by Glen Springer | Jan 24, 2012
How a B to B sales team can accelerate education, verification, and convincing of potential prospects.
In Part One we discussed the difference between “Sales” Content Marketing and Marketing. In Part Two we covered the framework we use to listen to the customer. This blog is Part Three of that three part series. It discusses how you can approach creating a successful B to B Demand Generation Outsourcing Solution in a systematic and cost effective way.
To summarize: in B2B Sales and B2B Content Marketing – the Sales Conversation, the Digital Conversation and the Social Media Conversation should and need to be the same conversation. Sales and Marketing have the same job with different methods of delivery. Below is our best practice road map for scaling that conversation. As an outsourced b to b demand generation company we recommend the following five steps in the following order:
- Have your B2B demand gen team listen to the customer and provide feedback to sales marketing team.
- Have your “sales” content marketing team create inexpensive digital content that pushes the deals forward and do some small direct marketing tests.
- Have your senior sales reps close those deals to prove concept.
- Have your demand generation team, sales operations, or marketing operations team implement a Marketing Automation Platform to score your content and give sales and marketing a shared sales quota.
- Once you have the ability to score leads and content (and digital content that works and is market tested) give it to your “Marketing” team to scale.
As discussed in Parts 1 and 2, when clients engage with Gabriel Sales in a new product launch or a demand generation campaign our two primary objectives are:
- Fill the sales pipe
- Move deals from Marketing Qualified to Sales Qualified
As a sales outsourcing company our objective is to:
- Close business
As a value add we also function as an outsourced sales marketing company and our objectives are to:
- Test assumptions about ideal target markets to find verticals that will scale
- Craft the right messages and scripts that will help move those deals through the pipe faster in that market
- Create the right digital content and establish the right marketing platforms to support moving a deal from marketing qualified to sale qualified with increased volume.
- Track the b to b digital content’s contribution to a sale by implementing a Marketing Automation Platform (for full disclosure we are a Denver CO Pardot Partner).
This type of roll out, team organization and team orientation drives tremendous accountability. Your sales team needs to document the “Sales Conversation” and provide that feedback to marketing. Your “sales” marketing team is responsible for helping sales create content that closes business. With this simple approach you are focused on filling your pipe, closing business and driving intelligence that closes more business.
Where this alignment really pays off long term is the exponential lift and efficient spends you get out of your “Marketing” Teams – both internal and your agencies. Your external teams may include Direct Marketing, Media Buyers, Publishers, and Social Media Agencies. When executed in the right order:
Your B to B demand generation team’s marketing alignment job is to map the “Sales Conversation” and provide inputs to sales marketing about what the customer wants and needs to discuss:
Your “sales” marketing team’s job is provide content that helps your customer get the right information at the right time in the “Digital Content Conversation”:
Your designated sales or marketing operations team job is to implement a platform like Pardot to Automate and Score Conversations.
With Sales, B to B Demand Generation, Sales Marketing and Sales Operations teams aligned, your marketing teams’ job, (your creative agency, your media buyers and your publishers) is to take that “Sales Conversation” to the masses. It’s their job to turn the “Sales Conversation” and “Digital Conversation” into a “Social Media Conversation” to ramp the volume of the pipe.
As the conversation merges across all functions this approach is just common sense. When you get it right digital strategy in place it can drive large chunks of the sales cycle. Of course the options you have still remain the same but we feel that the new rules of sales engagement dictate that your sales team becomes more active in the marketing function because it results in more deals, faster at less upfront sunk costs.
- You can pay an MR firm for an MR study or listen to your sales team as they to listen to the customer and fill the pipe at the same time.
- You can pay a creative agency to guess at what content the market wants. Or you can have an integrated sales content team and inside sales team. You can test that initial content and then pass those insights on to the creative agency to improve and polish
- You can have a publisher create a white paper for you or you can test a series of blogs that address your customers top objections and then have the publisher write that white paper (this is what major film studios do now…they test on YouTube before they green light a film project or TV pilot).
- You can have a direct marketing team drive traffic across multiple sources and platforms. Or you can get input of your sales to run AB tests so when you make that spend your opens and your conversions are stellar.
One solution we would recommend running in parallel if the budget permits is working with a social media analytics company to start mapping the social media conversation so you can map this to the sales conversation and prepare for outreach.
We hope you enjoyed this series. A year ago we were skeptical that “content is king”. That’s no longer the case. Once we experimented and attached hard metrics to digital content we were blown away by the results. We would love to share those learning with you. If you have any questions about any of our road maps or frameworks please don’t hesitate to give us a call. To see if a sales driven demand generation and sales content marketing effort may be valuable in helping you to increase your revenue and decrease your demand generation costs CONTACT US.
To read Part 1 Top B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales Content Marketing CLICK HERE.
To read Part 2 Top B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment CLICK HERE.
by Glen Springer | Jan 22, 2012
This blog is the second part of a three part series that discusses the advantages sales content marketing and why B to B demand gen requires sales and marketing alignment. I then explains how you can approach creating a successful Demand Generation b to b solution (with or without outsourcing) by aligning sales and marketing. In this blog we provide a simple framework for driving success. CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE.
As an outsourced sales organization we firmly believe that every outsourced demand generation b to b effort needs “to start with the end in mind”. That “end” is closed business. Therefore, b to b demand generation requires sales. As a company we build High Velocity Sales Machines. The marketing services we provide to support the sales efforts are focused on improving two areas: Demand Generation and Overcoming Specific Sales Objections. Our focus when executing marketing services in these areas is to create the feedback loops required for the marketing team to create content (or in many cases to produce the initial necessary digital content ourselves) to ensure that the sales content meets the need of the buyer exactly where they are in their buying cycle. You need to match your sales function to the customer buying cycle. Typically:
- B2B Demand Generation – helping the customer define their problem and establishing your credentials as a thought leader to help them.
- Sales Engagement and Qualifying – helping the customer to compare your solution to other solutions in the market. And to evaluate their alternatives.
- Closing – sales starts when the customer says “No”. This content needs to overcome specific objections so that the customer can verify the ROI and confirm what you have already told them so they are comfortable committing to you.
For Gabriel Sales, sales content marketing is not strategic, it is tactical and measurable. The job of sales content marketing is measured. And when we make recommendations or create content that content starts by addressing a specific need or objection that we have heard directly from a customer.
Below is a simple framework we use when creating digital content or providing feedback loops to the marketing teams we work with.
We are giving our marketing efforts “A Sales Quota.” To do this you need listen and document the conversation with the customer. As part of our services we map the entire sales conversation to identify the objections, and then create authentic digital content that addresses those needs and objections specifically to get deals through the pipe.
To summarize, smart sales content marketing is a simple as:
- Getting everyone to agree that the Sales Marketing job is to close business
- Listening to the Needs and Objections of your customer to understand the “Sales Conversation”
- Creating Authentic Content that addresses the client’s needs for where they are in the buying cycle
As an outsourcing b to b demand generation company we are not delusional. We know what we are the best at, and what other solutions are more effective. We are the best at building outsourced demand generation engines that:
- Generate b to b sales leads with cold calling efforts
- Take cold call leads and inbound marketing qualified leads, listen to the customer and understand their needs and sales objections
- Move deals from marketing qualified leads to sales qualified leads by:
- Creating and distributing great “Sales” content that move the deals forward
- Training reps how to use that content
- Providing great feedback loops to marketing teams so they can expand on that effort once proven
With a full pipe we then transition to the close by staffing enterprise sales reps or inside reps as the need dictates.
The final blog will discuss how internal “marketing” teams and external agencies can build on smart sales driven demand generation and sales content marketing to put more qualified sales deals in the pipe.
If you would like to learn more about how an outsourced demand generation solution can help accelerate this alignment and scale, please feel free to CONTACT US for a free initial strategy conversation. Or visit the B2B Demand Generation Resources section of our Website.
To review Part 1 Top B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales Content Marketing CLICK HERE.
To view the final blog in this series on Successful Demand Generation b to b please CLICK HERE.
by Glen Springer | Jan 20, 2012
This blog discusses how Gabriel Sales thinks about B2B Demand Generation and the hybrid role it plays in sales, sales marketing and market intelligence. In short, Sales Marketing is always supporting the close of business. In this blog we will share how you can close more B2B customers leveraging the opportunities in the new sales and content marketing engagement model we now all face. This is Part 1 of a 3 Part Series.
To set some initial context to understand what Gabriel Sales means by “Sales Content” Marketing and how it supports B2B Demand Generation it’s important to understand that B2B Sales Content Marketing, at least from our perspective, is about moving a deal forward in the customer buying cycle so it results in a closed deal. Sales content supports the brand, but that is not its primary purpose. In a sales culture Demand Generation is not about Lead Generation and Marketing Qualified Leads. Who cares if a lead is Marketing Qualified. Demand Generation is about “Demand” meaning deals that are going to transact. Demand Generation means handing sales qualified leads over to sales reps that they can close.
A solid sales organization needs to be organized around an inside sales and marketing team that can generate Sales Qualified Leads and a team that can close business. As a sales outsourcing company we staff a team that can close business. As an outsourced B2B demand generation company, our goal, and the goal of any sales organization, needs to be creating a high velocity sales machines with a staff that does three things:
- Identifies and develops Sales Qualified Leads as quickly as possible so the sales team can engage
- Continues to nurture and develop Sales Accepted Leads (not ready to buy but worth investing inside reps time in) until they are ready to buy
- Profile Accounts – So you can score them for continued follow up by marketing efforts
This requires us to combine outbound sales efforts with inbound sales content marketing services (either creating digital content or creating the feedback loops for our client’s marketing team) because the goal is to move a customer through their buying cycle.
For a high velocity sales machine that integrates inbound and outbound efforts your inside sales team needs:
- To be experts in using sale marketing content to move customers from Marketing Qualified Leads to Sales Qualified Leads.
- To be accountable for driving insights and recommendations to the marketing team.
- To have the tools and technology to provide that feedback.
For true sales and marketing alignment, sales marketing efforts need to focus on generating closed business by supplying qualified deals and helping your buyer to transact. This means your marketing team needs to:
- Listen to the voice of the customer and the voice of the sales force
- Quickly create content or support the creation of content that moves deals forward
- Have their demand generation success scored on their contribution beyond simply putting MQLs in the pipe
As Forrester Research and the Society for New Communication Research has demonstrated (see graphic below) Sales Content is no longer a nice to have. It is a must have.
To summarize, B2B demand generation is about sales content marketing. In part 2 of this blog series we will cover Gabriel Sales’ simple framework for aligning sales and marketing and simple steps you can take to get sales and marketing to work together towards a shared vision. In part 3 we will discuss how smart sales content marketing can be re-purposed to provide an exponential lift by increasing your marketing teams ability to put better Marketing Qualified Leads into your Sales teams’ pipe; and the role of Marketing Automation Platforms.
If you would like to learn more about how an outsourced demand generation solution may be able to help accelerate this alignment please feel free to CONTACT US for a free initial strategy conversation. Or visit the B2B Demand Generation Resources section of our Website.
To Check out Part 2 in this Series B to B Demand Generation Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment CLICK HERE.
by Glen Springer | Dec 12, 2011
Why should you choose our sales outsourcing services over Rolodex?
This blog discusses the pros and cons of using a sales outsourcing organization like Gabriel Sales vs. hiring a Rolodex Rep specifically for new product or service launches.
Gabriel Sales is an organization to work with when outsourcing sales. In short, what we do is build sales engines. Those sales engines are usually for new product launches and new service launches but we also work with companies looking to turn around under performing sales teams, improve effectiveness of cold callers or anything else you can think of that has the end goal of generating sustainable revenue through a solid sales process. Because we are not a rep company, when we take on clients launching a new product, we are required to wear many hats – sales consultants, marketing consultants, lead gen rep, inside sales rep, closer, sales manager and market research (so we can accurately forecast and create an aligned sales content strategy).
One question that comes up frequently when discussing a new product or service launch is: “Should I hire a Rolodex Rep or hire Gabriel Sales?” There is no clean answer to that question because it depends on:
- Short term and long term strategic needs
- Short term and long term revenue goals
- Competitors
- Maturity of the market
- Maturity of the solution
We can make recommendations once we understand all the specifics with relation to the bullets above but here are some general thoughts (based on experience) for boards and executives to consider when evaluating Rolodex vs. Sales and Marketing Outsourcing.
Pros of hiring a Rolodex Rep
- Rolodex Sales Reps have established relationships.
- They can generally get you in front of a handful of decision makers quickly- By quickly we mean they should be able to spend 2-4 weeks reaching out to their network and another 2-4 weeks doing the first round of meetings. So within two months you should have 6-10 meetings completed and if the product or service is the right fit you can get some quick deals in the pipe depending on the sales cycle.
- If it works you are a hero. If it does not work you are no further along than when you started and you will have lost two quarters (1 quarter waiting for that rep to produce and another putting another solution in place).
- If it does work you can show investors traction but not scale.
Cons of hiring a Rolodex Rep
- The ability of a Rolodex Rep to penetrate the market is limited. Studies have shown that the average Rolodex Rep can maintain 7-20 really strong relationships with senior buyers and another 15-30 plus friendly relationships. If you have a finite market this could be a great solution.
- In most cases you have no visibility into what a Rolodex rep is doing for you until they actually produce something.
- It has been our experience that Rolodex Reps with valuable relationships (20 strong relationships with senior buyers and 30 plus friendlies) are not cheap.
- An experienced Rolodex Rep with genuine value in their network are often reluctant to take on a product until its proven unless you are willing to give them an exclusive for a period of time.
- Rolodex reps rarely sell using a script (process in not necessarily repeatable and sometimes does little to convince investors you can scale) and do not provide and significant sales ratios for future pipe forecasting.
- If it does not work you are no further along than when you started and you will have lost two quarters (3 months waiting for that rep to produce and another 3 months implementing the next solution).
Summary of hiring a Rolodex Rep
When a Rolodex produces it’s a huge win! Hiring a Rolodex Rep is generally high risk and high reward. Gabriel Sales is often brought into an organization after this approach has been attempted unsuccessfully. We are also often brought in simultaneously to start the lead generation engine so when the Rolodex Rep’s pipe runs dry we are filling it to sustain the sales momentum.
Pros of hiring an Outsourced Sales Company (like Gabriel Sales)
- Outsourcing Sales Companies sell using a repeatable sales process. They generally get on the phone to start filling the pipe leveraging a scripted and repeatable sales process.
- Outsourced Sales Organizations staff blended teams so you get the advantage of being able to hit 1000’s of decision makers with their dedicated telemarketing staff, leverage direct marketing campaigns and still have senior inside reps and part time enterprise reps to close business.
- Unlike a Rolodex Rep, Outsourced Sales Companies are collecting critical market data for long term strategy and growth, creating a sales content strategy (and in our case producing digital sales content ).
- When Outsourcing Sales and Marketing you don’t have to deal with all the database management and acquisition work. You get the advantages of a dedicated sales team without the 100K-200K of technology and support team investments required if you were to build your own technology stack. In addition you get rid of some of the fixed costs you would incur by hiring a Senior Sales Executive and Senior Strategist to frame your own engine. The savings is usually in the 100K -150K+ range.
- With an Outsourced Sales and Outsourced Marketing Organization you get accountability, market intelligence and transparency on a weekly basis.
- You get into the market fast and you get infinitely smarter faster.
- Unlike a Rolodex Rep with a Sales and Marketing Outsourcing Company your sales momentum is just starting to build heading into months 3 and 4 which is generally when a Rolodex rep is starting to run out of steam.
Cons of Outsourcing vs. a Rolodex Rep
- The same principle applies here as with a seasoned Rolodex Rep: The better the Sales Outsourcing Organization, the more expensive they can become. (On the plus side neither comes close to the sunk cost of building and managing your own team).
- These organizations can get you into the market much faster than you could get there on your own but it will still take a little time to customize your sales machine and build a process that is both sustainable and repeatable.
Overall Summary
The best solution if you can afford it is to hire both. However in this market you are better off walking away with something if you can’t afford to risk walking away with nothing. Good Rolodex guys are not cheap and you don’t know if you are getting anything back on your investment unless guarantees are made up front. With an Outsourced Sales Organization you are guaranteed call volumes, weekly reports to help you shape future metrics, market intelligence, a sales pipe with multiple stage deals that you can at a very minimum if the product you are taking to market does not quite hit the mark.
At the end of the day everyone is looking for the fastest cheapest way to fix their problem. While you might be able to get something in the short term from a Rolodex Rep you will not get anything for the long term. Building a sales engine is like building house and you have to do it the right way, build a strong foundation and lay the groundwork for success, or you will end up dealing with repairs on a consistent basis and wishing you had invested that extra effort up front.
For more background on the type of consulting you can expect and to understand some of the additional options you have we invite you to check out our blog post on Sales Consulting vs. Sales Outsourcing. If you are looking to drive sales faster while building a sustained foundation for a high velocity sales machine we invite you to contact us for a free consultation to see what we can do to help.
by Glen Springer | Dec 6, 2011
The purpose of this blog is to help our outsourced sales and outsourced marketing clients understand how we recommend they think about their B to B demand generation and sales content strategy and what we do as part of our consulting engagements to shape Sales Collateral.
What defines a “better” piece of b to b sales collateral? Well, in our opinion better b to b sales collateral moves a prospect further into their decision making process and does it at a faster rate. The goal: close more business, faster.
The first thing to remember is that to create better sales collateral it’s never going to be about you. It’s about your prospect’s specific sales information need and the type of information they need will depend on where they are in their decision making process.
As a sales and marketing outsourcing company, when we launch a new client we take them through our proprietary discovery process to establish the initial messaging and targeting strategy. Once this is complete we get on the phone and simultaneously accomplish the following functions:
- We execute immediately to start generating leads to fill the sale pipe
- We start collecting hard data and metrics
- We continue to consult creating a content and sales process strategy that aligns sales and marketing
This ongoing consulting based on hard data allows us to frame a repeatable sales process. Creating this process requires that we listen to and then meet the sales needs of the prospect. Without the correct sales process and the right content nobody wins. This includes our clients, their prospects and us. What most sales outsourcing organizations won’t tell you is that no ones content is perfect out of the gate. The idea here is to talk to the prospects, test, refine and become more efficient to fill the content gaps as quickly as possible. This is what helps us become more effective and more efficient closers. This is where we gain our advantage.
We realize that content creation can seem daunting. It does not have to be. It should be fun. What we generally find is that our initial immediate needs can be met quickly and created quickly as we are putting the first wave of deals in the pipe. In most cases we find that existing content just needs to be tweaked, reframed, repurposed and/or reformatted.
The chart you see at the top of this post is the simple framework we use as we create your long term content strategy during the consulting portion of our initial client launches. What drives the efficiency in this approach vs. a typical marketing firms approach is that we are not guessing. As we are filling the pipe we are measuring what is successful and what is not successful. We are learning when we lose and improving what works. We are making decisions based on real customer data and real customer feedback that creates a content strategy that fuels a sales process has a real impact. We are simply listening to your customers and giving them what they need to transact. This is not rocket science but it does require following a specific process, road map and framework, and then supporting the effort with proper tools. This approach creates a scalable sales machine.
Depending on your stage of sales and marketing maturity, there are multiple sales and marketing strategies and tactics Gabriel Sales can leverage to drive sales growth. A strategy or tactic is most effective when anchored in real numbers tied to realistic targets and measureable goals. The best sales and marketing operations outsourcing company will help you to create a unique plan to create this strategy and set real metrics if you are just getting started. If you have an existing sales history Gabriel Sales can fix what is not working and build on what is. Contact us for a free consultation to see what we can do to improve your sales performance and pipeline velocity in 2012.
by gabriel_sales | Nov 11, 2011
Your company is ready to jump on your lead generation opportunities and use sales to quickly increase your revenue. The problem is, you don’t know how to make it happen.
As a sales outsourcing company that specializes directly in solving this problem, we can offer some insight as to how you should proceed. The new digital marketplace has changed the way business, especially the sales process, gets done. If you want to beat the competition, you need to understand how you can use this new way of doing business to work as effectively as possible. To do this, you first need to evaluate your current process to look for your strengths and the areas where you need to take action.
Sales outsourcing may be able to augment sales gaps and increase sales pipe velocity. Three things to look at when evaluating how to proceed are the efficiency of your current sales team, your strategy for marketing and your ability to execute.
Sales Team Efficiency
- Look at the structure of your team. Is it set up to achieve your goal of increasing revenue and developing new prospects? Can your sales manager organize and encourage your team to close deals in a time efficient manner? Does your team need extra training to make this happen?
- Evaluate your sales process. How do you monitor your sales process and evaluate its effectiveness? Do you use marketing automation or sales force technology? Do you have a way to understand changing market conditions and respond accordingly?
Marketing Strategy
- Look at how you spread information about your service or product. Are you using social media to your advantage? Do you have digital educational content available to customers to help in the sales process? Is your website capable of finding new leads for you?
- Evaluate your message. Is everyone at your company sending out a consistent message? Are your sales and marketing teams aligned? Do they work with each other to create an effective lead generation strategy?
Execution Ability
- Look at how you deliver your service or product. Is your team set up to make this process go as smoothly as possible? Do you have people who are constantly available for customer support? What might it take to make this happen?
If these questions expose some holes or deficiencies in your current business process, it may be time to look into possible solutions. If you are willing to devote time and resources to finding solutions and building a scalable sales machine, Gabriel Sales, as an sales outsourcing company, can provide you with tools, strategies and people to make it happen. Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in learning more.
