How to make your 2012 sales quota (or look for a new job)

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 27, 2011

B2B Lead Generation | How to Find New Customers

Here are a few facts to cause deep concerns (Data from CSO Insights):

(For a related post, check out Why Sales Needs Content Marketing and Marketing Automation.)

Over 9 out 10 companies (95%) raised sales quotas in 2011. They will undoubtedly go up again in 2012. Quota increases are accelerating too.
Out of 10 salespeople, only 6 made quota in 2010. With higher quotas, fewer than 6 will make quota next year - unless something changes.
The economy is a disaster and it looks like it will stay that way for some time. It won’t help you make quota or find a new job. Not only are prospective customers not buying, but salespeople (and sales executives) who lose their jobs are unlikely to be re-hired soon.

The conclusion is clear:

If you want to make quota in 2012, you MUST implement a best-practices demand generation program today.

How? Start with this awesome white paper.

How to Find New Customers was called “the simple guide to B2B demand generation and a must-read.” by the B2B demand generation expert, Craig Rosenberg, also known as The Funnelholic.

How to Find New Customers

It’s 100% free, so why don’t you click the image and download it right now? (We only share your contact info with the sponsor, Marketo.)

We’re fortunate that so many people had nice things to say.

Let’s review them here.

“This How to Find New Customers white paper is GREAT! I’m going to tweet and re-tweet it as much as I can!”

Paige O’Neill, VP of Demand Generation at Aprimo

“I created my company’s entire Go to Market strategy based on How to Find New Customers. You’re exactly right. It’s the right way to find and acquire new customers today.”

Software Company CEO

“So much has been written about demand generation, but How to Find New Customers makes it simple — which makes it a Must Read!”

The Funnelholic

“In my recent Dun and Bradstreet post, I shared some unexpected finds. Jeff Ogden‘s How to Find New Customers white paper is excellent!

FastCompany blogger

“You’ve written a terrific white paper, How to Find New Customers, for our Chief Marketing Officers.”

The CMO Club

“Ogden’s How to Find New Customers white paper is terrific.”

Jeff Gaus, CEO, Prolifiq Software

“It’s a great read. I printed it and gave it to my entire marketing team.”

Chief Marketing Officer, the Hay Group

“Real page-turner. I couldn’t put it down till I finished it.”

CEO, Communications Strategy Group

“Very interesting and common sense based.”

Acxiom Global Marketing

“Loved the white paper (How to Find New Customers) So much great information.”

CEO, Studio 525

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. Why don’t you tell us what you think by entering your comment below? And we appreciate you spreading the word too.

Check out the Full Demand Generation program offering from Find New Customers.

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Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is President of the B2B lead generation consultancy, Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies rapidly grow revenue by transforming how they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers at (516) 495-9350 or by sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

“Find New Customers can certainly help your business dramatically improve the flow of sales-ready leads to salespeople.” Paul Dunay, Buzz Marketing for Technology.

Buying software is easy. Fixing Lead Generation is hard.

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 24, 2011

B2B Lead Generation | Buying stuff is easy - fixing problems is hard.

If you want to make sales quota in 2012, get started today! Right now! Immediately!

SaaS marketing automation products like Marketo, Hubspot, Eloqua and the like are very, very easy to buy. Give them a credit card, they give you a login. Done. The transaction can be completed in minutes.

It’s actually way too easy, I believe. Too many companies believe purchasing software fixes B2B lead generation. It does not.

Fixing your B2B lead generation challenges is a lot like losing weight. Most everyone wants to do it but promises don’t match reality.

Look at this image. “Scientists discover rare weight loss ‘Wonder Herb.‘” That sounds like the sales pitch of software vendors, promising all that ROI the comes from their software. (That ROI is possible - just like weight loss is possible - if done right.)

I’m sure you don’t buy that. You know full well that there’s no “Wonder Herb” in dieting. Dieting is hard and arduous. Watch “The Biggest Loser” to see how hard it is.

Unfortunately, there’s no “Wonder Herb” in B2B lead generation and marketing either.

Want to hear what it’s really like to buy marketing automation? Read an actual user story in Marketing automation—lower your expectations.

The author, Liz McCellan writes “Don’t get me wrong. I think marketing automation is a smart tool to invest in, but I want to give some candid advice about setting the right expectations.” She goes to compare marketing automation to becoming a parent - everyone congratulates you, but you are in for hard work. One recommendation: She urges you to set realistic dates - and then add at least 6 more months.

Liz makes a great point in her article. What does your software purchase do toward fixing your company’s problems with generating quality sales leads? Absolutely nothing! (This is not a knock on products from companies such as Marketo, Eloqua, Silverpop, Neolane, Aprimo, and Pardot. They are all fine products from solid companies.)

The only way to REALLY fix your lead generation challenges is to do a LOT of hard work - the diet and exercise, if you will - which we summarize in these 10 steps.

Are you ready to do what it takes? Then complete these ten steps.

Craft deep buyer personas - a deep understanding of prospective buyers and concerns.
Define your keywords - the words buyers use to search for solutions.
Agree on the common definition of a lead and identify key trigger events which drive decisions. (So sales will get fewer, better leads.)
Map content to the buyer personas and buyer variables (using keywords) (So you can take buyers on a journey and you do well in search)
Fill in the gaps with new content (using keywords) (No gaps in the journey.)
Optimize the website, blog and social media based on keywords (so you rank well in search.)
Design lead nurturing campaigns in a Problem to Solution story-telling format using your content. (Earn trust till they are ready to buy.)
Using the agreed lead definition, agree on the behaviors and demographics that indicate buying propensity (lead scoring). (Remember, we need fewer and better leads for sales.)
Create metrics to measure the effectiveness of your programs. (So we can refine it over time.)
Deploy everything in your new marketing automation software.

Notice that the real use for the software you bought first appears in Step 10?

Unless you are ready to invest in those 10 steps using internal and/or resources like Find New Customers, you will never really fix your problem with sales lead quality.

We invite you to check out the Lead Nurturing and Scoring service from Find New Customers.

What do you think? Is buying software a panacea for fixing real problems in most companies? We love your comments and sharing.

Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is the President of the B2B lead generation consultancy Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the way they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

The Secret to Effective Voice Mail Messages—with Kelley Robertson

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 21, 2011

B2B Demand Generation | Leaving Effective Voice-mail Messages

Good B2B demand generation relies on the phone. Emails are not two-way, so the phone

Kelley Robertson

plays a critical role in uncovering buyer needs and preferences.

This means they leave lots and lots of voice mail messages. Improving the effectiveness of those messages would help a lot. So we want to share this post by a good friend that ran at RainToday. The permalink to the original post is here.

All effective voice mail messages have one thing in common: they focus on a potential problem that the prospect might have. Stay away from talking about you, your company, or your services, stresses Kelley Robertson in this excerpt from his webinar Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals.

For an example of how a big technology company blew this, read this blog post A Terrible Prospecting Email Message. Talking products is a big no-no.

“Most of the messages [that executives receive] focus on the selling company or the seller’s company—there’s no reference to the prospect’s company and potential problems,” Robertson says. “So, focus on the potential problem that your prospect might be experiencing, allude to how you might be able to give them a solution, and keep it really short.” Amen, Kelley.

Master Sales Conversations

Learn more about how to lead effective sales conversations. Watch Kelley Robertson’s webinar Ditch the Sales Pitch: How to Master Sales Conversations and Win More Deals

And before you leave a voice mail, call your own phone and leave it and listen to it. If you wouldn’t answer or return your phone call, the prospect won’t either, he says.

Listen as Robertson provides an example of a good voice mail, discusses the best times to call prospects, and explains how to conduct sales conversations that are not face to face.

Listen to the Recording:

(Time: 11:11)

Download the MP3
(Right click and ‘Save Target As’)

(Note: It is a large file and may take several minutes to download)

We love your comments and respond to every one. We also appreciate you sharing our content on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Delicious, Digg, Tumblr, etc.

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“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

3 Reasons Qlikview is killing Microstrategy

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 20, 2011

B2B Demand Generation | Why an upstart is killing the incumbent

I recently met with Microstrategy and their marketing leadership expressed concerns about a new competitor, Qlikview. I thought it might be helpful if I analyzed the justification for their concerns.

Microstrategy is a big, established player in business intelligence, but lately a company called Qlikview has been growing much, much faster. Why is this happening?

I believe there are 3 reasons why this is happening:

Qlikview has no internal challenges.
Microstrategy has an in-house developed CRM, (no compatibility with other applications), no marketing automation and no content marketing. Building B2B demand generation from scratch is tough. Qlikview had none of those obstacles.
Qlikview has savvy, aggressive marketing leadership.Microstrategy does not. While they have new marketing leadership, not much seems to be happening there.Qlikview won the Marketo Revenue Performance Excellence Award for Global Revenue Performance Excellence. They are also expanding globally very quickly.(Here is the definition of Most Successful Global RPM Execution):Honors an organization with successful Marketo implementations across multiple countries or regions, as well as unprecedented results within those deployments, including increased revenue, marketing ROI, global alignment and overall business impact.)
Qlikview is a modern marketing firm
They are big into B2B demand generation, including social, content marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, etc. Microstrategy is doing none of those to any degree that I can see.

What do you think? Why do you think savvy young companies damage established players so much? We love comments and those who share.

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“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

Why “We’re the Leading Provider of” is NOT!

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 19, 2011

Lead Generation Companies | Why “We’re the leading provider of” is a BIG Mistake

As an experiment, I did a Google search on “Leading Provider of”

Wow! Lots and lots of hits.

Here’s an example:

Olive Software - the leading provider of digital edition & digital …

A click on their website takes me to their “value proposition.” Here’s how they say it.

Olive Software is the leading provider of digital edition and digital archiving solutions for the publishing industry. Our solutions enable newspapers, magazines and other content publishers to cut printing and distribution costs, boost online traffic, and create new markets and revenue streams.

There’s one small problem. It is chest-thumping and prospective buyers hate chest-thumping. It’s a disaster.

Let’s re-write it for them.

Olive Software helps publishers (like newspapers, magazines and other content publishers) to cut printing and distribution costs, boost online traffic, and create new markets and revenue streams using digital technology.

What’s different about my rewrite? It focuses on the prospective buyer and the benefits they get - not what the company sells. Show it to any prospective customer. Betcha they will prefer my version to the company’s version.

Stop chest-thumping and instead focus on the buyer. The operative word is “You.” We want to talk directly to the prospect using simple language and share how they benefit from working with us. (My favorite marketing slogan of all time? “You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.” “George Zimmer, Men’s Wearhouse” - It’s about you - how you will look, and not about clothing.)

What do you think? Do you have other examples to share? We love comments and those who share.

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“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

We’re a small company. We can’t afford B2B demand generation

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 15, 2011

B2B Demand Generation | Limited Budgets

Some companies lack resources to do a soup to nuts program like those offered by Find New Customers. For instance, our Full Demand Generation Program takes 6-8 months and costs many tens of thousands of dollars.

But many companies are just getting started in B2B demand generation. They need a simple and low-cost way to learn.

This is why we offer a very low cost and easy way to get started with B2B demand generation. With our $49 email course.

Demand Generation Training Course

Our popular 18 step Demand Generation Training Program is just $49.

Delivered in a series of emails, this program walks you though setting up your own demand generation program. It’s like having a personal demand generation coach sitting right next to you.

You’ll receive one email per weekday for a month until you’ve completed the program. Just think about it. It’s less than $3 per lesson.

To learn more and sign up, please visit Demand Generation Training Course.

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Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is President of the B2B lead generation consultancy, Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the ways they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or by sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com. Or set a meeting with Jeff by clicking Set a Meeting.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

Panel Discussion: B2B Content Marketing for Marketing Automation

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 14, 2011

B2B Demand Generation | Content Marketing for Marketing Automation

Join me on this webinar at 8am ET tomorrow. The link to sign up is below.

I’m the first to admit I get WAY too many webinar invitations. I ignore 98% of them at least. But when three good friends and people you respect host a webinar, I take notice. I signed up and I hope you will join me.

Why is this important? If you bought marketing automation - e.g. Eloqua, Marketo, Silverpop, Pardot, Act-On, etc. you find it has an insatiable appetite for content. (like the guy in the photo.) Lead nurturing requires a continual flow of compelling (to the recipient) content.

Marketing automation's ravenous appetite for content

Here are the blue ribbon experts and good friends of Find New Customers. (all based in the UK, by the way)

Bob Apollo, Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners
John Sweeney, DemandGen
Doug Kessler of Velocity Partners and author of B2B Content Marketing Workbook. (A transplanted Yankee in London by the way.)

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Find New Customers helps companies (with between 150 and 5,000 employees who sell complex products to businesses) to implement world-class lead generation programs. As companies struggle to create quality sales opportunities, they turn to lead generation companies like Find New Customers.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.

Stop Marketing in the Dark - sponsored by Act-On Software

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 14, 2011

B2B Demand Generation | Stop Marketing in the Dark

Act-On Software hosted a webinar entitled “Stop Marketing in the Dark.” The featured speaker was Jeff Ogden, President of the B2B Lead Generation company, Find New Customers. (@fearlesscomp)

To learn about Jeff, please visit Who is the Fearless Competitor?

Jeff Ogdenfeatured speaker was Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor and President of Find New Customers - the B2B Lead Generation company.

If you missed the live broadcast, Find New Customers created a slick narrated Slideshare presentation, so even if you missed it, you can still tune in. Just play the slide presentation below. And we thank Act-On Software for sponsoring this event.

The key lesson in this event? It takes more than marketing automation software to deliver results in B2B lead generation.

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What do you wish you asked your marketing automation vendor before buying?

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 13, 2011

B2B Lead Generation | 20-20 Hindsight on Marketing Automation

Your Friendly Salesman

Hindsight is 20/20 and buyers of marketing automation software are probably thinking “If I had only known what I know now. Implementing Marketing Automation is hard work.”

Thankfully, our friends at Marketing Automation Software Guide did a survey to ask exactly that question: “What do you wish you asked your marketing automation vendor before buying?”

At the B2B lead generation company Find New Customers, we believe it takes a lot more than software to have success with B2B demand generation. It also takes People and Process. For instance, Lead Nurturing and Scoring relies on Problem to Solution story-telling and great content, as well as well-thought out buying processes.

To read the full article, click on the Permalink.

But we will summarize what they concluded. (Please note that no vendor or customer names are used, as we do not see this as the fault of any single person or company.) Also, please note that Find New Customers shares our thoughts using “FNC comment.”

Questions revolved around four areas:

1. Clarifying Communication around Integration

(FNC comment: Marketing automation needed to “play well” with others. Assuming everything will work as the vendor promises is a common mistake.)

“Just knowing that a marketing automation system integrates with CRM isn’t enough. You have to understand specifically how the systems work together, especially with leads, campaigns, and opportunities.”

2. Getting the Service & Support You Need
(FNC comment: Implement marketing automation is hard work. Licensing software is easy. Take what the vendor suggests and multiply by 3-4 times.)

“You have to look under the covers and ask those hard questions about training. What’s really involved and how much will it cost? What’s the average time it takes for one of their customers to get up to speed? And then check it on your own because they’re going to tell you what you want to hear.”

“When you’re ready to send out a campaign and there’s a glitch, you really need someone to call you back in a timely manner. I don’t expect it to be 5 minutes, but I don’t expect it to be 2 days. So that’s another really valuable question that I didn’t ask: What’s your turnaround? They said in the beginning, for the implementation, that I would have an assigned account rep to help me bring up the system and do the integration, but once we turned it on, that person went away. So, I definitely would have had something put into the contract regarding customer service, or at least drilled down to question that component of it.”

3. Match the Product Roadmap to Your Goals
(FNC quote: Make sure the product you are shown is the product you are buying.)

“I went to [a conference] two years ago and was excited by the new interface/platform. To date, it still hasn’t been rolled out.”

“Understand the reality of what version of the solution is being sold versus what is available. We were surprised how much of the presentations we saw were coming soon or in beta and not functionality in production use today.”

4. Maintaining Your System

“[Systems] have maintenance windows, even though the vendors will say that they’re SaaS or cloud. When this certain marketing automation tool that I implemented had maintenance windows, all of my landing pages that were hosted by that tool went down. If I would have known to ask about downtime beforehand, I wouldn’t have picked that tool because being a demand gen expert, that’s where my core focus is. I can’t afford to have my landing pages go down.”

Before you start your selection of marketing automation, step back and ask yourself some questions:

Is the system compatible with our existing CRM system?
Is our data quality good enough to support the system?
Is everyone on the same page - Sales has bought-in and so has Marketing?
What insights can you get from social networks and thought leaders?
Marketing automation requires LOTs of great content. Are we ready?

What has been your experience? Were there questions you wished you had asked? We love comments and those who share our content.

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Marketing on a Budget – Methods for Executing Great Marketing Campaigns (Without Breaking the Bank!)

Posted by Jeff Ogden on September 13, 2011

B2B Demand Generation | Guest Post by Dee Mason

We’re pleased to present this guest post by freelance writer, Dee Mason. Thanks Dee.

Please note this is similar to our post/presentation “How to Do Great Marketing with (Almost) No Money.”

___________

Start-up businesses tend to have the highest mountains to climb. In the current financial climate it is virtually impossible to get banks to cough up any money to help with marketing budgets and set-up costs. Even those with a cast-iron business plan will have trouble getting funding for equipment or office space. So what’s the trick to getting started on a low budget?

Credit Card
If you have a personal or business credit card, only use this as a last resort, unless you have a 0% transfer rate. Swap your credit card for a lower %APR and remember to pay it off every month if you can. Paying the minimum balance every month will cause the card to accumulate compound interest and if you are paying up 6.99%, as some charge, you will end up with a hefty balance and far more to pay. Use your card wisely and only purchase things you absolutely need.

Marketing Strategies
Think smart when it comes to marketing your business. Make connections on Social Networks. These are free to use and you can even place your own adverts on site like Facebook. Free exposure for your business will get you maximum return for zero layout costs. Join sites like LinkedIn which give you a profile and allows other members to view your information. Place links to your website on there and send prospective customers and clients to your site. Oh and if you don’t already have a website, get one. They are extremely cheap to set up, even if you use a web service. You can buy your own domain name for a very reasonable price.

Free is the Best Price
Use free advertising services where possible. Think about the old phrase “If you buy cheap, you buy twice.” This is true when it comes to consumer items like TV’s, computers, furniture and clothes, but not necessarily true when it comes to business promotion. You can offer a service to another company as an exchange for a link to your site on theirs. This can also win you testimonies from customers to give your company a boost. Become an affiliate member on websites such as Amazon.com. This lets users click on their link from your site and every time they purchase from Amazon, you will get a small percentage of the fees. This could accumulate over the course of a few months and if you save that money it can pay toward your own website maintenance without you forking out one cent. You can even offer other companies the chance to become affiliate members of your website. This creates a sort of business family tree, whereby any business affiliate will be connected via links on your website and their websites.

Spend Wisely
Setting a low start-up budget is always a good idea. Good housekeeping demands wise spending and maximum returns. Running a business is almost exactly like running a home. There are utility bills to pay, rent or mortgage to pay, furniture to pay for, and other expenses. Business is the same. You need an office, furniture, lights, computers, printers, stock and of course the odd employee. All this must be run on a budget and maintained correctly, if you are going to prevent your running costs spiraling out of control.

Get Advice
Websites are full of advice these days. Some of it is good advice, provided by experts, and some of it is bad advice. If you’re based in the US, the fool.com website is indispensable whereas readers on the other side of the pond can find a similar service at money.co.uk. Everything from the stock market to smart personal and small business finance tips can be found out there, so do some digging!

Web Design
The more informative your website, the more chance you have to attract visitors. Whatever the nature of your business, make your product or service an attractive one. You can begin by using special offers to entice customers to your business. Provide them with the best service you can right down to delivery and they will be sure to not only come back, but also to recommend you. There is a huge difference between exciting and informative websites, and busy and hard to follow websites. When setting up your site, make sure that you try to stick to a few colors as possible. If you have your own corporate colors or logo, use them on every webpage to keep consistency. Inform your customers about your business and yourself or your employee(s). Don’t forget to have a contact section on your site so that customers can offer feedback, ask questions or place orders.

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Dee Mason is a social media and travel fanatic, and has been writing freelance for nearly four years. She main focuses are on personal finance, online marketing and travel but she has been known to write about anything and everything. You can always drop her a line at [email protected].

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“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.