B2B Sales Pipeline

I just saw this statement from Marketing Sherpa regarding their B2B Summit, and I felt compelled to point it out.

…Jackie Kiley of Sybase advised everyone to *never* put suspects, inquiries, or unqualified leads into the salesforce.com system (or whatever salesforce.com wanna-be you’re using.)Fact is, the minute names hit SalesForce they hit the laps of your sales reps who then are judged on performance from then on. If you put anything in the system that a rep probably can’t close, then they look bad, they waste invaluable time, and soon they begin to distrust *all* the leads you give them.

Once sales doesn’t trust your leads, you’re completely sunk. Time to look for a new job.

Let that settle in for a second. 

If Marketing floods Sales with a list of 100 Names, how can we be expected to find the estimated 20% of those names who are actual “Sales Ready” prospects.

Marketers - A couple of items in the above statement that I would point out and Translate:

1.  *Never* put suspects, inquiries, or unqualified leads into the salesforce.com system - TRANSLATION- If they just filled out a registration form for a general whitepaper…they probably aren’t yet a lead.   Lead Qual, anyone?

2.  If you put anything in the system that a rep probably can’t close, then they look bad, they waste invaluable time - TRANSLATION - Nurture them in the Marketing Pipeline, and only pass those who show buying signals to your sales team.  Sacrifice Quantity for Quality.

3.  …Your sales reps who then are judged on performance - TRANSLATION - Quota carrying sales people have to close deals today….You should consider the following when determining what constitutes a “Lead” (Thanks to Jame Ervin for the definition):

• Is this person someone who wants to buy something? - If Yes, proceed
• Does this person have approval to buy something? - If Yes, Proceed
• Will they will buy your product, or one like yours soon (and let me note that “Soon” differs from industry to industry)?  If Yes - Congratulations…You’re the proud owner of a “Lead” that you should pass over to your sales team.
  

Like the faithful salespeople at your organization, I was working a few evenings ago, when I integrated the Google Apps into Pardot’s Salesforce.com instance.  These free tools are pretty cool add ons to SFDC.  After I integrated Google Docs, and Gmail, I started thinking…what other cool things are available for my CRM?

For you CRM administrators, take the time to look at the native eco-systems available for your Salesforce Automation Tool. 

Salesforce.com  AppExchange- http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/

Tons of free tools, dashboards, and interesting widgets such as the Google Apps.  There are a couple of Dashboards that are awesome.  Most of the apps can be tested within your instance of Salesforce, enabling you to Try it before you Buy it.

NOTE - Salesforce enables AppExchange partners to integrate (for free) with their Professional Tier of service, which opens these solutions to many more customers (e.g., API Access is required to integrate third party applications - This is normally included only with their Enterprise tier of service)

NetSuite SuiteFlex- http://www.netsuite.com/portal/partners/applications.shtml

Not as many tools as Salesforce, however NetSuite does a great job of categorizing these applications to fit your organization’s needs / pain points.  Based upon the names I see out there, there are some very widely distributed packages (LivePerson, Epiphany and Five9) which are noted to be quite powerful. 

SugarCRM SugarExchange - http://www.sugarexchange.com/

Tools for the Open Source community.  If you haven’t heard of this powerful Open Source CRM system, check it out.  It’s powerful (full disclosure - I love SugarCRM), and has a growing eco-system of tools that extend the power of this terrific application. 

I’ve had several conversations this week with Sales Managers who lament that, although their reps are utilizing the CRM, they aren’t mandating that the data be clean,, which really shortchanges themselves in the form of implementing automation.  2 places where cleanliness can show immediate dividends is in your CRM’s E-mail and Assigned Rep fields.

E-mail: Although you may not have the customer name spelling right, and multiple people can have the same name (yes Bill Smith…I’m talking to you), e-mail accounts are always unique.  Even if it is a free account provider, they enforce a 6 month waiting period before another person can get kewl_guy7@hotmail.com (Yes Bill - I’m still talking to you).  Ensuring that you have the e-mail address, and that it is unique allows you to nurture your prospects via e-mails, newsletters, press releases, etc….  Also, many third party marketing systems (Bulk E-mail Marketing, Marketing Automation) will attempt to put information into your CRM, and the most logical key to utilize to synchronize that data is the e-mail address field.

Assigned Rep:  When you are automatically nurturing prospects via e-mail correspondence, the best way to make it APPEAR as being individualized is to have it originate from the assigned sales rep, which is information contained in the CRM system.  Although getting an automated e-mail from your sales rep can appear sincere, getting an e-mail from the guy who hasn’t worked for the company in 6 months looks disengenuious.  And what if the message resonates with the person and they respond to the old rep’s account???  Does that address bounce?  You just lost a prospect.  (AUTHOR’S NOTE:  Most CRM systems allow for the bulk update of Account Rep, so if it isn’t right, it’s easy enough to fix)

De-duping the e-mail address field, and keeping the assigned sales representative field up to date can open a world of 1-to-1 “lights out” e-mail marketing, which is personalized, inexpensive, and can be highly effective as a sales and marketing tool.

Have a Great Weekend Everybody !

Sales Professionals - I’d like to take a moment to get up on my soap box and talk to you about KILLING the effectiveness of your Sales-Hunters. Hate effectiveness? Here are a couple of things you can ask your sales reps to do to stop them from doing that whole “Selling” thing:

1. Data Entry - You ask your hunter to find deals and close them, however you apparently also ask her to sharpen her typing skills. Leads from your friends in the marketing department should be already entered into the CRM, with any supporting information related to that opportunity. Almost every marketing automation and e-mail marketing solution provide the ability to take a lead generated by Marketing and convert that information, along with all background data, and create that as a Lead within your CRM. And don’t get me started on Landing Page / Request More Information form on your website that creates an e-mail and sends it to your sales professional…There are a variety of marketing tools available which can capture form data and enter it into the Marketing or Sales CRM system without the rep having to copy / paste from an e-mail.

2. Composing and Sending E-mails - Marketers already have a message they are trying to convey about the organization’s products and services. Quickest way to water down this message - let the sales professional distill that information into an e-mail based upon her understanding. A couple of bullet points about e-mail:

• Templates are Key - Don’t hope that your sales team understands what needs to be said, provide them templates of the key components which can be customized to meet the needs of that particular customer. The positive effect is twofold: (1) The message is consistent and (2) the sales rep isn’t wasting time typing out the corporate message over and over and over and over…..
• Automate the Process - Marketing Automation (Prospect Nurturing, e-mail marketing) systems and most CRMs support the sending of automatic e-mails to prospects. Sending them automatically basically “sales proofs” the process, and utilization of the automatic features of many systems automatically enters the information into the CRM, preventing excessive copy / paste functions just to have a comprehensive customer history.

3. Calling Blind - Let me qualify that sometimes too much information leads to brain freeze where the sales professional overthinks things (reference “Sales Proofing” above), however Marketing Automation / E-mail Marketing solutions capture open rates, as well as clicking of tracked links within correspondence, and many solutions offer visitor tracking for your website / microsite. Using this information can differentiate between a customer who has responded to your message, and one who said “Send me an E-mail” just to get off the phone with you.

Keep your hunters productive by cutting out repetitive tasks and providing some clarity as to the customers who have an interest in your offerings.

I’ve always heard the term “Silver Bullet” but never took the time to research it to learn the origin of this term. Thanks to Wikipedia for this definition:

“The metaphor of the silver bullet applies to any straightforward solution perceived to have extreme effectiveness. The phrase typically appears with an expectation that some new technology or practice will easily cure a major prevailing problem.”

Let me provide a slightly revised definition from Derek-i-Pedia:

“Holy Cow. We’ve got a HUGE problem and no idea what do do about it. Since we’ve already changed our logo, and reorganization is out of the question, let’s throw technology at the angry looking 7,000 lb. gorilla in the corner.”

Sales organizations are notorious for attempting to cure low productivity or poor win rates with technology. I just read an article in the DemandGen report which indicates that 79% of “Best in Class” organizations were using or planning to use sales analytics technologies.

These organizations will likely spend lots of money, to get a system that will take months to be implemented, which may not be adopted by the sales organization anyway. Doesn’t sound like a Silver Bullet to me.

Here’s a couple of suggestions regarding technology for sales:

1. Think Small - Need a new CRM? Organizations like SalesForce have gotten it right by providing an on-demand solution with an attainable price point for you to use and evaluate for effectiveness. Paying a nominal monthly fee for a new technology makes more sense than breaking the bank for a solution which looks great in demos, but may never work that way because of your organization’s business processes. The new world of Software as a Service (SaaS) allows you to test drive, evaluate and terminate, all for much less than the price of a purchase.

2. Think Process - No technology will magically fix the shortcomings in your sales organizations. Web Marketing Automation and Sales Force Automation tools are useless without implementing processes driven by best practices. Thinking about scoring a prospect’s activities on your website? What interaction is worth more points - visiting the pricing page (shows intent) or the careers page (shows intent to call HR for a new job)?

3. Think Realistic - The best technology isn’t going to cover up a broken system or process. Identify specific goals that you hope technology will help you resolve (e.g., Utilizing Landing Pages for my Pay Per Click advertising will improve my conversion rate by X %, or using Web Marketing Automation will allow my reps to engage X number of new clients per week because they can focus on selling rather than educating customers).

If you’re looking for technology, put the processes in place to help that technology be successful.

If you’re looking for a Silver Bullet, good luck killing that werewolf.