#9 – Respect your prospect’s time!

When you reach someone live it is important to be conscious of their time.  Why?  Well your initial goal by targeting the organization is to locate the appropriate person to speak with and after that it is to gain some of their “time” to qualify first and, if appropriate, move the sales process forward. 

What I mean is that the role of the teleprospector is to penetrate an organization and qualify them as an opportunity for the sales team (uncover pain/need, etc).  A critical step in this qualification process is to set the appropriate next step expectation with the prospect and advance the sales process.  So the “close”, if you will, of a teleprospector is to book some time on the prospect’s calendar for the next step in the sales process.

As a result of this we all must remember to be respectful of the prospect’s time, as this will break down some of the traditional barriers that exist in moving the sales process forward.

“My 2 Cents”

So here goes…..

#8 – Always target multiple contacts inside an organization

Regardless of the organization size (unless it is a 1 or 2 person shop) you are targeting it is critical when inititially trying to penetrate a given organization that you attempt to reach multiple contacts.  When you pick-up the phone to call cold an organization and do not know exactly who you are supposed to speaking with, you must make sure you are reaching out to a contact at every level of the organization (perhaps a C-level contact, a business decision maker, and a technical decision maker – or 3 contact titles that fall into your target market.)

By reaching out to at least three contacts you will accomplish two things – you will find a quicker path to the most appropriate person as it relates to your call and number two you will be generating awareness inside the organization at different levels that can help you gain insight into the organization and where the  pain/need you are looking for may be festering.

Check back tomorrow for #9!

“My 2 Cents”

Creating opportunities that generate forcastable revenue is no different.

An organization must have a process for creating opportunities in place that creates a framework for success.

I have found that the most successful organizations that I work with are ones that take a look at the entire process and evaluate each piece of the puzzle.  Below are a few of the steps in the process of creating opportunities that generate forcastable revenue.

• Messaging
• Marketplace Awareness
• Lists of Prospects
• Marketing to the lists
• Tracking and Nurturing of MQL’s (marketing qualified leads)
• Following-up on MQL’s (teleprospecting)
• Determining when the MQL is ready for transition to sales
• Transitioning MQL’s to sales as SQL’s (sales qualified leads)
• Feedback on SQL’s
• Conversion %’s of SQL’s to forcastable revenue
• Sales Process/Cycle

Again this is a list of items off the top of my head, each one of these has a number of moving pieces that need to be planned for and evaluated as well.

I believe the bottom line is this, if you want to employ a successful process around opportunity generation you need to look at every piece of the puzzle and make sure they are all lined up to support and drive the success of the process.

In this case producing forcastable revenue!

“My 2 Cents”

The posting  I read was focused on  a recent poll that Brian conducted of Marketing professionals asking  what causes them the most frustrations when it comes to B2B Lead Generation.  

I recently wrote on one of the topics that the poll results highlighted – the importance of a closed loop feedback process while running an opportunity generation program.  I could not agree more with how critical a feedback process is for both the constant improvement of the quality of opportunities delivered to sales and ultimately the conversion of the opportunities to pipeline revenue

“My 2 Cents”

I have found that when we remove the “peel” and take a look at the process that a marketing organization uses as it approaches opportunity generation, we find very good content with a number of things that work well, but a finished product that does not appeal to the sales organization and ultimately feed the success goals of the organization as a whole. 

Sorry for the analogy, but I find it easier to put it into this framework.

A number of my clients find that they are very adept at creating messaging, product awareness, interest levels, Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL), etc. (the potassium/fiber/taste of the banana) but the process that these are transitioned to sales (further qualification to a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)) or the timing of that transition is something that causes a breakdown. (Lack of a peel to hold it all together into a nice appealing form) – does the analogy make sense now?

What I have discussed and worked closely with my clients on in a number of these cases, which has proven critical, is not only a clear definition of what Sales is looking for in a Sales Qualified Lead from Marketing but a feedback process that allows for the continued improvement of the quality of that MQL and transition of an MQL to SQL.

Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss specific examples of different feedback processes that I have found effective.

 “My Two Cents”