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Category Archives: Lead Management
Market Positioning and “18 Fishing Poles”
I recently bumped into a post by Escape Velocity’s Liz Strauss called “When Too Many Options Are None At All.” Having “18 fishing poles in the water,” she suggests, leads to a lot of “unfocused work for little return .
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Leave a comment Inside Sales Best Practices – The Web Marketing “Mass Disconnect” Continues
Sales industry researchers CSOInsights stated recently that after a “flat” budget year in 2009, marketing budgets are increasing in 2010 and beyond, and that the top three items for additional budget allocations were: Web site design/content (65% stated they were
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Sales 2.0 – The “Thin Line” Between Sales and Marketing Grows Even Thinner
An outstanding article by Propelling Brands’ Adam Needles discussed the fact that according to SirusDecisions, less than 10 percent of B2B businesses have successfully redefined the necessary role of high-impact lead generation and lead nurturing that will be required in
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Sales 2.0 – Psychology, Self-Selection, and “Getting There First”
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 . . . .
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Lead Management – JS Bach, Music, and Your Sales Pipeline
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”)?
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Aligning Lead Management and Sales Management
Stumbled across this blog entry recently on Glance Networks, and having done exactly what Tom Scontras is talking about for three or four years now, I related completely.
He nails #4 on the head—it’s a constant game in both sales and marketing to not outsmart ourselves. Don’t toss away something that works pretty well in hope of chasing the “home run” without really, really researching it out first.
We’ve wasted a lot of dollars over the years because we forgot to split test everything. When it comes to your lead generation efforts, don’t make decisions based on your gut . . . .
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Missing Some Sales Leads Lately? Blame the World Cup
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 . . . .
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4 Quick Tips for Creating a Good B2B Marketing Email
A few months ago, I talked a little bit about the question, “Is leaving a voice message an effective marketing or sales strategy?”
Obviously the answer is yes, it’s very effective, especially when it’s combined with other modes of contact—email, calling, faxing.
I wanted to follow-up those tips with another small set for creating good B2B marketing and sales emails . . . .
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Technology Causes Problems—Technology Solves Them Too
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
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9 Steps For Managing Your Leads Effectively
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:
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