The JF Guest Author Spot

Great sales execution will not do a thing for your top line if you don’t have a continuous flow of qualified leads. There is little question that one of the biggest challenges for sales leaders is dealing with an inconsistent flow of leads coming into the front of their funnels.

There are a multitude of approaches, solutions and tools which, if employed correctly, can make a real difference in your company’s ability to generate quality leads. Some areas to consider:

* A dedicated in-house or outsourced telemarketing function

* Monthly e-newsletters to a nurtured list of opt-in subscribers

* Event marketing, such as breakfasts, seminars, webinars, etc.

* Media relations work resulting in press placements (raising your company’s credibility and perhaps generating inbound inquiries)

* Partner programs

* Customer referral programs

* Trade shows

* Sources of leads for outbound calling, e.g. a purchased database

* Targeted direct marketing (e- or snail-mail)

* Advertising and other branding mechanisms

* Web marketing, including SEO of maximum exposure, affiliate programs, downloadable value, e.g. white papers

* Tools and processes to assist with qualification and monitoring when prospects are buying

* Active participation and contribution to industry events and publications

* Cold-calling by sales reps

With all this in mind, the biggest contributor is not technology, tools, or people. It’s a strategic, funded, measured and comprehensive approach to lead (and demand) generation. If you or your marketing team doesn’t have a documented, up-to-date and realistic plan, you are not going to execute well in this area and you’ll leave your sales people high and dry.

One of our clients depends only on trade shows for leads. The reason is that they feel they must attend the key industry shows and doing that, in their words, leaves them with no funds left for any other type of outbound marketing.

Another client has a small inside telemarketing team. The team isn’t effective for a number of reasons. The people making the calls aren’t motivated, partially because sales people often don’t follow up on leads, and since there is no formal feedback mechanism, no improvement is ever made. Also, there is no integrated marketing support to enhance their efforts, such as website landing pages, where the telesales team might direct potentially interested parties.

The bottom line here is one of business philosophy. Lead generation is a critical component to sales effectiveness. It is not something you do when you have a few bucks or when you’re getting panicky because your pipeline appears to be anemic. It must be managed and funded strategically.

Dave Stein is the founder and CEO of ES Research, an organization that provides on-line, membership-based analyses of, and recommendations about, the sales training and sales performance and consulting marketplace and the companies that serve it.

NB: Don’t forget that you can join Dave, Jill Konrath, Linda Richardson, Nigel Edelshain and myself for THE most significant online sales event of the year so far – just click on the banner below for full details.

Today’s News: I don’t do an awful lot of self-promotion on here, but reading the feedback from Kendra Lee of KLA Group - fellow Top Sales Expert and trusted business partner - I realised that I have not mentioned ASP Profile for so long.

So let’s change that today, because I really cannot understand how any sales leader can engage with a training company, without first profiling their team and understanding the specific requirements – here is what I think:

“How good is your sales team when benchmarked against the best in their industry? Do you really know?

Until now, sales leaders have not had access to an effective and purely objective sales team audit tool; As a consequence millions, if not hundreds of millions of pounds world-wide, are wasted every year on irrelevant, unnecessary, or inappropriate sales skills development.

Furthermore, at the front-end – i.e. the recruitment stage – decisions are often made with the aid of generalised psychometric testing at best, or totally subjectively at worst. Poor decisions can cost a company thousands, even hundreds of thousands of pounds in salaries, expenses and, of course, underachieved revenue – unfortunately it can take months to discover an error.

ASP Profile is the most accurate and sophisticated sales competence assessment tool available and represents the culmination of fourteen years ongoing research and experimentation. It has involved consultation with hundreds of individuals, including: captains of industry, psychologists, professional buyers and front line salesmen and women from every industry sector. The end result is that we are now able to recognise the three levels of selling that exists – four in fact, if you include sales management – and as a consequence, we have produced a model at each level that accurately profiles the characteristics and working styles of the very best performers. It assesses existing strengths, limitations, and ongoing development requirements in three specific areas: – Attitude, Skills, and Process.

ASP Profile is totally interactive and reports are generated the same day, enabling you to make rapid decisions.

To discuss your personal requirements please e-mail: aspprofile@jonathanfarrington.com“

Or simply click on this banner to educate yourself –

Tomorrow: Yesterday, I discussed the five main drivers for success and you will have gathered that I passionately believe in first class customer care: With that in mind, my gift to you this week, is a FREE ebook called – “Isn’t Time You Focussed On The customer Imperative?”  Here is a snippet:

“You know about Pareto’s Law – I discuss it often enough – yes that one, the one that says 80% of the business comes from 20% of the customers? Well, it (almost) applies in this case. More than 80% of front line staff haven’t yet totally bought into the idea of effective customer relations. The other 20% have discovered a very enriching way of achieving a satisfactory outcome from interactions with customers. In other words, most of the time, they succeed! And when they succeed, the customers actually thank them!”

This can’t be about you – can it? Find out tomorrow!

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