B2B Sales Pipeline

It’s Friday, so what better time to rant about a subject that is near and dear to my heart – Lead Qualification.  Whether you utilize the BANT Model (which we do here at Pardot), or some other methodology, you’d better make sure that the leads your sales professionals are calling on are qualified.  I saw a recent post by ETI Sales Support, which stated the following:

“Leads without qualification have little value to salespersons whose standard of living depends on the volume of their sales. In many instances the most experienced salespersons will not follow through on unqualified leads because it doesn’t pay them. In that event the total cost of the cheap leads would be wasted.  And your actual cost per qualified lead and sale will skyrocket.”

Let that statement wash over you.  Marketing and Sales both need to Stop the Cycle – Marketing – Stop sending over junk leads because your rainmakers know what a bad lead looks like, and Sales – Stop following up on junk leads because they will inevitably bury you under a mountain of wasted effort.
So let me tell you a quick story about a Gentleman, selling his moving services to only Qualified Prospects in Atlanta, Georgia.  His name is Ron The Mover, and here’s how I met this gentleman:

During December, I was moving into a new Condo in Buckhead, however I was relegated to a walking boot as I recovered from an October Achilles tear.   In order to get a head start on packing, I dropped by the U-Haul store to pick up a large quantity of boxes.  As I struggled to load them into my car, a gentleman took me by surprise.   He approached, and asked if I needed help putting the boxes into my car (rapport building).  He then asked a follow up question related to whether I was planning on moving soon (Establishing BANT’s Need and Timeline criteria). I guess he determined that I was the decision maker on this opportunity (Assumed BANT’s Authority criteria), so he handed me a piece of paper that was torn into a square after having been moistened by his tongue to make straight edges.  This was his business card, and it simply said “Ron the Mover” and included his number.
So let’s recap.  Ron Established 3 of the 4 BANT Criteria within 60 seconds:

• “Authority” by properly assuming that I was the decision Maker on this move
• “Need” by engaging people who were doing business with U-Haul (Buying Boxes, Renting Trucks)
• “Timeline” by asking if I was moving Soon.

Great work Ron…You could teach most business people a thing or two.

So I’m sitting in front of the television, watching #1 UConn v. #4 Pitt, a game billed as “the Game of the Year.”  Although many of you may not know this, your humble author was a small college basketball player.  As a 6′5″ backup post player (I mean waaaaaayyyyy backup), I got the “joy” of practicing every day against our team’s 6′11″, 250 starting center – As the undersized player, I was basically thrown around like a rag doll all practice, every day.

So as I watched the game, I have to tell you that I LOVED the play of Pitt’s Center, Blair.  The undersized Center has  run circles around UConn’s freshman phenom Center, Thabeet.  Blair’s hustle has allowed him to record 22 points and 22 rebounds as of the time of this posting.  Amazing…and as the former smaller (and hustling) player – I love it.

As well as Blair has played against the 7′3″ 260 Thabeet – Imagine how dominating he would if he were being guarded by a 6′ UConn guard.  To Quote IceCube, I feel confident he’d “mess around and get a triple double,” due in large part to how well he utilizes his size and skill near the rim.

So how does this relate to Sales?  Aaron Ross, author of Build a Sales Machine, known as the architect of the Salesforce Sales machine suggests that Sales teams should specialize and Break into a 2-tiered sales structure .  Just like having a Pointguard defending a Center, or a Post Player dribbling the ball up the court, the success rate could be dramatically improved by letting your players (AKA “Your Sales Team”) play to their strengths and hone specialty skills.

You should read Aaron’s Post, but the Reader’s Digest version is this – Don’t weigh down your Rainmaker with prospecting – He is a Closer (and according to Glengarry Glenn Ross – He gets coffee) – So feed him great leads – which he will Close.

Simple Right?  To use a basketball analogy – Give him an Assist, which he will finish strong.

The person dishing the ball to the Rainmaker?  Lead Qualification / Prospecting staff (Aaron suggests splitting these into 2 positions, however we use the same person for both) – Think of this as your pointguard, who has amazing shooting prowess.  This person (or People) will find the good prospects (outbound) and qualify early stage prospects (inbound who do not show buying signals such as completing the “Contact Me”, “Test Drive” or accumulating 100 points in their first visit to Pardot’s Website) to ensure that they meet at least 2 of the 4 BANT criteria.  These good prospects are “Dished” to your  Rainmaker who will 2-Hand Windmill Jam the deal.

As I finish this post – Pitt knocks off #1 due in large part to Blair’s an amazingly specialized skill set.

Now, I don’t want to get off on a Friday Rant, here, but let’s talk a little bit about email, as it relates to your job – Selling.  It is a 2 edged sword that can be the great equalizer or a giant headache because it provides a record – a permanent journal of your exchanges with someone.  Let’s look at a couple of Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s

DO Use it As a Communication Supplement During the Sales Cycle - Email provides a mechanism for you to quickly coordinate with prospects during the early stages of the sales cycle:

• Email prior to your first interaction (“Before I call”) to make introductions
• After a first impression / voicemail (“I just tried to call”) to follow up
• during the middle of the sales cycle (“Is there a good time to reconnect?”) to continue building the relationship.

DO Use it as a permanent record of previous prospect communication - Did the prospect indicate that the contract would be signed by Monday?  Replying to her email on Tuesday may help reinforce why you are reaching out.

Don’ts

DON’T Assume the Recipient Is Sharing Your Mood - Although you may write it with the best of intentions, Email is generally read in the mood of the recipient…not the sender – Did the recipient get unexpected bad news prior to reading your note?  Did they kick the dog or learn of a mis-behaving child?  Regardless of the mood you intended, the recipient will read it in their current mood.

Here’s a tidbit for newbies – DON’T SEND BAD NEWS VIA EMAIL, WITHOUT A CORRESPONDING PHONE CALL (generally making the call before sending is best).  They will get the news, see red, and send an angry dart your way

DON’T Write It Down Unless You are Ready to Back It Up - When you put something in writing, always assume that it may be seen by unintended individuals, not the intended recipient – Quick Story – When my Uncle was an intern during his senior year of Auburn, he wrote a note about his intern supervisor (not email…a note…to Mail), calling the individual in question a “Sissy” (which was strong language for a college kid to use on an adult in the 60’s).  Long Story Short – The supervisor found his note, contacted his professor, and had my Uncle sent back to Auburn for punishment.  His professor’s advice – “I’m not saying that what you thought (him being a sissy) isn’t true.  You just should never have written it down.”

Combining DON’T #1 and DON’T #2 is the most important DON’T – DON’T Get Frustrated AND Write Something Stupid Down – If you’ve been following the blogs this week, you likely saw TechCrunch’s article on LeapFish.  If not – Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version:

The sales person from LeapFish (who is now unemployed) got frustrated that a company, who it appeared he had targeted as a prospect because of their lower ranking in Google (good qualification skills), called the prospect 2 times back-to-back and was rebuffed as not needing LeapFish’s service.

The salesperson was obviously growing agitated, allegedly ended the call with a veiled threat related to Google AdWords spend.  (AUTHOR’S NOTE – The sales person has now let mood get into the email, since both he and the recipient are now in an adversarial role)

What happens next is pure magic – The sales person breaks DON’T #2, by sending an email containing the following statement:

“I just clicked on your link 50 times. Pay per click hurts. Found you on page 2 of the sponsored links. Call me for an advertising solution “ (AUTHOR’S NOTE – I love the audacity to financially hurt the company and then ask for their business – ABC)

Instead of getting the business, the sales person got the ax.

So here’s the deal – Be careful with email – Much like fire was to the cavemen – It can hav positive aspects like cooking food and providing warmth, but it can also burn your village down if you aren’t careful.

I hate air travel.  There – I said it.  After 5 years selling in a remote territory, I enjoy commuting to work…not traveling to it.  So more of us are required to do more selling over the phone.

A blog post related to Successful Telemarketing found its way into my inbox, and after reading it (admittedly a little skeptically) – it actually has a little meat between the fluff.  What follows it the Readers Digest “Condensed Version”:

The Opening - Pretty basic – Who – What and Why…but TRY to make the Why pertinent:

• Good - Good Morning.  This is Derek Grant with Pardot, a Marketing Automation vendor that dramatically improves the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts by individually tracking anonymous visitors and prospects.
• Bad - Hi.  This is Derek with Pardot – Calling to see if your firm is interested in implementing marketing automation
• Ugly - What up?  This is Derek. Do you want marketing automation?

Author’s note – I know this isn’t great technique, however I like to get all the pertinent information in before pausing, so the person has enough information to work with and doesn’t have the opportunity to barge in during the introduction.

Engagement Stage - Match your product’s features to their needs in order to show Benefits to their organization.  This requires sales people to do something many are not good at – Listening to the customer.  It also requires thoughtful questioning, and probing once the conversation begins to lull.  If, after you’ve spoken, you haven’t learned what their pain is, then you have wasted your time and theirs.

The Close -This isn’t necessarily the deal closing, however you should always understand next steps.  Not Interested?  “Since needs change quite frequently, would it be appropriate for me to call at the start of next quarter”.  Want a Demo?  “Do you utilize MS Outlook?  If so, I’ll send you a meeting request for the time and date we discussed.” (NEWS FLASH – not everyone utilizes Outlook, so this should be something you confirm prior to getting off the phone and blindly sending a meeting request – Perhaps iCal is more appropriate)

At the end of the day, if you excel at the three steps above, you’ll be able to spend more time at home, and less time in the airport.

Several days ago, I had the opportunity to chat with one of Pardot’s junior sales professionals.  This individual expressed frustration that it was difficult to get the prospect from a live demonstration (Stage 3) of the application to the close (Stage 6).  Since I’ve got a couple of years in this game, I thought to give a little advice.  Even though we talked about several concepts, I found a blog post on Selling to Big Companies, entitled Top 5 Tips for New Sellers, that I’d like to add as part of the advice.

1.  Actively Listen to Ask the right questions

Don’t assume you know what matters to your clients.  After you’ve done your homework on the prospect, you’ll need to put all of your preconcieved notions to rest and…Ask Them…what causes them aggravation on a daily basis.  Most importantly, you’ll need to actively listen to ensure that you can find opportunities to match your benefits to small admissions by the client.  And – Don’t just launch headlong into benefits once the prospect gives you “the in,” rather ask more probing questions to ensure you understand the depths of their pain.

2.  (Per Selling to Big Companies) – Focus on making a difference.

“Nobody cares about your product, service or solution. That’s the hardest thing for sellers to realize. All they care about is the difference you can make for their organization.”

This is so key – Not Features…Benefits.  No one cares that your organization’s Salad Shooter “Slices, Dices and Makes Salads”.  You may have to explain that once you’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate the product, however you can’t focus on these, since they are features. What prospects care about is Benefits such as “after a hard day at the office, it will allow you to quickly and easily make a healthy dinner for your family”.  If you asked the right questions, and have a thorough understanding of the prospect, you’ll know their pain points, hot buttons, and what benefits will be most valuable to this particular client.

3.  Ease Their Mind by Removing Risk

At the end of the sales cycle, you’ll need to reassure the customer that they are making the right decision and that there is no risk to them.  Think about it – You’re probably a little jaded by having purchased something and then having buyers remorse a short time later.  Remember that feeling – That’s what prospect’s are trying to avoid.

If you’ll take the time to listen, understand their needs, match your benefits to their needs, and then assure them that you’re their partner in this initiative, you’ll see your close rate shoot up.

It’s critical to have competitive intelligence. There are a number of ways to get competitive intel – One of the tried and true techniques is to contact a competitive organization, pretend to be a prospect, and ask pertinent questions. The following is a story of such an attempt:

While I was on vacation in NYC, I received a voice mail from a gentleman named Adam Roud (If you’ve read my posts before, you’ll know that I always change the names to protect the innocent) from a company named “Sequento” (Google it…it doesn’t exist). Adam’s voice mail asked a pricing question about an application component that could not be purchased alone – This would be similar to calling the Mercedes dealership and asking the price of the drivetrain (”No, I don’t want to know anything about the car, just tell me how much the drivetrain costs.“). Immediately I realized that this question doesn’t pass the “Smell Test” (e.g., if it doesn’t smell right, it probably isn’t right), but I called Adam anyway, to try to get an idea of what he was hoping to accomplish, and determine if my company’s solution might meet his needs.

Cell Phone, with no company name provided - things are smelling worse.

I left a VM asking for a time to chat and determine exactly what he was looking for. Qualify young reps – Qualify. Since he didn’t call back, and for all of the items I’ve identified above, I considered him a junk (unqualified) lead, and I set a 30 day follow up in Salesforce.

When I saw the reminder earlier this week, I thought back to the Smell rule, which prompted me to search Adam’s name in LinkedIn. Lo and behold – Adam works for a competitor. I called the competitors office, asked for Adam, and let him know that I would love to chat with him, since it’s always good for competitors to get to know each other. At the time of this posting, Adam has not called me back, and has likely joined the witness protection program.

So here’s my point – Competitive Intel is King, so how can you get it?:

1. Act like a Prospect - Note to Adam’s boss – Get him acting lessons, because if he’s as bad of a sales support engineer as he is an actor, you should probably cut him loose.

• Make the Cover Story fit - In the era of Google, it’s probably a bad idea to name a company that doesn’t exist
• Pretend to be someone else - With resources like LinkedIn, Spoke and JigSaw, you probably shouldn’t use your real name.
• Ask relevant questions - Back to the Mercedes example – You should probably ask questions about the solution as a whole, and sound like an educated prospect (”After looking at the BMW, I feel this Mercedes is the better buy because it has Leather, Sunroof and Heated Seats for the same price…but I’m curious about the drivetrain?”).

2. Research on the Internet - Again, in the era of Google, you should probably just search for your the information you seek.

3. Post-Mortem Follow Up’s - Talk to your customers who you’ve won during a competitive procurement, or wrap up with prospects you’ve lost. Always preface with – “I don’t want you to cross any ethical lines, but…..” Satisfied customers can provide insight about the competitive landscape, and prospects who didn’t select your solution can tell you why they went with someone else.

In the end – Adam – I love your moxie. You did the right thing, but you aren’t getting any Academy Awards from me.

A website I try and frequent for timely and provocative information iswww.salesteamtools.com. This fantastic compendium of knowledge offers those of us who make a living in sales a vast portal of knowledge and ideas to incorporate into our thought process and stimulate our thinking.

Upon returning from the winter holiday’s, I went to salesteamtools.comand read a fascinating post, entitled, “How I Improved My 2007 Sales Results.”

This got me thinking. What were the things I did in 2007 that not only improved my sales results, but conversely, what did I do to to hinder my sales results?

One of the things those of us in leadership roles in sales try and do is take on too many tasks, instead of delegating assignments to other team members. Instead of trying to tackle every new project or starting work on an ongoing project that would have monopolized my attention and produced less than stellar results, it is sometimes vital to delegate that assignment to another team member. Offloading tasks can be the best way to ensure that:

A. You finish the tasks and jobs you currently have on your plate and give the proper attention to them that they deserve.

B. You learn where your strengths and weakness are and where to focus. If you have a task you feel you aren’t suited for, then the best idea is to delegate that duty to another team member.

C. Your relationships with your existing clients won’t suffer, as the days of trying to make everyone happy will be over. Let one of your team members help out.

D. Your time management skills will increase/ coupled with increases in productivity and efficiency.

E. You will energize your team members by improving their self-reliability.

It might be to late to work on offloading duties in 2007, but with the start of brand new year, implementing this approach to your leadership style will produce big results in 2008, not only for yourself and your individual goals, but also your company’s sales goals.

Sales Professionals – I’d like to take a moment to get up on my soap box and talk to you about KILLING the effectiveness of your Sales-Hunters. Hate effectiveness? Here are a couple of things you can ask your sales reps to do to stop them from doing that whole “Selling” thing:

1. Data Entry – You ask your hunter to find deals and close them, however you apparently also ask her to sharpen her typing skills. Leads from your friends in the marketing department should be already entered into the CRM, with any supporting information related to that opportunity. Almost every marketing automation and e-mail marketing solution provide the ability to take a lead generated by Marketing and convert that information, along with all background data, and create that as a Lead within your CRM. And don’t get me started on Landing Page / Request More Information form on your website that creates an e-mail and sends it to your sales professional…There are a variety of marketing tools available which can capture form data and enter it into the Marketing or Sales CRM system without the rep having to copy / paste from an e-mail.

2. Composing and Sending E-mails – Marketers already have a message they are trying to convey about the organization’s products and services. Quickest way to water down this message – let the sales professional distill that information into an e-mail based upon her understanding. A couple of bullet points about e-mail:

• Templates are Key – Don’t hope that your sales team understands what needs to be said, provide them templates of the key components which can be customized to meet the needs of that particular customer. The positive effect is twofold: (1) The message is consistent and (2) the sales rep isn’t wasting time typing out the corporate message over and over and over and over…..
• Automate the Process – Marketing Automation (Prospect Nurturing, e-mail marketing) systems and most CRMs support the sending of automatic e-mails to prospects. Sending them automatically basically “sales proofs” the process, and utilization of the automatic features of many systems automatically enters the information into the CRM, preventing excessive copy / paste functions just to have a comprehensive customer history.

3. Calling Blind – Let me qualify that sometimes too much information leads to brain freeze where the sales professional overthinks things (reference “Sales Proofing” above), however Marketing Automation / E-mail Marketing solutions capture open rates, as well as clicking of tracked links within correspondence, and many solutions offer visitor tracking for your website / microsite. Using this information can differentiate between a customer who has responded to your message, and one who said “Send me an E-mail” just to get off the phone with you.

Keep your hunters productive by cutting out repetitive tasks and providing some clarity as to the customers who have an interest in your offerings.

There was a song in the 90’s entitled – “Things that Make You Go Hmmmmm” which was basically a series of stories about people telling unbelievable stories that made the recipients of those stories go “Hummmm?” So a few mornings back I was taking with a colleague from another organization. This sales professional was speaking candidly about things and mentioned that they missed having sales meetings. “I’m hearing things,” I said to myself. Must still be cobwebs, since hadn’t had my coffee yet. I was floored on 2 levels: 1. I HATE sales meetings – This is the time where you as the sales professional are held responsible for your work, asked to discuss the “low hanging fruit” and discuss your prior week’s work. 2. What Sales Manager WOULDN’T have sales meetings – This is the time where the sales manager can arm himself with up to date information as to what is likely to close, what roadblocks your rep is experiencing, and heps focus their efforts Since you can see that I have a love / hate relationship with Sales Meetings, let me give you a short primer to sales meetings: A. Keep it Simple – I’m a little scatter-brained, so it’s critical that I have an outline that I cover every time. Things to discuss: (a) Sales Goals such as quota, number of calls, etc… (b) Noteworthy Opportunities that are likely to close between now and the next sales meeting & new opportunities, and (c) Challenges faced / overcame during the prior week B. Keep it Consistent – It should be at the “Same Bat Time and Same Bat Channel” every week, and should not be skipped except for the most dire of circumstances (OK, OK – You’re off the hook for your vacation to Honolulu, but nothing else). It should become an important part of your week. C. Keep it Positive – Remember what your parents taught you – “Every gray cloud has a silver lining”. If you have the right rep, they’re competitive and loyal, meaning that if they’re underperforming, they already know it. Address this underperformance as something that you are now both aware of, however try to find something positive for them to take away from the meeting. D. Keep it Helpful – Always provide the oppportunity to brainstorm with your sales rep. Remember – You’ve got experience that you’ll need to impart to them. Ask how you can help them with regard to strategy, and then follow up during the next meeting to see how your suggestion helped. Once you work through a couple of these, you’ll begin to see value and hopefully improvement. Now let’s get to work!

It’s been said that the lottery is a “tax on stupid people”, however I’ve been guilty of throwing a couple of bucks into the 6-digit retirement plan…but only when it’s at a staggering number – something like $200M…because I don’t want to sacrifice my current standard of living for something small like $50M.

For organizations who don’t have a method of lead prioritization, your Sales People are playing the lottery. Guessing…hoping, that this prospect will be the lead that materializes into a sale. Organizations which have no lead scoring methodology overwhelm their representatives with a deafening amount of:

NOISE !!!!!!!!!!!

“What is Noise?” you ask, however I’m deaf from years in sales and can no longer hear you.

Noise is the overwhelming amount of information coming at sales people, particularly in the form of inbound leads. A conversion page on a website gathers the same amount of information for everyone (e.g., Name, Title, E-mail, Yada, Yada, Yada), so giving a days worth of conversion information to your sales reps is frustrating at best because you ask the rep to subjectively sort through 50 names and prioritize them based. Generally, your faithful sales person utilizes a methodology that is roughly as objective as calling them in Alphabetical order…because we all know people whose last names start with “Y” are generally tire kickers.

Why not add Objectivity to the otherwise Subjective sales process by ranking, scoring / grading / prioritizing / segmenting your leads. A couple of basic options include:

1. By Target Organization – Give higher priority to organizations who meet your “Target Organization” profile, such as selling to a particular company size or vertical.
2. By Ideal Customer – If you’ve found the VP of Sales to be more receptive to your value proposition than the COO, utilize this information to rank them accordingly.
3. By Lead Source – Treat Internet leads from Pay-Per-Click initiatives (where you can quickly identify what message resonated with the prospect) with a higher priority than someone who responded from a trade show.
4. By Customer History – Has this prospect shown interest before, or is a current customer who has up-sell potential? Data gleaned from systems such as CRM or accounting systems can raise a prospect’s score.
5. By BANTS – Everyone knows BANT, but where does the “S” come in? Brian Carroll, an expert in B2B Lead Generation says that the “S” stands for “Sales Ready” meaning the customer is open to an imminent meeting with a sales person.

Don’t forget that there are a growing number of technology providers who provide Web Marketing Automation tools that allow prospects to be graded / segmented based upon explicit factors (title, geography) to determine quality, and scored to identify implicit factors (number of pages viewed, visits to your site, downloading of content). This then allows a sales representative to focus on all the “A” or “Tier I” prospects, and then identify all the ones whose behaviors have shown more intent.

Don’t ask your sales people to gamble…give them solid information which will help them be successful.