by Glen Springer | Apr 10, 2015
Sales and Marketing Operations Outsourcing
The Challenge
Management Consulting and Industrial Engineering Professional Services firm spun out of Fortune 250 Company and hit $4M in annual revenue within 18 months. The principals were mired in a cycle where they would sell, service and then need to start pipe from scratch. Over next 4 years they hired 3 enterprise reps with Rolodex’s and landed one additional deal outside their own network and remained flat at $4M. Sales cycle for enterprise deals was over 360 days for initial engagement of $20K to $50K, deals then scale to $250K – $500K in year two and $1M plus in year three. To inject new revenue stream with shorter sales cycle company acquired a smaller practice with entry level solution and sales for that product line also remained flat.
Selling To: Fortune 1000 and Privately Held Manufacturers’ SVPs and VPs of Supply Chain, Operations, Head of Engineering and Energy Manager
The Solution
- Sales Consulting and Inside Sales – Scripted, created content and created an inside sales process for entry level solution. Took inbound leads from existing telemarketing partner, qualified, engaged and closed.
- Sales Consulting – Simultaneously worked with client to create a repeatable high velocity sales process, ideal customer profile and collateral for enterprise professional service engagement.
- Lead Generation Outsourcing – Client migrated telemarketing to Gabriel Sales for enterprise deals as entry level product sales transitioned back to business unit.
- Digital Content Production and Digital Sales Execution – Cloned the sales process for Top Producers for enterprise deals with video, webcasts, blog and success stories.
- Outsourcing Inside Sales and Marketing Operations – Gabriel Sales took over all lead generation, database management, software implementation and management of direct marketing efforts to target, engage, qualify and nurture enterprise prospects.
- Outsourced Sales Staffing – Staff a blended team of lead gen rep, inside rep and senior enterprise sales rep to manage the logistics and close of deals.
First 180 days
- 4 entry level new business clients closed from with inside reps eliminating prior sales process which required extensive travel and face to face meetings.
- Put 6 enterprise deals in the sales pipe.
Second 360 days
- 3 additional entry-level deals
- 8 enterprise deals closed
- Internet Marketing Technologies scoped and implemented and blog launched
- 4 enterprise deals moved to upsell
- Sale collateral digitized in webcast, blog, video and customer testimonials
- Nurturing database of 2000 plus decision makers created and marketing automation implemented.
by Glen Springer | Sep 29, 2014
Do you have questions about the right sales tactics for a new product launch?
Here are several great tactics for a new product sales launch.
Are your executives squeezed for bandwidth? Is sales or product development your core competency? Do investors and executives want to see closed deals and metrics they can forecast against? If you are like most companies you are probably under resourced and under pressure to close business while continuing to develop your product and service customers. As a sales outsourcing and B2B demand generation company we have been involved in 100s of new product launches. Below are some of the best practices and tactics Gabriel Sales recommends and tips from some of the thought leaders we work with.
Things to Consider
Sales outsourcing for new product is about closing business, so it’s paramount you have a solid stable of new product launch sales tactics. However, with the right feedback loops, insights and B2B digital content you can align your inbound and outbound efforts to build exponential sales growth and drive market intelligence back into the entire enterprise. Here are our Top 10 strategies and tactics for a successful new product launch.
Higher Velocity
A quick 3 minute video overview of the unique sales challenges faced for new product launches. This video discusses the part you need to build a scalable high velocity sales machine designed to close your first round of deals and to build on that success for exponential growth at a decreased cost of sales and marketing.
Learn how the right sales outsourcing partner can integrate inside sales reps, B2B digital content, social media and technology to augment and increase the performance of your existing team to drive your sales, your inbound marketing and your sales pipe velocity.
Sell Money to Sell Faster
In this economy “nice to have” no longer gets deals done. One of the key’s to creating a repeatable and scalable sales process is crafting a Return On Investment (ROI) value statement that gets the attention of CFOs and P&L owners. This blog shares our formula for crafting an ROI statement that hits both top line and bottom budgets to get deals done. Read here to learn the basics
Compare Tactics
No two product launches are the same. Team skill sets are different. Markets and products are at different stages of maturity. Some go-to-market budgets are larger than others. And revenue, deal and strategic goals and targets vary. Below are a couple examples of how company’s integrated sales outsourcing or outsourcing demand generation to help exceed their goals.
Social Media Analytics SaaS Sales Outsourcing – Company needed to close business and document sales metrics for new product to close Series B round. Sales outsourcing drives 2M in annual run rate.
Fortune 500 Sales Outsourcing for New Product Launch – Middleware Software and Hardware Solution needed to lead score and map demand generation sales process and turns to sales consulting and demand generation outsourcing to avoid disrupting existing sales team.
VIEW MORE CASE STUDIES HERE
Better Intel
A 3:00 minute video interview with Nielsen’s VNU Global Media SVP of US Sales, James Miller. He discusses how the right feedback loops implemented at the front end of a new product launch save critical time to beat the competition with product innovations, by making a business case based on hard data that ultimately increases sales success and the valuation of properties for successful exits.
Improve Targeting
Smart targeting leads to faster deal flow and higher revenue. Smart target starts with Pareto’s Principal. This principal is also known as ‘the law of the vital few’, or the 80:20 rule, it states that 80% of your revenue is going to come from 20% of your customers. These are the customers you want to go after. However targeting does not stop here. You also need to consider who the right customers are for your business long term and at what level your customer service will need to increase and if you are a young company where the early adopters and champions will sit. Read article to learn more
by Glen Springer | Jun 5, 2014
In the first blog of this two part series, we learned that aiming to impress is not the most effective approach. In part #2 we will talk about aiming to empower.
The reason your prospect has shown up for your meeting is not to be impressed; it is to be empowered to solve their problem. Unfortunately, this is not how most salespeople sell. Most end up product dumping, talking way too much and not spending enough time probing, discovering and selling based on the customers responses and needs.
Features and benefits should be a part of your presentation, but they need to be tied to the idea of solving a specific problem raised by your prospect. Otherwise, you may spend a significant amount of time on irrelevant topics and features. You may even hit the right feature and benefit, but without knowing how it relates back to you prospect, you may totally miss why it matters to them.
The reasons you think your product is cool may not even register at all with your prospect and vice versa.
When buying a car, you aren’t sold until you’ve driven the car. Most people decide to purchase a car during the test drive because they are taking actions aimed at solving their own problems and envisioning themselves behind the wheel.
In your B2B sales meetings, giving your prospect the keys and the power to solve their problem is equivalent to:
- Allowing him/her to share the problem
- Encouraging dialogue
- Asking open-ended questions
- Relating the benefits back to his/her pain
- Allowing your solution to show how he/she can specifically ease that pain
Just let them be sold on their solved problems. Stop Talking. Ask a question. Listen. Tie everything back to the reason they showed up in the first place. If they haven’t mentioned interest in a particular feature, rethink whether it’s even worth mentioning. Wow them by giving them solutions—not another sales presentation.
By attempting to empower your prospects rather than impress them during your sales meetings, the sale becomes significantly easier and less stressful for everyone involved.
Learn more in this blog called The #1 Mistake Salesmen Make. You can learn more about the services we offer as a B2B sales outsourcing company here. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by Glen Springer | Jun 4, 2014
When presenting your product or solution, it is often the approach to attempt to impress your prospect with every feature and benefit, rave about personal accomplishments and achievements or your software’s bells and whistles.
From our experience as a B2B sales outsourcing company, we have seen that this is not the most effective approach to closing deals. What is often missed and lost is that your prospect set aside time, has most likely read and digested some of your content and has now actually shown up to your meeting. A great deal of the battle has already been won.
This is now the time that your prospect is willing to open up, if you let them (most don’t). Trying to get someone to open up on a cold call is the total opposite: they don’t know who you are, why you called, what the call is about—and you most likely interrupted their day.
But, if you have your prospect in a sales meeting, you are past that point. Take advantage of the fact that you have the prospect all to yourself with little to no distractions. Don’t feature dump or sell on every benefit; if that is all your prospect wants, they can usually get this information on their own.
Your product or solution will also most likely be vetted by a technical person, so save the technical selling for him; he likes it. Business buyers want problems solved, and ROI helps them see it. You will get the next step if you’re a fit.
To get your prospects talking in a sales meeting, you don’t need any secret sales questions. Just ask them to recap why they agreed to meet and explain their situation and what they might be looking for. In doing this, they will tell you their pain that is why they are talking to you—not because you are such a great salesperson, or your product is wicked cool. Despite what we think, people really don’t want to talk to us (sales).
People only want to talk to sales when they think you can help solve a problem. That is where the focus needs to be, solving the prospect’s problem, not yours (more sales).
It transfers through the phone when you are self-serving. When the majority of what you do is talking, you lose. When you are listening and taking notes the majority of time, you’re winning.
Continue reading.
by Glen Springer | Mar 25, 2014
This year was the first time I ever filled out an NCAA bracket.
I like basketball, but I’m more of an NBA girl. To be perfectly honest, the only thing I knew about the tournament going in was that my team (Colorado) didn’t have much of a chance after losing its star player to an ACL injury earlier in the season.
So, not knowing anything about the teams in the tournament, I decided I would get creative with my bracket. I narrowed down my choices of how I would make my picks: base them off of school colors or team mascots. I couldn’t decide, so I flipped a coin.
Mascots won.
This meant that I had North Carolina Central (Eagles) beating Iowa State (Cyclones) in the first round. It meant that I had Saint Louis in my final four because I thought a Billiken, a good luck figure that represents, “things as they ought to be,” was way cooler than Michigan’s Wolverine. It also meant that I had the Orange (Syracuse) winning the whole thing, purely because of the novelty of having a fruit for a mascot.
As of today (after the 2nd round), my bracket is destroyed. I am now in last place in the office pool, and my co-workers are laughing at me.
What did I learn from my first Final Four failure?
You can’t replace a strategy backed by logic and data with guesswork and expect success.
My bracket picks—despite the creative enthusiasm that went into them—were not based on the realities of the world today. As cool as I think the Billikens are, it does not change the fact that Saint Louis has never made it past the third round in tournament history, and the odds weren’t stacked in their favor to make it happen this year.
Picking my NCAA bracket based off of mascot preference is like executing sales and marketing campaigns without a strategy and data. Without conducting market research and leveraging analytics to discover your ideal customer profile and determine what tactics are most effective, your sales and marketing campaigns lack any sort of intelligent direction. You might as well pick who to target based off company logos.
So, while it is nice to think that you can succeed at something without having any real knowledge or skill, it’s not generally how things work.
Whether picking sports brackets or running content marketing campaigns, having a data-based strategy that supports your decisions is the clearest path to victory.
If you want to know more about the value of conducting market research and creating a go-to-market strategy prior to campaign launch, read 3 Things You Can Learn From Go-To-Market Strategy Consulting. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
