Smashmouth B2B Blog: Sales & Marketing Demand Gen

Demand Gen Experts Should Ask "How's Your Steak?""

Last night we were at my favorite local restaurant for my oversized salad (mandated by my wife and doctor), when I observed each of the servers checking in with their customers within 5 minutes of serving their entrées, "How's your steak cooked?", "Is the salmon to your liking?"

How often do demand gen experts ask their sales team, "How are your leads?", "Are your appointments meeting your expectations?"  Do you ask for feedback in a timely manner?  Do you take the dish back if it's not to sales' liking?

How often are your leads under cooked?

Set your lead gen standards and expectations between sales and marketing, and then formalize them into a Service Level Agreement (SLA).  This formal agreement documenting what makes a good lead and what constitutes qualified, or introductory, etc. will keep you all in line.  Set goals for your sales team too.  They should meet your SLA requirements.  

• Are leads being followed up on in a timely manner?
• Is pipeline activity accurately tracked in your CRM and the lead source maintained?
• Are conversion events being documented properly?
• Are lead rejections being used to refine the process? 

Me, back to my salad...

Join me and Craig Rosenberg, the Funnelholic, Tuesday March 2, at 10AM PST / 1PM EST.  You can register here: The 10 Pillars of an Ideal B2B Demand Gen Platform.

Appointment Setting: Was I Duped?

In the collection of appointment setting techniques I've seen before, I've never seen the one that I fell victim to this week.  Interestingly, if Green Leads did this for our clients we would soon be one a B2B Appointment Setting Vendor that had a tainted reputation.

The dupe: I got an unsolicited calendar invite in my inbox with a bridge number, date and time.

My week is comprised of 5-8 appointments per day.  I figured, what's one more?  Must be someone I've been talking with or met at a conference.  Well, that's what they want you to think.  Before I researched it and canceled, the date and time was here.

I dial in, and on the line was Rick.  He was selling a "SaaS telecom/VoIP solution for small to medium sized businesses."  Are you kidding?  An introductory appointment from an unsolicited calendar invite?  How much did Rick pay for that?  $9.99?  I back-tracked the source and found a company specializing in appointments for janitorial services, credit repair and life insurance brokers.  The sick part...when you type "appointment setting" in google, they show up on page one.

Reminds me of the appointment setting tactic I saw three months ago: "take this web demo and we'll send you a $25 Starbucks card."  I'm sure they are selling the appointment for far more, and the vendor is suffering from ROI-paralysis.

I'll stand by our quality appointment setting methodology and keep chuckling.

How low can you go?  If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Focus.com is Creating Knowledge and Content and Running First Class Webinars

I've been participating with Focus.com as one of their contributing Focus Experts.  The site is a community destination for business leaders to find and produce industry information, research, whitepapers and webinars.  The content value is huge, and the knowledge generated is phenomenal and growing daily.  If content syndication and webinars are part of your demand gen mix, you should explore Focus in more detail.

What's' behind the curtain?  I'm conducting a webinar for them this week, The 10 Pillars of an Ideal B2B Demand Gen Platform, and having done many webinars -- and being a demand gen marketer myself -- I've been utterly impressed with the process and the team putting the event together.  

I've shared webinar tips before in Lead Gen Tips: How To Produce A Successful Webinar, but one thing Focus added to the agenda for preparation was to run through the mechanics of the webinar-hosting software.  We did a practice session where each presenter used the platform to push slides to the audience, comment between moderators, and deal with Q&A.  I've done enough webinars to have seen most of these functions before, but the simple task of reviewing them for 15 minutes beforehand was helpful. 

Also, kudos to the ON24 staff for sharing best practices.  My favorite: Use the mute button as a caugh button only; don't stay on mute as you may forget to unmute yourself when it's time to talk. I've fallen victim to that before.

Join me and Craig Rosenberg, the Funnelholic, Tuesday March 2, at 10AM PST / 1PM EST.  You can register here: The 10 Pillars of an Ideal B2B Demand Gen Platform.

Lead Gen Companies Should Not Dictate Your Pace

On a recent sales call, the prospect told me he is working with a pay-for- performance appointment setting company like Green Leads.  The difference, and the reason for the call, is that he wants more meetings per month, but the other vendor is "dictating the pace" at which he gets them.  Was I dreaming?  Did I hear that right?  

If you are paying for performance after the meeting takes place, isn't the vendor incentivized to deliver the exact number of meetings you ask for?  Frankly, by not delivering the requested run rate of appointments, the vendor is (a) disappointing the client and (b) leaving money on the table. 

Whether you have an internal team or an external team, whether it is pay for performance or retainer based, here are a couple of lead gen tips for you:

• You -- the demand gen specialist -- should dictate the production you are seeking. 
• Establish and manage to a Service Level Agreement (SLA).  If you want 20 meetings a month, then you should get 20 meetings a month.  Vice versa, if you are to supply inbound leads or lists, you deliver, too. 
• Vendors, as well as inside teams, are all about headcount, and that is what they are juggling -- production per person.  That's their problem, not yours.
• Understand why you are not receiving your request.  Is there a skill issue? A headcount problem? A list issue? Reschedule/cancel rates? Messaging?  You may not own their issue, but you can understand it and help solve it.
• If you don't get what you want, make changes.  It can be as drastic as replacing a vendor or laying off some deadwood, but don't live with mediocrity.  You own the budget and are measured on your results.

Marketing Strategy of Going Negative -- Does Mudslinging Pay Off?

Witnessing the recent Scott Brown senatorial campaign in Massachussetts caused me to question the value of mudslinging -- I'm sure Coakley's staff is analyzing the same. 

A week after the election, the topic surfaced again after reading a recent article on HubSpot's blog, Are You Unwittingly Making This Disastrous Sales Mistake?, focused on turning a bland, salesy voicemail into a compelling voicemail.  Guest authored by Jill Konrath, who wrote the book Selling to Big Companies, it suggested language for more effective voice messages. And it sparked a controversial thread of blog comments led by Luke Brown, who signs his comment posts "Sales Pro", but the comments soon turned to mudslinging.

Let's analyze the marketing value.  Negative blog posts/comments that create controversy also create traffic.  Marketers love traffic.  So is the strategy of going negative worth the traffic it generates? 

Most controversy revolves around intelligent debate, but occasionally it slips (degenerates?) into ranting.  The former can be valuable, the latter ... just plain damaging.

• Debate (for or against) = Traffic and Branding
• Ranting (illogical, slanderous, or otherwise) = Traffic with Negative Branding

Tips to take advantage of a controversy:

• Keep the controversy at the debate level
• Don't get personal
• Back up your statements
• Take a stand on the issue, not a stand on the others in the discussion
• Write a blog article that expands your thoughts on the debate, and post a link to it on the original site that started the debate (take some of the traffic)

The controversy that sparked this article had turned into a one-sided war from Luke, who wrote a scathing blog post on the topic and offered a $10k A-B challenge to Jill.  He even posted a negative Amazon review on her book and posed a question about voicemails on LinkedIn that assaulted her anew (then pulled it off after a few days.)  I'm sure his site traffic was up (I visited several times to try to find value), but I'm also sure his negative branding offset the traffic.

Healthy debate draws interest and showcases your thinking abilities. What about a personal crusade over a difference of opinion? Would you do business or hang out with a mud-slinger?

Demand Gen's State of The Union Address - If Obama Were a Marketing/Sales Exec

Last night I heard a few sound bites in Obama's State of the Union Address that brought to mind what I hear from sales and marketing folks daily.  So here are a few interpretations had the president been talking about Demand Gen.

"We do not give up. We do not quit. We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit."

This is about Sales and Marketing Alignment.  Without constant attention to this challenge, marketers will continue to struggle.  Don't just live with division of goals; create a contract with what both parties expect from one another -- a formal Service Level Agreement (SLA).  Tie incentives to it.  Measure it.

"For every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from"

Have your lead gen teams wake up and understand that pay-for-performance is what their jobs are about.  One hundred fifty years ago in this great country, factory workers were paid for the parts they manufactured.  Today, in demand gen, we need to get paid on the leads generated and appointments set.  Let's go back to basics and get paid for performance.

"But remember this: I never suggested that change would be easy or that I could do it alone."

Times have changed in the world of outbound marketing.  Prospects pick up their phones less.   They use email more.  They sometimes don't even have a desk phone.  As demand gen experts, we have to change.  Use the tools available to us.  Use the numerous online data sources at your disposal (Jigsaw, Netprospex, Google, LinkedIn, Inbound Lists!). Dial more strategically.  Specific times per day are important.  Don't just bang the phone like a stamping machine. Work the prime time with tools like autodialers and ConnectAndSell.

"... after two years of recession, the economy is growing again."

I hear "woe is me" time and time again, but if it's any indicator that things are changing, our business tripled in 2009.  Since our business is all about growing the top line, the future of companies' bottom lines looks promising.  We hear fewer  objections that "the economy has us on budget hold." If you get one, turn it around with "I understand, but it really is turning.  Most of the prospects I talk with are actually in rebound mode and researching new ideas for when the budgets free up again."  Frankly, this is most likely a brushoff anyway.  Overcome it.

"We have to seek new markets aggressively, just as our competitors are."

Don't get fat and happy in the areas you've been successful in.  Keep them healthy and growing, but get creative and look for other expansion areas.  A client of mine,  very successful selling to software developers at the enterprise level, got a surprise order last year from a device manufacturer and realized its tools were just as applicable to an iPhone software developer and a medical device manufacturer as it was to a Salesforce.com developer.  The client opened up the market with an aggressive appointment setting campaign and and an inbound lead gen effort of whitepapers, blogs and webinars. Now it is forecasting that 30% of its revenues this year will come from that sector.  Listen to the market, and listen to your frontline eyes and ears ... the inside and outside sales team and your outsourced demand gen teams.  They hear it all day.  

Sales or Marketing, we all have the same goals -- lead gen, pipeline, and revenue.  Let's get unified, both inbound and outbound, and close some business.

Hear any quotes that resonated with you?

5 Outbound Calling Best Practices

Dialing the phone all day is a task.  I have one guy who calls it panning for gold. He'll say he just swished the phone 20 times, found 4 shiny objects and none were gold.  Then an hour later he'll yell "Eureka!" when he does successfully set an appointment.

I presented these 5 Outbound Calling Best Practices last week at Papa Razzi in Burlington at the AA-ISP meeting (American Association of Inside Sales Professionals).

These 5 points may get more Eureka's out of your outbound marketing efforts:

• List Hygiene - Keep lists clean and ready at all times for prime calling.  Track things like Time Zone, Direct Dials, Admin Names, Dialing Tips (press 0 for the operator), etc.  Validate lists prior to dialing.  Remove bad contacts, or research and replace them.  Don't dial until the list can be worked top-to-bottom in one sweep without a struggle.
  
• Functional Tools - Fill the toolbox with tools, and know how to use them: Jigsaw, NetProspex, InsideView, LinkedIn, Google Alerts and Google Search, LeadLander, others...  Use them to work smarter. If you find they get in the way when you are in power-dial mode, clean the desktop (next tip).
• Clean Desktop - When it's prime time to dial, cluttered desktops and browsers can bring things to a grinding halt: Instant Messenger, Email, Browser Windows, etc. (that means Facebook and ESPN too). Close everything that is not pertinent to dialing.
• Don't Dial - Still dialing with fingers on a number pad?  Don't.  Get a click-to-dial, auto-dialer or predictive dialer.  Or get on steriods with ConnectAndSell.  The productivity increases are phenomenal.
  
• Prime Time - Don't be power dialing at 10:20 am.  This is the most common time of day for prospects to be in a meeting.  They are more likely to be at their desks and willing to talk in the early morning, at the top of the hour (from 10 minutes to the hour until 5 minutes after, they are between meetings), at lunch, in the late afternoon, in the early evening, on Monday holidays.  Check out the article I wrote, Take 3 Hour Lunches, which discusses the day in detail and backs it up with data.

Just the tip of the iceberg here.  What outbound calling tips can you offer?  If they are tip-worthy, I'll add them to the growing list of lead gen tips.

 

 

B2B Experts from Webinar - 10 Tips for Improving Your B2B Demand Gen Program with Inbound & Outbound Marketing

Thursday I did a webinar with NetProspex (Slideshare below) and in it I referenced 10 experts that I rely on for B2B Demand Gen knowledge and insights.  They are listed below, and you can find them in my twitter list: http://twitter.com/damphoux/b2b-experts-list 

ps. Webinar Tip of the Day: Other than the person speaking, make sure all Panelists and Moderators have their phones on Mute.  We had an echo for the first 6 minutes.  Frustrating.

Joe Galvin	SiriusDecisions	@joegalvin
Mike Volpe	HubSpot	@mvolpe
Ardath Albee	MarketingInteractions	@ardath421
Nigel Edelshain	Sales 2.0	@nedelsha
Trish Bertuzzi	The Bridge Group	@bridgegroupinc
Steve Woods	Eloqua	@stevewoods
Simon Blackburn	ConnectAndSell	@connectandsell
Jep Castelein	LeadSloth	@jepc
Ann Handley	MarketingProfs	@marketingprofs
Craig Rosenberg	Funnelholic/Focus	@funnelholic
Scott Mersy*	Genius.com	@smersy
Mark Feldman*	Netprospex	@netprospex

* I added Scott and Mark because I referred to them several times within the webinar, so technically speaking, they should have had the on screen credit anyway.

Webinar: 10 Tips for Improving Your B2B Demand Gen Program with Inbound & Outbound Marketing

We've recently started working closely with NetProspex as a list provider to augment the work we do.  Once we started working together, the folks there realized that I always have an opinion, especially as it pertains to Demand Gen. Most of my recent discussion has been about Unified Demand Gen(sm) -- the philosophy of blending inbound marketing and outbound marketing to maximize your lead generation activity.

Join us for a webinar Thursday at 2:00 ET, 10 Tips for Improving Your B2B Demand Gen Program with Inbound & Outbound Marketing. 

Hope to see you there.

Lead Gen Tips from Yogi Berra

Yesterday I was using ConnectAndSell as a training tool and had one of our BDRs (Business Development Reps) live and working a list and three others listening in and critiquing.  (This, btw, is one of the many benefits of ConnectAndSell.  You can train with 5-10 pitches in an hour versus 1 or 2.  You can see the Smashmouth ConnectAndSell product review here.)

During the session, we connected with the Chief Information Security Officer of an extremely large pharmaceutical company.  He was the perfect target for the client we were working on, but he was reluctant to keep the conversation going.  He had objection after objection.  "Not interested," "Send me a datasheet," "We already do that."  You name it, he tried to bail out, but my rep was relentless in a completely calming way.  He would agree and acknowledge the objection, then segue to another topic or solution. He kept him talking.  Then after 5 minutes or so, the prospect accepted the meeting and offered to bring two of his direct reports.  

I closed the training session with a quote from Yogi Berra; "It ain't over 'til it's over."  We've all heard it, and this conversation proved it.  I would say a majority of insides sales reps may have bailed on this call after the second objection.

Anyway, it got me thinking.  Was Yogi Berra hip to outbound marketing?  Did he have other words of wisdom we should listen to?

"All pitchers are liars or crybabies:"  Don't pitch, have a conversation.  If you pitch, you aren't conveying sincerity ... you aren't having a conversation.  Bring value.

"If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer:"  Believe me, this has value.  Don't provide sales drivel in a conversation.  If you don't know, tell a prospect you don't know.  What better reason to keep the conversation alive than "actually, I may not be the perfect person to answer that. Can I line up a conversation between you and Mr. Sales Guy?"

"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much:"  How true is this?  Just stop selling and listen to your prospects.  Ask open ended questions -- leading questions. Get them to keep talking and pay attention to where they are going.  The more they talk, the less you can get in trouble.

"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else:" What is your goal of your lead gen activity?  Are you appointment setting?  Are you trying to gather intelligence?  Are you trying to do qualified lead gen? Know the purpose of every email, every dial, every conversation, and then stick to your purpose.  If you are setting meetings, make that your goal. 

What is your goal?  What other quotes can you tie to lead gen tips?