b2bsalespipeline

The social-sphere is a critical component of any B2B sales team’s lead generation arsenal, however social norms can be difficult to determine. To that point, I’ve included some pointers to help sales drive maximum value from this relatively new channel.

1. Listen - It’s critical to know what’s going on in the social sphere, and Twitter is the most timely of all the social channels. In order to capture key information in real time, you can leverage tools like Twitter’s TweetDeck to constantly scour Twitter to provide feedback for terms like:

• Your company name (Does anyone have feedback on Company A’s widget)
• Industry keywords  (I’m considering using Marketing Automation)
• Your competitors (Competitor X’s system is down…again).

2. Connect - If prospects are talking about your space / product / competitors on Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, etc…, it makes sense to connect with them. I’ve always felt like following the prospect on Twitter is extremely effective in providing another touchpoint, however I personally (and please feel free to disagree) don’t feel it’s appropriate to connect to someone on LinkedIn unless you truly are a colleague, friend or went to school with them (As of the time of this post, LinkedIn doesn’t provide a “I’m a sales rep mercilessly stalking this prospect” radio button option for “how do you know this person” in LinkedIn). If you have visibility into their Facebook profile (which Pardot provides as part of our “Social Insight” package), it’s never appropriate to friend request (or poke) the prospect on their personal Facebook page.

3. Understand - Almost all social media outlets allow the user to tell you a little about themselves. Does their Twitter bio identify that they are an avid golfer, poker player, PTA member, Florida State graduate (like your’s truly) – Use this information to better understand the prospect and build rapport.

4. Participate - This is the toughest part of the social world. It’s important to contribute to the conversation and not be a troll. If you respond to a LinkedIn discussion, don’t say something meaningless (“I agree”) or go into a product pitch (“Our product provides X”), but rather add something of value.  AUTHOR’S NOTE:  Even though I know this isn’t what most social media experts perceive as being the right move – Once I’ve reached out via their preferred channel (e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn Groups, etc…) I generally find that connecting via traditional methods (e.g., phone, email) is a much better way to communicate because those tools are still the de facto communication platforms in today’s enterprise and because traditional channels don’t limit your ability to communicate (e.g., they have to be following you to DM, 140 character limit, etc…).

Using these 4 simple steps can help sales professional drive both leads and prospect engagement by leveraging social media.

Every sales manager loves numbers. “You’ll need a 3x (or 4x) pipeline to make your number, or a 12% connect ratio, or a 6 demo to 2 opportunity ratio.”

Since I’m responsible for a professional sales organization rather than a call center, we review output levels (e.g., call volume) but we look at it in the context of more desirable traits:

1. Successful Connections – We ask our sales team at Pardot to have a 45:6 ratio – 45 meaningful conversations during a week and 6 product demonstrations to qualified prospects. If you break it down, I’m only asking our team to have one meaningful conversation per hour over a week, however you’d be surprised how difficult that can be, since our ideal clients are marketers, who are under siege by vendors ranging from SEO advisors to social media strategists.
2. Demonstrations Scheduled / Completed / Missed  - The obvious goal of making connections is to schedule (and complete) demonstrations.  We track the number scheduled vs. completed vs. missed because it allows us to know if the rep is (a) giving a compelling value proposition to get the demonstration scheduled and (b) making sure that the rep isn’t “arm twisting” the prospect to commit to a time, however the prospect will intentionally miss the demo.
3. Opportunity Conversion – Since our sales reps are adept at “cold to close” selling, we don’t spend a great amount of time looking at the specific breakdown of activity types (from above) and focus more on a key item – Number of opportunities created during a given week. This truly is the one metric where we can gauge rep productivity. It doesn’t matter if the rep had 10 demonstrations, if she didn’t convert at least 30% of the demonstrations into opportunities in the CRM, we know that something is awry.

• Under 30% conversion rates are a combination of (a) poor targeting, (b) not showing value, or (c) not asking qualifying questions to get 2 of the 4 BANT criteria.
• Over 30% conversion rates make me ask – “Why the heck aren’t you talking to more people”
• Around 50% conversion rates make me suspicious because it’s likely that the rep is attempting to game the system by doing what I want (e.g., creating opportunities) but not having truly qualified opportunities.

In order to review and capture these items, you’ll have to Standardize Your Input – We created a “Task Action” field on the “Tasks” object within our CRM, and use that to run a report on the ratio of calls where no message was left (which I believe should be one of our highest totals), to conversations (first conversations and follow up conversations) to demonstrations completed (first demonstrations and follow up conversations). By standardizing the input, we can track key trends of our sales people and make sure we are achieving the most desirable outcomes.

So I’m sitting in front of the television, watching #1 UConn v. #4 Pitt, a game billed as “the Game of the Year.”  Although many of you may not know this, your humble author was a small college basketball player.  As a 6’5″ backup post player (I mean waaaaaayyyyy backup), I got the “joy” of practicing every day against our team’s 6’11″, 250 starting center – As the undersized player, I was basically thrown around like a rag doll all practice, every day.

So as I watched the game, I have to tell you that I LOVED the play of Pitt’s Center, Blair.  The undersized Center has  run circles around UConn’s freshman phenom Center, Thabeet.  Blair’s hustle has allowed him to record 22 points and 22 rebounds as of the time of this posting.  Amazing…and as the former smaller (and hustling) player – I love it.

As well as Blair has played against the 7’3″ 260 Thabeet – Imagine how dominating he would if he were being guarded by a 6′ UConn guard.  To Quote IceCube, I feel confident he’d “mess around and get a triple double,” due in large part to how well he utilizes his size and skill near the rim.

So how does this relate to Sales?  Aaron Ross, author of Build a Sales Machine, known as the architect of the Salesforce Sales machine suggests that Sales teams should specialize and Break into a 2-tiered sales structure .  Just like having a Pointguard defending a Center, or a Post Player dribbling the ball up the court, the success rate could be dramatically improved by letting your players (AKA “Your Sales Team”) play to their strengths and hone specialty skills.

You should read Aaron’s Post, but the Reader’s Digest version is this – Don’t weigh down your Rainmaker with prospecting – He is a Closer (and according to Glengarry Glenn Ross – He gets coffee) – So feed him great leads – which he will Close.

Simple Right?  To use a basketball analogy – Give him an Assist, which he will finish strong.

The person dishing the ball to the Rainmaker?  Lead Qualification / Prospecting staff (Aaron suggests splitting these into 2 positions, however we use the same person for both) – Think of this as your pointguard, who has amazing shooting prowess.  This person (or People) will find the good prospects (outbound) and qualify early stage prospects (inbound who do not show buying signals such as completing the “Contact Me”, “Test Drive” or accumulating 100 points in their first visit to Pardot’s Website) to ensure that they meet at least 2 of the 4 BANT criteria.  These good prospects are “Dished” to your  Rainmaker who will 2-Hand Windmill Jam the deal.

As I finish this post – Pitt knocks off #1 due in large part to Blair’s an amazingly specialized skill set.