BANT Lead Qualification, As Practiced by Ron The Mover

It’s Friday, so what better time to rant about a subject that is near and dear to my heart – Lead Qualification.  Whether you utilize the BANT Model (which we do here at Pardot), or some other methodology, you’d better make sure that the leads your sales professionals are calling on are qualified.  I saw a recent post by ETI Sales Support, which stated the following:

“Leads without qualification have little value to salespersons whose standard of living depends on the volume of their sales. In many instances the most experienced salespersons will not follow through on unqualified leads because it doesn’t pay them. In that event the total cost of the cheap leads would be wasted.  And your actual cost per qualified lead and sale will skyrocket.”

Let that statement wash over you.  Marketing and Sales both need to Stop the Cycle – Marketing – Stop sending over junk leads because your rainmakers know what a bad lead looks like, and Sales – Stop following up on junk leads because they will inevitably bury you under a mountain of wasted effort.
So let me tell you a quick story about a Gentleman, selling his moving services to only Qualified Prospects in Atlanta, Georgia.  His name is Ron The Mover, and here’s how I met this gentleman:

During December, I was moving into a new Condo in Buckhead, however I was relegated to a walking boot as I recovered from an October Achilles tear.   In order to get a head start on packing, I dropped by the U-Haul store to pick up a large quantity of boxes.  As I struggled to load them into my car, a gentleman took me by surprise.   He approached, and asked if I needed help putting the boxes into my car (rapport building).  He then asked a follow up question related to whether I was planning on moving soon (Establishing BANT’s Need and Timeline criteria). I guess he determined that I was the decision maker on this opportunity (Assumed BANT’s Authority criteria), so he handed me a piece of paper that was torn into a square after having been moistened by his tongue to make straight edges.  This was his business card, and it simply said “Ron the Mover” and included his number.
So let’s recap.  Ron Established 3 of the 4 BANT Criteria within 60 seconds:

• “Authority” by properly assuming that I was the decision Maker on this move
• “Need” by engaging people who were doing business with U-Haul (Buying Boxes, Renting Trucks)
• “Timeline” by asking if I was moving Soon.

Great work Ron…You could teach most business people a thing or two.

LeapFish Teaches Sales Professionals About Email Do’s and Don’ts…and Click Fraud

Now, I don’t want to get off on a Friday Rant, here, but let’s talk a little bit about email, as it relates to your job – Selling.  It is a 2 edged sword that can be the great equalizer or a giant headache because it provides a record – a permanent journal of your exchanges with someone.  Let’s look at a couple of Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s

DO Use it As a Communication Supplement During the Sales Cycle – Email provides a mechanism for you to quickly coordinate with prospects during the early stages of the sales cycle:

• Email prior to your first interaction (“Before I call”) to make introductions
• After a first impression / voicemail (“I just tried to call”) to follow up
• during the middle of the sales cycle (“Is there a good time to reconnect?”) to continue building the relationship.

DO Use it as a permanent record of previous prospect communication – Did the prospect indicate that the contract would be signed by Monday?  Replying to her email on Tuesday may help reinforce why you are reaching out.

Don’ts

DON’T Assume the Recipient Is Sharing Your Mood – Although you may write it with the best of intentions, Email is generally read in the mood of the recipient…not the sender – Did the recipient get unexpected bad news prior to reading your note?  Did they kick the dog or learn of a mis-behaving child?  Regardless of the mood you intended, the recipient will read it in their current mood.

Here’s a tidbit for newbies – DON’T SEND BAD NEWS VIA EMAIL, WITHOUT A CORRESPONDING PHONE CALL (generally making the call before sending is best).  They will get the news, see red, and send an angry dart your way

DON’T Write It Down Unless You are Ready to Back It Up – When you put something in writing, always assume that it may be seen by unintended individuals, not the intended recipient – Quick Story – When my Uncle was an intern during his senior year of Auburn, he wrote a note about his intern supervisor (not email…a note…to Mail), calling the individual in question a “Sissy” (which was strong language for a college kid to use on an adult in the 60’s).  Long Story Short – The supervisor found his note, contacted his professor, and had my Uncle sent back to Auburn for punishment.  His professor’s advice – “I’m not saying that what you thought (him being a sissy) isn’t true.  You just should never have written it down.”

Combining DON’T #1 and DON’T #2 is the most important DON’T – DON’T Get Frustrated AND Write Something Stupid Down – If you’ve been following the blogs this week, you likely saw TechCrunch’s article on LeapFish.  If not – Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version:

The sales person from LeapFish (who is now unemployed) got frustrated that a company, who it appeared he had targeted as a prospect because of their lower ranking in Google (good qualification skills), called the prospect 2 times back-to-back and was rebuffed as not needing LeapFish’s service.

The salesperson was obviously growing agitated, allegedly ended the call with a veiled threat related to Google AdWords spend.  (AUTHOR’S NOTE – The sales person has now let mood get into the email, since both he and the recipient are now in an adversarial role)

What happens next is pure magic – The sales person breaks DON’T #2, by sending an email containing the following statement:

“I just clicked on your link 50 times. Pay per click hurts. Found you on page 2 of the sponsored links. Call me for an advertising solution “ (AUTHOR’S NOTE – I love the audacity to financially hurt the company and then ask for their business – ABC)

Instead of getting the business, the sales person got the ax.

So here’s the deal – Be careful with email – Much like fire was to the cavemen – It can hav positive aspects like cooking food and providing warmth, but it can also burn your village down if you aren’t careful.

Friday Rant – Truth in Sales

One of my colleagues recently got an email from a vendor who sent over a “report” of all the anonymous visitors to his corporate website.  Looks impressive – It includes some very big name companies who are searching for his company name, flagship product, and his product type.

So here’s the rant – It is IMPOSSIBLE to track the visitors to someone elses’ website because it requires some sort of tracking code to be placed on each page that is tracked.

So how can they justify sending over this nonsense to prospects?  2 reasons:

1.  Because it triggers the “Greed” gene in the sales people it targets. “IBM is looking at our website????”  Nevermind that it would be nearly impossible to determine which of IBM’s 40,000 US employees visited.

2.  Because people are generally optimists, in spite of the fact that the prospect generally knows that what they are being sold a bill of goods.

So what’s a good method to sell ethically, and restore prospects faith in the Sales process:

1.  Post your Pricing – although it cuts counter to your desire to keep your pricing a secret, it allows customers to go an look at the price at their leisure.

2.  Stand By Your Pricing- Once you’ve listed them, you need to stand by them.  Nothing screams “Used Car Salesman” like Making a Deal for your prospect.  If you’ll cut the prices to get the deal, why wouldn’t your eventual customer feel like they should haggle with you for a Better Deal?

At the end of the day, just be ethical in your dealings, because I hate dealing with customers that you’ve offended and are now jaded that I’m going to do them wrong…like some of you already have.

Friday Rant – Anonymous Visitor Capture Alone is Worthless

Anonymous visitor capture software by itself is worthless….there…I said it.

Over the span of the last few days, Pardot’s website was visited by several members of a large software company on the West Coast.  The individuals who came to the site searched for a competitor, landed on our site anonymously, and did quite a bit of research (viewed over 50 pages and 10 pages respectively).

Each day I’ve opted into a digest of all anonymous visitors to our site, so the large number of page views immediately caught my eye.  “Time to do some of that Sales Stuff” I said to myself (author’s note – I actually DO say things like that out loud, which reminds me to use my inner monologue).

Step 1 – Research the Company – In my estimation, it’s a fit.  Proceed to Step 2

Step 2 – Find my target at that organization.  A quick review of their management team identified the person I generally work with at a company – their VP of Marketing.

Step 3- Call.  No answer.  Like an animal stalking my prey, I do not leave a message.  It gives away the element of surprise.

Step 4 – Set a Salesforce reminder to call their VP of Marketing again

Between Step 3 and Step 4, the actual visitor raised his hand.  A gentleman named Alex, who is the company’s Web Producer identifies himself on a form (e.g., “Raises His Hand”) and requests to be contacted.  (Author’s Note #2 – Alex is not in Jigsaw, nor was he identified on their site, so the likelihood that I would have located him is rather slim).  We chatted for a bit, and he’s a great fit, and will surely be a terrific ally as we investigate our solution to fill their needs.

So here’s the moral – Anonymous visitor capture caught the company, however standard sales methodologies (approach your target customer) would have led me to the completely wrong person.

PRACTICAL TAKE AWAYS:

1. Anonymous visitor capture needs to be coupled with some sort of call to action which is attached to a form, so the actual prospect can identify him or her self.  Otherwise it can cause your Sales Professional to spin their wheels trying to get to their target…who likely isn’t the person performing the research on your product or solution.
2. Anonymous visitor capture is terrific way to validate your existing sales efforts.  Did you just complete a demonstration for a key stakeholder at an organization, and 3 unsolicited, anonymous visitors perform research on your solution?  If so – you made your point and found your champion, who is now directing other people to your solution.

For any vendors who represent products that ONLY do Anonymous Visitor Capture – I’d love to hear where you see the value to be, because without some way for the prospect to raise their hand…I really don’t see how it does anything but create noise (e.g., a “lead”) for your sales team.

Friday Rant – Baby Steps in Phone Sales

I hate air travel.  There – I said it.  After 5 years selling in a remote territory, I enjoy commuting to work…not traveling to it.  So more of us are required to do more selling over the phone.

A blog post related to Successful Telemarketing found its way into my inbox, and after reading it (admittedly a little skeptically) – it actually has a little meat between the fluff.  What follows it the Readers Digest “Condensed Version”:

The Opening – Pretty basic – Who – What and Why…but TRY to make the Why pertinent:

• Good – Good Morning.  This is Derek Grant with Pardot, a Marketing Automation vendor that dramatically improves the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts by individually tracking anonymous visitors and prospects.
• Bad – Hi.  This is Derek with Pardot – Calling to see if your firm is interested in implementing marketing automation
• Ugly – What up?  This is Derek. Do you want marketing automation?

Author’s note – I know this isn’t great technique, however I like to get all the pertinent information in before pausing, so the person has enough information to work with and doesn’t have the opportunity to barge in during the introduction.

Engagement Stage – Match your product’s features to their needs in order to show Benefits to their organization.  This requires sales people to do something many are not good at – Listening to the customer.  It also requires thoughtful questioning, and probing once the conversation begins to lull.  If, after you’ve spoken, you haven’t learned what their pain is, then you have wasted your time and theirs.

The Close –This isn’t necessarily the deal closing, however you should always understand next steps.  Not Interested?  “Since needs change quite frequently, would it be appropriate for me to call at the start of next quarter”.  Want a Demo?  “Do you utilize MS Outlook?  If so, I’ll send you a meeting request for the time and date we discussed.” (NEWS FLASH – not everyone utilizes Outlook, so this should be something you confirm prior to getting off the phone and blindly sending a meeting request – Perhaps iCal is more appropriate)

At the end of the day, if you excel at the three steps above, you’ll be able to spend more time at home, and less time in the airport.

Friday Rant – Make a Difference and Make Them Comfortable

Several days ago, I had the opportunity to chat with one of Pardot’s junior sales professionals.  This individual expressed frustration that it was difficult to get the prospect from a live demonstration (Stage 3) of the application to the close (Stage 6).  Since I’ve got a couple of years in this game, I thought to give a little advice.  Even though we talked about several concepts, I found a blog post on Selling to Big Companies, entitled Top 5 Tips for New Sellers, that I’d like to add as part of the advice.

1.  Actively Listen to Ask the right questions

Don’t assume you know what matters to your clients.  After you’ve done your homework on the prospect, you’ll need to put all of your preconcieved notions to rest and…Ask Them…what causes them aggravation on a daily basis.  Most importantly, you’ll need to actively listen to ensure that you can find opportunities to match your benefits to small admissions by the client.  And – Don’t just launch headlong into benefits once the prospect gives you “the in,” rather ask more probing questions to ensure you understand the depths of their pain.

2.  (Per Selling to Big Companies) – Focus on making a difference.

“Nobody cares about your product, service or solution. That’s the hardest thing for sellers to realize. All they care about is the difference you can make for their organization.”

This is so key – Not Features…Benefits.  No one cares that your organization’s Salad Shooter “Slices, Dices and Makes Salads”.  You may have to explain that once you’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate the product, however you can’t focus on these, since they are features. What prospects care about is Benefits such as “after a hard day at the office, it will allow you to quickly and easily make a healthy dinner for your family”.  If you asked the right questions, and have a thorough understanding of the prospect, you’ll know their pain points, hot buttons, and what benefits will be most valuable to this particular client.

3.  Ease Their Mind by Removing Risk

At the end of the sales cycle, you’ll need to reassure the customer that they are making the right decision and that there is no risk to them.  Think about it – You’re probably a little jaded by having purchased something and then having buyers remorse a short time later.  Remember that feeling – That’s what prospect’s are trying to avoid.

If you’ll take the time to listen, understand their needs, match your benefits to their needs, and then assure them that you’re their partner in this initiative, you’ll see your close rate shoot up.

Friday Rant – I Love Adam “Roud” – The Importance of Competitive Intel

It’s critical to have competitive intelligence. There are a number of ways to get competitive intel – One of the tried and true techniques is to contact a competitive organization, pretend to be a prospect, and ask pertinent questions. The following is a story of such an attempt:

While I was on vacation in NYC, I received a voice mail from a gentleman named Adam Roud (If you’ve read my posts before, you’ll know that I always change the names to protect the innocent) from a company named “Sequento” (Google it…it doesn’t exist). Adam’s voice mail asked a pricing question about an application component that could not be purchased alone – This would be similar to calling the Mercedes dealership and asking the price of the drivetrain (”No, I don’t want to know anything about the car, just tell me how much the drivetrain costs.“). Immediately I realized that this question doesn’t pass the “Smell Test” (e.g., if it doesn’t smell right, it probably isn’t right), but I called Adam anyway, to try to get an idea of what he was hoping to accomplish, and determine if my company’s solution might meet his needs.

Cell Phone, with no company name provided – things are smelling worse.

I left a VM asking for a time to chat and determine exactly what he was looking for. Qualify young reps – Qualify. Since he didn’t call back, and for all of the items I’ve identified above, I considered him a junk (unqualified) lead, and I set a 30 day follow up in Salesforce.

When I saw the reminder earlier this week, I thought back to the Smell rule, which prompted me to search Adam’s name in LinkedIn. Lo and behold – Adam works for a competitor. I called the competitors office, asked for Adam, and let him know that I would love to chat with him, since it’s always good for competitors to get to know each other. At the time of this posting, Adam has not called me back, and has likely joined the witness protection program.

So here’s my point – Competitive Intel is King, so how can you get it?:

1. Act like a Prospect – Note to Adam’s boss – Get him acting lessons, because if he’s as bad of a sales support engineer as he is an actor, you should probably cut him loose.

• Make the Cover Story fit – In the era of Google, it’s probably a bad idea to name a company that doesn’t exist
• Pretend to be someone else – With resources like LinkedIn, Spoke and JigSaw, you probably shouldn’t use your real name.
• Ask relevant questions – Back to the Mercedes example – You should probably ask questions about the solution as a whole, and sound like an educated prospect (”After looking at the BMW, I feel this Mercedes is the better buy because it has Leather, Sunroof and Heated Seats for the same price…but I’m curious about the drivetrain?”).

2. Research on the Internet – Again, in the era of Google, you should probably just search for your the information you seek.

3. Post-Mortem Follow Up’s – Talk to your customers who you’ve won during a competitive procurement, or wrap up with prospects you’ve lost. Always preface with – “I don’t want you to cross any ethical lines, but…..” Satisfied customers can provide insight about the competitive landscape, and prospects who didn’t select your solution can tell you why they went with someone else.

In the end – Adam – I love your moxie. You did the right thing, but you aren’t getting any Academy Awards from me.

Ranting Again – Dancing with the Customers

Two months is a long time to go without fresh material. Don’t worry; the writer’s strike currently afflicting the American television audience with re-run after re-run wasn’t to blame for my sabbatical. Interaction with potential clients, core customers and working to close deals kept me from communicating with you, the readers of this blog.

That’s what brings me to restoration of the Friday rant and subject matter that is near and dear to a sales manager’s heart: his or her time.

In a given day, you have only eight – 10 hours of time that you can work and dedicate to your clients and potential clients. With meetings with your marketing team, support team, etc., you really have only between six – eight hours a day where you can perform one of the most graceful dances known to mankind: the art of the sell.

Building a relationship with your client and working to convince them of the profits they will reap if they use your product; the demonstrations of the product you give to them; and then the follow-up sales calls to see when their ready to pull the trigger and make the purchase, can be as graceful as watching Emmitt Smith and partner dance on “Dancing with the Stars.” (Note: For those unaware, the former NFL star won the ABC show a few seasons back)

When you find the perfect client who is immediately sold on your product and its viability, the art of the sell is a beautiful dance that is beneficial to both of you.

There is no wasted time or productivity in this sales interaction. However, not all clients can be such a gracious dance partner.

How many times have you had a potential client that could never commit to you, but wouldn’t necessarily say no – a la the old duck and dive strategy employed by Muhammad Ali.

After the initial call and perhaps demo, you receive no concrete communication on the next step forward, which sends toppling over and tripping up the sales process.

Subsequent calls or emails go unanswered, taking up precious time that could be devoted to another client or prospect. Conversely, the person you’re calling and sending emails to wasting their time deleting your message and trashing your email.

All it would take is a simple, “Get back to me in 30 days, when we have a better idea of our budget,” or a simple, “No, we just can’t allocate funds to your product right now.”

Selling really is a dance, but when one partner refuses to go along with the right moves, it throws the whole routine out of sync.

I’m sure you remember going to your first school dance, and the awkwardness of being asked by someone for a dance. You could either say yes or no. If you were shy at first and non-committed, the person asking you to dance would think you were leading them on.

The interaction being the professional salesperson and client should – ideally – be just as simple as this analogy.

Building a solid relationship with a client requires both the salesperson and client to engage in honest discourse. When this happens it makes the deal go that much smoother.

Selling is always beneficial to both parties involved, and working to ensure a smooth deal should be priority number one.

Being non-committal and refusing to give a timetable for when you might be interested in making the deal only throws off the dance.

A “yes I’m interested,” or “no, I’m not interested,” is the best thing a professional salesperson can hear.

Friday Rant – Cleanliness is next to Godliness – Keep your CRM Data Clean

I’ve had several conversations this week with Sales Managers who lament that, although their reps are utilizing the CRM, they aren’t mandating that the data be clean,, which really shortchanges themselves in the form of implementing automation.  2 places where cleanliness can show immediate dividends is in your CRM’s E-mail and Assigned Rep fields.

E-mail: Although you may not have the customer name spelling right, and multiple people can have the same name (yes Bill Smith…I’m talking to you), e-mail accounts are always unique.  Even if it is a free account provider, they enforce a 6 month waiting period before another person can get kewl_guy7@hotmail.com (Yes Bill – I’m still talking to you).  Ensuring that you have the e-mail address, and that it is unique allows you to nurture your prospects via e-mails, newsletters, press releases, etc….  Also, many third party marketing systems (Bulk E-mail Marketing, Marketing Automation) will attempt to put information into your CRM, and the most logical key to utilize to synchronize that data is the e-mail address field.

Assigned Rep:  When you are automatically nurturing prospects via e-mail correspondence, the best way to make it APPEAR as being individualized is to have it originate from the assigned sales rep, which is information contained in the CRM system.  Although getting an automated e-mail from your sales rep can appear sincere, getting an e-mail from the guy who hasn’t worked for the company in 6 months looks disengenuious.  And what if the message resonates with the person and they respond to the old rep’s account???  Does that address bounce?  You just lost a prospect.  (AUTHOR’S NOTE:  Most CRM systems allow for the bulk update of Account Rep, so if it isn’t right, it’s easy enough to fix)

De-duping the e-mail address field, and keeping the assigned sales representative field up to date can open a world of 1-to-1 “lights out” e-mail marketing, which is personalized, inexpensive, and can be highly effective as a sales and marketing tool.

Have a Great Weekend Everybody !

Friday Rant – Doing Me a Courtesy, or Why Everyone Should Have 1 Sales Job

I had an eye opening experience yesterday that I wanted to lay out there and rant about. I had a customer do me “a courtesy”. Let me explain.

Following the lead of “Dragnet” the names in the following story have been changed to protect the innocent:

Courteous Person – I’ll call this guy “Clien Clodeberg“, so, in the off chance he does me “the courtesy” of reading my blog, he won’t be offended.

History – So I had called Clein several times over the past few weeks, because he was the logical point of entry at a business who fit my ideal customer profile (and yes…I’d done my research to ensure that we would be able to add value to a customer of this type). Clien didn’t return my calls, however he did shoot me an e-mail, asking for a meeting.

Sales 101 – Qualify the candidate – So I called several more times, trying to investigate his marketing pain, and try to identify ways in which a software solution could streamline his marketing to sales process. No return, however a few days before the meeting, I sent him a note with a brief list of Features and Benefits of our solution, and indicated that I would be equipped to perform a sales demonstration.

Yesterday – I drive across Atlanta in lunch hour traffic to meet withClien. When I get there, he indicates that (a) his organization has no need for this type of solution, (b) he does not care to see any sort of demonstration, and that (c) he was simply doing me the “courtesy” of meeting with me, since they are a vendor to our parent company.

Here’s my confusion – How was he doing me a courtesy? In making me miss lunch to go to his meeting? In the burning of $3 of petrol? In the 2 hours lost of what would have been productive phone time calling west coast customers, in an attempt to schedule meetings that mattered?

You’ve heard the adage – “Everyone should have to wait tables once in their life”. I’d propose that everyone should have to be in sales for a month. The world would be a kinder and gentler place for the sales professional.

A couple of things that customers would do if they had ever been on the sales side of the equation:

1. Take 5 – Just take 5 minutes to discuss challenges ways that my solution may be of benefit or review information to determine if you see the value in what I’m proposing. As the sales professional, I’ve already done my part – determining if your organization is a fit, and crafting a value proposition that would be of value to you.

2. Thanks but No Thanks – If, in 5 minutes, you didn’t see the value, simply thank me for my time, and agree to a call 6 months down the road. AUTHOR’S NOTE – not responding (call screening, not responding to e-mails), makes me think that maybe…just maybe you’re still a candidate, so being honest with me will allow us both to get on with our lives.

3. Don’t do me any courtesies – This is where you have to practice”tough love”. If it’s not a fit, or now isn’t a great time, identify a mutually agreeable time to reconnect. Please don’t:

• Drag me away from ACTUAL customers to meet when it’s obviously not a fit.
• Since I don’t subscribe to “interruption sales / marketing”, my initial call always asks for 5 minutes at a time when we can both focus on the matter at hand – discussing a solution that will make your life easier. Agree to a meeting time, and then call screening makes me feel like you may have had car trouble, and that you want me to call you again…and again…and again…yada, yada, yada, ad nauseam (See #2 above).

So there it is – a couple of rules of thumb that will help you be a better customer, and understand as a sales professional that everyone deals with bad customers.

Now quit reading this blog and let’s get to selling on a Friday!