Smashmouth B2B Blog: Sales & Marketing Demand Gen

Social Surround - Social Selling Takeaway from SiriusDecisions #SDsummit

I'm just coming off 19,000 miles, 3 countries, and both coasts of the US (back and forth twice) in a 5 week period.  I met lots of new people, and noticed a trend that interestingly reflected a concept Craig Rosenberg, The Funnelholic, and I presented at our case study session at SiriusDecisions Summit -- Social Surround. 

It's not new, and wasn't coined by us, but Social Surround is the technique of using every social platform available to connect to your colleagues and prospects.  Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, you name it.  The more you connect, and the more you share with them or about them, the more you build that relationship.  Let's face it, a retweet by any means is flattering.

Here's a surround scenario for you:

• I met the director of Demand Gen for a software company a few months back, brief handshake, intro and card exchange.  There wasn't an immediate need for Green Leads work at the time...nurturable
• That night I sent an email with the contact info of a mutual colleageue we both knew from years ago that he had fallen out of touch with
• I then linked to him on LinkedIn
• From LinkedIn, I found his twitter handle, and followed him. Hopefully he monitors his new followers. 
• I also followed his company account, learned a bit there
• Found him on Facebook, and instead of offering to connect, I simply shared Green Leads' facebook page with him.  He liked it
• I notice his company tweets something retweetable, and give it a retweet.  Maybe he'll notice
• He's an avid LinkedIn Update poster.  So I liked a post
• Saw he was on the attendee list of #SDsummit, so sent a "Look forward to seeing you at the event" email

Fast forward to the SiriusDecisions Summit.  Craig and I are in the case study presenting the Social Surround concept, and who's sitting in the middle row smiling?  Yep.  He comes up to me afterwards and told me how he personally experienced Social Surround by me and had come to the conference with the intent of talking with me about a b2b appointment setting project.  Now that he knew the concept had a term and it worked, he was sold--surrounded and sold.

Benefits of Social Surround:

• Passive branding
• Ongoing networking
• Rapport building the social way
• Non-intrusive to the prospect
• Multiple touch points
• Warms up outbound activies
• Can trigger inbound responses

ps.  What I like the most with Social Surround is that I'm seeing the prospects surrounding me.  That is the ultimate Inbound Lead!

Photo: Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Surrounded Islands

Demand Generation Tactics You Actually Use

There is a whole set of new, fun, exciting demand generation tactics happening right now. Some of the recent trends like content marketing and social are reaching new levels of sophistication. Video is the next wave and we know enough know to provide useful advice. B2B demand generation is fun again and there is a lot to learn and go test. Green Leads is sponsoring an online summit with the Funnelholic, Act-on Software, and Radius Intelligence to explore the latest and greatest things happening in b2b demand generation. We carefully chose speakers who would bring the latest techniques, talk about real results, provide tangible tips, and present at least one surprising idea, fact, or result. We want attendees to understand "how" along with the "why". Scott Albro, Matt Heinz, Koka Sexton, and Matt Childs headline the event.

Join in on the fun. Click attend on the landing page below and we will see you there!

 

Sales 2.0 Impact: Latest Sales 2.0 Trends and Red Curry With Lisa Gschwandtner

Every sales organization I talk to these days is ramping their Sales 2.0 technologies.  It's a fun topic for a guy like me who loves sales and loves technology.  The Sales 2.0 conference is coming up and they have done some studies on buyer behavior in the market, so I took the opportunity to interview Lisa Gschwandtner, the Editorial Director of Selling Power. Selling Power is a media cosponsor of the Sales 2.0 Conference.  

Mike: What made you decide to create the Sales 2.0 Impact Survey?

Lisa: From the very first Sales 2.0 Conference in 2007, it was clear that Sales 2.0 could yield explosive gains in all kinds of areas. A simple e-signature or automated outbound dialing tool, for example, could collapse certain stages of your sales cycle from weeks to hours. At that point we were seeing a real revolutionary excitement about the potential of Sales 2.0 technology. And as early as 2009, we started to see companies like Brainshark implement an entire Sales 2.0 architecture to create growth in productivity and effectiveness in a variety of areas. 

At this point in the evolution of Sales 2.0, we can now point to year-over-year patterns that tie Sales 2.0 usage to revenue results. We felt it was time to poll a generation of Sales 2.0 users and let the statistics tell the story of how Sales 2.0 influences success.

Mike: What are the biggest Sales 2.0 trends for 2013?

Lisa:  Content marketing is a trend to watch. B2B companies have pushed themselves to establish online selling channels, implement inbound marketing automation solutions, and integrate social selling as part of their sales process. You need high-quality content to see real gains in these areas. Businesses are realizing they need to start acting like publishers if they want to use content to attract customers.

Another trend with staying power is the growth of inside sales teams. Moving from a field sales model to an inside model (or some blend) isn’t a new thing -- what’s startling is the rate at which this is happening. Online is where buyers live now, and expensive field reps just aren’t necessary for as many business models anymore, especially with so many Sales 2.0 tools (including video conferencing and screen-sharing tools) available to help us connect and collaborate online.

Any Sales 2.0 trend you see will stem from one root cause: buyers are controlling the sales cycle. Buyers and sellers have a different relationship these days. And you can choose to respond to that shift in many ways. The leadership challenge is where to put your focus. What technology do you need to adopt today, and what do you need by year-end? What’s the plan for implementing technology and adjusting your processes? This is why high-level executives come to the Sales 2.0 Conference. They get educated on what other sales leaders are doing, and they identify which trends and technologies would be the best to bring back home and implement.  

Mike:  What's the biggest change in the Sales 2.0 world from the time you started the conference to now?

Lisa:  I would say more than change I see expansion. Since we started in San Francisco, we saw Boston emerge as the Silicon Valley of the east.  And last year we took the Sales 2.0 Conference as far as London. The demand for Sales 2.0 solutions just keeps getting broader.

The technology solutions themselves are also expanding. More specifically, lots of smaller companies that were around when we first started out, like Jigsaw, have been absorbed into larger ecosystems. That means the market now has different expectations about how technology will or should work. They expect integration of highly tactical automated tools and solutions as part of their investment in a broad-base technology solution, like a CRM system.

Mike:   I saw this number: "50% of sales organizations surveyed plan to increase spending on Sales 2.0 solutions in 2013" on a couple blog posts, it sounds as though sales people are getting ready to spend on technology. 

Lisa: Yes, that stat is one of the initial numbers we were excited to release from the Sales 2.0 Impact Survey. B2B companies are absolutely primed to invest in Sales 2.0 technology this year. The survey also gave us intriguing information about who’s owning implementation and purchasing decisions internally. We’ll be sharing all of that with attendees at the Sales 2.0 Conference on April 8-9 in San Francisco

Mike:.  What do you prefer red, yellow or green curry? 

Lisa:  I like my curry the way I like my Sales 2.0 logo. Red! 

Harlem Shake for Demand Gen? Do something "social" today!

Have you seen the latest viral craze on YouTube -- the Harlem Shake?  It's been around a while, but there is a new resurgence of interest in it.  Our Green Leads London office decided to fire up the video yesterday and make a contribution to the Harlem Shake movement.  

Have you created a video that contributes to your demand gen, social media and branding programs?  Do one today!

ps.  Can you say "Elaine from Seinfeld"?

3 Must-Have Sales Tools for 2013

 

Ladies and gentlemen, the sales automation revolution is upon us. SFA/CRM? Old School, table stakes. The highly optimized sales organizations of today has a collection of sales automation application that work on top of their CRM. As I declared in a previous blog post: The Seller has Changed Forever. It's exciting times for sales people -- marketing is becoming more sophisticated in their lead generation efforts (more leads is always great) and sales organizations are making the lives of their sales people better with automation.

On December 13 at 11AM Pacific, I will be joined by Matt Heinz, Brian Vellmure, Nancy Nardin, Koka Sexton, and Miles Austin in a free webinar: 31 Must-have sales tools for 2013. I have had a lot of fun learning about the tools everyone is going to discuss. In today's post, I present three tools to you. Join us for the 28 others.... I had a lot to choose from so I decided to keep it simple and highlight the three sponsors. Keep in mind, that we chose sponsors based on technology we wanted represented. We didn't find sponsors and then decide whether they should make the list.

1. DocuSign -- I just started using DocuSign last year. DocuSign is one of the vendors in the fast-growing e-signature space. In layman's terms: Get contracts, paperwork, etc signed electronically instead of printing paper and faxing. It's a god-send. There is nothing sales and everybody else for that matter hates worse than paperwork. It holds up the sales process and is the most painful part of one of the best parts of the sales process: the last mile. Let me give you an example: Last year, I decided for some reason to do a face-to-face sales call at the end of the quarter. (Don't ask). My rep calls me: "I can get this deal if you can sign off on the SOW". My reply:"Can't I'm in my car and won't be back in the office for an hour". Rep: "Dude, pull over to a Starbucks and 'Docusign' it on your Ipad". Boom. Signed, deal closed. E-signatures are a "why wouldn't you?" product.

2. InsideView (client) -- Sales intelligence, use it to sell better. How's that slogan? If I told a sales person 20 years ago that in 2012 prospects would use the internet and especially social media to update you on what they care about, what they do, and what they are doing, they would say "I want some of that". The best sales people are always researching, preparing, and seeking opportunities. The internet has changed the research game forever. Information about your prospects has never been more available yet finding and tracking that data can be cumbersome. Sales people want it easy and in front of their face. InsideView gives sales people a single interface to view your the accounts and their latest news. You can also set up triggers to be kept abreast on the latest happenings at your target accounts.

3. Kred for CRM -- One feature I love with Kred for CRM is the one that allows you to figure out "who" in your organization is connected to and interacting with your key influencers or prospects on a particular deal. Here is an example: You are selling to an account and you go in and find out that one of the key influencers is connected to someone in your organization. Not only that, they have tweeted to each other in the last 60 days. You are able to leverage that internal relationship to further solidify your relationship with the prospect. I just talked to a buddy who did this with Linkedin a few weeks ago. He was going into a scary client meeting and realized that a product marketing guy was a business connection of his contact. His friend reached out before the meeting and they walked in knowing each other. Meeting went great. Now imagine doing that with Twitter. Also, you can measure the social influence of your customers and prospects. You can use this data to decide how to handle them in the selling process. All great data to have in this brave new world.

Talking about sales automation is fun. I think its because selling has been so hard and so lonely all these years. Now people are making technology just for us and our lives are better for it. Join us to learn about all 31 must-have sales tools.

 

Craig Rosenberg

phone 650.630.3321

 

My latest post: Content Reflections: A personal and intimate journey into the mind of Craig Rosenberg 

Inside Sales Blogs From AA-ISP Speakers

I'm at the AA-ISP conference in Boston today (American Association of Inside Sales Professionals).  There are ideas and tips flowing faster than the coffee and ice water.

Everytime I visit a conference I like to check out the speakers' blogs.  I figured you may find value in a compilation of the speaker blogs from today (or the blog of their company):

Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group, Inside Sales Experts 

Tom Scontras, Glance Networks, The Upside: Killer Sales Tips

Steve Richard, Vorsight, Inside Sales Tips

Gary Ambrosino, TimeTrade, The TimeTrade Blog

Koka Sexton, InsideView, B2B Sales Productivity

Cliff Pollan, VisibleGains, Visible Gains Blog

Dan Hughes, Broadlook Technology, The Official Broadlook Blog

Antarctic Mike, Selling at 90 Below Zero, Antarctic Mike's Blog

Lori Richardson, Score More Sales, Score More Sales

Patrick O'Mally, 617-PATRICK, Social Media Super Blog

Mark Ruthfield, Zoominfo, Zoominfo Blog

Ken Krogue, InsideSales.com, Ken Krogue

John Baker, The Asking Formula, The Asking Formula

Sam Richter, SBR Worldwide, Know More Blog

Todd McCormick, PGI, PGI Blog

Ken Jisser, ConnectAndSell, Sales Singularity Blog 

Mark Roberge, HubSpot, Inbound Internet Marketing Blog

 

  and then shameless self promotion (I am one of the speakers)...

Mike Damphousse, Green Leads, Smashmouth B2B Blog: Sales & Marketing Demand Gen 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 Things To Be Thankful For In B2B Lead Generation - Demand Gen Gravy

Turkey and B2B Lead Generation?  What is the gravy that makes your demand gen programs sing?

Even companies such as Green Leads do our own lead gen.  Here's a quick list of what I'm thankful for this year as it pertains to b2b lead generation in hopes that you might find an idea or two that you could implement:

1. Alumni - Our largest source of leads.  After 5 years of 2x plus growth year after year, the tribe is huge.  Nurture your alumni, don't just let them move on. Deliver quality service and stay in touch with your clients.  They will come back if you did a good job. LinkedIn is your tool. 
2. Expand - In one day we acquired a company that overlapped 90% with Green Leads' offerings, delivered the market a one stop shop for Americas/EMEA b2b marketing, and doubled our size again.  We were able to expand many of their European clients to the US and many of our US clients to Europe. Look at your existing client base and ask "how can we expand?"
3. Inbound - Yet again, our inbound leads consistently came in and our SEO was kept fresh by using HubSpot.  Our blog subscriber list doubled, and our rankings improved. The two key elements we find to a successful inbound program is content and social activity. Keep the visitors interacting and coming back and SEO will follow.  
4. SiriusDecisions Summit - By far the best place to be if you are into b2b sales and marketing.  We sponsored both Scottsdale and London and in both cases walked away with tons of valuable information and new network contacts. Always be learning.
5. Technology - No inside sales/outbound lead gen team should be without VoIP, Click to Dial, and some sort of power dialing system (we use 8x8, Skype, Salesforce CTI adapter and ConnectAndSell). Selling doesn't start until a conversation starts with the prospect. Do what you can to have more conversations.

What are you thankful for?  What filled your pipeline this year?

SiriusDecisions Bring Sales & Marketing Gurus to London

This past week I attended SiriusDecisions' Boston Executive Roundtable with a focus on Sales & Marketing Planning for 2012. The discussions that were triggered by the fantastic content were the highlight of the event.  Throughout the morning the attendees were sharing ideas openly, to the point where the last agenda item had to be cut short.

Notable points:

• Social Sign On is bringing high submission rates to websites, but how do we manage missing information and is a Social Sign On considered an opt in?
• Establishing solid SLAs between Sales and Marketing is critical to any successful demand generation strategy
• Pipeline efficiencies are greatly improved with Quality leads vs. Quantity of leads

Lead Gen Tip: Think Role Based Lists, Not A List Of Titles

If you've used an outsourced lead gen company before, you have most likely been asked "What titles within the target companies do you want us to target?" What they are most likely asking, and should ask more clearly, is "What ROLE within the target companies do you want us to identify and target?"

Not all titles explicitly tell you what a job function is. So tasks such as building lists from data services aren't as easy as searching for titles and then exporting the names. If you are looking for prospects with a specific function, or role, then that is where you should begin.

For example, the most common mistakes occur when targeting IT departments. There are 86,087 results when "director of IT" is searched for in Jigsaw. I just randomly sampled 5 of them in LinkedIn. These were their roles:

1. IT Security
2. Networking
3. Data Warehousing
4. IT Security
5. Desktop Helpdesk

So if you're selling a network security package, who do you target? Obviously, the first, second, and fourth. But you wouldn't have known that by the title alone.

Tips:

• Use LinkedIn to identify roles. Some LinkedIn lead gen tips here.
• If you can't get specific roles up front, power dial the list with the goal of identification and research.
• Consider a role based list development project done internallly or by a third party vendor.

Sales Ready Leads: Quality vs. Quantity

The topic of Quality vs. Quantity in demand gen has been a constant debate. Whether it's inbound marketing or outbound marketing there are costs associated with a lead, there are costs associated with the time and effort needed to convert that lead to an opportunity, and there are costs tied to the quality of those leads and how that impacts conversion rates.

As David Greenberg, Sr. Director of Marketing at Jive Software shares with us, "With the focus we all have right now on building pipeline that will convert to revenue, quality leads are called for. We just don't have the time to waste managing anything but."

In this example, with b2b appointment setting and pay-for-performance vendors, it is a very straight forward study as the costs per appointment are fairly standard and as SiriusDecisions and IDC have discussed, the rates of production and conversion are uniform over time.

Executive Summary: Lead gen programs that manage to Quality metrics provide sales ready leads that result in an overall higher ROI. Whether an internal team or a third party vendor, if the reps are incentivized to produce Quality appointments, the cost per pipeline opportunity can be as high as 14% more effective. In an appointment setting program, this is due primarily to cancel rates, rejection rates, and the overall quality of the meeting. Other costs to consider are the costs to manage the vendor relationship, and the cost to the sales team for attending low quality meetings.

The Numbers: In order to remain somewhat statistic-neutral, we have asked our clients to provide stats based on their experience with other appointment setting vendors and ourselves (ok, so a bit self-promoting, but stick with it). The percentages used were calculated by evaluating 5 clients' stats comprised of 1100 meetings set by Green Leads and over 2000 set by 3 other appointment setting firms. The numbers showed a significant difference in cancel/reject rates as well as pipeline conversion. The percentages used for calculation were:

	Quantity Vendor	Quality Vendor
Cancel/Reject Rate	20%	12%
Conversion to Pipeline Rate	31%	36%

Typical Appointment Setting Program Stats:

	Quantity Vendor	Quality Vendor
Meetings Set	100	80
Canceled/Rejected	20	10
Completed/Billable	80	70
Convert to Pipeline	25	25
Cost ($750 per Completed Meeting)	$60,000	$52,500
Cost per Opportunity	$2,400	$2,100

The Quality Vendor resulted in a 13% better investment per opportunity.

Your Checklist: Your vendor choice is obviously the most important factor in determining how your program is going to play out, so below are some things you can do to screen your vendors and aid in making a good decision. It's not a litmus test, so look for trends and patterns:

• If they keep talking about LOTS of meetings and production - beware
• If they won't let you interview their reps - beware
• If they pay their reps to SET meetings as opposed to COMPLETE meetings - beware
• If they are squeamish about discussing detailed stats, or if they don't track detailed stats - beware
• If during a reference check you ask the client about stats and they don't match what the vendor told you, or the client doesn't know - beware
• If they over-promote their call counts, talk time, or other non-results oriented stats - beware
• If when you ask them what their confirmation and scheduling procedures are they don't have convincing answers - beware
• If their rejection policy is too loose or has gray area you don't like, ask for and document specific examples. If they won't do that and you're still not understanding the policy - beware
• If they have a short period of time by which you have to notify them of a rejection, cancel or reschedule (or the meeting is automatically billed) - beware

Also look at reputation. When asked formerly for a reference, they will probably send you to their friends. So listen when they mention client names off the cuff during conversations. Then you check them out with your network. It's a small world--find out who you or your colleagues know at those companies (use LinkedIn). Then make some of your own inquiries.

Trish Bertuzzi of The Bridge Group shared, "Mike, what a great checklist for vendor selection. There are literally dozens of vendors in this space both domestically as well as off shore. People need to understand that picking a vendor is picking a PARTNER. We wrote a blog post Third Party Vendors for Lead Qualification on this very topic. Here are some questions your readers may want to add to their list:

• How many years have you been in business?
• What is your attrition rate?
• Who are your 4 largest clients? What is their size? and How many employees do you have dedicated to their project?
• Do you provide web based reporting?

This is just a sample but you get where I am going...you have to ask the vendor as many questions about their business as they should ask you about yours."