The Lead Dogs Delivers B2B Sales Lead Generation, Telemarketing and Telesales Services that Achieve Measurable Results

If I earned $1 for every time a prospect asked me within 30 seconds of a first call:  “how many leads can you guarantee” without providing any additional information, I would be a rich man.   The simple fact is that if they were asked the same type of question by their prospects 30 seconds into the sales process, they would be as unable to answer the question as me.   The bottom line is, there are steps we need to take as business “partners” before I can make an educated forecast of specific results from a telemarketing lead generation program- anything less would be mere guessing.    Furthermore, there are many factors outside of my control that can make or break a program.   We call these our “Top 7 List for Program Success.”

1. Quality of the list (both company and contact relevancy and expectations)
How accurate is your list?  Currently, we are experiencing a 30% invalid rate with lists  received from clients or external sources.  Considering this, are you giving us enough time to work through the list, find referrals or new contacts, and generate interest?  Furthermore, are you realistic about the contacts we are expected to generate leads from versus the target company’s size.  For example, are you expecting us to call into C-Level executives from F500 accounts?  Is this realistic? Have you been successful at this in the past?

2. Receptivity to the clients’ messaging and brand
Will your target market know who you are and will your messaging resonate with them or is there an education process that will need to occur?   For example, we have worked with a F500 software company whose brand was well known but their messaging was focused on a new product category in which they were not known for at the time.  In this example, there was quite a bit of education that had to occur before interest could be developed, and so the program goals were set accordingly.  Are your expectations in alignment with your target’s perception of your company/solutions?

3. Target industry or solution maturity
Are you targeting a vertical that will recognize your solution as valuable in today’s environment?  Is your solution a new concept or in a mature category.  I recently spoke to a new player in the SFA market, a very well saturated market with widely-known competitive players, who was going to target mid-tier companies for leads and had very high, virtually unachievable, expectations.  For this company, in order for the program to be successful, they needed to reset to more realistic expectations.

4. Effectiveness of offers (whitepapers, calculators, case studies, webinars, etc.)
The “privilege” to speak to a Salesperson is not an offer.  Offers are a great way to assist in developing immediate interest and nurturing contacts.  Creative ones we have seen recently include financing options, ROI Reports (from a SME rather than Sales), and one-on-one C-Level referral briefings to discuss solution results. 

5. Exposure to market softeners (email or direct mail blasts)
There is cold calling and then not-so-cold calling.  Sending out material in advance of a calling campaign gives the telesales representative something to reference, whether received by the prospect or not.   When doing this, be sure to match the delivery methods to who you are targeting.  For example, recent studies show over 60% of executives view email via a mobile device.

6. Involvement/attentiveness to the program
Starting with training and throughout the program, client participation is critical to the program success.   If at all possible, participate in face-to-face training.  Remember that most communication is done via non-verbal means and meeting your partner in person builds a strong relationship that will provide benefit throughout the program. Also, be sure to assign a point-person from your organization that will be involved in weekly meetings that are critical to performance monitoring and improvements.

7. Telemarketing metrics and ongoing measurement of success
If you don’t have metrics than can be used for setting expectations, you will need them.  At The Lead Dogs, we provide our clients with our “best” advice and counsel to establish these metrics based on 15 years of experience and millions of phone calls; however, these will be personalized goals that we set and manage together.   The more you can address items #1-6, the better our ability to set these goals.  Otherwise, we need to set achievable and realistic goals and be prepared to adjust as needed.

Certainly, there are many factors within my control that are key to the program as well, such as appropriate staffing, training, call quantity and quality, program oversight, etc.  However, hitting “our” number includes responsibilities on both sides of the equation and when addressed, these programs deliver outstanding results.

B2B lead generation teams who want to move to mass customization selling process will most likely need to leverage new technology (e.g., Marketing Automation and Sales 2.0 tools), revamp their marketing and sales processes (alignment, agreement on goals, and possibly organizational structures), as well as re-train and/or shift current thinking about how to attract, court, and convert customers.  Recommendations for accomplishing some of these tasks include:  creating buying "personas" (representing roles seen frequently in the buying process); creating targeted marketing for each persona; asking each perspective buyer their desired method and channel(s) for communication; creating fulfillment and offers targeted to where the prospect is in the buying cycle (as defined by explicit and implicit behavior), and creating processes based on your competitive environment. 

For a great overview of what techniques will set you apart in converting prospects to clients, including examples of customizing a sales process, check out our webinar on January 27th 2 pm EST.   https://cc.readytalk.com/r/gyszosim6c8f .  If you can’t make the date, a recording will be available on our website following the event.  And no, we won’t be giving away a customized car or any specialty spaghetti sauce, but promise to follow-up with you in a unique manner based on your role and needs, if you chose to share them with us.

Having been in the B2B telemarketing business for 16 years, we have experienced the boom and bust cycles from the dot.com days through today’s economic recession.  It is no surprise that what we have found (both internally and externally) is that during a down economy, cold calling efforts plunge.  In fact, studies have shown that during economic rough times, cold calling efforts decrease by up to 38%. 

The challenges of a tough economy span the entire sales process from first contact to close.  Even the most hardened inside-sales people find it disconcerting that they can’t reach prospects, many of the nurturing prospects they have built relationships with are no longer employed, window shoppers have increased, fulfillments go out with no responses, and sales-ready leads are few and far between.  But now is the time to re-double your B2B telemarketing efforts for the near future because eventually, companies will buy the solutions they need to be competitive and will buy from those that are top of mind.   A couple of tips to consider:

• Set reasonable and achievable goals (hint:  if they are the same as last year, most likely they need to be adjusted to meet today’s economic climate).  There is nothing more frustrating than putting in the effort to succeed and coming up significantly short.  Is everyone on your team missing their number by a long shot?  If so, take a look at your goals or your talent, and make the necessary adjustments.
• Measure and manage the process.   Take the value chain for an inside-sales team and work backwards.   Are they hitting lead goals?  Are they having discussions with decision makers?  Are they getting referrals?  Are they making dials?  Are they at work?  At the Lead Dogs, we monitor all of these and more to make sure we can focus on both individual AND team dynamics.  Then we correct and improve on the process by coaching, training, and more management.  If it is “skill,” we can fix it; if it is “will” we can change it.
• Focus on short-term success metrics.  Focusing on short-term successes and milestone accomplishments will help everyone on the team.  Sure, you need to set achievable long-term B2B telemarketing goals and should be consistently tracking progress, but as long as you are moving through the sales process, you are making headway in a brutal market.  At The Lead Dogs, we often celebrate “referrals” as these prove to have higher conversion rates to opportunities than names on sourced lists and our representatives appreciate our recognition.  Sure, these are not as valuable as leads but occur much more often and keep the feeling of accomplishment high on a daily level.
• Encourage positive attitudes.   Some of the oldest and best techniques still work for many people.  Keep a mirror on team members’ desks, ask them to stand up before making a few calls, or have team huddles at the beginning or end of day to discuss small “wins.”    Having contests or team building events have worked well for us.  Sometimes it is the small stuff that goes a long way.  It’s proven that an optimistic salesperson outperforms their peers; so find what works for your team and implement it now.

If you are experiencing challenges in keeping your performance and attitudes high in this difficult recession (dare I say recovery), address these issues and if you need assistance, let us know.  At the very least, we can share our B2B telemarketing best practices with you, as they are core to our company and what keeps us in business!

B2B marketers and sales professional should adopt a page or two from the B2C handbook regarding marketing best practices for interacting with their prospects.  The concept of mass customization has been preached in business schools and board rooms of consumer-focused companies for many years.  Many leading B2C firms had to evolve from mass production to mass customization in order to be competitive.  Neglecting this shift caused many firms to lose market share and even resulted in enough disruption to de-throne market leaders (a very rare occurrence in the B2C space when compared to B2B).  A similar shift has been occurring in the B2B market and the consequences of ignoring the need to change are just as dire.  So how did the successful firms serving consumers do it?   The evolution of the 1:1 relationship with the target consumer required companies to go through the following progression:

• Mass Production:  Think Henry Ford and the famous quote “you can have any color you want, as long as it is black.”
  
• Market Segmentation:  The concept GM put into place in the 70’s targeting a car for each phase of your life, with the feature/price mix increasing at each one, from Chevrolet to Buick to Cadillac.
  
• Mass Customization:  A recent visit to the Saturn website has the “build your own” feature, with no less than 30 options (based on consumer feedback of the most important components to choose).   Add in financing options; leasing options, pick-up or delivery, no-hassle pricing, free service for the first 40K miles, etc., … and you get the point.

Note:  If you want another great example, check out bestselling author Malcom Gladwell’s presentation on how Ragu was displaced by a PhD. Food Scientist who gave the people what they wanted.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIiAAhUeR6Y  

For B2B firms, the process is much more complex, in that BOTH the solution and selling process must incorporate mass customization.  As with cars and tomato sauce, the end buyer has unique needs that must be addressed.  However, unless you’re at the self-checkout line at my grocery store, the consumer buying process is straightforward.  Conversely, businesses have complex buying processes and unique needs.   As an example, the B2B buying process involves multiple decision makers and influencers, each with their own selection criteria and agenda (hint:  address each one individually and your chances of winning the deal increase exponentially).  Add up the other complexities in the research, evaluation, consideration, and selection phases and mass customization becomes a real challenge.

The good news is, if you can customize your selling process to these buyers in a meaningful way, you can convert more prospects into customers and many of these will be customers with a significant reluctance to change.   This equates to a competitive advantage, especially if you are a first mover or innovator. 

Before implementing or reinvesting in search engine marketing, SEM, for B2B lead generation, make sure to carefully evaluate all of your options to ensure you are getting the greatest return on your marketing investment.  Just as it is important to identify the keywords that will best perform, it is equally important to evaluate search engine performance.  Often times we’ve seen people select the search engine(s) for placing their ads by simply evaluating overall search engine traffic, or even worse, making assumptions based on personal preferences.  While search engine traffic and popularity is important, it is not the only aspect that should be considered.  When it comes to online B2B lead generation, it is the quality of the leads generated, not quantity that matters.  So, even though one search engine may appear to better perform the others due to overall usage, that does not mean it will deliver better lead-to-sale conversion results. 

So, when it comes to SEM, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.  Instead, perform tests to evaluate the performance of your keyword conversions in each of the search engines and carefully evaluate the quality of the leads generated to determine which search engine(s) is delivering more qualified leads that match your targeted profile. The results you experience may be a surprise and will ultimately provide guidance on where to focus future SEM dollars to gain better B2B lead generation results.

As the economy recovers and the new year begins, business spending is starting to increase.  However, as a result of the recent downturn, business buyers are cautious.  So to generate more business your lead generation strategies must clearly communicate value, differentiate your products and services from the competition, and resonate personally with prospective customers. 

Attend the webcast Lead Gen in 2010: Learn What Is Working Best Right Now, Jan 27, 2010 at 2pm EDT and learn how to maximize your lead gen ROI in 2010.

Who should attend?  Marketing and sales professionals from enterprise companies

This webcast will highlight:
* The latest trends in lead generation, and how you can leverage them
* What lead generation strategies and tactics are working best, and which no longer work for enterprise companies like yours
* The pros and cons of various marketing media, and which will help you get better lead generation results

Register now!

Have you ever discouraged a lead from reading your materials?  Often times marketers focus on capturing lead information and when providing educational materials about products or services like whitepapers, brochures, etc., they strategically place them behind a form to do just that.  While this method may work well for B2B lead generation, in is not uncommon for the form to discourage a significant amount of these leads from taking that next step, reducing your overall exposure, and most likely affecting your bottom line.  In some cases, it may be best to move away from these traditional lead capturing methods, open up access and share your materials to increase visibility, and more importantly the amount of leads generated.

In fact, while attending the BtoB’s Digital Edge: A Virtual Tradeshow for Marketers, during the keynote presentation by David Meerman Scott, The New Rules of Marketing & PR for B-2-B, he touched on this exact topic.  As part of his presentation, he encouraged attendees to think differently about how they create online content.  David discussed the importance of encouraging sharing of materials in what he referred to as “Word of Mouse.” In his presentation, he went on to discuss that marketers should create materials readers are eager to share and focus on measuring overall exposure, instead of focusing on measuring the amount of leads generated.   

So, the point of this is not to suggest you remove all lead capture forms from your website and abandon methods that have worked for you in the past.  Instead, it is to encourage you to reevaluate some areas where you may be limiting your lead generation efforts by discouraging leads to access your materials.  When possible, open up and share your marketing materials to help the message spread more broadly and, ultimately, reach more potential leads to increase your exposure and B2B lead generation success. 

In my last post, I discussed the "when" on Inquiry Management.  Now, I want to address the "how."  Immediate follow up gets the prospect on the phone or engages them via email, however, the end goal is a closed sale and this starts with engaging and qualifying the prospect.

There is an incredible amount of new technology available that can assist with prospect intelligence, on both a company and individual level.  As part of your inquiry management process, before picking up the phone to call someone who has expressed interest, take the time to learn about their company and THEIR role.  As a good friend of mine recommended “to begin collecting intelligence, you don't need to spend a lot of money on Sales 2.0 tools; JFGI (Just Google It).”   After that, you can use tools like LinkedIn, which is an amazing way to learn about your prospects, their role in their company, and interests.  The bottom line:  do your research on the company and prospect before you make the call.

I had an experience recently where poorly planned follow up led to a disappointing impression.  While doing research for one of our clients, I downloaded a White Paper from a B2B software vendor.  I was reviewing various solutions and would categorize my "buying phase" as educational.  Within minutes, I received a call from a salesperson asking what I thought of a 20 page white paper that had just been saved to my desktop and if I wanted a demonstration of their software.  Needless to say, I wasn't ready for this discussion or interruption.  To compound matters, the salesperson knew nothing about my company or my role, which was readily available.  The point here is that your sales and marketing processes needs to be customized to where the prospect is in the buying cycle and your message needs to be tailored. 

For inquiry management at the Lead Dogs, we customize our approach based on a specific buyer’s behavior and not a standardized process.  We do not place more importance on contacting a prospect versus results in moving the buyer through the sales cycle.  Of equal importance, is realizing when they are not ready to move through the funnel.  So we create a nurture process that is customized to how and when they want to receive follow up. 

I recently was invited to attend an event, co-sponsored by our client, Oracle.  It was a panel discussion (a live event, which is very rare these days) and the topic was shifts in the Selling/Buying model.  With all the webinar "clutter" out there, it was refreshing to have a diverse expert panel discuss current trends in B2B marketing and sales.  The speakers were Greg Alexander (author and industry expert on building high performance sales teams), Steven Woods (CTO of Eloqua) and Debbie Qaqish (Pedowitz Group).

Use Lead Scoring to Personalize Interactions
Lesson: Customize your interactions with your prospects as much as possible, based on implicit and explicit information.  

Example:  Understand where the prospect is in the research and/or buying cycle and respond accordingly. Don't be late with your responses or jump the gun without doing your homework.  Case studies were provided on both of these mistakes and the impact they can make on your success.

How do you prevent making these mistakes?  The recommendation from the panel was to create a Lead Scoring and Nurturing process that customizes responses to a prospect based on their phase of the buying cycle.  For a good resource on lead scoring, check out this Guide to Developing A Lead Scoring Model.
 
Use Inquiry Management Best Practices For Follow-up
During the discussion, several studies were referenced that provide data on contact rates for inquiries.  The results prove that your ability to contact a prospect (inquiry) improves dramatically if your attempt is made within 5 minutes of the inquiry.  Your chances are significantly lower when you wait longer.  In fact, after 30 minutes, the likelihood plummets by 100X.  The Truth Behind Web Inquiry Management supports these findings.  

One of our core competencies at The Lead Dogs is providing Inquiry Management Services for our clients.  We ensure prompt follow-up and our contact rates are well above the industry average.  In fact, internally, our team has a 87% contact rate for inquiries, albeit, our inquiry rate is not at the level of our enterprise clients.  If you don't have a process and SLA's defined for immediate follow-up, your competitors will get there first and you know what they say about "first impressions."

Whether your company is large or small, the ultimate goal of B2B lead generation is to uncover qualified leads, nurture them as appropriate until they are ready for a sale and then smoothly transition them to field sales for closing.

Key tips for marketers on B2B lead generation

1. Create an ideal customer profile – Clearly articulate what this profile looks like and then focus your energy on lead generation opportunities that best fit this ideal customer profile. To uncover the profile, look beyond traditional definitions based on title, etc. and spend time discovering what separates your best and worst customers? What organizations/associations do they belong to?  What are their demographic profiles?

2. Ensure your key messages resolve the pain your prospects are facing  – This may seem like a daunting task but it really isn’t.  Spend time speaking with current customers to understand why they chose to work with you?  How has using your product or service helped their business?  Would they refer you to other people?  Speak with lost deals to understand what influenced their decision making process?  Why did they choose the direction they did?  What was their perception of your company, products or services?  [Note: this is often best done by a 3rd party to really get to the meat of the answers you seek].  Once completed, these interviews will be invaluable in helping shape your key messages for marketing.

3. Develop a marketing plan with activities each month –  Spend time outlining an integrated plan and then consistently execute on it each month.  Plans should ideally incorporate multiple tactics for lead generation [ideas can include email, online, direct mail, events, outbound calls and more]. Map out your activities for each month and then really follow it! And don’t just make irrelevant pitches more often! Create a plan to ensure that every time you touch your future customers you provide relevant ideas, content and resources.

4. Rigorously qualify all incoming leads – Once you have a new lead, invest time in uncovering more details about the individual to ensure they are qualified and match your ideal customer profile.  Avoid passing any leads to sales unless they meet all of the criteria you have established in advance.  This enables sales to focus only on qualified leads and also ensures that when you do pass them a lead, they will invest time in it.

5. Develop a lead nurturing plan – While you may generate leads from your initial campaigns, you will generate even more by following up with additional touches.  To do this effectively, tailor the content of those follow up campaigns to the needs and interests of the recipients.  The more relevant they are to a recipient, the better.