On a recent guest post at the Bridge Group’s blog, author Henry Bruce brings up some research by Marketing Sherpa that states that 75% of all sales leads generated are going to buy at some point in the next 18-24 months.
Think about that for a minute.
A. Only 1 in 4 leads is ever totally non-productive. They may not convert now, or in the time frame the rep wants, but contrary to popular belief, it’s relatively rare for a sales lead to be total garbage. 75% of the active leads in our CRM systems RIGHT NOW are going to buy a product or service in our sector from somebody, somewhere in the next two years. So why not from you/me/us, if we’re the right fit?
B. It also seems to indicate that the need to intelligently score leads is now more critical than ever to prevent waste. 18-24 months is a long time, and no sales rep in their right mind is going to try and keep a prospect “on the hook” for a year-and-a-half. If they’re not buying now, stop wasting effort, the thought process goes, and use a long-term lead nurturing strategy . . . .
At some point every sales organization that engages in outbound prospecting has a debate over whether targeted sales voice messages make any real difference in results.
The primary complaints of those who don’t like using voice mail as a prospecting tool:
1. It doesn’t work
2. Even if it does work, it’s too time consuming.
I’m here to debunk both of these myths.
The Reality: voice mail works, and it works well.
On any objective level, this complaint is a straw man argument. Inside sales industry insider Ken Krogue has created and nurtured two $1 million+ a month sales teams in two different industries—business development at Franklin-Covey (now Franklin-Qwest), and telecom with inContact, formerly UCN. Every piece of data he’s ever compiled from his teams shows that direct prospecting voice mail averages a 4-6 percent response rate –and it’s often much higher, depending on the product, vertical, and targets chosen . . . .
As a C-level manager for my company, I get pitched on new technology products a lot.
Now obviously I’m a big believer in the power of technology to transform inside sales and marketing processes. When I started 20 years ago as a sales manager at then Franklin Quest (now Franklin-Covey), the coolest technology on the market at the time was a fax machine.
Now we have CRM, dialers, sales force automation, automated email and drip campaigns, iPhones in every pocket, streaming video, the Web, SEO and PPC, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn . . . .
But the fact is, the longer I stay in this business, the more I realize that in many cases, when a company uses technology to help them solve a problem, the most valuable part of the process isn’t the technology—it’s the reexamination of the process itself.
Sure, new technologies can make dazzling improvements to productivity, but it’s the insight gained by really focusing on the problem that often becomes the most valuable asset of change.
Sales consultant Dick Lee has a fabulous article that partially addresses this issue, stating that throwing technology at a problem without redesigning the process and attitudes surrounding its use is […]
Inside Sales: Two Hidden Metrics of Prospecting That are Hurting Your Sales
14 July 2010 — Steve Watts
2 Comments
Most of the common marketing and sales and metrics—click-throughs, impressions, sales cycle, revenue per deal—don’t really need an explanation. But there are two metrics where a lot of companies we’ve worked with have holes in their sales process.
How soon after a new Web lead comes in does a sales rep make the first contact attempt, and how long after it came in did they actually make contact? Every single piece of data we’ve ever researched shows that for Web-generated leads, immediate response is crucial . . . .
As a vendor that specializes in dialer technology and software for sales teams, we get asked this question a lot—”Why won’t you sell / why are you biased against predictive dialers?”
The honest answer is that we don’t want to be part of the telemarketing crowd that calls you at dinner time and makes you say, “No, I don’t want that!” seven times before they finally hang up.
We want to work with professional inside sales people who happen to sell remotely, not telemarketers. It’s a specific choice we made.
Our biggest source of clients is those who come to us looking for a predictive dialer to call their business to consumer (B2C) leads. The first question we ask them is, “How much are you paying for your leads and can you afford to burn many of them?”
They always say “I pay a lot. And no, of course not – I don’t want to burn them… what do you mean?”
Then we point them to the FCC web pages with legislation against predictive dialers and the high annoyance they have caused over the years that have resulted in laws being passed. We show them that Predictive Dialers annoy and burn as many as 3% of their leads EVERY TIME THEY ARE CALLED. If you multiply that by the 7 to 12 times it takes to call a lead before you make contact, they are probably annoying about 1/3 to 1/2 of their list over time . . . .
Face-to-Face Closes 2.5x Better, But Inside Sales Makes 7x More Calls
19 March 2010 — Ken Krogue
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I just got a tip from John Sutton, a friend of mine at Sendside, who read a survey on a United Airlines flight last week from the United States Travel Association that found business leaders estimate face-to-face selling converts 40% of prospects to customers, while virtual selling (Inside Sales) converts 16%.
That means face-to-face selling closes 2.5 times better than remote selling. We found roughly the same ratio at Inside Sales about four years ago. Our current ratios place remote closing ratios around 18.5%, so the gap is narrowing.
Inside Sales teams cover way more ground in terms of prospecting than true face-to-face salespeople. In fact, very few face-to-face salespeople actually prospect in a face-to-face mode any more, so the here is where the numbers skew.
Almost all face-to-face (Outside) sales reps have switched to an Inside Sales model for their prospecting, and they pick up the phone to set their appointments.
We have found that lead generation reps (with power dialer technology) make 7 times more prospecting calls than manually dialing.
What does this mean?
It points […]
I told them that our Lead-Gen reps make 85 dials an hour and 300 a day, every day. Now of course we have to drink our own Kool-Aid and use our own technologies in-house. Several didn’t believe me. Some have expressed concerns that we are running a sweat shop.
6 Reasons Why Salesforce Users Need Hosted Dialer Technology
24 October 2009 — Ken Krogue
7 Comments
Even though Inside Sales is becoming noticed more and more as a primary method of lead generation and sales, many people are unaware of the potential leverage they can bring to bear to dramatically increase productivity.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become commonplace in almost every sales department, whether tradition face-to-face, or a remote selling model like inside sales. Salesforce is the leading provider of on-demand CRM software on the planet. I get asked a lot why saleforce.com users should consider on-demand power dialer solutions. Here are 6 reasons:
1- More Revenue: In 2005 a landmark study was done by CSO Insights that showed companies that use CRM software have 17% more revenue. That is notable, but not overly compelling. Dialers coupled wth CRM software often increase overall revenue by 200%, 300%, or more by significantly increasing dials, contacts, appointments, and talk time, while lowering costs and wasted time.
2- More Dials: Our internal lead generation department department and many of our clients make 300 calls per rep per day. Most internal lead generation departments in companies we come across fall between 20 and 70 calls a day. Most outsourced lead generation companies we are familiar with make between 70 and 110 calls […]
3 Lead Generation Strategies – When to Call… When Not to Call
24 September 2009 — Ken Krogue
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Gerhard Gschwandtner – Founder of Selling Power Magazine
A friend of mine, Gerhard Gschwandtner, the founder and owner of Selling Power Magazine, just took some time and wrote a post on his blog about when is the best time to call back on leads.
The post he wrote came from our landmark research study conducted with Dr. James Oldroyd of MIT that was originally presented in October of 2007 at the MarketingSherpa B2B Demand Summit 2007 in both Boston and San Francisco. This study was the genesis for the new industry called Lead Response Management; a subset of Lead Management that focuses on responding immediately, continually, consistently, and optimally to increase contact and qualification rates of web-based leads. The interesting information involves the incredible changes in your ability to reach people by calling on the best day of the week, time of the day and most importantly, calling back immediately; as in 5 minutes!
BEST DAY OF WEEK TO CALL
To quickly summarize Dr. Oldroyds research: Tuesday is the worst day to call, while Thursday is best. In fact, if you call on Thursday you have a 49.7 percent higher chance […]
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