[Post #2 in the "Other Voices" series, featuring Executive Conversation.] As the title of my blog implies, I approach revenue generation through the framework of “the leads.” I believe that repeatable sales success happens when companies commit to optimizing the entire experience of potential buyers, from the initial awareness to the buying decision. How many times have we seen companies over-invest in one part of [read more...]
Aug 092010
Aug 052010
A slight detour for today’s post. Let’s pay a brief visit to the land of B2C retail fitness, to see if any insights apply to B2B sales and marketing. This post will be the first in a three-part series. One regular “client” of my consulting practice is the Pilates and personal training business my wife Heather and I have owned for the past 3.5 years. [read more...]
Jul 282010
I’ve always had the idea that the “Lord of the Leads” concept was about mastery of a process; specifically the process of generating and managing “the leads.” But successful practictioners of marketing and sales arts understand that real mastery depends on integrating an incredibly diverse range of expertise — strategy, financial, product, creative, technical, analytical, operational — into a compelling buying experience for customers. A marketing leader, in particular, must be highly skilled at eliciting and synthesizing high-value contributions from experts in all of these areas.
Jul 152010
Regular readers of this blog, and people who have worked with me, know that I’m a proponent of a process-oriented, metrics-based, and technology-enabled approach to demand generation. And I typically encourage B2B vendors to take the long view in developing their demand generation funnel, treating it like a high-value business operating inside their business. I believe that a well-designed demand generation system shamelessly imitates the [read more...]
If you plan to nurture leads at any kind of scale, you will at some point implement (if you haven’t already) a marketing automation solution or service. Once you do that, you will have a very powerful weapon in your hand. And even a skilled user of these platforms can do unintended harm if not guided by principles of an ideal customer experience, informed by a solid understanding of your nurture leads.
There are several ways lead nurturing can drive performance gains in your sales and marketing function. I’ll provide a few examples below as oversimplified and linear “cause -> effect” cases, with the obvious caveat that, in practice, there’s a fair amount of interplay between these causes and effects.
Over the course of my career, as I’ve participated in numerous sales presentations from both the buy and sell sides, I’ve often been reminded about how there’s no substitute for the fundamentals. And in sales, like in sports, fundamentals are unfortunately most noticeable when they are not being followed.
Apr 142010
These “long-tail” strings seem to indicate that my content is attracting a well-targeted audience, at least through keyword search. If that audience includes you, I hope you find the content helpful, and I welcome your feedback!
Mar 252010
For anyone who is just starting to spend their company’s money buying demand, this list is a very handy set of lessons learned from people who’ve seen — and yes, sometimes have been the cause of — 90% of the misfires you can expect to encounter.
Mar 232010
There’s a good conversation going on over at Focus.com about whether the sales concept of BANT — Budget Authority Need Timeframe — is no longer valid in light of how the modern B2B buying process works. The question has been asked: “Is BANT dead?”
I commented on the post, and as part of my continuous effort to drive my own personal “return on contribution” I’ve re-published my answer to the question in this space. But there are lots of great expert opinions from B2B marketing thought leaders in the original post, so hop on over and have a look!
Follow The Lord of the Leads