Gladwell, Marketing Automation & Conversation Control

Marketing Automation Tipping PointAs a salesperson, knowing who to call and having the ability to control the conversation are key to the outcome of a call. This is where a well-run marketing automation system, content management system and lead scoring system pays off for a sales person.

In a retail setting, it takes a keen eye and well developed senses on behalf of a salesperson to understand what customers are there to buy and who is there ‘just shopping’. The best salespeople seem to have a third eye telling them whom to approach and what tactic to use. In Malcom Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, he explains that these superior salesmen know that “nonverbal cues are as or more important than verbal cues” and, “subtle circumstances surrounding how we say things may matter more than what we say.”

People who are able to sell based on subtle cues are really just good at picking up buying signals early. Most salespeople just go from person to person asking, “Can I help you?”—this essentially equates to cold calling. When your organization relies on an inside sales team, you need to be like Gladwell’s superior salesperson, not an average ‘greeter’.

But, how do you do this over the phone when you can’t really interact with customers in a way that allows you to pick up all their subtle buying signals?

This has always been a problem with phone sales and cold calling. Salespeople are left wondering:

  • Who’s actually interested?
  • What are they interested in?
  • What features are they most interested in?
  • When should I call them back?
  • How do I know if they really want to talk to me?

So, how do you find the answers to these questions with limited visibility?

Answer:

You see what your prospects are doing via your marketing automation system. Marketing automation gives you the ability to know who to call, which is probably the biggest success factor on a sales floor—it is what separates the best from the bunch. Marketing automation also gives you insight into when they want to hear from you, what they want to talk about, what you should share, what you shouldn’t share, etc. With a marketing automation platform, you have the information at hand to gain the respect of the prospect and have a real conversation, rather than a cold call and hearing, “No thanks, I’m just looking” or “ Who are you?” or “What is this about?”.

Another trick of great salespeople involves resources and control. Most successful sales reps know when to move on from a prospect that is not going to transact, allowing them to control when the conversation ends rather than wasting their time educating. Marketing automation can also help automate this often times tough skill by giving you the ability to see if your prospect is opening and sharing content or if he or she is just blowing smoke and is not really ready to transact.

For more on using marketing automation for sales, read “A Twist on Selecting a Marketing Automation Platform.” Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Measuring B2B Marketing and Sales Funnel Effectiveness

Measure B2B Marketing and Effectiveness of Sales FunnelIt is imperative that your marketing team be data-driven.  Budget dollars are tight and need to be accurately spent.  Having clear data on how each of your marketing campaigns are performing is essential to being able to forecast sales, scale your campaigns/operations and re-allocate budget from low performing to high performing campaigns.

At Gabriel Sales, our entire organization is data-driven, including the marketing team, who manages quantitative reporting and scorecards for both clients and internally.  The key performance metrics we traditionally measure are the following:

  • Inbound Traffic by source
  • Web form conversions and inbound calls by source (Total Prospects)
  • Prospects who want to talk (Sales Accepted Leads aka SALs)
  • Prospects who have a project need and budget (Sales Qualified Lead aka SQLs)
  • Proposals
  • Closed deals
  • Revenue

If you notice, we are accurately tracking the entire funnel. We do this using a combined integration of web analytics, marketing automation software, CRM software and experienced data analysts. By calculating conversion rates from previous stage (e.g. what percentage of proposals close or what percentage inbound traffic converts to web forms), we can better forecast sales and allocate spend to marketing campaigns to best enhance our marketing and sales funnel’s performance.

Additionally, with marketing automation software at the crux of our marketing and sales operations, we can see what traffic/lead conversion sources are most likely to convert to proposal and closed deals.  This helps us scale those marketing campaigns that have the best conversion performance.

Lastly, we can see what sources have the poorest funnel performance and reduce or eliminate spending on those campaigns (as long as we’ve tested enough to be sure the campaign is not viable for the particular product/service we are promoting).

This level of reporting built-in to your company is no longer just a competitive advantage but is a key to sustaining and growing your business in today’s market.

For more on increasing B2B sales funnel productivity, read “The Value of Marketing Automation in the B2B Sales Process”. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Measuring B2B Marketing and Sales Funnel Effectiveness

Sales Funnel EffectivenessIt is imperative that your marketing team be data-driven. It’s also imperative your sales funnel effectiveness is turning into sales. Budget dollars are tight and need to be accurately spent.  Having clear data on how each of your marketing campaigns are performing is essential to being able to forecast sales, scale your campaigns/operations and re-allocate budget from low performing to high performing campaigns.

At Gabriel Sales, our entire organization is data-driven, including the marketing team, who manages quantitative reporting and scorecards for both clients and internally. The key performance metrics we traditionally measure are the following:

Sales Funnel Effectiveness KPIs

  • Inbound Traffic by source
  • Web form conversions and inbound calls by source (Total Prospects)
  • Prospects who want to talk (Sales Accepted Leads aka SALs)
  • Prospects who have a project need and budget (Sales Qualified Lead aka SQLs)
  • Proposals
  • Closed deals
  • Revenue

If you notice, we are accurately tracking the entire funnel to ensure the sales funnel effectiveness. We do this using a combined integration of web analytics, marketing automation software, CRM software and experienced data analysts. By calculating conversion rates from previous stage (e.g. what percentage of proposals close or what percentage inbound traffic converts to web forms), we can better forecast sales and allocate spend to marketing campaigns to best enhance our marketing and sales funnel’s performance.

Additionally, with marketing automation software at the crux of our marketing and sales operations, we can see what traffic/lead conversion sources are most likely to convert to proposal and closed deals. This helps us scale those marketing campaigns that have the best conversion performance and sales funnel effectiveness.

Lastly, we can see what sources have the poorest funnel performance and reduce or eliminate spending on those campaigns (as long as we’ve tested enough to be sure the campaign is not viable for the particular product/service we are promoting).

This level of reporting built-into your company is no longer just a competitive advantage, but is a key component to sales funnel effectiveness, and sustaining and growing your business in today’s market.

For more on increasing B2B sales funnel productivity, read “The Value of Marketing Automation in the B2B Sales Process”. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

When Sales Outsourcing Works (And When it Doesn’t)

b2b sales outsourcing 2014By definition, outsourcing in any industry is going to involve giving up some level of control.

Obviously, each company is going to have a slightly different stance on how much control they are willing to give up for each outsourced function. While we understand and completely appreciate not wanting to just ‘hand over the keys’ so to speak, there is a certain level of control that has to be given up in order for productivity to occur.

We sometimes run into this issue in discussions with prospects who are considering our sales and marketing outsourcing services. We often hear, “I have all the scripts, lists and content I need. I just need you to make calls. Also, I want you to be accountable for your results.”

Requests like this put outsourcers in a tough spot. In this type of situation, the outsourcer has zero control over the sales strategy, the messaging, the lists that are procured, the content, etc, and at the same time, they are accountable for the results produced. Companies who make these requests are essentially attempting to keep control over the entire sales process while placing the accountability on the outsourcer. From a business perspective, this just doesn’t make sense.

If you are asking someone to be successful, and you are not giving them any control over that process, you can’t expect them to be accountable for that—you haven’t given them any control over their own success or failure. By retaining the control yourself, what you gave them predetermined what their outcome was going to be.

Although sometimes it is uncomfortable, sales outsourcing generally requires giving up a great deal of control. In order to really get the true metrics that outsourcing can produce, you have allow those who are experts to lead the way. It is likely that you are already a thought leader in your field of expertise. If that field is not sales, and your sales are struggling, it is probably better to let someone with sales expertise take the lead. Sometimes to be successful, the best thing to do is simply get out of the way.

If you would like to know more about the value of sales outsourcing, read 5 Advantages of Sales Outsourcing in 2014. Feel free to contact us with any questions.

Why The Pay-for-Performance Model Doesn’t Work for Outsourced Sales

pay for performance in sales outsourcingMany people consider Outsourced Sales and marketing work come to me with some preconceived notions about what they would like to do.

One thing I hear over and over again is the desire to produce outsourced sales or marketing functions using a pay-for-performance model. While the intentions of using a pay-for-performance model are usually good, in practice, there are several reasons why it doesn’t work well for outsourced sales.

The first is in regards to the cost of resources. Let’s take cold callers for example; cold callers are an extremely expensive resource (especially if they are full-time). Cold callers can also require a lot of training before they can become effective.

If everyone is in agreement that cold callers are valuable resources, why would an outsourcer agree to invest in those resources without any guarantee of return on that investment? From a business perspective, it just doesn’t make sense.

Another reason why pay-for-performance does not work well for outsourced sales is that it puts the focus on short-term goals rather than long-term success.

For example, I often get asked if we will take compensation for each appointment set. From a sales reps perspective, this incentivizes the sales rep to ‘hit his number’ by setting as many appointments as possible, regardless of the quality of those appointments. Because, if the only performance metric being looked at is the number of appointments set, the rep has no motivation to put in the extra time and effort to only set meetings with quality prospects that he thinks will eventually close. With no reason to think past hitting his numbers for this week/month, a pay-for-performance sales rep is focused on his short-term goals, not your long-term success.

If you would like to know more about the value of outsourcing B2B sales, read Scale Your Business for Sales with B2B Sales Outsourcing. To learn how we price our sales and marketing outsourcing services, you can visit our services page and click on the different boxes for pricing details.

Feel free to contact us with any questions.