Yes, that headline is shocking. What business leader would hand a whopping 80% of their revenue to competitors? Obviously the answer is no one, yet that is precisely what many companies are doing today.
Ask yourself this simple question. “In my company, the persons responsible for sales pipeline development is _____________”
If your answer is “Sales,” you just gave away 80% or more of your business!
Think about it… Your salespeople are working the phones and emails, hustling to find business. But in a slumping economy and a changed world, this is a losing game.
How do we know this? MarketingSherpa did an exhaustive survey of B2B sellers and buyers a short time ago. I urge you to purchase the full Lead Generation Handbook, but for this exercise, you can simply download the free Executive Summary.
2007 Study on Who found Who. More shocking in 2009.
As you can see from this chart, the overwhelming majority of decision makers and contributors said “We found the vendor.” This is shocking, compelling and a great opportunity for visionary CEOs. This means that instead of focusing on cracking the whip with salespeople, you have to set up your business to be easy to find when prospective customers are ready to buy. This means search marketing, landing pages, blogs, press releases, viral tools and much more.
If you are looking for a company that gets Inbound Marketing, I suggest you check 0ut HubSpot.
For companies looking for best practices in b2b lead generation who wish to improve the way they acquire new customers, Find New Customers is the place to go. CSO Insights says companies need to improve the way they generate leads and implement processes for business to business lead generation.
Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is a demand generation expert and sales leader, as well as the President of Find New Customers, a lead generation company, who helps businesses create lead generation campaigns and continually publishes the best lead generation ideas, so his readers can determine the best lead generation strategy to find new customers. He can be reached at (516) 284-4930 or mailto:[email protected].
Google+
Jeff Ogden
Part of what needs to be addressed to capitalize on this beautifully spied gap is have all your people step into a completely fresh perspective on sales and how they can enjoy being part of the process… Yes this is a plug, as creating new perspectives is what I do for people!
So true. Granted, my company does outbound telemarketing, but I am happy to say that we generate the majority of our business in the same manner we do campaigns for our clients. Well directed cold calling in king.