6 steps to stop Sales complaining

about the quality of Marketing leads

“Most of the

leads we get

from Marketing

are rubbish.” Dave Apthorp Sales Executive, Modernis

“How can Sales

possibly know this?

They never phone

any of the leads we

do give them!” Maria Smith Head of Marketing, Modernis

But where’s the

truth?

Are the leads produced

by Marketing really so

poor it’s not worth Sales

following them up?

We wanted to find out

Wait!

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12 months ago

Marketing attended a

major Trade Show

Sales immediately

followed up the leads

No new opportunities were added to

the sales funnel

Negotiation

Proposal

Investigation

Prospect

Before the Trade Show

Negotiation

Proposal

Investigation

Prospect

After the Trade Show

Which led to a lot of….

A year later GSP called up 10 leads to

find out what had happened

12 months later

And here’s what we discovered…

Two leads had subsequently made a purchase

(but not from Modernis unfortunately)

More on this in a moment…..

Two more were in the middle of a purchasing process

(unfortunately Modernis wasn’t one of the candidates)

And one fully expected to make a purchase in the

next 12 months

Four didn’t expect to make a purchase any time soon

And one wasn’t in Modernis’ market place and is

never likely to make a purchase

In other words 5 of the 10 were

great leads.

Two had already bought from a

competitor!

So why didn’t these prospects

engage with Sales at the time?

Here’s what they told us…

“We weren’t

ready”

“I didn’t have

stakeholder support”

“No budget at

the time”

“We hadn’t decided

which vendors to

engage”

“We didn’t understand our

options”

In other words these people were legitimate

buyers. They simply weren’t sales ready.

They didn’t want to speak to a sales person. Yet.

Which is why Sales thought the leads were rubbish.

And after the initial

trade show the

activities of these

warm prospects were

invisible to Modernis.

Which meant no-one knew when they were ready

to engage with Sales

Time

Actual

revenue

£

Revenue

Missed

revenue

Trade show

And resulted in lost sales

So what can we learn from this research?

We think there are six key lessons.

Negotiation

Potential Solutions

Proposal

Investigation

Prospect

Preferred Suppliers

Candidate Solutions

Problem Awareness / Opportunity Recognition

Negotiation

1. Manage the invisible pipeline

Customers start their buying process long

before long before sales get involved.

These early stage activities form an invisible

revenue pipeline.

The invisible revenue pipeline can be

managed to drive sales ready leads.

Visible pipeline

Invisible pipeline

2. It pays to be patient

2 – 3 months

6 – 24 months

Modernis perception of the buying

lifecycle – as measured in the

CRM system.

Prospect perception of the buying

lifecycle – as measured by buyer

behavior.

3. Lead nurturing is essential

Traditionally prospects got their information

from sales people. Not any more.

Ad hoc marketing campaigns have only short

term value.

Effective content marketing means pre-

planned communications are delivered

throughout the buying process.

4. Useful is the new cool

Good quality prospects are hungry for

information.

Highly useful content satisfies this hunger

and is critical to lead nurturing.

High quality, useful content helps

prospects narrow potential solutions.

5. Engage Sales when prospects

are sales ready

Prospects are happy to talk to sales

people…but only when they are ready to

do so.

Getting sales people involved too early

leaves everyone frustrated.

Marketing teams must track human

behavior to gauge when to involve Sales. Time

sales ready

Lead

score

6. Marketing is becoming increasingly

process driven All this cannot be done in an ad hoc

fashion (at least not effectively).

Well defined processes nurture leads

through pre-planned stages and steps

Marketing automation tools make the

whole thing efficient and scalable.

Need to innovate your

Sales and Marketing

process to boost

revenue?

Get in touch

SUMMARY 1

2

3

4

5

Lead nurturing is essential

It pays to be patient

Useful is the new cool

Engage Sales when prospects are sales ready

Effective marketing requires well defined processes 6

Manage the invisible revenue pipeline

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Smith is the Chief Executive Officer of The Gary Smith

Partnership. He has over 20 years experience in helping

clients improve the effectiveness of their sales and

marketing activities.

Gary is a certified Salesforce.com Sales and Service Cloud

Consultant and a Marketo Certified Consultant.

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