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Thoughts on Aligning Sales and Marketing

For too many years, the sales function and the marketing function have been in different silos of an organization.  In fact, Vendere Partners has noticed a significant shift in who handles the lead generation.  Eight years ago, sales was largely responsible for generating leads.  Flash forward and we’ve noticed that we’re meeting with a lot more VP’s of Marketing to discuss B2B lead generation techniques.  Here’s the key though: there is a paradigm shift to fervently align both groups. 

Just take a look at these amazing statistics from SiriusDecisions:

• A whopping 79% of marketing leads are not followed up on by sales teams
• Out of the remaining 21%, sales disqualifies 70% because of lack of budget, timing, or other reasons
• Moreover, it is estimated that 70% of those disqualified leads end up buying the product or service from another vendor

If you started with 500 marketing leads, that looks something like this:

You all know how it is.  Traditionally, they only meet to have the age-old argument:

VP Sales:  You send us awful leads.

VP Marketing:  Sorry, buddy, but the leads are fine.  Why aren’t you closing them?

These days, there are processes and tools that can be implemented so Mr. Sales and Mr. Marketing can work together well with lots of feedback and awesome results.  Stay tuned for an upcoming blog detailing an approach to aligning sales and marketing.

5 B2B Lead Generation Tips You Must Implement NOW

One of the most important things to remember when planning out your B2B lead generation programs is that professionals are more savvy than the general public, but are still affected by many of the same techniques that everyone else is.  This is very important to remember if you want your lead generation services to be successful.  We learned all of these lead generation techniques the hard way, trial and error.  We're still learning.  Here are 5 tips you should implement ASAP, if you haven't already:

1. Know the people you are targeting.  One of the biggest differences between selling to the general public and selling to businesses is that a professional isn’t going to fall for a generic catch-all strategy.  You need to be able to convince them that you know their business and are sympathetic to their position.  This includes knowing what industries and what prospect base they are working for, and what they do at those companies, and most importantly leaks in their "system" where you have a solution - essentialy, which of your services they’d be most likely to need.  The better a connection you can make with them, the more successful your B2B lead is.
2. Promote where your prospects will see it.  This one seems obvious, but it isn’t.  It is very easy to get caught up in a fancy sounding lead generation program and not realize that it isn’t targeted at the people you want to sell to.  If your prospects are techies, look at Social Media and online networking.  If your prospects are in an industry that relies more on face-to-face interaction at trade shows or conventions, then make sure to be there.  Whatever you are trying to sell, you need to get found first and foremost.
3. Make sure you are targeting the right contacts.  If it seems like you are getting a lot of response, but your lead generation isn’t resulting in many sales, then you should reevaluate your target demographic.  Take particular note of the titles of your targets.  Maybe the CFO will be a target but what if the CTO or a Controller are a good entry-point as well.  Find out exactly who needs your products and your marketing will be much more effective.
4. Show your leads why you are the right company for them.  B2B lead generation isn’t about being as aggressive as with telemarketing leads.  Start off slowly with a company to build a real relationship rather than just a superficial one.  Start with an appointment.  Offer them something they really want.  Make sure that when they are interested in buying, they can call your company up and ask for someone by name.  This is what lead nurturing is all about.  You want them to remember your company with a face and a name, not as a random company that tried to sell them something.
5. Test your efforts to see if they are really working.  If you are spending the money on B2B lead generation - whether in-house or outsourced lead generation, then you want to make sure you are actually getting a return for your investment.  Experiment with different tactics and a combination of tactics - inbound marketing, appointment setting, informational events, lead management, purchase B2B contact lists - to get the best results. 

"I don't throw darts at a board.  I bet on sure things.  Read Sun-Tzu, The Art of War.  Every battle is won before it is ever fought." – Gordon Gekko

How to Infuse Warmth into your B2B Sales Prospecting Calls

 

In this day and age, with the whole Social Media Revolution and a focus on inbound marketing, one has to ask themselves:

• Does cold calling really work?
• Can I achieve ROI in winning potential clients using this technique?
• Can training cold calling strategies helped my lead generation cause?
• Is B2B appointment setting really worth the time or should I focus on something else?

The answer to these questions is undoubtedly, "YES!"  No matter how many leads your marketing team creates, there has to be a buffer between sales and marketing to make those leads sales-ready and qualified.  Sure you could email them but eventually someone has to pick up the phone and call them.  Maybe it is time you honed the skills of your frontline "phone people," and THEN went for the kill instead of just picking up the phone and dialing those numbers.  Specifically, train them to be warmer and more connected - as fresh on the 150th call as the 1st.  These tips should help you achieve better sales results through cold calling.

1. The Opening Statement

In most cases, it is the opening statement that sets the tone. If you fumble with it, surely you won't impress the person you are calling, more so when your call is not expected. Focus on being short, polite and to the point. If you blurt out a whole paragraph before the person has had a chance to breathe, it is going to be a an epic fail, likely. Something like, “Hi!  This is John with Vendere Partners.  Wanted to find out if you've ever used or though of using a lead generation company before?"”

2. Do Some Research on the Potential Client

Effective lead generation requires research about prospective clients, even if it's a cursory glance at their website. B2B lead generation works better when you can show you've done your homework. Be aware of their areas of specialization, their business techniques and practices. Remember, you have to convince them that this call is important to you and this can usually be done by starting a sentence with, "I noticed on your website..."

3. Practice, Practice and more Practice

When I would complain about baseball practice, my dad used to tell me, "Son, practice like you're the worst; perform as if you are the best." The same is especially true for phone inflection.  Make mock calls and talk with a friend, or even record yourself. See that you don't slip, but more importantly gauge the tone of your voice.  Is it pleasant and inviting or robotic?  Effective telemarketing skills require a certain level of confidence, and you need to feel in control before making the plunge.  The more you practice, the more liberty you have to open up and be yourself.

4. Break the Ice

This means initiating contact. It means not going right into your value prop, and objectives, but taking a moment to build a rapport and comfort. Also, be aware that the person you are calling might have received similar calls so if he/she is not in the mood, give them space. You might simply suggest calling some other time. But it is always important to “Break the Ice.”  This is one of the most important things in the process of cold calling. Make the other person feel “connected.” It's sometimes intangible, but for me, I always enter an initial business conversation thinking, "I'd rather be chatting about this over a beer, but the phone will have to do for now."

5. Stay Focused

Establish a connection to your prospect but never forget: An initial cold call is not meant to result in immediate soaring sales. Nobody agrees to do business worth thousands of dollars in one phone call. Dialing the number is the first step; everything after that is geared towards advancing the prospect through the sales funnel. It is to get the other person to agree to talk more or meet for some meaningful purpose.

The bottom line is be pleasant with your prospect... not creepy, like this guy:

Men or Women: Who makes a better salesperson? - a B2B sales view

Both really, right? In my twenty plus years in sales and B2B lead generation, I've often heard the hypothesis: "If you take a male closer vs. a female closer of equal skill, tenure, background, and solution, that the female closer will always win the deal."  I am here to state that in today’s business world, I've run into plenty of great female closers... and male.  Perhaps, it's not a question of: "Who's better?"

Michael Gurian, co-author of Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business, was asked in an interview if one gender was built to be a better business leader than another.  Here is his response:

Not better. I think what we've been able to prove over the last 20 years is that there is not superiority or inferiority. It's different. That can be broken down. Like negotiation--no matter where we go in the world, and we want to remember that the research that I put in my book is worldwide. This is hard science.

All over the world when you test men and women for facial cue recognition, women test ... better. It's a negotiation tool. This is an example where if you say to yourself--if you're a man, and you say, "Hey, I know everything. I walked into this negotiation, there's like $50 million at stake, I've got it wired." But you're not really great at reading facial cues--and especially if you're one of these high-powered competitive guys who's not very good at reading facial cues. You really want to team up with a woman leader and go into the negotiation as a male-female team, because she'll bring many assets, but one may be that she's better at reading facial cues than you are.

We have this example of a $50 million mistake. The guys thought they nailed it because they presented the data, but their female partner said, "no, no, no. Those two CFOs they needed more info." The guys didn't believe her, but she was reading facial cues that they couldn't read. They didn't believe her and they lost the deal.

We all know the basic trait differences between women and men; there are several books, movies, songs, poetry, whitepapers, studies, sky writings (ok, that is a little far but you know where I am going) on these differences.  Typically, women are multitaskers that have an extreme attention to detail, have a need for organization, communication, and a desire for Win-Win situations. (I learned this from Nicki Joy's Selling is a Woman's Game, 15 Powerful Reasons Why Women Can Outsell Men). Men however typically exhibit leadership, calm under pressure, decisiveness, and confidence.  As closers, we use these differences every day in the sales cycle to move the ball forward in closing. 

Perhaps the most talked about difference is first impression. While the opposites (male closer/female prospect: female closer/male prospect) seem to prime the candidate and will allow a little more openness in the beginning, a customer’s decision making process is close to being the same every time and more times than not the closer's attention to detail wins over "opposites attract."

Regardless of gender, today's business prospect is looking for the best value for their dollar even more than before. In the past the closer could get away with just using terms like "Return on Investment" and "Total Cost of Ownership." These days, a closer had better be able to back up a solution with hard facts and figures of cost savings and increased efficency: Vendere Partners has found that businesses want an answer to the fundamental question, "How are my staff and I going to be more productive with your solution quickly?" The Return on Investment simply has to be there within six months in most cases.

There is not a more true statement in business today than “I am doing more with less.” With budgets, sales and profits shrinking and unemployment, workload, and employment dissatisfaction rising, the closer today more than ever has to make sure the solution is a right fit and is a great value before they ever attempt to close; it doesn't matter if they are female, male, vegetable, or mineral. 

2 Types of Sales People - a B2B sales view

We've seen salespeople in all forms - employees, business partners, vendors, etc.  In today’s sales world, especially in IT sales, you have two types of sales people:

1. those that "sell to sell"
2. those that "sell to deliver

Let me start by explaining the selling philosophies of each type, then I bet you can decide which you are.  The descriptions might even remind you of some of your sales reps.

Salesperson that "sells to sell"

• Focused on closing the opportunity. They are so focused on closing the opportunity that they will sacrifice pricing at the drop of a hat. 
• First sign of a sell to sell guy is snide or under-the-breath type comments from the delivery team when he walks in the room.
• They will also sacrifice delivery in a way that often forces those that deliver to work extra hours on projects while not billing them to the project or end customer.
• They consider their sales as “investments toward the big deal” or “a way of competing with our overpriced competition.” 
• A sell to sell guy has no concern for the big picture, repeatable processes or value proposition. They are only concerned with cutting price or under-selling delivery to meet the needs of the client.  
• As a result, margins typically come in below 20%. This isn’t a concern for Mr. Sell-to-Sell guy because his sales manager has agreed to pay them commission regardless of the margins.  They both should be fired.

ADVICE: Mr. Sell-to-Sell guy, you need to understand your organization's value proposition and if they don’t have one, then close the doors and go sell something with value.

Salesperson that "sells to deliver"

• Focused on selling value to the customer while ensuring a profitable engagement for the organization. Sometimes it is better to lose the opportunity than to sacrifice delivery or profit margins.
• A true "sell to deliver" individual will handle a prospect who is only concerned with price from the beginning by showcasing quality and value.
• Mr. Sell-to-Deliver ensures that a project will be completed timely and properly.
• Selling to deliver provides advantages such as re-usable processes that work, a satisfied customer, potential referral customer and the most important, a profitable engagement that is paid on time.

ANALYSIS: You will find more issues with those that sell to sell. They will undersell quality and oversell on price.  Angry customers sometimes do not like paying until a job is completed correctly. Hence, poor cash flow. Now do I have your attention?

Clients have been outsourcing lead generation to Vendere Partners for many years, so we've seen all types of salespeople.  We're sure that you prefer the "sell-to-deliver" types as much as we do.

3 Keys to B2B Lead Generation Success

Article collaboration by Vendere Partners and Sales Integrity

Based on many years of sales experience and evaluation, sales success can be narrowed down to a very simple formula:  3 Keys to Success.  Learn and apply these three keys and you will experience unlimited success.  Slack off in any one of these three key areas and you limit your ability to succeed in strong fashion.  Well, what are these three keys?

 

1. FOCUS.  Focus is the first key and it is a very important key to success.  In sales, this means focusing on the right task at the right time.  Thumbing through paperwork and prospecting for names through the database during prime calling hours of the business day is not an effective use of your time if your goal is to be a successful Prospect Manager.  It is imperative that you apply the “power of focus” by working on the right task or activity at the right time.  Then, even more importantly, focus on that task while you are working on it and do not get distracted!  Help people around you to understand that you need to focus during this time and that they will need to schedule an appointment during off peak calling hours if they need to meet with you.  Interruptions and distractions take money out of your pocket!
2. ACTIVITY-LEVEL.  Activity-level has everything to do with numbers.  The higher your activity-level (specifically in calling as a Prospect Manager), the higher the probability of your success.  Again, everything in sales can be boiled down to it being a numbers game (especially in the beginning stages of your employment as a Prospect Manager).  If you want to make an impression, you need to increase your activity-level to an all time high to learn as quickly as possible so you can call as soon as possible.  In the Prospect Manager role, calling equals success, money, and career growth.  At this time, success, money, and career growth are the name of the game!
3. FOLLOW-THROUGH.  The difference between being ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.  Follow-through for any sales professional, and especially a Prospect Manager, is that little extra.  Many people can start things.  However, a true champion actually follows-through and finishes what they start, ensuring their success.  If you leverage follow-through as a Prospect Manager, you will be in control of your own destiny.  Make sure you take control and constantly follow-through by calling those prospects back when you say you will.  Also, make sure you proactively seek to make follow-up calls for the sales people to ensure your original appointments turn into qualified appointments which leads to your income increasing substantially.  Simply put: follow-through for success!

Vendere Partners uses only the best candidates to generate leads on behalf of our clients.  Our Prospect Managers possess these three key traits, and I suggest that you make these traits a focus of your lead generation team.

For more about sales coaching and consultation with Sales Integrity, visit  www.salesintegrity.com.

 

5 Lead Gen Techniques That you Can't Afford to Miss Out On

I ran into an old friend on Facebook who just started a small-scale professional services firm.  After I told him the line of business I was in, a light bulb went off and he exclaimed that he needed to figure out the best ways to generate more sales leads. I started to ask what B2B lead gen techniques he had put into effect. My curiosity grew as he answered my query because I knew that inefficient lead generation techniques were often a hitch that hold a new burgeoning business back, not letting them make a positive step towards sales pipeline stability.

As expected, I was told that his company used some sophisticated techniques but only half-heartedly, such as pushing e-mails, making a flurry of calls, the occasional newsletter, and networking using social media - "just to get it out there."  His follow-up activity was minimal, at best. 

As a bit of useful advice, I made him aware of other lead gen techniques custom-made for SMBs that could improve dramatically what the current lead gen techniques are doing. Actually, I had a lot of things run through my mind as I was quite cautious about discussing only those lead generation techniques that an SMB had the leverage to employ.

"You gotta start in a frenzy," I said, "and really fill the top line of your funnel."  I continued and shared some of my years of experience in lead generation with him.  Our discussion had a nice flow and I jotted notes as we spoke.  Here are some of the quick tidbits I shared about all those useful techniques that no SMB could leave unexplored.

1. Link Exchange for SEO Lead Generation - Quite a lot of chatter about link exchanging as "gray-hat" SEO.  For now, it serves a purpose.  There is organic "white-hat" SEO where you can find some partners, friends, or networking contacts to exchange links with being sure to choose those with a synergistic market. Rely on people you know.  Cranking out online directory submissions is more black-hat but has some benefits.  Tread carefully.
2. Build a Mailing List - Find a list through various list resources - here we suggest a few good ones.  Also, I suggest having multiple contact forms on your website tailoring to various calls-to-action (ie. whitepapers, downloads, articles, etc.)
3. The word “Free” still carries weight - Offer something they get for free. Getting website visitors to take note of your call-to-action is just one step of a series in converting visitors to leads.  You need them to fill out the form.  Free information is great so don't underplay the word "free" as it plays into all business psychology.
4. What about a “newsletter” now? - It is good that people show a favorable reaction to the content you offer.  But what is the next step that you must take to cash in on this response?  You must take the effort to send a good newsletter (sample) providing rich information, useful pointers and authoritative columns to incite their interest towards your company.  What if they are not buying your product sometime soon?  It is not a concern as what you need them to do is to make use of your product/service whenever a need arises.  So, use a newsletter as a silent nurturing tool, then wait till they have a need and hopefully you'll be at the front of the line.  Send you're newsletter, at least quarterly, and more often if possible, keeping a strict schedule.  People will come to expect it.
5. It’s the Era of Auto-Responders - Nurture, nurture, nurture.  I always advise setting up a schedule of nurture emails to stay close to those who fill out a contact form.  You can automate using auto-responders, or do it the old fashioned way with a reminder to email Bob.  Either way, stay at the tip of their tongue.

My friend appreciated the advice.  I hope you do too.

 

 

Lead Generation Outsourcing: Do I hunt for leads or hire the hunter?

I often thought that outsourcing was silly because I operated under the principle, "Why would I outsource anything (outsource sales, IT, HR) when I can do it better myself?"

I realized something though: I once worked as a retail manager where I made the decisions.  My boss, the store owner was largely free to do what he pleased.  Could he have done a better job than me?  Probably.  But essentially he "outsourced" that function to me so he could be free to golf, open a new store, whatever he wanted.  There was an opportunity cost that he capitalized on.

In-House Lead Generation 

Sometimes it makes good sense for a company to keep the qualified appointment setting function in their building, especially if it's a simple sales process or the company is small enough to co-ordinate that effort effectively.  The major advantage of course is that everything is under one roof, and sales campaign visibility is at your fingertips.  A few tips if this is the route your go:
 

1.  Recruit well.  Find the right cold caller(s) and train them. Although somewhat time-consuming, make sure you get the right person for the job.  Two of the most important features Vendere Partners looks for in their employees are an upbeat attitude and technology savvy.
2.  Invest in the proper infrastructure to support the appointment setting programs.  This could include: CRM, phone system, telemarketing sales leads, e-mail marketing software.  Technology is a crucial factor to make cold calling work. Companies must have the latest telephones, desktops, and lightning-fast internet connection.
   
3. As with any employee, management of these internal cold callers is also essential. Companies must continuously motivate their cold callers using compensation incentives and they also need to utilize supervisors to monitor the effort of each agent and make certain that the goods are delivered.

Outsourced Lead Generation

Numerous companies offer B2B Lead Generation as their core competency.  These companies/firms tag themselves as an authority. They’re very much plug-and-play since they have everything in place such as the technology and the processes.  Here are some advantages to outsourcing lead generation:

1. Lead generation companies are much better at qualified appointment setting than salespeople who prefer the aura of presenting, negotiating and closing.
   
2. In a dedicated environment, appointment setters average more calls per day – Vendere Partners’ prospect managers average between 110-140 calls per day (what traditional salesman has time to do that between selling tasks?)
   
3. Due to economies of scale, it’s often less expensive to outsource sales prospecting because dedicated lead generation companies have the resources in place and can scale the usage of these resources.
   
4. It is simpler to administer a sales staff when the appointment setting is outsourced - no more designing and reviewing call sheets that are of little benefit.
   
5. Appointment setting firms often offer ancillary benefits to working with them.  Often, as with Vendere Partners, the service INCLUDES e-mail marketing, sales lead lists, and reports.  Be careful though, because often a company hides under the “proprietary umbrella” and won’t grant you access to the list they are calling.  Ask if you get access to the list and master data.
   
6. Even if you decide you don’t want to outsource lead generation after you’ve been engaged with an appointment setting company, you have an inside sales pipeline already built for when you bring the function in-house.  Make sure YOU get access to the data at the end of the campaign – see #5.
   
7. Separating lead generation and deal-closing in the sales process is the new paradigm that the top percentiles of companies are using.  It makes sense.  They are separate processes with separate methods using different metrics.  One merely feeds the other.  Sales prospecting brings you up the field; your closers score touchdowns.

When selecting a lead generation company, keep the following in mind:

1. Ask about experience – How long the company has been in business, and whether the company specializes in B-to-B sales lead generation. You don't want a company that uses high school kids cold-calling consumers at dinner time to represent your company in selling high-tech products or services to senior business executives. Ask if the company has direct experience in your specific industry.
2. Get real numbers – Ask the vendor to set expectations as far as how many appointments they expect to obtain.
3. Review their technology - Ask prospective companies what technology they use to make telemarketing more efficient. Ask to see reports on activity and results. Are they furnished on-demand? Can they integrate with your systems?

From an unbiased perspective, both can be sufficient to supply leads to your top-line funnel. Businesses that opt to do everything internally need to make sure that they have the processes in place and those who choose to outsource must make sure that they select a company that will give them ROI. Everything’s a risk and each company must be prepared to accept the end result.

5 B2B Appointment Setting Techniques

Believe me when I say that we've heard everything you could possibly hear on the phone with a prospect.  That's a topic for another blog.  However, with eight years of B2B lead generation experience comes a little bit of insight into a few best practices around cold calling.  Here are five good tips:

1. If you can't get someone on the phone on the first try, or even the second try, make sure that you are calling at different hours of the day.  This is especially helpful if you get stonewalled by the gatekeeper.  Sometimes you can get right through to the sales prospect if you call at 7AM or 5:30PM.
2. Create a standardized workflow that you use on all of your appointment setting calls.  For instance, on an event audience acquisition campaign where you're driving attendees to a sales event, time is of the essence and you may use a workflow like this: Call-Call-Call-Email-Drop (with a couple days in between each step).  For more complex sales where you're attempting to set qualified sales appointments, it may be: Call-Call-Call-Email-Call-Call-Call-Email-Drop.  The benefit here is that you can use a workflow that optimizes your objective. Each workflow applies uniformly to each campaign, so that you're not spending too much effort in one place on one prospect who will never answer your call anyways.
3. Establish an inside sales pipeline the same way you would an outside sales pipeline.  Fill the top of your sales prospecting funnel with good leads from an up-to-date list and continue to replenish the top-line as sales prospects drop out; use the same diligence in your follow-up measures as an outside sales rep would  A win in outside sales is like a sales appointment for inside salesperson.  View it as one sales funnel filling a smaller one.  For more on this read our blog, A Tale of Two Sales Funnels.
4. Sound as fresh and lively on your 150th call as you do on your 1st.  This goes without saying, but is worth repeating many times over.  As you know from the many sales calls you've received from grumpy-sounding salespeople, no one wants to talk to a person that sounds dull and monotoned.  Keep it lively.  Keep your tone sharp.  Be a pleasant person to engage with.
5. Influencers are sometimes as good an ally as decision-makers.  Vendere recently purchased a solution to assist in sales force management.  I didn't pull the purse strings, but I fought for the solution because I saw tremendous value in it, and it would make my job easier.  All too often, salespeople are hyper-focused on the decision-maker when an influencer might be your strongest ally in getting a deal done.  If there are more than one influencer and/or decision-maker (especially in a complex sale), it might not hurt to org-chart the involved parties.

While some of this may be obvious, perhaps I've given you a tidbit that gets you one more sales appointment than you would have had before, in which case the mission has been accomplished. 

Vendere Partners always encourages an open exchange of ideas, so please comment on our blog.

A Tale of Two Sales Funnels - Sales Prospecting Best Practices

I’ve been in the sales prospecting game for many years and in that time I’ve had many revelations about the “bigger picture” of sales. Have you ever stopped to notice that the sales process involves two identical sales funnels? In fact, there’s value in treating your prospecting the way you would your standard sales funnel.

What is the Sales Funnel?

It’s the representation of how we turn a pool of leads into clients. If you’re any kind of salesperson, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “It’s a numbers game,” ad infinitum. You know the routine. You start with, say, 20 qualified leads; then you schedule presentations/demos with 10 of those leads; then you whittle them down further - sending emails and following up with 5 of those; at last, you get ink on 2 deals.

But where did those 20 qualified leads come from? Maybe canvassing, maybe telemarketing, maybe even a nice direct mail piece. Somehow, though, it started with a pool of prospects that got whittled down into qualified leads. There is a lot to gain by viewing your prospecting as an incarnation of your sales funnel. Whether you’re doing your own prospecting, or you have an inside salesperson setting qualified appointments for you, follow a funnel process and you’ll benefit from better tracking and process management.

At Vendere Partners, our experience with teleprospecting has shown us that, generally:

1.) It’s best to start with 100-200 prospects.

2.) The next step is to make a phone call, and one of a few things will happen: left voicemail, OR referred to someone else, OR spoke with the prospect and sent more information.

3.) Depending on what happened in the conversation, your 150 prospects start to trickle down your funnel, and some turn into appointments with qualified decision makers.

4.) As your prospects either get filtered out at some level, or become leads, it’s important to replenish your prospect base, when necessary, to always maintain at least 100 at the top of the funnel – or else you might find yourself with a gap in leads coming in.

Any way you slice it, someone qualified that lead and set an appointment to further the process. Maximize your efforts and regard your prospecting funnel in the same way and with similar business metrics as you do your traditional funnel.