What makes a good Lead Status?

How do I define my Lead Statuses, Deal Stages, Case Statuses?

It is important when selecting statuses or stages that you think of them as place holders for your leads (not descriptions of) as they progress through your linear sales, processing and/or support processes. For example; a lead status of attempting contact makes sense because it is in a place holder where activities are taking place to establish contact. On the flip side; busy number is not a good status unless you treat busy phone numbers differently than you do any other un-contacted lead.

A simple example: New (never been dialed); Attempting Contact (receiving active contact attempts); Nurture (failed to contact and is now receiving passive contact attempts); Not Interested (spoke with the person and there is no interest); Bad Lead; Investigating (contacted and in the sales process); Closed Won; and Closed Lost.

If you want to track reasons why a lead was not interested, those should be tracked in a sub drop down list which can be accessed for reporting purposes.

These statuses or stages should also have detailed plans on how to progress them into the next status. If in “Attempting Contact”, we will use a power dialer to call 3X per day, send an email every 3 days, a fax every 10 days and leave a recorded voice message every 3 days. If we get a hold of the person, move it into either “Not Interested”, “Investigating” or “Nurture”. If we do not get a hold of it, move it into “Nurture” after 3 weeks.

So we can see Statuses do not describe the lead itself but the stage in which it is residing and the activities that are associated with it.

Sales Funnel or Sales Colander?

Which of these two items resemble your sales process? Frequently sales consultants, vice presidents and managers refer to their process as a “Sales Funnel” when in fact; it more closely resembles a colander. If 100% of your marketing efforts go in the top and only 10% of them come out the bottom, what is it? A “True Funnel” (it is called “True” per this definition of the word: “exactly or accurately shaped, formed, fitted, or placed, as a surface, instrument, or part of a mechanism.”) will capture all of your marketing generated leads, get them in a structured, strategic process (with solid walls and only two holes), focus efforts and increase the velocity with which they pass through the device. Any seepage will take place at the top of the funnel as overflow spills out.

One can’t simply patch the wholes in a colander and call it a funnel. Both are fundamentally different. Just imagine that you have both a colander and a funnel sitting in front of you with a bucket of water. Pour some water in the colander. The water will go straight through with quite a bit spilling through the side walls. Now pour some water in the funnel. You will quickly notice that the water starts to spin in the top of the funnel, gaining momentum and velocity as it enters the smaller neck area and eventually shoots out the bottom in a more refined stream of water. You should also notice that in order to get more water directly out of the bottom of the colander, you need to increase the amount of water that goes in at the top. Not so with the funnel. The funnel itself either needs to be expanded or the speed of the water needs to be increased in order to get more output.

Let’s look at a traditional sales funnel.

You will notice that the leads go in the top and new customers come out the bottom. That is the goal. It is the process of taking an input, interacting with it and getting a completely different output. Naturally there will be some waste in that process, right? The first step in creating our True Funnel is to think of it on a linear level. Define the natural progression from lead to customer. You may include some marketing steps in the process as well if you would like. The True Funnel should include demand generation and other marketing practices.

Now that you have that linear process mapped out, let’s apply some lessons which we have learned from industrialization. The first is specialization. Keep the Sales teams selling. Keep the Marketing teams marketing. How do you bridge the gap? Lead Generation and Lead Qualification teams. Let’s not kid ourselves, sales reps don’t want to become telemarketers. They don’t want to “Smile and Dial”. They don’t want to make more than 30-40 phone dials a day. Which means your leads are not being worked effectively enough. A Lead Gen. or Lead Qual. team can be used to contact new leads within an acceptable time frame and/or continue to attempt contact beyond the standard 3-4 attempts performed by a sales team. Once contacted, that team should simply perform a quick pre-qualification to make sure they are talking to the right person and there is some level of interest, at which point, the lead is sent on to the next station in the assembly line for further fabrication.

The second lesson to be learned is automation.

Look at the picture above. Notice the harmony of man and machine working together to build something wonderful. In an assembly line, machines are often used for repetitive simple tasks, complex precision task, quality assurance, and to report on the status of the line. Technology can be used in similar ways on a sales assembly line. Simple repetitive tasks which can be automated are dialing numbers, leaving voice messages, sending emails, logging activities, scheduling events, and setting reminders. Technology can also be used for precision tasks such as lead capture, lead routing, de-duping, neglected re-routing, immediate response, and campaign strategy.

At a minimum, you should employ some level of analytics for tracking your demand generation activities, a lead response management system for facilitating your response strategies and a customer relationship management solution for managing your pipeline and beyond. It is highly important to have these and other systems communicate or integrate one with another. A key benefit of using technology is oversight and reporting, and if your technologies don’t communicate well, you will lose many key metrics.

Finally we need to address the seepage. If you notice, in a funnel, water that is not ready to leave the bottom stays in a swirling pattern in the top end of the funnel. This is such a perfect metaphor because your leads shouldn’t fall out the sides of your funnel, they should swirl around in the top end until they are ready to slip through the selling end. This is accomplished by nurturing activities. Nurturing activities will take a lead, where its progress is halted, and reinforce it with marketing and educational material. Additional touches by a representative within your organization also help prepare the lead for progression. If these activities are completely automated then the only reason why a lead should ever leave the funnel is if it is disqualified and asked to be removed from any future correspondence at which point it spills out the top of the funnel and stops taking up space.

Difference between Marketing and Sales

Recently I posted a question to several groups on Linked In. The question was simply; "When do you contact your web leads?" I am a member of two types of groups, Demand Generation/Marketing and Sales. The responses were night and day different between the two camps. In the Marketing and Demand Gen groups, the responders often said it was best to wait 24-48 hours. One even said that you should make a goal of calling every web lead within the first four days. On the otherside, the Sales responders all felt that a call should be made immediatly or as quickly as possible.

Here is a quesiton to get you thinking; why would there be a difference (and it was overwhelmingly obvious) between Marketings and Sales approach? I would have thought it would have been the opposite. Maybe Marketers are leaning more towards nurturing a lead and bringing it around slowly where as Sales has a quota and wants to exhaust all resources in the attempts to get the deal.

No real answer, just some points to ponder. Please comment with your thoughts.

New Marketing

I have read, and employed numerous marketing methods over the years for numerous types of business. The one that I have been most impressed with is Educational Marketing. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, Educational Marketing is the idea of providing educational material (such as a study, survey, white paper, etc...) as an industry expert with no strings attached. If you can educate your industry, you will be seen as a thought leader, you will gain the trust of prospects, you will have their attention even when they are not in the market for your product, and you will have a high level of influence when they are in the market for your product. This method is very effective, but it can take a long time to generate quality leads and deals for you and takes a lot of effort in developing rich content for your educational material.

Recently I have been turned on to a new way of marketing. I don't know how new it is but it warrants mentioning on my blog. It is Service Marketing. Service Marketing doesn't just provide information, but it provides a service. There are some key components when creating a service for your company that can act as a lead generator:

• It must relate to your product of service.
• It must be offered, in a limited manner, for free at first.
• It must have value in and of itself.
• It should be offered at a very low price to eliminate any barrier to the prospect doing business with you.

If done successfully, you could end up with a double opt-in buyer lead that has a relationship with your company.

Here is an example:

Call 1- Hi, We have performed an audit on your hold times for customer service. Are you interested in the results?

This is opt in #1

Send results

Call 2- Hi, we did a study on the importance of handling customer service calls in a timely manner. Would you be interested in a copy of that study? I will also attach information on the audit as a service we offer.

This is opt in #2

Send study and brochure talking about the service you provide. The cost should be a no brainer. Much less than what they can hire an $8 per hour high school student to sit on hold and report times back to them.

If they buy, they now have a relationship with you and are a double opt in buyer lead for your real products and services.

If you need some ideas on services you can offer, feel free to email me at troy.bingham@gmail.com.

Lead Response Strategies Introduction

I spend a lot of time speaking with people that have limited or no strategy as to how they contact and qualify their leads. The popular strategy looks like this:

step 1. generate a lead
step 2. send out an email auto responder
step 3. hand it off to a sales rep (could be minutes or hours later)
step 4. sales rep attempts to call (again could be minutes or hours later, or in some cases more than a day)
step 5. call 3-5 more times over the next two weeks.
step 6. send a product oriented email once a month until the prospect tells them to stop.

Some marketing departments employ a nurturing strategy that takes over after the lead is disqualified or never contacted.

Here is the flaw: Most companies are following a lead qualifying and sales process that they created. This is rigidly adhered to and is not flexible based on the prospects buying process.

The solution is a strategy for every scenario you might run into for a prospects buying process and what stage they are at within that process.

The next few posts that I make will be discussing examples of these strategies.

New Age of Communications

My wife and I had a baby last Thursday. He is our third boy. Our oldest is five. As the blessed event took place something really jumped out to me. With our first child, we were on the phone for hours before hand, and hours afterwards. But not this time. This time, my wife updated everyone on her status using her blog before we left for the hospital. After the birth, we sent out a text to everyone in her contact list. We only made a few special calls, but that was it. Our market efforts (baby announcement) were complete with only a few written words. Later in the week, my wife updated the blog with photos and a more detailed description of the day's events. One of the comments on her blog was a cousin that stated she had been returning to her site often waiting for an update.

So how does this apply to Marketing or Lead Response Management? I had a couple of thoughts. First was the method in which we communicate now-a-days. Blogging, texting, podcasts, youtube and other methods are replacing the phone call. If you notice earlier, we only called those that were most important to us. Does that say something about the way your leads, prospects and customers feel. If you fill out a webform and only get an email autoresponder back, do you feel cheated somehow? Like you are not one of those people that are important.

I feel like a phone call (a timely phone call) communicates the value you place on each individual lead. Their efforts of seeking you out are rewarded with your immediate attention to their needs.

Quick Responses

Today, I have been looking for some whitepapers offering statistics on automation, crm successes and other smoking guns for the SAAS world. Naturally I looked for CRM companies that offer whitepapers and other resources. Each one that I found required me to fill out a webform to get the pdf. Of four websites, I have already been contacted by two of them. One of them happened within 5 minutes, the other came about 2.5 hours later.

The first company's approach was a follow up to me visiting the website and downloading a whitepaper. He just asked if there was anything more that I was looking for. Of course I said no. The second, however, approached as though I had already read the whitepaper and wanted to answer any questions about that specific whitepaper. Much more effective. I don't know if they delayed the call on purpose but I was able to engage in a more productive conversation with that second company.

If you are looking for more data on response times with web leads click here

Lead Management

Take a look at your customer base. How many of your customers came to you as a lead (just a name with a phone number and maybe a street address and/or email address). It doesn’t matter if they were a referral, a web lead, a call-in, a walk-in or a neighbor to an uncle’s friend’s cousin’s dog walker; they were at some point a lead.

Now look into your crystal ball. Do you foresee a change in the future, or do you think that all of you future customers will come from leads as well?

Now ask yourself, how many of your customers came from qualified leads. I would hope that it is all of them. If that is not the case, then I am sure you have had your fair share of unhappy customers.

No matter how you get customers, Lead Management is an integral part of your business. A Lead Management Strategy can be the difference from closing golden leads that drift along on the surface of your lead pool and being able to facilitate a journey of discovery that ultimately helps a lead to choose to become a qualified prospect of yours when the timing is right.

A Lead Management Strategy consists of when you contact your leads, how you contact your leads and who contacts your leads. The key to a good, nay a GREAT, Lead Management Strategy is knowing who your leads are. Here are some good questions that can help you develop your strategy.

· Is your lead typically ready to buy today?
· Is your product or service one that requires high level buy in?
· Is your lead actively looking for your product and/or service?
· Are there aspects of your service or product that disqualify certain leads?
· Do you currently have any brand name recognition within your industry?
· Do your leads need to be educated about your offering?
· How many leads do you get?
· Where do your leads come from?
· Do your leads come from lists, real time interest, referrals or other?

The Primary goal of these questions is to determine what your first interaction is going to be, either nurture them (Marketing Team), qualify them (Lead Qualification Team) or sell them (Sales Team).

This is the first step in a Lead Management Strategy. I will be following this article up with articles that discuss Nurturing Strategies, Qualification Strategies, Sales Strategies and ultimately how to create a Lead Response Management Strategy that bridges all three of the above options.

What is a Dynamic List Dialer?

In the world of dialers there are several types to choose from. They range from click-to-call to multi-lined predictive dialers. All vary in some ways but most have one thing in common. They call from a static list. A static list is a list created by a query, then sorted by some field found in the record, such as last name, area code, home value or rating. Once the list is created, it does not change until it is completed.

The problem with this type of list is what happens if a lead comes in that should supersede the rest of the leads in the list. Unless it is manually routed out, that new lead has to wait until the next time the query is run and the list is imported into the dialer. This brings us to a Power Dialer which utilizes a dynamic list builder or dialing initiative. With this type of dialer a set of rules is created as apposed to a query being run. In this rule set, the qualifications of the lead are first determined. One can choose lead source, age, rating, product interest or any other field within the record alone or a combination of qualifications. After the qualifications are set, the administrator then sets the priority level. Typically it is set to call through leads that have been attempted the fewest number of times, followed by the newest leads, then hottest rating and so forth.

The purpose of a dynamic dialing list is that a sales rep will always be calling on the most important lead possible. As a new lead enters the system via a web form, it is automatically scanned by the initiative, the qualifications are matched and it is added to the list at the appropriate place (usually at the top). Also, when the reps are done calling hot leads, the system automatically pulls older leads, that are less of a priority, so the rep always has something to be working on without having to think about it.

If you purchase real time leads for lead vendors or generate your own on your website, don’t settle for static lists any longer. Your leads need to be contacted based on your criteria, not a simple query and sort.

For more information on Power Dialing using a Dynamic List click here

The Power of a Web Form

For years now, web forms have served a very limited purpose, to allow a prospect to enter information in order to get something in return. Times have changed and so has the purpose of web forms. There are three areas that I would like to discuss:

1. Prospect data
2. Hidden data
3. Action triggers

Prospect data is the data that the individual fills out, such as name, phone, address, etc... The more data that you collect the more valuable that lead is, but, you need to make sure that the form itself does not become a deterrent to the prospect. Only require what is necessary for you to perform your activities. Obviously, if you need certain information to produce a quote then require that data but if it is not necessary do not force them to enter it. Also, make their job as easy as possible. Where ever you can, in the form, give them a drop down menu with choices or boxes to check. This will shorten the process and allow you to capture much more information that you would have otherwise.

Hidden data is the data that the form passes through to you that the individual is unaware of, such as website analytics, key words and referring sites. This data is extremely important as you develop and drive traffic to your website and can give you key information to the behavior and activities of your prospects.

Finally, as ASP and SAS become more and more popular and as they integrate more heavily with your website you can use hidden fields to trigger activities within many of the applications. For example, Insidesales.com uses data passed through to its CRM to trigger an immediate dialer call back of a live sales or support rep (during business hours) or a recorded message (after business hours) that puts the sales rep in touch with the prospect immediately after the submit button is pressed. Other triggers include routing leads, sending emails or faxes or scheduling tasks and events in an employee’s calendar and so on.

A business that I have recently worked with has a three step web form. The first is standard personal information, the second is information about health and the final is about spouse and children. The forms populate a quote for insurance at the end. Using web analytics, they were able to identify that 60% of everyone that started filling out the first portion of the form did not complete it. In order to increase conversion, they were able to trigger an automated phone call based on the completion of the first form that offered the support of a client services rep to help complete the form. The prospect need only press one and they would be speaking with someone that could walk them through the rest of the process.

Creative usage of web forms can ultimately deliver superior leads to your sales team as well as a superior experience to your prospects and customers.