5 strategies to accelerate sales
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Mick Hollison
› CMO @ InsideSales.com
› 23 year industry veteran
› Sales, marketing & product leadership roles
› Lotus, IBM, Microsoft, Citrix
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About InsideSales.com
›History• Founded in 2004
• HQ in Silicon Slopes, Utah
• $40m+ in venture investment
• 3 years of 100%+ annual revenue growth
• 325 employees and growing
› Industry leadership• #5 in software job growth in U.S. - Inc. Magazine
• Always On top 100 private companies
• #3 paid app on Salesforce AppExchange
• 6 issued patents in web comms and predictive analytics
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Lori Wizdo
› Principal Analyst @ Forrester
› B2B Marketing & Lead-to-revenue management
› 25 year industry veteran
› BMC, Xerox, NCR, Unisys
Rethinking Inside Sales:The Strategic Weapon in Lead-to-Revenue- Management
Lori Wizdo, Principal AnalystNovember 15, 2013
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What is lead-to-revenue management?
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The managed process that turns leads to prospects and then into customers.
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The input/output machine needs a tune-upAverage conversion ratios from Forrester’s Research
MQL SQL Pipeline Won dealEnd-to-
end
All 32%(N = 211)
32%(N = 196)
28%(N = 201)
26%(N = 195)
0.75%
Top-Performers
39%(N = 65)
37%(N = 58)
34%(N = 59)
32%(N = 58)
1.54%
You can’t get there from here.
Base: Marketing decision-makers at B2B companies in the US and Western Europe with 100 or more employees; Source: Q4 2012 US and Europe B2B Technology Marketing Tactics And Benchmarks Online Survey
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›300% Increase in Leads?
›No Problem.
›We’re automated.
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Kicking Lead Gen Up a Notch…• Launch 22% more
campaigns
• Get some Inbound working
• Increase leads dramatically
• Nurture each lead,-- 4-touches
• Score Leads
• Promote Leads to Sales
Sales Accepts Leads Then….
a. Puts lead on ‘back burner’ to close this Q’s deals
b. Closes lead as ‘dead’ when they don’t want a PoC
c. Creates 20% Opportunity & Task to call in 3 months
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…. And Gets the Same Old Result
• Marketing Team is working like demons
• Dramatic Increase in Traffic, Leads, MQL, SQL
• Minimal increase in marketing contribution to pipeline
• Limited contribution to revenue
• Relationship with Sales still not all that good
It’s time for a new strategy
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…moving masses of “leads” through a sequential process of attrition until tens or hundreds of deals emerge.
It’s NOT about….
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Our goal NOW is to…
…take a single lead through an optimized process.
...and then repeat that process hundreds or thousands of times.
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It’s not about your process anymore.
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Your managed process . . .
Discover Explore Evaluate Buy Engage
. . . the buyer’s journey.
. . . must be calibrated to . . .
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What’s Going Wrong?
You learn a lot
from 300
Conversations
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Here’s how it goes horribly wrong …
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What’s working for lead generation?“I am sending out mailings to segments in our database and targeted names we pull from Jigsaw and RainKing. We’re using our inside sales team to follow-up. But, our new lead gen rates are too low.”
Irrelevant!
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Do appointment setting campaigns work?“It’s taking a while for our lead gen efforts to ramp up. I am thinking about running an appointment setting campaign with our inside sales team.”
Obsolete!
Here’s how it goes horribly wrong …
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How Deals Used to Start
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How Deals Start Today!
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Awareness Consideration Purchase
Buyer activities
Seeking info to raise performance
Seeking solutions to known problems.
Search for options.
The Fine Art
of
Being Found
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The Fine Art of Being Found› Drive people to site with highly
relevant campaigns and offers
› Target different types of visitors
› Gather insight into the visitor experience
› Identify patterns, and tune your site to deliver the right information at the right time to drive conversions.
› Be Agile; respond immediately to trends
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You did it! A targeted prospect has found you. Don’t push them away.
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How can I improve conversions?“How can I improve the conversions on my web forms? I want to ask for less information, but my VP of sales say it’s not a lead if they won’t tell us their title, phone number, and size of their sales team at a minimum.”
Presumptive!
Here’s how it goes horribly wrong …
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Inside sales as “concierge”
› Serves as the primary point of engagement and discovery
› Acts as a metaphorical “sherpa” to the buyer throughout their sales journey
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Awareness Consideration Purchase
The Fine Art
of
Engagement
Buyer activities
Scope the problem
Research solutions.
Architect the solution.
Build a business case.
Establish budgets.
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The Fine Art of Engagement
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When and where are you engaging?
RFPRFI
Respond to request
Create and deliver on a vision
“How often do you choose a vendor who has worked with you to turn a vision into a clear path to value?”`
74% 26%
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Buyers reward early engagement
Executive Buyers
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Why the 1st Generation of Lead Nurturing didn’t work.
Seller Buyer
Eventual Sale
Serial Touches
1st Generation Lead Generation was, all too often:
About US, not the customer’s journey
Drip Marketing On Steroids
Systematic Sales Harassment
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“So, I see you just downloaded a whitepaper from our website. Does that mean that you’re ready to sign upfor the free try-and-buy I told you about last week?”
Presumptive!
Here’s how it goes horribly wrong …
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What is lead nurturing today?
“…B2B customers completed nearly 60% of a typical purchasing decision…before even having a conversation with a supplier.”
Source: Corporate Executive Board
The Power of Inside
Sales
Why inside sales for B2B?
› Lower cost of sales - between 40% and 90%
› Increased buyer preference for collaborating & purchasing remotely
› Improved collaboration technologies – online meetings , video conferencing, etc…
› Faster customer response times
› Increased revenues from targeted accounts
Sales Acceleration
communication gamification prediction
Best Practices for Inside Sales Communication
Time of Day
Day of Week
Immediate Response
Call Attempts
Likelihood of Executives Responding at Work
Social Media Comparison At Work
28%8%10%
How do you recommend people
contact you?
LinkedInFacebook
40%18
%17%
How likely are you to respond?
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Awareness Consideration Purchase
The Fine Art
Of
Aligning with Sales
One Million Dollars!Buyer activities
Evaluate vendors.
Shortlist vendors.
Proofs and pilots
Negotiate.
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Here’s how it goes horribly wrong …
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Is anyone getting lead scoring to work?“ We’ve been having trouble with lead scoring. When we set the bar low, sales complains about unqualified leads. But, we’re afraid to tighten the criteria because we might overlook late stage buyers who don’t have a long history with us.
Confusion!
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Lead Scoring Best Practices Not Enough• Define qualified lead with sales, but do
hold the standard high.Synch with sales
• From the moment of first capture• Linked with anonymous behaviors
Start Early
• Late-funnel content consumption• Collegial activity levels
Accentuate the Positives
• Downgrade with passage of time or discover of new negative data
Embrace the Negatives
• Trigger new offers/workflows/alerts based on score changes.
Automate
• Revisit attributes, actions and scores on a regular basis
Measure & Adjust
15090
185
55
100% of top performersuse lead scoring as a basis for matriculating leads to sales.
Best Practices for Inside Sales Lead Scoring & Prediction
Excellent Likelihood
AverageLikelihood
PoorLikelihood
Neuralytics®
score| sort| notify
• Neural Score
Typical ListNeuralytics®
score| sort| notify
• Neural Score
• Neural Sort
Typical List = High ContactabilityNeuralytics®
score| sort| notify
• Neural Score
• Neural Sort
Neural Sort = High ContactabilityNeuralytics®
score| sort| notify
• Neural Score
• Neural Sort
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Rethinking Inside Sales The New Model is ENGAGEMENT
Inside Sales Can Discover
Inside Sales Can Nurture
Inside Sales Can Be the Bridge between Marketing and Field Sales
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But, there are still some challenges.
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How can I get Inside Sales to Follow-up on Leads?“”It’s really difficult for us to get inside sales to pay attention to early stage leads because they are paid on meetings and deals. Any ideas?”
Unmotivated!
Best Practices for Inside Sales Gamification
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HBR Job Satisfaction Study
› Intrinsic motivators
›Extreme job satisfaction
›Achievement
›Recognition
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Initial gamification results
30% increase in sales productivity after 60 days
Summary
› Hyper-educated buyers are changing the dynamics of marketing and sales
› Simply generating more leads to move through the same process won’t change the results
› Aligning the selling process to the buyer’s journey through inside sales as a “concierge service” is essential
› Inside sales needs predictive technology, new forms of motivation and multiple communications tools in order to succeed
Thank youLori Wizdo
+1 617.613.8805
Twitter: @loriwizdo
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Mick Hollison
Twitter @mhollison
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