Sales Lead Management

How salespeople spend their time can increase sales 29-49%

How salespeople spend their time (spend is the operative word) can make a staggering  difference in productivity (code word for ROI) of a sales rep.  Jorge Jeffery of Velocify shares the results of data collected from 400 companies and one million sales leads.  He tells the SLMA Radio host Jim Obermayer how to double conversion rates, (close more deals) and how to call leads more quickly. All of this comes from their recently released study: The Power of Prioritization.  About Jorge Jeffery Jorge Jeffery joined Velocify in 2011 and is senior manager of strategic intelligence. Jorge has been instrumental in mining data from the more than 1,500 sales teams that leverage Velocify’s solutions today. Insights gleaned help establish best practices for Velocify clients in order to maximize revenue potential. About Velocify Velocify is a market-leading provider of cloud-based intelligent sales software, designed for high-velocity sales environments. Velocify helps sales teams keep pace with the speed of opportunity and increase revenue by driving rapid lead response, increased selling discipline, improved productivity, and actionable selling insights. The company has helped more than 1,500 companies across a variety of industries improve customer acquisition practices and sales performance. Velocify was recently recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in North America by Deloitte and a Best Place to Work by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

How do salespeople stay relevant when buyers are liars and evasive?

The Barriers Salespeople Face in Following-Up Sales LeadsRichards Brock is interviewed by SLMA Radio host Jim Obermayer as they discuss the increasing difficulty of salespeople being able to have meaningful discussions with inquirers.  Are salespeople marginalized as the buyer becomes easily educated about products without the benefits of a salesperson?  How does the salesperson stay germane in a game where the buyer is often evasive and dishonest about their intent?     About Richard Brock Richard Brock is a tech-savvy, entrepreneurial software development professional with over 30 years of experience in CRM Solutions and deep roots in Marketing Automation. He is the co-founder and CEO of LeadLife Solutions, a provider of an on-demand lead management solution that drives revenue by bundling state-of-the art marketing automation technology with lead management systems to maximize sales opportunities. He is a board member of the Technology Executives Roundtable, mentor to various technology companies and Founding Father of CRM. Richard pioneered the Sales Force Automation space by starting Brock Control Systems (Firstwave Technologies), which became the leading provider of web-based Customer Relationship Management applications.About LeadLife SolutionsLeadLife was founded and designed by experts with lots of sales, marketing and customer relationship management experiences. We understand the pressures placed on sales and marketing departments to hit numbers.Whether it’s a sales execution tool, a marketing automation solution or both, LeadLife’s proven platform provides companies flawless execution of their marketing and sales strategies.  And we are there to help. www.leadlife.comAbout Sales Talk Technologies By the time you get an opportunity to speak with the prospect, they have all kinds of information and preconceived ideas about their needs and the solutions that can meet their needs. So, you need a way of seeing what they’ve done and aligning your conversation with theirs. Unlike other software, SalesTalk is part of a proven platform that interprets the seller’s conversations through a click or touch technology and is combined with the prospect’s digital behaviors, providing consistent execution of your company’s sales strategy. The story-so-far feature within SalesTalk allows you to do just that. SalesTalk’s story-so-far feature is unique because it delivers critical data by tracking the timing and flow of every interaction with a prospect – each and every digital and conversational behavior is logged complete with time spent.All information within the story-so-far is synchronized behind the scenes with a company’s CRM system.Increase your win to forecast ratio – making sure sale reps are aligning their conversation with their prospects and knowing what your prospect is interested in. Sales management get what they need from their CRM system without sales reps doing any extra work. It’s about better sales call each and every time so your reps can sell more.  www.salestalktechnologies.com

Sales Managers Suck at Taking Responsibility

In This 25 minute discussion, Jim Obermayer gets Velocify CEO Nick Hedges opinion as to why sales lead follow-up is so dismal, and why sales manager’s appear to not take responsibility in making it happen. Jim says, "The premise is that millions of dollars are spend on lead generation and 75-90% of all inquiries are not followed-up. This means 75-90% of the marketing dollars are wasted and there are huge opportunity loses when sales fails to talk to potential buyersWe have traditionally blamed salespeople, but to follow-up or not is a strategic decision and part of every manager’s responsibility when his/her people fail in this most basic skill."
1:08 Whose responsibility is it. We have to start holding sales managers responsible for not performing.1:30 Sales Managers haven't had the tools to figure out who's doing what and when.1:52 Focused on win rate2:13 Focus on qualification rate in the first place from marketing qualified lead to sales qualified lead. It's been really neglected and ready for change.2:57 Is it more tool oriented? Jim wants to know.3:15 Sales doesn't use the tools.3;27 Velocify the tool: Sales acceleration software. Helps inside sales teams - makes them more effective at taking a lead that is marketing qualified and turning it into a sales qualified lead.4:03 Distributing leads to sales team based on historical sales performance.4:20 Guided workflow5:42 Velocify includes the pieces left as optional in most CRM tools. This is not a CRM tool.6:00 The problem is, more people going into inside sales teams because of lead marketing leads explosion. This leads to poorly trained team.7:00 Sales 2.0, Jim said the speakers said the only sales forces growing in following year will be inside sales teams. Nick Hedges agrees.7:45 Bring field teams inside - that may be the answer.8:45 Nick's advice to sales managers, "Have to move to something over time. If you start off with highly prescriptive, it tends to get rejected by the sales people. Kind of tie things up over time. 9:40 Reporting and visibility systems about people's relative performances is a really good way to drive the right behaviors.10:10 Best clue is boards on the wall showing the top performers. That's how you know they some some good systems in place.10:51 Everything should go over to sales, according to Nick Hedges.11:25 Marketing automation systems are good for drip emails and content until the lead qualifies as a sales qualified lead.12:15 Most transformational thing about marketing automation is that it created a catalyst for sales leaders and marketing leaders to agree on what is a viable qualified marketing lead. If that doesn't happen, you're back in that cycle of rejecting leads and having leads rejected.12:55 Qualified lead is clear for Velocify: based on bad framework, size of prospect, clear intention to purchase our software. There is no such thing as a standard definition. Make your marketing qualified lead definition as less-exacting as you possibly can. 13:20 There is no substitute for human conversation.14:00 Jim told a story about a company who was in deep trouble closing deals and meeting quota: "Criteria was so tight that they were not making quota, but 2500 leads were stuck in lead qualification portion of the system." Had to kick it loose.15:25 Nick Hedges does not stand by BANT framework. He feels you'll lose too many potential sales qualified sales leads staying strict to BANT.On Velocify's Ideal Customer:16:50 B2C customers include banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies, higher education. They tend to orient toward medium and large size companies.17:30 B2B is fastest growing in their portfolio, tends to be pretty vertically agnostic. Medium and large size companies with a common characteristic: they are trying to scale their sales efforts at a very fast pace.About Nick Hedges: Nick Hedges is president and CEO at Velocify and a 15 year veteran of the Internet and software as a service (SaaS) industry. Nick joined Velocify in 2008 as SVP of business development and then held various roles at the company, including head of sales and chief revenue officer, prior to becoming CEO in 2011. Prior to Velocify, Nick was a case team leader at Bain and Company, where he led strategic assessments in the technology, consumer products, media, and private equity industries. Prior to Bain, he was the CEO of an online marketplace for the global soft commodity industry that provided trading and logistics services to companies across Africa, Asia and Europe. The company was one of the few early dot-coms to generate healthy revenue and was a forerunner of SaaS technology. Earlier in his career, Nick worked at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) on Internet and process-reengineering projects and at Ogilvy and Mather Advertising as an account manager for big brands, such as Kodak and Ford Motor Company.

Modern prospecting dilemma when prospects are too busy to talk to you.

SLMA Radio host James Obermayer interviews author Rod Sloane, founder of the 8000 member Sales and Marketing Alignment Group. In a no holds-bared interview. Rod addresses how to talk to people who hide, evade, dodge, elude, skirt, shirk, equivocate and otherwise become invisible even though they have an expressed need.Rod Sloane also produces the UK based “No-Bull Sales & Marketing Alignment Radio Show” available on itunes.apple.com. He is a conference speaker who tackles how companies manage leads, create opportunities and generate revenue. Mr. Sloane is the founder of the LinkedIn Sales and Marketing Alignment Group that has over 8,000 members.Author of ”Alignment, The Secret to getting your Sales and Marketing Teams Working Together” Rod says It is about your people, your language and your culture. Sloane has his own consultancy aptly named, Rod Sloan. http://www.rodsloane.co.uk/

Why don’t salespeople follow-up sales leads?

Jim Obermayer and Paul Roberts discuss the all-important topic of why salespeople don’t follow-up sales lead and what can be done about it.
James W. Obermayer is a principal in Sales Leakage Consulting, Inc., an Orange County, California based sales and marketing strategy consulting firm and a principal of Cerius Consulting. He specializes in helping small to medium-size companies identify sales and marketing leakage issues that stifle sales growth and waste valuable marketing dollars. Aside from consulting, his career has been equally divided between sales and marketing positions in business-to-business corporations.
Jim has served as Vice President, Worldwide Sales at an enterprise software company (Stac) an internet services company (Internet Products), Senior Vice President for two industry-leading inquiry management firms (IHS and AdTrack Corporation), and Vice President of Marketing for a medical device manufacturer (Brentwood Medical Products). He has also been Vice President of Sales and Marketing for a direct marketing agency (Kern Direct).
In addition, Obermayer 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. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and training seminars for such organizations as the Direct Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association to corporate sales meetings.

Juliana Lukasik Director CEO of @largefilms on Mentoring

Sparking debate and fostering the next generation of professional women through advocacy, mentorship and business moxie is what Juliana Lukasik can bring to your next conference. You’ll want her unique perspective as a expert in high-profile, international product launches and a leader for the cause of promoting women in media. We wanted to hear more from her on the topic of mentoring and relate it to the sales and marketing industries. When SLMA Radio cohost, Susan Finch first heard Juliana speak, it was on a panel honoring the 20 Women of Influence in Oregon. It was sponsored by the Portland Business Journal. Mentoring professionals, especially women, is Juliana's passion.
The Sales Lead Management Association is always talking about lead nurturing, lead management and sales skills training. It is our responsibility to dedicate as little as 3% of our time to mentoring professionals and students to help them become the leaders we want to face in sales, as peers. How else will they learn best practices if not from those who go before them? Tune in to hear Juliana and Susan speak about the importance of mentoring in all industries.
A bit about Juliana Lukasik:
Juliana has been in the film business for over 20 years. She is in the minority three percent of women commercial directors. She graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelors of Arts in Broadcast Communications. In 1999, she purchased Signature Films and changed the name to @Large Films. In addition to day-to-day management of the company and business development, Juliana has produced and directed projects that have won Emmy, Addy and Telly awards. As a child, Juliana was told by her father that there wasn't anything she couldn't do. She believed this to her core. She is also the President of the CEIC (Central Eastside Industrial Council). Along with her love of advertising, Juliana is currently in pre-production on a project about one of her favorite subjects, pet adoption.
Follow her: @julianalukasik View her LinkedIn profile.

Software that delivers the most data wins

SLMA CEO Jim Obermayer says that software programs that explain the most data, and are verified by the most evidence, are better than those that do not. He'll discuss how CRM properly applied, along with marketing automation, gives the most data on marketing performance and gives more evidence than any other combination of software.  In essence, those with the most data will win.  But, he says, "You have to manage the sales lead system to win."

During this program Obermayer contends that those with the most marketing toys win. But tools without leadership are just tools in the hands of fools.

About Obermayer

Obermayer is an author (four books) and  a speaker on subjects of sales lead management, sales enablement and marketing ROI.  He is the founder and of the world-wide 6200 member Sales Lead Management Association, which also has a Linkedin Group of 2987 members.  The SLMA is the sponsor of the yearly Sales Lead Management Week, the annual contest for the 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management, and the nomination and naming of the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management.  The SLMA also hosts the weekly c-level interview program; SLMA Radio.  Obermayer is the Vice President of Business Development at Vitech Corporation.

February 14: Kathie Nelson says Stop turning over rocks for customers.

Susan Finch interviews Kathie Nelson, Founder and CEO of Connectworks. Kathie is a serial entrepreneur and born powerhouse in business growth, is a four time author, highly sought after speaker, top tier business strategist, and coach.
Her cut to the chase deliverables have produced her own award winning sales, and national acclaim. In addition to her contributions to emerging companies, many non-profits and corporations have been the beneficiaries of her visionary leadership style resulting in substantial, measurable growth.
Once told she would never walk again, she defied the odds and overcame the obstacles that promised her life long limitations. Refusing to accept being told what she couldn’t do, she found her way to walk again and has never stopped. Kathie brings that same determination to all of her savvy business strategies.
Crediting this life changing experience as her catalyst, she soon developed the business formulas and strategies that persistently equal success for thousands of individuals and organizations nationally.
With concise and visionary accomplishment, her speaking prowess, signature products, and services far surpass the current market metrics. Get what every busy professional seeks: more money, more easily through business growth, marketing, networking, and sales.
Some of the show highlights and topics include:
There are two perspectives
1. Lack of confidence in their ability to sell or whatever they interpret what the word "sales" means to them.  These people usually have a disconnection to the language that sales professionals describe as the sales process.
2. Clear understanding of what the customer needs so that the sales conversation is about serving and discovery.  This group is usually comfortable and connected to the language that sales professionals describe as the sales process.
Small business owners frequently hear what they consider vague and non-relatable concepts, "lead management, sales lead management, ROI, lead nurturing, sales funnel management, lead generation." These same people have not been exposed to that professional language, yet they are out there trying to accomplish these goals. If they were confident in what makes them different, this would not get in their way.  It seems to be part of the stigma they associate with the term, "Sales Professional." You're going to have a difficult time selling anything if you can't become confident in your ability to sell your products or services.
Three key pieces to gathering the information ahead of time:
Keeping your finger on the pulse of trends that will affect your prospects or customers.
Conducting focus groups
Creating strategic partner alliances serving the same audience, as well as other sales professionals serving same audience
She asks them, "What's on your radar for 2013?" "What are obstacles that are possibly going to keep you or your customers from reaching their goals."
Susan Finch acknowledged these can be scary to ask the questions that you may not like the answer. But asking these questions make you empathetic, knowledgeable, credible. You will discover the correct market entry points, at what moment are they more receptive to hiring, launching, purchasing a service.
Kathie Nelson: realizing that if you have a sales manager over your shoulder telling you that you have to produce. "I can't slow down to do discovery because I have to get the quota up."  If you don't take the time for discovery, you are constantly turning over rocks, "Are you my customer?" "Are you my customer?"
Do you want to increase your sales quickly? Then commit to investing in the time, slow down - evaluate who my best customers were and what were they really going through. In general, do they have challenges? This process helps her empathize and serve them better. Once she did this and got clear on the experience of my customer, my sales doubled. This was through strategic partnerships.
"For every minute spent in planning saves 9 in execution."
Book recommendation for sales professionals:
Dave Crenshaw's book, "The Myth of Multitasking."  His overall message: Multi-tasking serves no one.
If you are in sales and don't want to be seen as a sales person, you are sabotaging your success. Whatever stigma you have associated with the sales profession is old news. You can be an honorable, caring, successful SALES professional, and proud of the product or service you represent, happy with the success you are adding to your customers' businesses.
Kathie's two books, "I Want What She's Got!" and the "Busy People Guide to Getting Unstuck" are helpful reads that will have you laughing and crying and inspired.

Cooking Up Great Sales Leads: Top 10 Ingredients

SLMA Radio host Jim Obermayer interviews Al Davidson, founder and president of Strategic Sales and Marketing, Inc. Al has, has been nominated by the Sales Lead Management Association as one of the 50 Most Influential leaders in the industry. Davidson is also the group owner of Linkedin’s Manage Your Leads which has 5393 members.
Every delicious meal begins with a good recipe: without all the ingredients, working in the right order, sequence and in just the right quantities, your dish just doesn’t come out right. Just like cooking in the kitchen, “cooking up” great sales leads requires a list of key ingredients and a consistent process to achieve a successful result.
Great chefs know how to add an intangible touch to a dish that is all their own. In the same way, sales lead generation experts know how to draw upon the special nuances and human touch of furthering a conversation, identifying a prospect’s needs, and building relationships.
Just like preparing a great meal requires a long process of washing, prepping, chopping, seasoning and cooking, B2B lead generation is a long-term process of building relationships, maximizing opportunities and learning as you go along. With these 10 ingredients, your lead generation and appointment setting calls will be more likely to achieve success.About Al Davidson
Al Davidson is the President and owner of Strategic Sales & Marketing (SSM), which he founded in 1989. Under Al's direction SSM has designed and implemented new business development plans and programs for thousands of B2B companies nationwide. Since their inception SSM's calling center has completed over 50 million new business sales presentations to high level decision makers and generated over 7 million sales leads. As a result, SSM has developed major account development expertise in the high technology, manufacturing and business service sectors.
In addition Al Davidson has 25 years experience in business-to-business (B2B) direct marketing, new business development consulting, sales force management, lead management, sales training, and B2B web marketing. SSM also powers the Connecticut Technology Council’s Lead Generation Resource Center (LGRC). The mission of the LGRC is to provide advisory services to CTC members in the following areas; identifying new business opportunities; searching out and qualifying customer prospects and business partners; design, production and implementation of marketing programs and strategies. About SSM - Strategic Sales & Marketing, Inc. Major Account Lead Generation Since 1989
SSM's sales lead generation services are targeted to those clients whose primary focus is selling "complex" B2B products and or services. These types of sales are typically "non commodity" items and may also have one or more of the following characteristics; Decision makers that are typically at the Owner, Director, VP or C level of contact. Sales that require multiple sales calls (typically over a period of months) to close. Selling situations where the prospect may be asked to make a large purchase. Typically our clients are utilizing a "solution sell process" and therefore require leads where prospects have a challenge, problem or issue that needs to be resolved.

Oct. 3: Top Ten Pricing Mistakes even Pros Make.

SLMA Radio host Jim Obermayer interviews Per Sjortor of Atenga to discuss the most amateur mistakes even the most seasoned managers make in pricing their products. While this isn’t a sales lead management topic, Obermayer felt it is too important to miss.
Per Sjortor
Mr. Sjorto’s long term interest in pricing as a key business driver lead to the founding of Atenga. He discovered that what he learned about pricing in business school was not actionable and practical enough to be useful. Having the opportunity to try different approaches to pricing, he concluded that there are specific intellectual properties around pricing that could be developed and that he could build a company around. That company is Atenga
Prior to Atenga, Per had more than 25 years of executive management experience and has founded and built a number of successful, and very profitable, sales and marketing companies in Europe and in the US. Per also co-founded industry association G-SAM and has published a number of articles in industry press. He is also a sought-after speaker at conferences.
About Atenga, Inc.
Atenga, Inc. was incorporated in 2002 and is located in the Los Angeles area. The Company began as a marketing consultancy, helping European and Asian companies establish markets in the United States. In that capacity, the founder discovered that European companies often took a much more disciplined approach to pricing than many American companies did, and American companies often relied on gut feel and flawed information to make critical pricing decisions.
In 2004, the founder toured several European companies in several different countries (Holland, Germany, Sweden and others), and documented their pricing methodologies. He re-oriented Atenga to focus strictly on pricing, adapting the European model to the American marketing and management style and customs. In 2010, we expanded our reach with dedicated resources in Europe, South America and Asia.
During 2011, the company got increased insight into the deficiencies of traditional customer satisfaction studies and measurements. Consequently, we developed a process to mitigate these deficiencies and offer clients truly valuable customer and competitor satisfaction measurements. www.atenga.com
Our staff comes with degrees from the best universities in the nation and with multi-year experiences working in senior positions at some of the leading companies in the world, such as American Express, Starbucks and others.