The document discusses best practices for managing inbound marketing leads. It recommends having a dedicated sales development function to qualify leads before passing them to sales. Key metrics to track include lead conversion rates and the pipeline to close rate. It also stresses the importance of executive commitment, using common terminology between marketing and sales, and leveraging CRM systems effectively.

1. Leveraging Tele-Sales For Marketing Part I: Inbound Lead Management Best Practices Aaron Ross www,ColdCalling2.com [email_address] Never waste a lead

2. Experience

3. Plenty of leads, but then what? Contacting and converting your leads? Leads never get called, or get only a token effort? Collaboration with sales? Here’s you right now

4. When we’re done.

5. The problem: 80% of the time, lead management (processing & qualifying leads coming inbound to your company) is the best place to quickly increase pipeline and marketing ROI

6. Three Too-Common Bottlenecks Diluted ownership of the marketing-to-sales “baton pass” Who owns the qualified pipeline metric? Under-investment in “Sales Development” Dedicated inbound lead qualification function It’s less sexy than marketing budget or quota-carrying heads Tasking the same reps to both qualify inbound leads and attempt outbound prospecting Oil and water

7. Waste of Energy GARBAGE

8. How Do You Stack Up? Best in class 30% 30% 90 Average 20% 20% 40 Underperforming 10% 10% 10 Do you know? ? ? ? Lead-to-Oppty Conversion Rate Pipeline- to-Close Win Rate Of 1000 leads, # that close

9. Treat salespeople as internal customers Fewer, better leads = more revenue & higher ROI Build a “Lead Management Machine” Common language and metrics with sales A dedicated sales development function Well-designed tools and processes CRM best practices Commitment Executive understanding & support Pick one thing to start with and DO IT (4. And a back-of-deck bonus) 3 Takeaways

10. Panning for gold

11. … With a colander?

12. It’s more like this “ 80% of marketing efforts to generate leads are wasted and ignored by sales“ -Aberdeen "A majority of sales leads are wasted every day, and 69% of sales leads receive no follow-up at all” - Brain Carroll

13. How can you plug the holes?

14. Salespeople

15. Salespersons’ shoes Salespeople constantly prioritizing They will call current customers before suspect leads 80/20 rule: If less than 20% of the leads are ‘highly productive’ right away, they might de-prioritize that entire source of leads It’s not the # of leads, it’s the average quality that is critical

16. Simplicity The better the average quality across all leads given to sales… The easier it is to follow up on leads… The more sales will follow up & close … The higher your marketing ROI goes Sales: “Don’t Make Me Think”

17. What to do Your choice: A) Get frustrated, or… B) Consider them as customers How can you deliver gifts that sales is consistently excited to open?

18. Do “less”, Qualify more Give quality, not quantity – less is more! If you don’t have one, create a sales development role If you have a sales development role, improve it’s qualification criteria and process Train (and train, and train…) salespeople on your CRM system and lead processes

19. Best practices

20. Taxonomy Everyone uses different terms…here is how we use some: Lead A suspect who registered on your website (or responded to a marketing campaign), but has not yet been qualified Opportunity After a lead is qualified, it is an active sales opportunity Sales Development A function that bridges marketing and sales. Sales Development’s core purpose is to process inbound leads, and route qualified ones to the correct salespeople. Inbound / Inbound lead management the flow of leads coming “inbound” to your website, either because of marketing programs or word-of-mouth. Outbound / outbound prospecting Tele-marketing, cold-calling, prospecting…an inside salesperson is proactively contacting cold or stale accounts

21. Start here Define a common language with sales What’s a “lead”? What’s a “qualified opportunity”? What are each group’s commitments to each other? Create a sales development role to qualify leads Separate “inbound” from “outbound” [!] Estimate one rep per 400 relevant leads/month Excluding junk, wrong markets, duplicates, etc. Comp: 50% monthly goals, 50% on revenue

22. Agree on a few, most important metrics Most Common : Inbound lead volume (leads/month) % of leads converted to qualified opportunities Qualified pipeline generated per month And what is needed per month to hit revenue goals Pipeline-to-close rates Measure these metrics monthly These metrics should also be further sliced by type of lead or market segment

23. CRM best practices (principles) Leverage tools in stages: First do more with your CRM system Then worry about adding in ‘extras’ such as Ringlead, Genius… Avoid perfection! Make it usable and maintainable rather than perfect Use dashboards (across the company) Especially in meetings instead of excel – drive adoption Create one for your CEO “ Adoption boosters” Training, laminated color handouts, contests, donuts… It’s a journey, not a destination

24. Executive commitment Common roadblock : executives with pure enterprise sales backgrounds “ Website leads are a distraction” (a real VP Sales quote) YOU have to believe first! Educate them, relentlessly Dashboards for visibility of issues Results-based analytical tools (see bonus section) Demonstrate before-and-after results

27. The water’s fine. DIVE IN!

28. Treat salespeople as internal customers Fewer, better leads = more revenue & higher ROI Build an “Inbound Lead Machine” Common language and metrics with sales A dedicated sales development function Well-designed tools and processes CRM best practices Commitment Executive understanding & support Pick one thing to start with and DO IT (4. And a back-of-deck bonus) 3 Takeaways

29. Next month: Part II You’ve dramatically improved inbound lead management… … now you want better results from mid-market/enterprise leadgen. How can you leverage tele-sales to break through the clutter and generate more qualified leads?

30. Aaron Ross [email_address] 415-312-2579 www.ColdCalling2.com Design: David Stychno (david@c2llc.com) Thanks to Erythean Martin (erythean@gmail.com) Coming: ColdCalling2.com Thank You

31. Appendix

37. 2. Separate the core functions OUT Account Management Bound Qualification Sales Sales Development Marketing Generated Leads Bound Prospecting IN Qualified Opportunities New Customers

50. Aaron Ross [email_address] 415-312-2579 www.ColdCalling2.com