by Glen Springer | Feb 26, 2014
As 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.
by Glen Springer | Feb 24, 2014
It 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.
by Glen Springer | Feb 24, 2014
It 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.
by gabriel_sales | Feb 13, 2014
Over the past few years, we have created a lot of different types of videos for our clients. We are finding that one of the most valuable types of videos to use in the B2B sales process is a ‘headshot’ video of an executive.
These are effective for several reasons. First, they allow prospects to start to get to know the people behind the company. B2B sales is (and has always been) about relationship building and headshot videos help to start this process in a digital format. Second, humans are hardwired to pay attention to faces; apparently, the Fusiform Facial area of the brain causes this. In the midst of thousands of marketing messages coming at your prospects each day, anything that can encourage them to pay more attention is good.
If you have never created a headshot video before, here are 5 basic tips to help you get started:
- Dress professionally. What this means may differ from company to company (i.e. an enterprise software company vs. a hip, new tech startup), but looking the part is always a good place to start. Make sure your clothes, hair, makeup, etc. are in line with your company’s image.
- Address sound quality. For people new to video production, sound can be a hard thing to get right. Start by making sure there is no background noise in the space you are recording. To create a tone of professionalism, make sure your executive has a relatively high-quality microphone.
- Check your lighting. If you do not have a professional video studio with lighting, your best bet is to shoot in a room with a lot of natural light. Whatever you do, stay away from harsh lighting and directional lighting for headshots.
- Add a text bar. For headshot videos, you want it to be immediately clear who is speaking. Always put the name and title of the featured executive in a text bar at the beginning and end of the video.
- Don’t shoot with your iPhone. This goes without saying, but you need to produce high quality videos if you want them to be effective as a sales tool. Your best bet is to shoot in HD. If this is not affordable, try to go for a 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of at least 640×360.
If you would like to see an example of an executive headshot video, you can watch this testimonial video from one of our clients. For more on the value of video in B2B sales, read 3 Reasons You Should Leverage B2B Video in 2014.
by Glen Springer | Feb 5, 2014
By 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.
by Glen Springer | Feb 3, 2014
I work the front end of our sales process, taking Inbound calls from interested companies looking for help with their sales. Inevitably, we see the same scenarios play out and the same issues come up over and over again. One issue that has come up a lot recently is what we call the “self-diagnosis dilemma.”
An executive or SVP of sales reaches out with the core problems of:
- They need a bigger pipe
- They need more leads
- They need faster revenue traction
Often, what we see happen is when companies are looking for kind of outside help, they have some preconceived notions in their mind about what tactics will work. They will say something like, “I don’t need any content; I just need callers,” or “I just need you to set appointments.”
While it is great that people are trying to take some action to improve their sales efforts, self-diagnosing in this way does not always produce the best results.
For example, let’s say you have a runny nose and a cough and diagnosis yourself with a common cold, which you would normally treat with some over-the-counter medicine. However, when you go to your doctor, he tells you that you most definitely have whooping cough and need antibiotics—the over-the-counter stuff won’t cut it.
So, while symptoms may look the same on the surface—whether it be a runny nose or low conversion ratios—a qualified domain expert with years of experience servicing multiple customers successfully on a daily basis probably has a better understanding of what solution is most appropriate.
Experts are experts because they can see big picture ideas that others miss, and they are able to discover new solutions to difficult problems. And while it was somewhat easy to become a marketing expert 10 years ago, the sales and marketing landscape has changed dramatically with the proliferation of digital and is now much more complex on both a social and technological level.
So, if your company’s sales are struggling going at it alone, it would probably benefit you to be open to an expert’s advice before haphazardly concocting your own home-remedy.
If you would like to know more about the value of outsourcing B2B sales, read Scale Your Business for Sales with Sales Outsourcing. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
As 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.
