Sales 2.0 – Psychology, Self-Selection, and “Getting There First”
19 July 2010 — Steve Watts
2 Comments
I’ve read, heard, and studied lots of talk about the psychology of sales and marketing.
What makes buyers tick.
How decisions are made.
Prestige, Pleasure, Pain (relief), Profits, or Preservation.
But I was reminded today of another key psychological aspect of sales:
Get there first.
“Getting there first” is a simple rule that Paul Castain’s Sales Playbook talks about.
Want to be a budding (sales) rock star?
Get there first.
When it comes to lead management and generating new sales, showing up last is often worse than not showing up at all . . . .
I absolutely loved this recent post by Copyblogger. As someone who took piano lessons for over eight years, I’ve played my fair share of Bach minuets, and hearing about the sheer amount of effort he put into creating his music inspired me.
And I think there’s a lesson to be learned here that’s eminently applicable to sales:
“Researchers concluded that the rate of [musical composition] hits to misses was pretty constant between major and minor composers. The truly great composers produce more masterpieces than the others, mainly because they produced more work overall.”
Change “musical composition” to “prospects,” and “masterpieces” to “sales” and suddenly we’re on to something.
You want to know one of the secrets of the top sales people? The agents in the “20 percent” category of the “80/20 Rule of Sales” (i.e., “80 percent of all sales are generated by 20 percent of the reps”)?
Has your supply of Web-generated leads been trickling down a bit lately?
Don’t worry, it may not have anything to do with your marketing strategy, SEO content, or pay-per-click ads. It may be something entirely benign:
World Cup Soccer.
Jed Smith, Vice-President of Operations at Internet marketing firm, Orange Soda, says the World Cup may be acting as a “work productivity depressant,” similar to the NCAA Basketball Tournament’s “March Madness.”
The difference, he says, is that the World Cup isn’t just capturing American audiences, it’s world-wide . . . .
Technology has trained us to expect things, NOW. When I have a question I’ll Google it and millions of possible answers will be at my fingertips in .27 seconds. I forget that I used to have to go to the library or call a company by looking through the yellow pages.
I forgot my cell phone one day when I went to work. I was lost, unable to do things that not too long ago were impossible with a land line. I can call, text, email, tweet, find a restaurant, make a reservation, get turn by turn directions … hey there’s an app for just about anything.
A prospect who fills out a form on your website is looking for a solution, NOW. They have a problem and it’s unacceptable to contact them 2 days after or not at all.
inside|sales has done research with MIT professor, James Oldroyd, covering the topic of Lead Management with a goal to discover the best time to contact an interested prospect. The results surprised us, as we learned that companies don’t have the luxury of waiting 2 days to contact: or 2 hours. Whether you are a B2B company, or a B2C company, […]
What does it mean to manage a lead effectively? Listed below are the 9 steps to follow when managing your leads.
1. Lead Generation: any of a number of marketing or sales methods used to generate inquiries.
2. Lead Inquiry: a person provides contact information inviting a response.
3. Lead Capture: the method whereby contact information from an inquirer is gathered.
4. Lead Scoring: the practice of grading and prioritizing an inquiry prior to a response to a lead from your sales department.
5. Lead Routing: the geographical, skills-based, random, or other decision process whereby an inquiry is assigned to a rep for response.
6. Lead Distribution: the method used to send inquirer information to a rep for response.
7. Lead Response: the practice of responding immediately, consistently and at optimal times to optimize contact and qualification ratios.
8. Lead Nurturing: the practice of persistently marketing over time to increase awareness, education, and need using ‘permission-marketing’ strategies and tactics.
9. Lead Tracking: the process of gathering key performance indicators and metrics on sources of leads their progress towards sales closure.
We will be reviewing each lead management step in depth. If you have any questions or comments about any of these steps, please, leave them in the comments—we’ll be writing […]
Remote Sales needs leads. Good Leads. Leads that will become customers. This kind of lead is not easy to find, though there are some companies that would tell you otherwise.
These companies make their profits by selling what they want you to believe are leads. In reality they are often little more than a long list of contact information. Anybody with a phone book could gather a lead just as useful (or useless!).
What separates lists from leads is qualification. Leads are qualified by four factors, and to be good leads they need at least 2 or three of these factors. The four factors are:
Need
Urgency
Decision Making Capability
Money
While there are some companies that sell leads that are more pre-qualified than those next to useless lists – there may be no better source for leads that meet the four qualifying factors than your own corporate website.
Visitors to your site are already showing a sign of interest – and many of them came to your site looking for a solution to a need. Visitors who use the internet expect immediate results – reflecting urgency. Already two of the four qualifiers […]
