In a recent report by B2B Marketing Today, respondents said their two top priorities for lead generation were "Reaching the right decision makers" (46%) and "Improving lead quality" (43%).

When I read those statistics in The New Formula for Generating High Quality Leads in 2011, I just thought, "Duh?"

And whilst there's some interesting stuff in the white paper, the shock headline that improving lead quality is about "Quality over Quantity" just made me wonder why that was such a revelation?

Maybe it's because it's something that I've been banging on about for such a long time (see my post from 12 months ago as an example, Lead generation is the engine... sales is where the rubber meets the road) that I find it so surprising that this should be anything other than obvious.

After all, targeting and qualification are not exactly anything new in terms of lead generation.

The reality is that B2B marketing has been focused on the growth of online and it's ability to produce tons of leads at a lower cost-per-lead than more traditional channels.

And, if you think that this is something that been building over the last 3-4 years in B2B channels, then it's not surprising that the emphasis has been on getting systems set-up, generating traffic and getting leads.

But there's definitely been a trend over the last 12 months or so to focus on lead scoring, lead quality, etc.

I suspect that fingers are now being pointed at most marketing departments. And, if quality is on the agenda then sales are doing the pointing.

Lead quality and qualification sits between marketing and sales. It's the interface where leads are handed over (and handed back).

Once you've been through the loop of generating leads, qualifying them and tracking through to conversion you always start looking at lead quality. Which inevitably comes down to targeting, qualification and timing.

And one thing is for sure, when you do this the quantity of leads will always significantly decrease.

Labels: b2b lead generation, lead qualification, lead quality

Another day, another acronym for qualified leads, eh?

This time it's the guys at RainToday, in their post No Budget, No Problem: The New Definition of a Qualified Sale.

They have come up with FAINT, which stands for:

Funds, Authority, Interest, Need, Timing.

It's a variation of BANT but, as you'll read in their article, they propose that asking about Budget kills a lead which could still be a genuine sales opportunity.

They have a valid point regarding asking about Budget but, in the end, I think it's the difference between qualification for leads and for sales opportunities.

You see, budgets are set for known categories of product and services. Plus budgets are the domain of mid-level managers. If you're in that game, understanding whether there's a budget in place can be useful and saves a lot of wasted time.

However, if you've got a new proposition for something that they don't already buy, or something that they have covered in a different way then it's no use talking about budget related to your specific offering.

In most situations like this, prospects will need to build a business case to invest in your solution. They need to find budget. If they want it enough and are senior enough - they will get the money.

"Authority" is a better way to qualify in this instance, backed up with some questions around their particular circumstances to uncover a real "Need".

From a lead generation perspective, Budget and Money are both areas that are best qualified more deeply as part of the sales process, which is when you're actually sat in front of them.

Labels: appointment setting, lead qualification, sales lead generation

A key aspect of any lead generation or prospect marketing campaign is to determine who you are targeting.

The "buying circle" for every client proposition is different and, even within similar categories of products and services, different clients will target different influencers and decision makers.

The term "buying circle" refers to the group of individuals who are involved in the buying decision. Generally, buying circles become more complex for bigger ticket sales or for new product or service categories.

For low-value transactional sales there may be just one decision maker. For more complex product offerings there are likely to be numerous people involved at different stages, from specifying requirements, the vendor selection process, through to building the internal business case and getting it signed off.

And, whilst it's true that the higher up the food chain you are the better, it doesn't always follow that your best entry point to an opportunity is the top of the tree.

To many in sales this may seem like heresy; I grew up on "power-base selling" and "selling to the top" as well as scoring leads on BANT and MAN.

And, it is indeed true that you need get access to the top fast within any opportunity to gain influence, but that's not the same as starting at the top.

In very large organisations the reality is that you may have to start somewhere else. Perhaps with a key influencer or someone who is aware of a need within the organisation.

The important thing to to be aware of where they are within the buying circle and therefore how to handle them.

Here's an example:

Let's say that you sell a specific product or service that isn't an existing category for the prospect. By that I mean that they haven't bought it before from anyone so are unlikely to have incumbent suppliers and processes in place to procure the service.

You know there are a number of individuals who will be involved in the buying circle, from a senior executive who will sign-off a deal, through to individuals who are involved in the decision making process but do not wield huge influence (such as a user, perhaps). (When is comes to users they are more important later on in the sales process as, whilst they may not be able to say "yes" they can definitely say "no")

Of course, reaching the most senior decision maker may be ideal but it presents a number of challenges.

Firstly, access gets more restricted the higher you go, along with the amount of time you have to get their attention. Secondly, they are unlikely to respond to anything that doesn't address their key strategic issues.

In some cases you really do need to engage at this level, so be prepared to invest all your time in "thinking" about your approach before anyone attempts to reach out to them. A well thought out research pieces can be a good approach in this space.

At this level you spend more to get less results in return but the rewards can be far greater.

Below the rarefied atmosphere of the top you have a raft of middle managers and departmental heads who can be far more accessible. They are more likely to respond to a more tactical pitch that relates to their specific business mandate. However, they usually don't respond unless there is an identified need. Blue-sky thinking doesn't get much traction at this level.

The combination of better access and more immediate need can be very effective in getting prospects into the pipeline; you just need to have a clear game plan of how you will get to the top through them.

These are the deals that will stall most often. As long as you are aware of this and have a strong sales process to move them forward or drop them down to lower-cost lead nurturing activities then they are still worth pursuing.

Of course, these things are never an either/or situation.

I believe that it's best to invest some high-cost resource building relationships at the top, possibly through events, round-tables, etc and use lower costs resources, such as telemarketing, email and online demand generation tactics to find entry points lower down the pyramid.

You'll find that these tactics will yield bread and butter prospects where you have a high conversion track record and strong credentials.

Labels: demand generation, lead qualification, prospect marketing

I read a recent article featured on DemandGen Report, Four Keys to Converting Stalled Leads into Closed Sales During A Downturn, which looks at approaches you can take to recycle "dead" leads and convert more of those stalled deals.

As Dave Green says in his article, "the slowdown in the economy has created longer selling cycles and smaller deal sizes", which is something I certainly agree with.

Dave suggests that one way to recycle those dead or stalled deals is to run a professional telemarketing campaign to understand what the problem is. This could be done as a market research project and the resulting information can be used to offer incentives that address the problems of delay.

This is an excellent way of re-engaging with leads that the sales team have lost traction with. In my experience, sales will too easily write off deals which, with a different approach, can be possibly brought back to life.

Telemarketing can be used either to re-engage or, at the very least, further qualify whether the opportunity can indeed be salvaged.

I also like Dave's comment that "no matter how sophisticated the automated nurturing process is, there is no substitute for human interaction."

It's good to hear that coming from a well respected demand generation guru.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, demand generation, lead qualification, sales lead generation, telemarketing lead generation

Back in 2006 I posted a blog on Ecademy called "The Meetings Game": Some truths about B2B Appointment Setting.

I was talking about many of the appointment setting agencies, mainly operating on a pay-per-appointment basis, who are simply "meeting machines". You know, the kind of boiler room operation that squeezes out a supposedly high-level 15 minute meeting just to hit their targets.

If you've ever been sent half-way across the country to find yourself sitting across the desk from someone who's equally confused why you're there - you know what I mean.

My post struck a chord back then and is just as relevant today.

So, the question to ask is - just what is a "qualified" appointment?

Of course, it means something different for each client.

When we start an appointment setting campaign we invest time understanding exactly what "qualified" means to our clients. To answer that question we really need to understand their sales process.

What's that? Sales process? Surely our job is to book the appointments and let them worry about the rest, isn't it?

The reality is that unless your marketing and sales processes are clearly linked (and the initial sales appointment is pretty much the interface) then you are asking for trouble.

Think of it like this:

There are plenty of acronyms used for qualification; in the sales old-school everyone is taught MAN (Money Authority Need) - "you need to find the MAN".

We prefer to use AIM-T, which stands for Authority, Interest, Money, Timescale (think of Aiming at the Target). We use this because it actually follows the appointment qualification process.

That is, before we call someone we've usually pre-qualified (by targeted data sourcing) the authority level; when we engage with the prospect by phone we start the process of developing and qualifying their interest and, particularly in B2B sales, Money and Timescale can be partly qualified by phone but is usually best qualified as part of the sales process.

On this latter point, whilst it is possible to qualify some aspects surrounding Money, usually by asking questions that uncover whether the prospect is likely to be able to build a business case for your product or service (again this can often be filtered through data-sourcing) we believe that gauging budget and timescales is best kept within the sales process.

So, when is comes to qualified appointments, we need to understand (and sometimes educate our clients) about how they are going to qualify opportunities in the sales process to inform our level of qualification when setting appointments.

Let's look at an example: Say you're selling a high-end B2B product or service, such as a consulting offering or software proposition, with a typical long sales cycle. Whilst, it's true, we will occasionally call a hot prospect who's ready "right now", it's usually the case that they have some lower level of interest.

More often their level of interest will be very early stage and this is one of the great things about telemarketing. At that early stage they are aware of a need but they usually haven't acted on it (which means they haven't called in the competition yet).

The question is, at what point is their interest level high enough for us to set an appointment with them?

If our clients have a solid sales process in place then we may book an appointment with a prospect with the right level of authority and is willing to "take the meeting". Taking a prospect from this mild level of interest to closing a deal takes effort and skill but the rewards are that you're often not competing with other vendors (or at least you have the opportunity to influence a RFP and develop a relationship with the prospect).

Alternatively, if a client has less of a established sales process (or perhaps they are just extremely busy) then we take on the process of further qualifying and nurturing the lead until it's ready to book.

To do this we have to invest in clearly understanding our clients' business and proposition.

It can be a fine line and quite subjective, but that's why our people are so experienced at booking qualified appointments.

Labels: appointment setting, lead qualification