Sales and marketing people eat up stats like they're Gummi Bears. And it’s no wonder why. First, we are driven by numbers and secondly, they are so very telling about the nature of the sales and marketing funnel (for more on that, download our B2B Sales & Marketing Alignment Funnel).
Hubspot recently ran a similar article and we picked off some good statistics and added a few other new ones. Here are thirty stats we thought you should be aware of:
SALES
Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. (Source: InsideSales.com) Tweet this stat
42% of sales reps feel they do not have the right information before making a sales call. (Source: Lattice Engines/CSO Insights) Tweet this stat
Nearly half (45%) of companies report that their sales reps need help figuring out which accounts to prioritize. (Source: Lattice Engines/CSO Insights) Tweet this stat
More than a quarter of all B2B sales cycles take seven months or more to close. (Source: Harvard University and Gallup) Tweet this stat
90% of business buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you. (Source: DemandGen Report) Tweet this stat
53% of sales leads are generated by sales people, compared to 24% by the marketing team. (Source: CSO Report) Tweet this stat
4% percent of the salespeople in the U.S. sell 94% of the goods and services. (Source: Harvard University and Gallup) Tweet this stat
58% of buyers report that sales reps are unable to answer their questions effectively. (Source: Forbes Insight) Tweet this stat
90% of marketing deliverables are not used by sales. (Source: The New Rules of Sales Enablement) Tweet this stat
80% of the average salesperson’s day is spent on non-revenue generating activities, including not knowing where to find good prospects or recognizing them once they find them. (Source: TeleSmart.com) Tweet this stat
MARKETING
50% of marketing leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy. (Source: Gleanster Research) Tweet this stat
79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this stat
61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to Sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this stat
Just 56% of B2B organizations verify valid business leads before they are passed to Sales. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this stat
Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads. (Source: DemandGen Report) Tweet this stat
Just 16% of B2B marketers are producing mobile-specific content as part of their content marketing efforts. (Source: Smart Insights) Tweet this stat
57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead generation goals. (Source: Mindjumpers) Tweet this stat
49% of B2B marketers confess to not measuring ROI. (Source: The B2B Barometer) Tweet this stat
93% of business buyers use search to begin the buying process. (Source: Marketo) Tweet this stat
64% of marketers indicate that email is their most important digital marketing tool. (Source: BtoB Magazine) Tweet this stat
LEAD GENERATION
Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Source: Forrester Research) Tweet this stat
46% of marketers with mature lead management processes have sales teams that follow up on more than 75% of marketing-generated leads. (Source: Forrester Research) Tweet this stat
Companies with mature lead generation and management practices have a 9.3% higher sales quota achievement rate. (Source: CSO Insights) Tweet this stat
More than two thirds (68%) of companies report struggling with lead generation. (Source: Lattice Engines/CSO Insights) Tweet this stat
Only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this stat
Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales. (Source: Gleanster Research) Tweet this stat
57% of B2B organizations identify 'converting qualified leads into paying customers' as a top funnel priority. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this stat
Only 19% of CMOs identify improving database hygiene as a top strategic priority for lead generation activity. (Source: MarketingSherpa) Tweet this stat
59% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead gen goals, followed by social media (21%) and pay per click (20%). Not surprisingly, 98% of B2B marketers plan to maintain or increase SEO budgets next year. (Source: Marketing Charts) Tweet this stat
17% of marketers spend 15+ hours a week on lead generation. (Source: Marketing Charts) Tweet this stat
Can I get a drumroll please? So as a continuation of last week’s blog on the top 10 sales books of all time, I present the top 5.
5. The Psychology of Selling Brian Tracy
Much like Tom Hopkins, when you read Brian Tracy’s work, you can tell that he is a salesman that has “walked the walk”. Much like Hopkins book above, this is also a great primer for new salespeople and a refresher for those that have been in the game a while. While I recommend all of Tracy’s work, including my favorite Advanced Selling Strategies, I’d say that this is one of his more comprehensive works.
“When you are talking about your product or service, your prospect is having an internal discussion where he's asking, in order of importance: ‘What’s in it for me?’ then ‘what will it cost?’, ‘what will I gain as a consequence?’, ‘when will this outcome actually happen?’ and ‘what guarantee are you offering?’.”
4. Secrets of Closing the Sale Zig Ziglar
Honestly, what is a top anything in sales list without the man himself, Zig Ziglar. His passing last year marked the loss of a true American icon. In his landmark book, he focuses on the art of persuasion to increase your sales numbers. He uses simple anecdotes and examples to explain his points and the beauty is truly in the simplicity of his work. In the sales community, we stand on the shoulders of this pioneer, who explained to us the basic principles, which is the basis for much subsequent sales technique and training since.
“There are five basic reasons people will not buy from you. These are: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, and no trust. Since any 'reason' or 'excuse' for not buying will cost you a sale – and will cost the prospect the benefits he would accrue from the purchase – the missed sale is a loss for both buyer and seller.”
3. Little Red Book of Selling Jeff Gitomer
Geoffrey James put it nicely in an Inc. magazine article when he said, “I like to think of Jeff Gitomer as the ‘Seth Godin’ of the sales world. “ This is essential sales reading at its finest. It’s a super-easy, super-quick read that is densely packed with real-world, practical, entertaining advice. The profit per number of pages with this one is HUGE. As salespeople, we want quick, concise answers and this book delivers.
“When you’re in a slump, you begin to press for orders instead of working your best gameplan (which is: ‘sell to help the other person,’ and let your sincerity of purpose shine through). When you have the pressure to sell, the prospect senses it, and backs off.”
2. How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie
I have had this book by my bedside for twenty years now. It defines the word “timeless.” Published in 1937, it still rings true today and always will. Why? It’s all about people skills. And people will always deal with people. Ultimately, this is the authoritative work on the art of dealing with people, on how to arouse genuine interest in the other person.
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
1. Spin Selling Neil Rackham
This book brings sales from an art into science. Neil Rackham, the former president and founder of Huthwaite Corporation, amassed twelve years and $1 million worth of research over 35,000 sales calls into this book. Where most sales books are largely anecdotal (which is fine), this book stands tall on cold, hard evidence. In addition, it addresses the intricacies of the complex sale, one with multiple influencers and a more thorough sales process. Other sales books might be good for car salesmen and IT product salesmen alike, but this one is especially geared towards the complex sale, and that hits home with a lot of salespeople in today’s B2B world.
“People do not buy from salespeople because they understand their products but because they felt the salesperson understood their problems.”
So how did we do? Any books out there that you find conspicously missing. Leave them in the comments.
Some of our readers may have downloaded our 26 Questions to Ask a Lead Generation Vendor resource that we made available for free last year.
As a companion to that original piece, SalesStaff has released a new resource called What Appointment Setting Companies Won't Tell You: 10 NEW Questions to Ask a Lead Generation Vendor.
You will be served well in asking your prospective lead generation / appointment setting vendors the tough questions featured in this free resource. The answers will offer you enormous insight into:
- The vendor's capabilities
- Potential synergy with your organization
- Expected results
SalesStaff is a leading provider of pay-per-performance qualified appointment setting. We're peeling back the curtain and revealing which questions you should ask a prospective vendor to ensure that you're maximizing your ROI with an appointment setting firm.
Walk into a bookstore and the business section is dominated by sales books. There are thousands. But how do you find the best? Well, I’ve read many dozens and these are my absolute favorites. They built the foundation on which I’ve found mild success in the sales and marketing world. This week, I present 10 through 6, and next week (drumroll please), we’ll unveil the top 5 sales books.
10. Strategic Selling Robert Miller & Stephen Heiman
This is a fantastic sales book in so many ways. Miller & Heiman have a way of simplifying complex sales strategy – which hits hard with traditionally “non-salesy” reps. The book is very detailed in their explanation of process and utilizes real-world examples to back up their processes. They present a particularly useful expose of types of buyers you’re likely to encounter in the sales process – technical buyers, economic buyers, budget-setters, etc. The authors published a new, revised edition in 2005 as well which is worth the read.
“Persistence is an admirable quality, but it won’t get you anywhere unless the people you are persistent with believe in you and are absolutely convinced that they can trust you.”
9. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Robert Cialdini
I was at a seminar where Guy Kawasaki was the speaker and he highly recommended this book. So I bought it and read it. Well worth the read. Not a sales book exclusively, it’s a book centered on the subtle psychology of influence. Combining deep scientific scholarship with an engaging prose style, Influence may be one of the single best works on the subject of persuasion. One stated objective is to demonstrate how we can understand and defend against pervasive non-rational influences on decision-making. As you might imagine, these principles also apply in sales and marketing to advance negotiations and even to simply get in the door.
“One of the reasons reciprocation can be used so effectively as a device for gaining another's compliance is its power. The rule possesses awesome strength, often producing a 'yes' response to a request that, except for an existing feeling of indebtedness, would have surely been refused.”
8. Selling to Big Companies Jill Konrath
I can’t say enough about Jill Konrath. We excerpted her newest (equally fantastic) book, SNAP Selling, in a previous blog, in fact. I’ve read many dozens of sales books and often wonder if authors have anything new and head-turning to add to the field. Jill surely adds a ton of value with this book. The content centers around five parts which guide the reader from understanding the complexities of big(ger) clients all the way to advancing the sale. Most notably, I enjoy her easy rapport with readers in her writing style and breakout blurbs at the end of each chapter in the form of Key Points.
“[R]ealize that you are the biggest differentiator of all. Become an expert. Know your customer's business, processes, and marketplace trends as well as they do. Deepen your knowledge of your product line, capabilities, and total solution capacity. Constantly be thinking about how you can help your customers improve their operations and reach their goals. Competitors can create copycat products and services overnight, but no one can replicate you and your brain. Your ability to provide a continuous stream of fresh ideas, insights, and information to corporate buyers will make you irresistible, invaluable, and ultimately, indispensable.”
7. The Greatest Salesman in the World Og Mandino
First published in 1968, this is a timeless classic that interweaves mythology, ethics, and spirituality into salesmanship. What Mandino essentially asserts is that, in order to be successful in sales, you must believe in yourself and the work you are doing (and by correlation the product you sell). It’s rare to find a sales book like this that moves from the “process of sales” into a more profound, life-changing understanding of the human element of sales. This book is an easy, quick read well worth your time.
"You were not created for a life of idleness. You cannot eat from sunrise to sunset or drink or play or make love. Work is not your enemy but your friend. If all manners of labor were forbidden to thee you would fall to your knees and beg an early death."
6. How to Master the Art of Selling Tom Hopkins
When you think of huge influences on the field of sales, Tom Hopkins is at the top of the list. He was one of the first to put into words the nuts and bolts of successful selling and this book succeeds on that front. For those new to the sales world, this should be one of your first reads and the fundamentals that advanced selling techniques are built on.
"I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep trying.”
Stay tuned next week for the best 5 sales books of all time. Although to you avid sales readers, I bet you could name a few if there was a prize involved. Any guesses? Any favorites? Comment below.
It comes with the territory. Sometimes project managers are plagued by a client who just isn’t responsive enough to move the project along systematically and on time. They will leave you on an island and expect results to magically appear. Needless to say, this can make for a project manager’s nightmare.
These clients don’t respond to emails where action is required. They are mysteriously missing when you call and rarely, if ever, return your voicemails. Um. Excuse me, aren’t you the one who commissioned this project?
What is a project manager to do? Is there a way to handle it without coming off as frustrated and patronizing?
Milestones with Clear Expectations
Draft a project schedule complete with clear milestones. Meet with your client from the get-go and induce their “buy-in” by outlining all short- and long-term objectives. Politely emphasize that it’s imperative that they are active in their feedback and in providing needed resources to move the project along in a timely fashion. (Download a comprehensive Project Management Planning template here.)
Get Weekly Recurring Status Meetings on the Calendar
These meetings cannot be missed. Whether you are working with your client in person or remotely, an aloof stance regarding these meetings can set a deadly tone for the course of the project. Especially during the initial phase of a project, adhere to these meetings religiously. Schedule them in Outlook and get them on your clients’ calendars.
Secure an Alternate Point of Contact at the Client Company
The client liaison can simply be too busy sometimes. Identify whether or not they HAVE to be your primary contact point. It’s not out of line or rude, in fact it is critical, that if the point of contact is busy, you request an alternative team member to deal with. It’s optimal that this secondary contact have some decision authority, if possible. The request must be made tactfully and graciously. You can politely assert, “I sense that you are busy, as we all are sometimes. Is there a colleague I can communicate with on key project milestones?”
After any Important Report, Follow Through with a Phone Call
If you send an important progress report or an action-required item, call your client immediately afterwards. You’re calling not just to check whether they received the item, but you are calling with a purpose – whether that is to highlight mission-critical information or draw their attention to a time-specific action required on their end.
Project management is a fine art and a test of your people skills. It’s a unique combination of dealing with things AND people. As always, the success rests on clear, concise communication. Sometimes busy clients just need a nudge in the right direction.
Download our newest whitepaper, Be a Follow-Up All-Star: The 1-2-3 Method:
Companies invest heavily in the creation of B2B sales leads for their sales team to convert and close. But how confident are you that these inbound leads and inquiries are being handled in a timely fashion?
Warning… The following information will be staggering to you. The Harvard Business Review did some research on just how fast companies respond to a web-generated test lead that they submitted to 2,241 US companies. (Results at right.)
Although 37% responded to their lead within an hour, and 16% responded within one to 24 hours, 24% took more than 24 hours—and 23% of the companies never responded at all. Do you believe that? Let me say that again… NEVER RESPONDED AT ALL. The average response time, among companies that responded within 30 days, was 42 hours.
The Harvard Business Review also cites a previous study of theirs which found that “U.S. Firms that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead (which we defined as having a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker) as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later—and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer.”
All of this prompted me to take a look at our own market response process and how response time affected conversation rate in our own sales process. I reviewed over 1,000 inbound sales inquiries from our email marketing campaigns in the past 12 months. I indexed how long it took a member of our team to respond and the effect that had on conversation rate – which we define as further engagement from the prospect/decision-maker regardless of outcome. Here’s what we found:
I knew that leads go cold but it was quite surprising to see laid out exactly HOW FAST they start to go stale. The drop-off is dramatic. If we wait even a matter of hours, we are 20% less likely to have a conversation with the prospect.
Why? The answer is fairly self-evident, I suppose. A company’s marketing efforts serve the purpose of creating interest in their product. Once someone is moved to act and fill out a form or respond to an email marketing piece, their interest starts to wane immediately. Think about the last time you went to a car dealership. The salesperson will fight to keep you on the lot because he knows once you leave and the cars on his lot are further removed from your mind, you are exponentially less likely to buy.
The bottom line? If your company is spending money on getting leads in the door, be sure they are handled quickly or you’d been just as well served spending some of that money on a palette of Hello Kitty purses. Invest in lead generation and invest in a process to manage those inbound leads.
Download our newest whitepaper, Be a Follow-Up All-Star: The 1-2-3 Method:
SalesStaff has released a new whitepaper called Be a Follow-Up All-Star: The 1-2-3 Method. In this piece, we have shared with you our own anecdotal experience and include some valuable information, including:
- Discussion of the true objective of follow-up
- Introduction to the 1-2-3 Method
- Email templates for use with the 1-2-3 Method
- Post-Presentation follow-up flowchart
It’s preached over and over. Activity, activity, activity. It’s the key to the castle when it comes to a career in sales. You must stay active. Sales is a marathon and not a sprint. As a salesperson, it should be your mantra. “What I do today will determine what I reap tomorrow.” That’s why it’s so important to follow up with existing opportunities diligently and meticulously. As salespeople, it’s easy to become enamored with the new, juicy opportunities that make their way into your funnel, but be careful not to forget those that have already been through some part of your sales process already.
Now there are diff erent kinds of follow up throughout the sales process:
- Contacting inbound leads (hand-raisers/suspects) that aren’t quite ready for a sales appointment
- Following up with prospects who have seen your presentation and need some time to decide on a course of action
In this whitepaper, we’ll be referring to the latter. Specifically, how best to engage a prospect once they have seen your product or service presentation?
It’s inevitable. You have an awesome sales appointment that you’ve ducked out of a company meeting to attend. You’ve done your research. You’ve adjusted your presentation a few times. You wait and the meeting pops up in your Outlook. You’re prepared. It’s go time. You pull up your WebEx. Five minutes go by… ten minutes go by. Nothing.
Ah, the dreaded no-show. It happens. As salespeople, we know it happens and we even allow for a certain percentage of no-shows in our metrics. But we thought we’d share with you a protocol that has helped us reduce no-shows in our internal sales efforts.
Sometimes a prospect truly has a good reason to miss a meeting. However, to help ensure you connect with a high percentage of your presentation attendees, follow these steps. (Note: These steps apply to teleconferences.)
- Open your WebEx/GoToMeeting and dial into the conference bridge 5 minutes before your presentation starts.
- At 2-3 minutes past the start time if your attendee has not joined, open the invite and forward it to the prospect stating:
- If another 3-4 minutes have passed and they have not joined, call your attendee directly on an alternate line while you remain on the conference bridge and if they don’t answer leave them a message with the dial in number. Again confirm that you are waiting on the conference bridge and look forward to speaking with them.
- If at the 10-12 minute mark they still have not joined, send an email stating you waited on the call 12 minutes, but you are now going to be at your desk awaiting their call directly. Leave your number and mention that you look forward to your discussion.
- Have a strong Reschedule Process with a feedback loop between the Sales Reps and the Appointment Setting Team.
Good luck this first quarter in meeting your slaes goals! Please download our free resource for 2013 sales goal-setting.
In 2012, SalesStaff scheduled over 5000 B2B sales meetings for our clients and delivered over 7500 leads. We maintain a strong feedback loop with our clients on the status of those meeting and, from that feedback, SalesStaff has been able to detect patterns and best practices around sales calls.
The initial B2B sales call is oh so important. It’s like a first date – and a blind date at that, in most cases. You want to put your best foot forward and make a great first impression… maybe put on your Sunday best. It’s a feeling-out period.
Internalize the following rules for initial sales calls. They are truly empowering.
1. Research
Knowledge is power. Compile some information. It pays to know some particulars about your prospect, their products, their competitive position, and their customer base.
In our B2B appointment setting process, we work to gather as much information as possible. In SalesStaff’s Discovery Phase, we identify which data points are actionable to your sales team. Our team also gathers information on prospects’ distinctive pains and challenges specific to the client solution. Our clients receive a full report, including all the pertinent logistics of the meetings, detailed call notes, and general information about the company itself to help you prepare.
2. Conviction
Your words, your body language, your voice inflection… it all tells a story. Have conviction in your product and it will rub off on your prospects.
Our inside sales reps become the front line for our clients. They become ambassadors for our clients’ products, conveying value and enthusiasm. Go into every SalesStaff appointment with the expectation that the seed has been planted. The prospect is awaiting you and willing to learn more about your solution.
3. Respecting the Prospect’s Time
Quite simply, we’ve found it pays to ask. A strong appointment confirmation prospect will be your best friend when it comes to minimizing no-shows. And when you get to the big dance, you might say, “I know we allotted thirty minutes. I just want to make sure that still works for you." Identifying the customer's time frame helps you direct the flow of the meeting.
SalesStaff will send a meeting invite for the desired timeframe. We can even confirm a day or two in advance that the time and date are still good. Confirming the timeframe at the top of the meeting is a good practice but be flexible. We have seen several thirty minute appointments turn into hour conversations once the prospect is properly engaged.
4. Goals
State the objective of the meeting early and clearly. You might try something like this:
Thanks again for sharing some time. The purpose of this meeting is to learn more about some of your needs and challenges. Perhaps we can determine if there might be a fit for working together. We did some homework but we’d like to hear more about [their business, their processes, etc.].
SalesStaff appointments are qualified according to our clients’ qualification criteria. We advise our clients to allow 5-10 minutes in the beginning for additional discovery so the prospect can expound on information gathered in the initial call. Engage the prospect immediately.
5. Listen
The old sales adage that you should listen 2/3 of the time holds some water. For certain, you can talk yourself out of a sale… you can’t listen yourself out of a sale. Have prospects expound on their answers to gain a clearer understanding of the situation.
Often, SalesStaff appointments are positioned as a discovery call. The expectation is that, at the very least, our client will get the necessary information needed to build a strong business case for their solution. We advise that the end game of every sales meeting should be to schedule some follow up sales activity.
6. Qualification
The sales appointment should already be qualified against the primary criteria before you even step into the meeting. From there, you need to uncover more about how the prospect buys –their timeframe, budget, authority. Most importantly, find out whether you can provide a value-add to the prospect.
SalesStaff provides a variety of campaigns, some of which qualify prospects for budget, authority, need, and timeframe (BANT). We also provide appointment setting campaigns aimed at identifying prospects in the research or discovery phase. We’ve found that often a prospect may not even know that they have needs/inefficiencies until they are shown a better mousetrap. Our objective is to put our clients in front of prospects that have a pain or challenge that you can solve – prospects that can buy or influence the purchase of your solution.
7. Offering a Solution
You listened well and hopefully you were using the information to tweak your presentation to include some of the information you’ve learned about the customer. The most powerful value statements draw on things your prospect revealed about their situation: "You mentioned that… We've made it easy for you by…"
SalesStaff works to position our clients’ offerings as a solution to some challenge. We advise our clients to always schedule some next steps based on the needs-gathering they’ve done in that initial appointment. This will allow for rapport and trust while being mindful of the prospects time. A presentation or demo can then be personalized to fit the needs and challenges of this particular prospect and include any other applicable parties from both sides.
8. Concluding with Next Steps
"What happens next?"
As we alluded to earlier, the goal of the first sales meeting should always be to schedule a second sales activity – a second appointment, demo, face-to-face presentation, a 3-6 months follow-up) Get whatever activity you choose onto the calendar. Never leave it up to the prospect to get in touch with you.
You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations. - Zig Ziglar
Much like the rest of the sales and marketing community, we were saddened by the news that Zig Ziglar passed away this morning. He was a man whose words meant so much to so many, sales professionals and otherwise.
I've read a few of Zig's books and seen some of his speeches online. As I reflect on why his teachings were so impactful, I've come to the conclusion that he was effective because his messages were simple; his teachings were accessible in the minds of the audience. That is to say he didn't use complicated jargon or twisted logic to arrive at conclusions; when he talked, people listened... and even more, they understood. Light bulbs went off instantaneously when he spoke.
Our thoughts go out to his family. We lost a true American treasure and icon. Feel free to comment with your thoughts on Zig and how his words may have helped you in your career or in life.
We leave you with a few inspirational Zig Ziglar videos: