I will never forget hearing the song “Celebration” by one of my favorite bands Kool & the Gang immediately after the Atlanta Braves went from worst to first in 1991 and won the NCLS (yeah, I know, they lost the World Series that year). For you to celebrate in 2014, you need to understand how to calibrate the… Read More
Sometimes when you Throw Peanuts, All you Get is Monkeys
3 Steps to Generating High-Quality Leads For the past six years close to 70% of marketers identified “Generating high-quality leads” as their number one challenge. Sadly, most companies are no closer to overcoming that challenge today than they were in 2008. The problem is that it is a lot more fun to talk about marketing… Read More
The Fallacy of the Absolute
Which of the following are true? Appointments are better than leads. An inbound lead is better than a cold call lead. Sales reps should work every lead marketing sends to them. The check is in the mail. None of the above. The best scams are ones in which the victim doesn’t realize he or she… Read More
The Five Behavioral Stages of the Sales Cycle & One Rep Error
A couple of years ago, we created a lead for a sales rep who lived in Pennsylvania. Our client sold a relatively high-priced software solution and generating quality opportunities for this company’s highly compensated sales force took a lot of work. For this client we did warm transfers of leads, and, before we could even… Read More
The Gap Between Marketing and Sales Impedes Your Lead Process
One very well-known analyst group documents 70 percent or more of leads aren’t being followed up by sales. Another group claims 80 percent of marketing investments are wasted. It would be easy to place blame and point fingers. However, neither marketing nor sales executives are really at fault. The responsibility rests with C-level executives and other… Read More
The Relevant Marketer
“Supplying high quality leads to sales is our biggest challenge, despite our otherwise successful marketing efforts.” (Name withheld to protect the guilty.) Really? To what, then, does marketing attribute its success if sales isn’t getting supplied with high quality leads? Recently, the CMO of a large software company told me that generating leads for sales… Read More
The Top 8 Takeaways from Social Media Guru Paul Gillin’s FIR B2B
I was delighted to be invited as guest #5 on Paul Gillin and Allan Schoenberg’s FIR B2B podcast. The format of FIR B2B is brilliant. Co-hosts Paul and Allan tee up the show by discussing several hot news items relevant to the B2B market – Here’s what they noshed on, on Episode #5: According to… Read More
The Truth about 2014 – 3 Actions to Take NOW!
I wrote the book The Truth About Leads because I wanted to reach senior executives, in companies big and small, with the truth about what is going on in their company and what to do about it. The preface outlines the current state of affairs in many, if not most, companies: There is no agreement… Read More
Undead, Out Bound, Bloated Data and Dashing Dashboards
It is time to make some predictions for 2013. Over the past couple of months I have been asked by several publications to predict what will happen in marketing and sales in 2013. I started by asking myself two questions: Was there anyone in the sales and/or marketing world that a year ago that accurately… Read More
Why Less is More
The Case for Sending Sales Fewer, More Qualified Leads—and Why it Takes C-Level Involvement to Make it Happen Ask the sales reps you know which they’d rather have, more leads or better leads, and the answer is the same. They’ll tell you they’d rather have two sales-qualified leads than 100 raw unfiltered ones. Alas, sales… Read More
Why Your Sales Force Needs Fewer Leads
Contrary to popular belief, sales reps don’t need more leads. They need fewer leads—or more accurately, fewer raw, unfiltered, unqualified leads. Sales reps need leads that have been carefully qualified, properly and consistently nurtured and appropriately developed, increasing the likelihood of a completed sale. This informative white paper is designed to help you: Learn how… Read More