B2B Marketing Blog

You are invited to join ActiveConversion and Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA) for a free webinar.

View the recorded webinar now!

Our speaker line-up!

This is the first time SLMA is co-sponsoring ActiveConversion webinar and we are privileged on having James Obermayer co-host the webinar and enlighten our audience with his vast experience and knowledge on lead conversion and sales lead management. James is the author of “Managing Sales Leads, Turning Cold Prospects into Hot Customers” and “Sales & Marketing 365.”  He is also co-author of “Managing Sales Leads, How to Turn Every Prospect into a Customer” (over 12,500 copies sold).  In addition, he has written more than 80 articles on sales and marketing management.

We are also excited to have Brad Kamphuis, Director, Business Development, ActiveConversion speak at this event. Brad is a veteran (with 22 years of experience) when it comes to sales lead generation practices, and is trained in all the “big-name” sales strategies, including Dale Carnegie, Sandler Sales, Miller Heiman and Brian Tracy and has been involved in training hundreds of sales representatives.

What to expect:

In 30-45 min followed by a 15 min Q & A session, Brad Kamphuis, and James Obermayer, will walk you through the top lead management strategies and the tactics using ActiveConversion Automation Rules involved to:

• “Clean” your sales lead data to save massive amounts of time on your lead qualification process,
• Target leads to zero in on the most qualified opportunities,
• Close the loop on leads that bring you business now, and leads that aren’t ready to buy.

It can be a challenge to generate the same level of interest from an outbound lead that you would get from an inbound lead. Most times they will not have been to your website nor will they be familiar with your company.

Many sales professionals dread making outbound calls. However, they are an excellent way to reach out to prospects. In fact, with outbound calling, you are not only giving yourself more opportunities to sell, you are also taking control of your future success.

In order to generate more outbound interest for your product/service, I suggest using these tips when contacting your prospects in order to move along your sales cycle:

1. Be Fearless and Enthusiastic:

Make sure you believe what you are saying. You are less likely to spark the interest of a prospective client if you sound like you are just going through the motions. Be enthusiastic and smile when you speak, it really shines through on the other end.

2. Make Your Value Proposition Specific and Concise:

Consider your prospect’s industry and position your product/service in a way that would specifically help them. When most people make calls, their opening statement is too vague or general. You should avoid saying things like “Our product/service will make your business more efficient and more profitable” because EVERYONE is saying that. Remember, your call is probably not the only call your prospect will be receiving that day, so it is very important you separate yourself from the masses.

3. Be Persistent:

Never take the first “no” for an answer. In fact, don’t take the second one either. 95 percent of the time, your prospect will throw up screen objections in hopes of getting you off the phone. You need to persist past this. You will be surprised how overcoming their objections and persisting past the first couple of “no” answers can get you results. Remember, you are calling because you want to help your prospect. You just have to make them see it that way.

4. Suggest Specific Times to Meet:

You want to make it as easy for the prospect to agree to a meeting with you. Avoid asking them to suggest a time to meet. Say, “I’d like to meet with you at 11am on Tuesday to discuss…” Always have your calendar open in front of you when making calls.

5. Follow Up:

If your first attempt to get a meeting isn’t successful, look for a reason to follow up. Try asking for their email and suggest that you will send some related information. If they agree to this, great! You just opened the door for your next call and got yourself one step closer to getting a face-to-face meeting.

Using the above steps, I was able to generate interest for my services and land my face-to-face meeting with a prospective client of mine. The conversation was smooth because I knew what I had to offer was valuable and I delivered my value proposition in a way that was enticing. Although he said no at first, I persisted to the point where he saw value in meeting with me.

Related articles

• The Mechanics of the Outbound B2B Campaign (funnelholic.com)
• It’s the ‘Cold’ that’s Dead – Not the ‘Calling’ (customerthink.com)
• How to prepare for your next sales call (customerthink.com)

The celebrated catchphrase for the classic TV cop show Dragnet, “Just the facts , ma’am,” might as well be the description for ActiveConversion’s new AC-ProspectAlert.  This module allows sales people to access their alerts and other sales lead information without having to log into the full ActiveConversion system.  It was recently introduced with the new UI (user interface) for ActiveConversion and was designed to provide sales reps with what they want as fast as possible.

Previously sales people could access this information via a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) account like Salesforce.com but for greater flexibility and for those businesses that haven’t deployed Salesforce.com to their sales team, AC-ProspectAlert is just the ticket.

• Laser focused view: It optimizes sales time and allows sales reps to concentrate on engaging prospects and closing business instead of navigating through a maze of menus to get the information they need.
• Sales leads: For those organizations that use Jigsaw’s contact data, this has been seamlessly integrated into AC-ProspectAlert so that sales reps can access this data conveniently.
• Easy to use: Because it shares the same slick new UI as the full ActiveConversion services, sales reps can quickly and easily find the information they need.
• Track Key Indicators: The new dashboard has been designed specifically for the sales rep in a hurry.

As the man said, “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Top Sales World a global sales community is hosting their  first live annual top sales awards ceremony on Thursday December 16th from 12 Noon Eastern.

ActiveConversion is a proud nominee of the prestigious 2010 Top Sales Tool. ActiveConversion is a sales tool and the primary resource for many sales professionals across various industries to generate and manage their sales leads.  ActiveConversion is an intuitive sales product and sold as a SaaS (Software as a Service) product.  Sales and marketing executives wanting to stay on top of their leads and actively converting them into qualified prospects  use ActiveConversion. Daily alerts via lead reports, Jigsaw integration, and Salesforce.com integration are some of components, for which ActiveConversion is known for.

We encourage our readers and supporters to share the love and vote for us. Voters may return and vote again every 24 hours, if that is their desire.

The public polls, which open on Wednesday November 24th, will represent 50% of the total votes, the other 50% will be provided by a panel of three experts in each category. The public polls will close at midnight Eastern on Monday December 13th.

In many B2B companies, management hears its fill of “the internet will change your industry this way” or “the internet is changing your industry that way”, and as often as not (especially in engineering oriented companies, or those that sell to a finite list of possible customers) these pieces of advice are roundly dismissed with a “that’s not how we do it in our industry, we relationship sell in this industry”.  And I’ll agree with that emphatically; in B2B, people buy from people, not a website.

What those companies are missing are some key emerging points;

1. Google is making most of the new introductions; you can’t relationship sell if you’ve never met them, ‘who meets who’ is decided by Google many times.

2. Companies do due diligence with Google because it’s just so easy; “I always buy from Joe at XYZ co, but I need to have two more quotes”.  Even if the intent was to gather some quotes, I’d rather start there than with a cold list.  At least I know they have budget, and are customers for my product/service. Even I don’t win this time, I may in the future.

3. Most of the time, nobody wants to build that relationship with your sales rep’s phone calls.  Executive days are so busy that a sales rep with a “you buying any time soon?” question is just annoying.  What they will make time for is a very pertinent case study or webinar that speaks to their business problem because it helps them answer a question, it doesn’t take much time, and they can read/watch it when they have time.

4. New technology, like marketing automation, helps tell your reps who really does want to talk now; instead of talking to everyone as often as possible, get sales developing relationships with prospects or customers who are showing real interest.

So instead of dismissing the internet, B2B companies that rely on relationship selling should see it as a tool for relationship selling:

1. Get more relationships started via Google, get Google introducing you to more companies that need your services.

2. Leverage digital intellectual property (ie a case study or whitepaper) to do some relationship building with many more of your contacts.

3. Use tools such as ActiveConversion to show you who is actually interested in talking to you.

Online marketing coupled with tools like marketing automation software will make marketers and salespeople more effective and efficient at relationship selling.

There are many great sales methodologies out there, SPIN, Miller Heiman, EDGE framework and others. No matter which dogma you choose, they all have one common weakness, as good as they look on the page, they all need to be executed to matter.

There is no getting away from the fact that the biggest reason for a lack of sales is a lack of execution. The sad truth is that sales people know what they have to do, they just don’t do it. You can train them, but can’t make them.  It’s the age old “doer and the thinker”, in sales the doer executes and wins.  There are many great plans gathering dust on shelves, but the winning plans are the ones actually executed.

Join Tibor Shanto, a top sales expert and the co-author of “Harness The Trigger Events That Turn Prospects Into Customers”, and Yves Matson, senior account executive at ActiveConversion as they discuss strategies around sales methodologies and how to properly execute them.

In 45 minutes followed by a 15 min Q&A you will learn:

• How to successfully execute sales methodology?
• Why CRM systems do not get adopted?
• Why there is lack of execution?
• What are the four cornerstones of execution?

Click here to access the recorded webinar.  Also, get a copy of the presentation from Slideshare.

Mitch Joel, http://www.twistimage.com/ the author of “Six Degrees of Separation” says sometimes negative customer’s reviews provide better opportunities for a business. Though negative reviews are not taken that well by businesses, it might be a game changer for your business.

Customers provide their reviews for the product they bought from you, and also for the kind of service they received with the level of support they get – and all these help establish credibility and bring in potential customers and inquiries. Though the majority of product reviews on the web are encountered for B2C kind of engagements, B2Bs can also reap the value customer reviews and help bring their offerings to the same ball game.  One of the biggest barriers to businesses implementing customer reviews is the fear of negative comment(s). Contrary to the popular belief that it is better to only display positive reviews, negative reviews do hold some value. Here are some of the benefits for having not so perfect product reviews:

1.       Not so perfect reviews means that the published reviews are genuine and not necessarily fabricated. They establish authenticity!

2.       Decision makers often check for reviews to make their final decision, so having them helps confirm their decision

3.       Negative reviews can help you correct that particular negativity

4.       Companies can also find ways to better their business/product or service based on the reviews submitted.

Some interesting stats from PowerReviews that you might find useful:

This is for all the businesses out there. Human nature is to look and find negativity first, so don’t be afraid to be a human first and show some of your imperfection – it’s all well. Thus, negative reviews can help make you a better business. How can we all improve if everyone said that we were perfect? We cannot, and that’s the truth. The world is imperfect, as we commonly say it, and our mistakes makes us perfect.

Are you interested in achieving sales growth with existing resources? Businesses are increasingly turning into sales optimization and lead management which frees up time for sales representatives to focus on high yield activities like engaging qualified prospects and closing sales.  Download this ActiveConversion whitepaper which shows you how lead management can help you achieve best-in-class sales performance.

Industry surveys indicate that only 10 to 25 percent of all leads are sales-ready, meaning prospects are interested and ready to buy.  A similar percentage of leads are not qualified at all. This means 50 to 80 percent of all leads generated can result in wasted effort if handled inappropriately.

By implementing a lead management system, the quality of leads will increase while the quantity of leads will decrease. Marketing will see a higher percentage of leads being followed up and sales will see a gratifying increase in the quality of leads presented to them. Companies that have implemented these tools have experienced a 30% or higher lead to sales conversion rate.

A significant advantage introduced with marketing automation systems is the capability to alert the appropriate sales representative at the moment any lead becomes sales-ready. This further reduces the load on the sales force and increases their effectiveness.

While a well designed and well promoted website can create leads for a company, it goes without saying that most companies will not rely on it entirely.  They will also supplement inbound marketing with outbound targeted calling; they will take a look at who their customer base is and why, develop a list of other companies that are similar, and start calling.

Success at this point will usually sound like “…interesting, send me an email with your info in it and I’ll get back to you”.  The big question is did they say it to be nice,  to get you off the phone?  Or are they genuinely interested? If they are not interested, you may have just set yourself up for a waste of time following up with them.  What you really want is insight into who on the “send me an email” list really is interested, who is actually engaged with your message.

One path to this insight is through a combination of a content-rich website, and marketing automation like ActiveConversion.  When they ask for the “more information email”, the email itself contains links that lead to the information/content.  With the ActiveConversion Outlook plugin installed, if they click on any of those links, you’ll see if they clicked through and what they looked at.

If they said they were interested, but didn’t click through on any of the informational links, well, not as qualified.  However if they clicked through and looked at multiple pages, and even more significantly, if they returned later for a second look at your website, notch them up as having passed qualifying test #1.

Keep in mind this same approach is useful when re-engaging with customers and old prospects.  Even deep into a relationship sell, being able to gauge how interested and engaged a prospect is with the new message you’re delivering is invaluable.

If trade shows are an important part of your marketing strategy then you understand that they are one of the best ways to do both lead generation and face-to-face networking with a large group of qualified prospects. After a trade show, companies struggle with following up on a long list of inquiries with attendees, most of whom are not sales ready, and get neglected by the sales team who focus on ‘hotter’ leads.

Yves Matson, Senior Account Executive at ActiveConversion, & Nancy Nardin, President at Smart Selling Tools shared some strategies and tactics around increasing trade show ROI.

Attendees learned how equipping their company with simple and easy to use marketing automation software drives several benefits that increase trade show ROI:

Other topics covered were:

• Who is visiting your website right after a trade show
  - if you are “top of mind” enough for them to investigate you after a trade show, they are your best prospects!
• How to automate an email nurture campaign after a trade show
  - instead of having sales follow up with the entire list, have them focus on those that show engagement, even if that engagement is months later
• Track the effectiveness of various trade shows and compare the return on investment against each other

Download the recorded webinar from: http://www.activeconversion.com/webinar/webinar-june-2010-access.html

Download the presentation from: http://www.slideshare.net/activeconv/activeconversion-increasing-trade-show-roi