by Glen Springer | Feb 12, 2018
How Outsourced Sales and Marketing Works to Keep You Focused on What Matters Most
Goethe shared the maxim “Things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”
Vince Lombardi was a champion because he lived by the creed that “Success demands a singleness of purpose.”
And the greatest lesson Garry Keller learned when building one of the largest real estate agencies in the world in a little over a decade is this: “Multitasking is a lie…You can do two things at once, but you can’t focus effectively on two things at once.” In his book “The One” he makes a compelling and succinct argument for focus:
“Success demands singleness of purpose. You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects. It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” He goes on to state, “Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.”
How does all this impact sales and demand generation for your business? It appears to be a daunting challenge. Especially when we all know that no “one thing” works in isolation to generate qualified sales opportunities because:
- Cold Calling stopped working on its own because buyers simply pick up the phone less.
- Email marketing is a great and cost effective way to generate early stage leads, but the leads then need to be nurtured, then prioritized to maximize your calling budget.
- Email spam filters are making it harder to deliver messages without following best practices.
- You need systems expertise and best practices to get the most from your CRM and marketing automation platforms.
- LinkedIn is still valuable, but requires more focus because it is becoming cluttered and pushed as a marketing tool after it’s acquisition by Microsoft.
- Other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram work until they don’t, and are slowly embracing PPC business models to compete with Google, which is driving up costs of acquisition.
- For all these marketing channels you need a consistent flow of quality and substantive video and digital content to educate buyers, improve your visibility on search engines and to generate leads.
- Finally, success requires that you don’t get distracted by what you could do. With the proliferation of social media adoption and content marketing, there are quite simply too many choices; we are all flooded with the latest “magic bullet” daily. These distractions can have us chasing our tails, thinking about what we could do vs. what we should do.
There are no new magic bullets. Generating sales opportunities still requires sharing your truth authentically with substantive content using multiple methods. You then need to have conversations with buyers that are interested in speaking with you. And these fundamental tactics work best if they are done simultaneously. Success requires hard work, done consistently for an extended period of time.
As John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach and owner of the most consecutive championships of any coach all time, puts it: “If you keep too busy learning the tricks of the trade, you may never learn the trade…I discovered early on that the player who learned the fundamentals of basketball is going to have a much better chance of succeeding and rising through the levels of competition than the player who has talent but doesn’t focus on developing fundamentals daily and was content to do things his own way.”
The challenge that many stretched executives face when they push through growth stages is, there are an infinite amount of things they “could” do to have a positive impact on their business. And often the things they “could” do are more comfortable, sit in their core skill sets, more innovative and often more fun. As a result, the mundane (and frankly boring) fundamental tasks required on a regular basis for successful demand generation and growth start to slip through the cracks. At first, it happens occasionally. Long term some of these fundamental tasks are often neglected completely.
With all these moving parts, fundamental tasks and distractions, it’s no surprise executives and senior sales professionals trying to grow sales demand struggle. Lack of consistent focus on “should do” tasks creates inconsistent results, especially when the tasks are assigned to existing employees without the passion, experience or expertise.
Executives and employees often have the best intentions, but sales and marketing success requires a commitment a set of fundamental demand generation tasks on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. For resources that are already stretched, these “should do” tasks quickly become interruptions and are reprioritized and turned into “could do” tasks. And “could do” tasks are ignored for more primary responsibilities. Ultimately, demand generation is like athletic training – if you don’t put in the time, you don’t reap the benefits.
Because of distractions, inconsistent commitment to fundamental daily, weekly and monthly tasks, and a lack of focus, we see businesses across the country with great sales and marketing strategies, great stories to tell and great products, struggle to take sales to the next level.
When you work with an outsourced sales and marketing company, you can be confident and expect that your team will be passionately focused on one thing – putting qualified sales leads in your sales team’s funnel.
You can also expect that your outsourced sales and marketing team will focus on the following fundamental tasks on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Your Content Marketing Team – Will help you turn your thought leadership into substantive content in multiple formats including; Articles, Checklists, Videos and Webcasts that:
- Can be used for email marketing and lead nurturing in your automation systems
- Can be leveraged for SEO and PPC
- Can be leveraged by business development reps and sales reps to use as part of their sales processes
- Can be shared on social media
And that content will be created in the right formats and distributed consistently at the right cadence to meet your specific competitive needs.
Your Email Marketing Lead Generation Team – Will source the best lists from vetted vendors to produce targets and leads to feed the top of your sales funnel with leads that can buy or influence the purchase of your product.
Your Inbound Marketing Team – Will focus on your PPC, SEO and Social Media results.
- Your PPC resource will track your results weekly, and analyze your results monthly, to optimize campaigns incrementally when possible to ensure you maximize your budget.
- They will create quality content that Google and your buyers appreciate and consistently optimize it for specific keywords to help you climb in natural search when possible.
- They will consistently distribute your content in social media channels for additional exposure.
Your Marketing Database Admin and System Technologist – Will keep your system optimized to produce sales results and make sure your automation and CRM systems are running smoothly, ensuring your automation tools are scoring and prioritizing effectively for your callers.
Business Development Reps – Your first touch callers:
- They will call prioritized leads with call volume targets on a daily basis
- They will start to build helpful relationships with potential buyers
- They will conduct pre-qualification calls for need and potential interest
- They will ask for an appointment with a senior rep when it makes sense
Sales Reps/Managers – Will move and steward deals through the funnel on a daily basis.
- They will stay on top of the hottest leads
- They will qualify for needs, budget process and decision making process
- The will schedule appointment with sales engineers and your team’s senior resources
- They will manage deals through the sales process to closing
Account Managers – Keep the entire team aligned and “Account”able for hitting targets and milestones.
- They will ensure calling and conversion targets are intelligently set and met
- They will ensure callers are focused on prioritizing calls correctly
- The will keep the marketing team on track and on time producing the right content and filling the pipe with new leads at the right cadence
- They will manage the feedback loops with your executive team so the right insights are shared and the right pivots are recommended
As John Wooden put it:
“The star of the team is the team and it takes ten hands to score a basket. Time lost is time lost. It’s gone forever. Some people tell themselves that they will work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for what they did not do today. If they work twice as hard tomorrow, then they should have also worked twice as hard today. That would have been their best.”
An outsourced sales and marketing team will allow your team to focus on what they do best. Because an outsourced sales and marketing team will consistently focus on the fundamental daily, weekly and monthly tasks required for your demand generations success.
About Gabriel Sales
Gabriel Sales specializes in helping SMBs and Start Ups launch modern sales and marketing operations and build successful and custom best practice strategies to consistently generate sales qualified leads. To learn more about our outsourced sales and marketing services, we invite you to visit our outsource sales and marketing services page.
by Glen Springer | Jul 23, 2016
Magic bullet for sales outsourcing
There is no grey area for Gabriel Sales that sales outsourcing for new product launches is ultimately about closing business. However as a sales consulting firm that has driven millions in closed deals and over 200M in exits with successful new product and service launches over the past 10 years we also understand that we can drive wealth for the entrepreneurs, executives and investors that we serve by empowering the entire organization. This is done with the right feedback loops and insights so our clients can make the right strategic decisions for their business. Below are ten business intelligence and strategic areas that the right sales outsourcing partner for new product launches can and should execute against as sales consultants drive the entire enterprise. For additional resource for new products launches and go to market strategies please visit our Sales Strategies for New Product Launches Resource Page.
Sales Strategies for New Products
Rapid Communication – It’s critical that direct feedback loops are created from the sales team directly back to product development, the marketing team, and the CFO. These feedback loops need to be available all the time. Speed directly from the market back to the team is critical. One of the advantages of a sales outsourcing firm that specializes is new product launches is that we have designed our internal systems to provide these feedback loops and are contractually accountable for them. The right internal feedback loops will improve the product and align sales and marketing for shared success.
Commit to Digital Content…especially Blogging – We are a sales outsourcing firm making 1000s of outbound calls a day. Customers are not waiting for us to call. If we get them on the phone being able to share a quick piece of content (video, landing page, short demo) goes a long way to getting them to spend more time with us on call two and the same content can also be leveraged to disqualify prospects. The average customer leveraged 10.7 pieces of content in their buying decision in 2011 and this is projected to increase in 2012. If you have a limited budget we have strategies and tactics we leverage for our customers that allow them to take advantage of our sales outsourcing for new product launch tactics that turn your blog into a virtual sales rep.
Be Prepared to Educate the Market – Most new products are offering a new solution that is disruptive to the market. Many new product companies are enamored with their technology (since they have passionately developed it) and forget that in many cases before you get to share those technical specs you need to help the customer understand and define the business problem they are trying to solve. You also need to be prepared to educate your customer how to calculate return. Don’t underestimate the value of keeping it simple for the prospect especially in the early stages of the sales cycle. For more info on how to frame your content strategy, please check out our B2B content framework graphic in our blog What is Successful Sales Collateral?
Sell from Scripts – This is one of several areas where a new product launch sales outsourcing firm has some strategic value over hiring individual internal reps or rolodex reps. Outsource sales firms are designed to sell using a repeatable process so selling from scripts is critical. It gives us something to measure and a way to anchor the success of the sale in the message and the story as opposed to the personality.
Commit Focused Energy to your Initial Ideal Customer Profile – If you don’t know what this is we have a short blog series dedicated to this. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE. You need to take your best guess at what verticals and what decision makers will buy and champion your product. And then test those assumptions and measure those results.
Document the Buying Process and the Sales Process – As you take your first customers from MQL or Cold Call through Sales Accepted to Sales Qualified to Closed deal you need to understand the key events in that cycle. As a sales outsourcing firm this is one of the sales consulting functions we offer our clients. We believe it’s critical because when combined with the right sales metrics (see below), mapped to the Ideal Customer Profile (see above) it gives us the ability to start to more accurately forecast dollars in and dollars out investments for the entrepreneurs and boards we serve. It’s also critical to remember that the same digital content we discussed in point 2 at the top of this blog is contributing to the sale. You need to get your sales reps and marketing team to score that as part of the buying process as well. Documenting the buying process allows you to build a sales process that allows the buyer to buy on their terms which means a sales ramp that consistently moves up an to the right and we are all in this entrepreneurial business to build sales machines that turn growth rates into hockey sticks.
Measure the Right Success Metrics – You need to measure the success of your early pipe efforts from day one. A sales outsourcing solution for new product launches has the advantage of having years (at least 10 years in our case) of historical data to benchmark your efforts against similar sales to similar markets and similar decision makers. This is especially critical for new product launches that have no historical data to benchmark against. To learn more about the metrics Gabriel Sales feels are most critical feel free to reach out to us to Learn if you can Build a High Velocity Sales Machine.
Know Why You Win and Why You Lose – If you are measuring the right data you will already be well on the way to knowing why your new product launch is successful. Its also important to understand why you are not winning when you lose. One value-add we provide as a sales outsourcing consulting service for new product launches is that after losing a deal we will call the decision maker if possible and ask “ for own learning, is there anything we could’ve done better?” We will take notes and pass that information on to our clients.
Commit to Marketing Automation and Nurturing Prospects “Not Yet Ready to Buy” – Our clients are investing in more than closed deals when they are choosing to outsource part or all of their sales and marketing operations. We are not going to win every deal the first shot we take especially for new products. Some may not have budget immediately, others may be waiting for our clients to have a couple more customers, others may need to champion into their organization. Data from Forrester states that 70% of Marketing Qualified Leads will buy in a solution area they invest time in exploring within 18 months. If nurtured correctly 25% of your MQLs will hit your pipe within a year according to Aberdeen. If you put 400 MQLs into the pipe in your pipe during your initial launch this means (assuming your product hits the mark) that you will have 100 SALs by year if you invest in nurturing out of the gate. Gabriel Sales provides sales consulting to assist with multiple nurturing from lead scoring, to social media outreach, content testing and marketing automation software implementation.
Lead with Value Proposition but Sell with Differentiators – Selling starts when a customer says “No” and arguments are never made in a vacuum. Value propositions are a great lead but they only take you so far. To close a deal your business case needs to make sense in the context of a category. We take all of our new product launch sales outsourcing clients through a quick and proprietary process that helps us and them to tell that story. This does not mean that you need to sell directly against the competition it simply means that the story will include what the prospect/marketplace has heard from the competition. In many cases we find that that competition is an internal competitor.
To see if our Sales Consulting and/or Sales and Marketing Outsourcing Solution is right for taking your new product to market we invite you to visit our New Product Launch Sales Strategies Resource Page. CLICK HERE
For a custom Go-To-Market Evaluation please feel free to CONTACT US to benchmark the market and see if a High Velocity Sales Machine is a possibility for you.
by gabriel_sales | Nov 29, 2012
Understanding the difference between a Sales Cycle vs. Buying Cycle may be the most critical shift an organization needs to make to see significant and sustained revenue growth, especially for complex or highly competitive sales.
In a nutshell, the Sales Cycle is how your company looks at moving deals through their own sales pipe and sales process to close deals. Typically the flow looks something like a lead, marketing qualified lead, sales qualified leads, needs analysis, proposal, negotiation, verbal, and closed. This is a company centered view.
A buying cycle is looking at your sales cycle from what the customer needs. Probably the best example we have seen of a buying cycle is from Robert Jolles book Customer Centered Selling. Below is our brief explanation of how we look at this cycle, addressing some of the implications it has for us as an outsourced sales and marketing company with how we divide the sales and marketing functions.
Phase 1 – Intention to Buy
- The buyer starts satisfied with their current solution
- The buyer acknowledges to themselves that they are not satisfied
- The buyer makes the decision to do something about it
- The buyer starts to think about “what are the criteria” to consider moving forward
As a lead generation and a demand generation company, we understand that intention is meaningless without action. The world is full of people with great intentions that never actually take any action. Your job as a sales person and marketer is to understand that your first task in generating demand for your solution is to help educate a buyer on the “criteria” they need to consider. You need to appreciate that given a choice, most buyers will sit on the fence for as long as possible. They want to move forward, they know it’s good for them to move forward, so you need to help educate the buyer enough so they do in fact move forward. Your first job as a sales and marketing professional is to inspire and catalyze the desire that gets your buyer to move from the passive buying process to the active buying process. More and more, this is becoming the function of your content marketing and inside team.
Phase 2 – Active Buying
- The buyer needs to figure out how to measure the solution to: justify the purchase, understand the impact of doing nothing vs. changing, see the impact on topline, recognize the implications for bottom line, feel subjective relief of pain or risk
- The buyer investigates deeply, typically with short list of solutions and a deep dive into one or more solutions
- Selection is made; a front-runner is chosen
- The buyer reconsiders their decision
During the “Active” buying process, your sales team is typically on point. It’s at this point that marketing should take a back seat – with one exception: marketing needs to continue to support the sales team with the content they need to help deal with the reconsideration phase of the sales cycle. Your marketers need to be prepared to help the buyer remember why they were no longer satisfied and embarked on their buying cycle in the first place.
