
0:55-1:25 |
See the potential and aren't afraid to step forward |
|
Early Majority |
Dancers 19-60 |
1:26-2:00 |
Feel that something is starting to happen & want to be part of it |
|
Late Majority |
Dancers 61-100 |
2:01-2:30 |
Notice that something is happening & don't want to miss out |
|
Laggards
|
Dancers 101-120+ |
2:31-3:00 |
Literally arriving as the song is ending |
Note: Seth Godin beat me to the post on this one. But he didn't use charts! Seth argues that:
...it's guy #3 who made it a movement.
But what do you think? Does "the Chasm" notion still hold up?
Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Tue, Jun 09, 2009 @ 09:51 AM
Last week, I outlined 4 approaches businesses can take towards Social Networking. Read Part 1 here. By way of a recap, here is the approach I recommended:
Approach #4 - Aim Before You Fire
You must invest some time and research in understanding your Buyer Personas and how they use Social Networking before you build out your strategy. Now onto Part 2:
Step 1: Know Thy Buyer Personas
People still confuse their Ideal Customer Profile with their Buyer Personas. Your Ideal Customer Profile typically looks something like this:
Verticals: Healthcare, Financial Services
Revenue: Over $1B
Role: Anyone with "security" in their title
Ideal Customer Profiles point you in the right direction and make it easy to purchase lists, size target markets, etc.
Buyer Personas, on the other hand, provide you with the information you need to communicate with your buyers in a way that is meaningful to them. Think The Bachelor - you need to make a "connection" with your buyers and that connection has to be personal, emotional & relevant.
So, how do you do that? Well, you start by fleshing out your Buyer Personas to the point that they are people with faces, names, specific challenges & goals.
Let's walk through a high level example which is a representation of Jennifer, a Director of Marketing.
What do we know about Jennifer?
- We know her background
- We understand her role and how she is measured
- We understand the things that frustrate her
- We know how she defines a "win"
- We understand her expectations of vendor relationships
If you are like most companies, you will have multiple Buyer Personas and you should execute this exercise for each of them. It will provide you with the language you need to communicate with these buyers. They don't want to hear about how wonderful you are. They want to know how you are going to help them solve the challenges they face on a daily basis.
Step 2: Find the Jennifer's
Now that you know what Jennifer looks like, you can find sample Jennifer's in your customer and prospect base.
Next, go do some research to find out how they are using Social Networking. It has never been easier to conduct this research: Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook - they all provide search capabilities.
The matrix displayed above is all you need to create your Social Networking strategy. That matrix will tell you where to invest your time for your specific Buyer Personas.
In this instance, the strategy is clearly laid out for you. You want to invest significant time on LinkedIn, establish a presence on Facebook and then investigate Twitter to connect with your Jennifers.
Step 3: Find the Conversation
So, now we know who to target and we know what networking sites to target. Next, find the conversations that are meaningful to Jennifer.
We already know our Jennifer's are active in LinkedIn groups so why not start there. Your research on Jennifer's groups will provide you insight into where your Buyer Personas are spending time.
Join those Groups with the goal of engaging in meaningful conversation, not indulging in self promotion. Ask questions, answer questions - establish yourself as a thought leader. This is about sharing information and becoming part of a community with your buyers.
Summary
Ready...Aim...Fire is a great approach to Social Networking. Taking the time to understand your buyer is an investment that will pay off! It takes some planning (and requires some work), but would you trust any Sales & Marketing strategy that didn't?
Agree? Disagree? Please share your thoughts on getting started with Social Networking!
Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Thu, Jun 04, 2009 @ 12:02 PM
I recently had the pleasure of presenting at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston. I participated in a panel on Social Networking in a Sales 2.0 World. Hmmm....got me thinking.
As Inside Sales experts, we are always interested in new ways to generate leads. While I concede that Social Networking does not yet have a consistently proven ROI in "hard metrics", I speak from personal experience when I say that it certainly does have a proven ROI in "soft metrics".
I read a quote on Twitter the other day that I'm not going to do justice to, but it read something like this: "If you speak with passion on Twitter, others with a similar passion will hear you." Makes sense right?
So, where should you begin? With so much on all our plates, how do we add in Social Networking and does it even make sense to add it to our daily task lists? Well, that is what we are going to talk about.
There are really 4 options for how you pursue a Social Networking strategy for your business and I want to lay them out for you (see presentation below).
The title of my presentation is "Fishing Where Your Buyers Swim." I chose this title because before you do anything else, you have to understand how, where & why your buyers are using Social Networking.
There are so many social networking sites out there...and this number only continues to grow. How do you figure out where to invest your energy?
Possible Approach #1 - Ignore It!
This analysis by Forrester clearly states that ignoring the phenomena is not in your best interest. Although the data is from 2007/2008 (here is the current research tool), you can see that increasingly B2B technology buyers embracing social media. This trend is changing the nature of the B2B buyer/seller realtionship at a fundamental level.
Possible Approach #2 - Let Your Reps Figure It Out
This one is a little scary to me. Your Reps are using Social Networking in their personal lives and are starting to dabble with it in their professional lives. But, not having a corporate strategy for how they do so puts you at risk in 2 areas.
First, you have no control over what they are saying about you, your product, your company and/or your competitors. Are they on message, are they being professional, are they articulate?
Second, if everyone is off doing their own thing, how do you measure what is working and what isn't? Defining repeatable, scalable success is the cornerstone of all great strategies.
Possible Approach #3 - Go For It
Build business profiles on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook and just dive in. The good news is that it gets you out there. The bad news is that you are probably going out there with a vanilla strategy that may or may not resonate with your buyers. You may also be investing time, effort and energy on social networking sites that your buyers don't frequent. This is an investment that you need to have pay off. Possible Approach #4- Aim Before You Fire
This is the approach we recommend to our clients. You want to invest some time in research to understand your buyer personas and how they use social networking before you articulate your strategy.
You need to fish where your buyers swim!
Next week's Part 2 post will lay the groundwork for how you can use buyer personas to build your Social Networking strategy. Stay tuned....
Posted by Debbie Boucher on Tue, Jun 02, 2009 @ 06:36 AM
Via LinkedIn, I recently ran across a post from Ryon Harms entitled, "Your Resume Is Dead. Long Live Your Blog!" I have to admit that as a blogger, this provocative title piqued my interest and I had to immediately click through to his blog. Which ultimately achieved what he wanted, right?
Ryon argues that we are in the "hyper-competitive job market of The Great Recession" and that:
Finding a job today is about consistently hitting it out of the park. That means taking advantage of opportunities to do what most of your competitors have not. I suggest you start by rethinking your static two-page resume and starting a blog instead.
But what does this mean in the context of getting hired in Sales or Marketing?
Does having a blog compliment a resume or possibly increase the chance of getting a job? Absolutely! But I don't believe it can replace your resume.
Here's my take on what a blog does for Sales & Marketing candidates:
- Gives Insight Into Expertise and Experience
This is the kind of depth that candidates have been struggling to (while more often than not failing) bring out in the "cover letter".
- Shows the "Real" Candidate
A blog gives insight into a candidate's approach, personality and writing style. I cannot stress the importance of the latter enough.
Increasingly Sales is a writing intensive profession (for marketing this goes without saying). Just think of how much business is conducted via email.
- Compliments the Resume
Posting your resume "live" on LinkedIn and then linking your blog postings to your Network Updates provides you with future exposure. Hey, with 40+ Million users, LinkedIn is certainly a powerful way for candidates to rise above a static 2-page resume.
Blogs can fill in this "picture" even further. Is this candidate passionate about this topic, field, industry, etc.? Can they stick with something (is the blog 6 weeks old, 6 months or 6 years)? How do they handle differing opinions?
I thought it might be interesting for everyone to take part in a quick poll:
How valuable is a Candidate's blog in your hiring decision?
Here are what a few LinkedIn commenters had to say:
"Very timely and relevant, and I agree wholeheartedly. I'm presently considering a stack of resumes for an SEO position. The ones that include blogs or Twitter accounts are very useful b/c I'm able to get a better, bigger picture of the applicant. Blogs and microblogs allow an applicant to shine in a way that a resume cannot"
"As a search veteran and a guy who reads 60-80 resumes a day I can tell you that a blog plays a very small role in the hiring process. Will it play a bigger role as time goes on? Who knows, but for now I look at the resume, cover letter or email, a LinkedIn profile and maybe a Google search to gather information, and all this only AFTER narrowing the field down to a select handful or candidates. Someone's blog might help or it may rule the candidate out depending on what is written To be honest, a bloggers time is MUCH better spent networking with those that can give me a personal referral and recommendations!"
What do you say?
Posted by Cindy Littlefield on Wed, May 27, 2009 @ 06:45 AM
 I spend 1 - 2 hours a day prospecting with the majority of that time cold calling.
In my calling, I have come across a situation that needs to be addressed: Your phone system is sabotaging your sales efforts.
The accounts you are about to read are true. No names will be mentioned to protect my future prospecting efforts......
I am armed and ready for my Power Hour of prospecting. I pick up the phone, make the call (to my VP-level prospect) and am greeted by a lovely voice that welcomes me to the company with these kind words:
"Press 1 for sales", "Press 2 if you are looking for your license key to blah blah product". "Press 3 for finance", "Press 4 for customer service", etc. Finally I hear "Press 9 for the company directory or press 0 for the operator". Excellent, I press 9 for the "Company Directory".
Almost there, but wait, you aren't listed in the directory, that's odd?! I can't tell you the number of times that has happened to me. So I press 0 for the operator. Now here is where I've experienced a very mixed bag.
Sometimes you can't press 0 to get to the operator from the directory. Sometimes I get dumped into the "general mailbox" with a message that says, "We are not available to take your call. Please leave a message in the general mailbox and we will return your call promptly". Like that is going to happen. Who ever got a call back from leaving a message in the general mailbox?
I've experienced this as well: At the end of all of the "Press x for y" the phone system suggests that you go to the website, www.newstartup.com for more information. So it's back to the web site to Contact us? What???? Just email addresses. Don't you want to ever speak with anyone?
Now any self respecting cold caller will go for the Sales prompt and ask the helpful sales person to connect you with Mr. VP. That works in some cases, but only when there is a sales answer. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the sales prompt only to find that I am leaving a message in yet again another general mailbox.
This challenge prompted me to keep some stats for myself. Here is what I came up with:
- If I make a total of 20 calls.
- 4 of them are answered by a live person and all is well with the world.
- 10 of my prospects won't be found in the corporate directory.
- Out of that 10, when a sales prompt is offered, I am put straight into voicemail 5 times.
- That's 5 potential sales opportunities missed.
Here is my point. I know the name of your company. I know who I want to connect with; I'm a pro and won't give up. But if I can't get through to you - will your prospects, potential partners or others be able to?
If it is difficult for me to connect with you I will move on to the next company. If it is difficult for your prospects to connect with you, won't they move on the next company as well?
If you have similar experiences, please share. As we are all in the business of making that connection I am sure we will all find your experiences helpful.
Photo Credit: eddiemcfish
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