The #1 Lead Generation and Sales Prospecting Blog

Remember the story of the frog that got caught in a vat of milk and had to kick and squirm and fight until it churned the milk into butter and was able to hop out? Given the current lull in the US economy, your company may need to do the same thing when it comes to sales and marketing in order to achieve significant fourth quarter earnings and hop into 2013 unscathed.

As we close out 2011, it is time to take personal inventory and make a B2B sales plan for 2012. To this end, we have listed some questions and ideas to help prepare you for this shift into the new year as we head into a holiday break.  This food for thought is guaranteed to be low in calories and high in results when digested (used) properly.

I think we can all agree that the world of marketing is changing at a rapid rate.  This change is a struggle for many marketers, as demonstrated in some of the following statistics from a 2011 MarketingSherpa survey of 1,745 B2B marketers.  The level of difficulty has increased as marketing takes on some of the lead generation responsibilities that used to rest almost entirely on sales.  The trick now, as marketers, is to identify important trends, create focal points, stay competitive, and respond effectively to the shifting dynamic of marketing and sales.    Let’s take a quick look at some information from the 2011 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report, then we can assess what needs to happen in the marketing community as a result.

As discussed in last week’s article, there are four important parts to setting a great qualified appointment.  To review, the first step with this type of lead generation call is simply to qualify the prospect.  This means to have confidence that the prospect has sufficient interest and means to be a viable customer and they are a general fit for the solution. When this is determined, a sales person can go on to generate interest in the specific solution and the company being represented.  This step requires the enthusiastic communication of important differentiators, making a strong value proposition, and having a positive attitude.  Today we will review the last two parts: how to establish the appointment and set expectations for the appointment.

There is no substitution for preparation: 
  Know the process – The process is the most fluid way to move through the conversation, ie asking the right questions at the right time. This way you will be most confident in your telemarketing appointment setting.
  Know the product – Know the client for whom you act as the appointment scheduling service.  Know the product(s) that their appointment will cover.  It also helps to know some industry jargon and hot topics!
  Know your prospect – take 30 seconds to look over the prospect’s website.  It helps to have an idea of what they do so you can formulate a sales process before the call, and prevent you from asking obvious questions that could irritate them.

One very important element of lead generation and lead nurturing is maximizing your return on keywords, those words that you focus on to drive traffic to your website. I think most folks in the SEO space understand that effective research and use of keywords is essential in today's business climate and level of online competition. I would like to highlight a few points that some companies seem to miss in the quest for keyword optimization.

Is America headed for the Great Recession, part two? Unfortunately the statics say yes. With high gas prices, the housing market taking another dip, unemployment stagnant, the costs of goods and services rising, and manufacturing slowing down again, it looks like another rough turn for sales managers and representatives for a while longer. Unlike the Great Recession part one, companies have already ‘trimmed the fat’ with downsizing, reduction of benefits, reduction in spending, and other cost saving moves. As a result, now companies will start looking at how to become more streamlined and effective in today’s economy leaving sales managers with a more difficult task even more challenging. Here at Vendere Partners, we have seen steady growth through these economic times and we attribute our success to following process. Below are five steps that any sales manager needs to look at to become more effective in today’s economy.

A question was posed by Sara Allred, Branch Manager at Staffmark on the LinkedIn Group Sales Playbook, “Is Dialing for Dollars Extinct?”. As I read the spirited discussion (I highly recommend you read all of the thread), an old saying came back to me, those who do not like to cold call cannot do it well. I started to flash back as a junior sales representative. I was handed a list and was told “go for it kid” without any direction. As a junior sales representative I struggled and bumped my head to find that coveted first sale. Fast forward to twenty years later, I now love the ‘challenge’ and the ‘hunt’ that the cold call presents. I enjoy finding the right person at a new company, starting the relationship, learning about the prospective company’s challenges, and helping customers overcome those challenges. What made me do a 180 degree turn around? How did I learn to love what I hated so much to do?

In my early education years as a sales executive, we were taught the following strategies through Target Account Selling or T.A.S... More information around their methodologies can be found at www.thetasgroup.com .  I highly recommend evaluating their process for your own sales efforts. Below are 5 key sales strategies we still use and most others leverage subconsciously.