4 TIPS to successfully schedule QUALIFIED SALES APPOINTMENTS

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1 4 TIPS to successfully schedule QUALIFIED SALES APPOINTMENTS WHITE PAPER Therese (Terry) McGee Executive Marketing Consultant McGEE MARKETING CONSULTANTS

2 For this white paper, I interviewed Srikant Sharma, Northbound DGS President & General Manager, about his experience leading inside sales teams to successfully schedule qualified sales appointments. Srikant has over 20 years of sales and marketing experience, with expertise in business strategy development and execution, solution-selling, and demand generation. For purposes of this white paper, I asked Srikant to focus exclusively on B2B sales appointments for enterprise technology companies. TIP #1... INSIDE SALES Srikant, you have a wealth of experience directing inside sales teams on how to quickly generate qualified sales opportunities. Can you share a bit of your secret sauce? A full boat integrated demand generation strategy that has a crisp campaign focus with lead scoring and nurturing fills the marketing funnel. Srikant: If you are a recently-hired CMO or VP of Marketing for an enterprise technology company, you know your career life expectancy in this new position depends on focusing equally on tactics to develop both long-term and short-term leads. A full boat integrated demand generation strategy that has a crisp campaign focus with lead scoring and nurturing fills the marketing funnel. For technology organizations that have a 6+ month sales cycle I mean moving a qualified prospect from sales stage 1 through to close you can expect that it will take at least that long to move a campaign responder through the marketing funnel into sales stage 1. Of course, you will find some low hanging fruit (prospects that will close faster), but let s face it, your CEO and VP of Sales won t be waiting 6 months or more to see a stream of leads. So what do you suggest the CMO do in the interim period? In my opinion, inside sales has several charters warming up highly scored sales leads for the direct sales team, Srikant: With the use of an inside sales team, he or she can look to generate qualified leads in the short term. In my opinion, inside sales has several charters warming up highly scored sales leads for the direct sales team, and also looking for new qualified leads that have missed the marketing campaign train. Some call this cold calling, but I don t think of it that way. By definition, cold calling means picking up the phone and randomly dialing. My view is that the inside sales team not make random calls, but execute a calling strategy that has a nurturing effect and is, in itself, a campaign of sorts. and also looking for Can you describe ways inside sales can nurture? new qualified leads that have missed the marketing campaign train. Srikant: First, I decide on who my audience is by segmenting like-kind targets perhaps by title, or by industry whatever marketing segmentation makes sense for your particular product or service. Then, inside sales should work with marketing to develop appropriate scripts for , calls, voic , follow-up s, collateral to send when a prospect requests more information, etc. And while marketing is providing these scripts, under no circumstances should they be used by an untrained inside sales representative, which brings me to my 2nd point, training. p1

3 TIP #2... TRAINING Yes, can you talk about sales training? I believe everyone thinks that is the key to success. regardless of their previous training and experience, each rep must be trained on 2 very important areas: the product and, more importantly, what business pain the product addresses. Srikant: Yes, sales training is important, but it is very important to hire the right people first and I hire based on a specific persona. For example, I look for mature salespeople, and by mature I am not referring to either age or experience. By mature I mean someone who, with training, comes across as knowledgeable, experienced, and consultative on the phone. By mature, I mean someone who is coachable. Naturally, you want to hire someone who has previous sales experience or training, although I have found excellent candidates with no experience or training but rather possessed an innate talent for the job. But regardless of their previous training and experience, each rep must be trained on 2 very important areas: the product and, more importantly, what business pain the product addresses. You don t want an inside sales rep talking about product features and functions; you want the rep to be able to talk about the prospect s business and their challenges. You want them to think like subject matter experts. This is the only way an inside sales rep can ensure that a sales appointment when he or she gets an appointment is really qualified. And, above all, you don t want an inside sales rep to be salesy. If salesmanship is required to close the deal, that is the direct salesperson s responsibility. Once the scripts, that we discussed previously, are completed, that is the time for productspecific sales training. We bring in the product experts from product management or product marketing and, in addition, we look to the marketing team to build the training that translates the product features and functions into how they address the prospect s business challenges. During this training, we do some role playing as well. Typically, this type of training lasts about half a day. TIP #3... MULTI-TOUCH POINTS Okay, so the inside sales rep is now trained and armed with scripts. Is it time to pick up the phone? One example is to first send an introductory , then a call, then a follow-up , then another call. Srikant: Not necessarily, and this is my third tip. I view the call as the centerpiece of the campaign. Before any contact is made, it is important to develop a series of multi-touch points that may extend over a period of 1-2 weeks. One example is to first send an introductory , then a call, then a follow-up , then another call. What s interesting, too, is that in this age of digital marketing, you might be surprised to know how well direct mail works, particularly if accompanied by a thought leadership piece a white paper for example. Another successful strategy we use from time to time is the good ol VITO Letter. We follow the recommended methodology and look to schedule the first phone call between the prospect and the inside sales rep not the direct sales rep. Remember, we are not just trying to schedule appointments. We want QUALIFIED appointments. p2

4 TIP #4... BE PREPARED AND BE PATIENT We now have our targets, our scripts, and our training okay to start the campaign now? No inside sales campaign starts not one contact is made until the inside sales rep researches the prospect s organization. Srikant: Not yet and this brings us to tip #4 Be Prepared and Be Patient. No inside sales campaign starts not one contact is made until the inside sales rep researches the prospect s organization. Once trained on how to do this, a rep can complete this in a matter of a few minutes: review the company s website, review the latest annual report, read up on the prospect on LinkedIn, etc. Get a sense of what the prospect s company is all about and who the prospect is as well. Why is this important? For personalization of course, but it also provides a blueprint for what business challenges the organization experiences and it can help the inside sales rep develop the dialogue. Many times, we don t develop the campaign tactics until we have done this as well. Your research about the company can help you discover the best way to reach your prospect. And a little about patience: An inside sales rep must be patient. Never rush once you make contact on the phone, keep your voic messages (if you choose to leave them sometimes you don t) short and measured. We find that depending upon the title, you can get voic in 24 out of every 25 calls. you need to recognize that anyone can schedule an appointment but only the most talented, trained, and patient inside sales reps can schedule a QUALIFIED sales appointment. Lastly, you need to recognize that anyone can schedule an appointment but only the most talented, trained, and patient inside sales reps can schedule a QUALIFIED sales appointment. This is an important point: qualified appointments bring qualified leads to the direct sales team in the short term faster than what marketing can bring in with marketing campaigns. So what we are talking about here are, in fact, net new deals. Qualified can mean many things. What do you mean by it? Srikant: Qualified does mean many things even within the same organization. Marketing thinks is means one thing, inside sales something else, direct sales thinks it means something else entirely. At the end of the day, a qualified sales appointment is an appointment that sales defines as qualified. In some cases, a sales team wants leads based on authority, need, and timing. I ve seen cases where qualified is defined based on need and timing. Other times and in particular when the economy is doing well sales might want to know if there is a designated budget approved as well. Qualified means different things but for any specific campaign, inside sales (and marketing) must be sure that there is solid agreement with direct sales on the definition. p3

5 SUMMARY If, as an inside sales rep, Appreciate your time on this topic, Srikant. Any last words? you deliver unqualified leads, you will lose all credibility with the direct sales team and the management team. Srikant: Yes, and this goes back to the last point I made about how important it is that sales appointments be qualified. If, as an inside sales rep, you deliver unqualified leads, you will lose all credibility with the direct sales team and the management team. And for those setting goals for inside sales, remember that qualified appointments are much more difficult to deliver than unqualified appointments, so it s important to be reasonable and realistic. BIOS: Srikant Sharma is President and General Manager at NorthboundDGS, a revenue marketing firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. His areas of expertise include business strategy and execution, sales, and marketing. With two decades of experience in financial services, engineering and manufacturing, and enterprise software, Srikant is responsible for guiding Northbound s customers and targeting their prospects via a solution-selling approach. Srikant s previous roles include running the Americas Strategic Sales & Marketing organization at OpenText, heading the Global Marketing team for the financial services vertical at Interwoven (Autonomy), and Founder and CEO at SOLVOS Corporation. Srikant s educational background includes a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and an MBA from Cornell University. As an independent marketing consultant, Terry McGee helps B2B technology organizations improve their messaging, targeting, and lead generation. With over 20 years of experience as a marketing executive, Terry brings a wealth of tested, innovative marketing strategies and concepts to her client base. She is an expert marketer with a deep understanding of all related disciplines, and has held senior leadership positions with Exari, IBM (formerly SPSS), HP, and FileNet. Terry holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from Bentley University in Waltham, MA. She resides in Massachusetts, and serves clients around the globe. NorthboundDGS is a specialized revenue marketing firm we help our clients drive incremental market demand, meaning more leads, better-qualified sales opportunities, and net new revenue. With our services, our clients acquire new customers, extend their market share, and strengthen their brand. Our engagements are customized to each client s needs and are typically designed to supplement internal teams with extra marketing horsepower, broaden inside sales execution bandwidth, and strategically support long-term objectives while delivering immediate tactical benefits. We have a 15-year track record of routinely exceeding our clients quality expectations. Founded in 1998, Northbound is based in Sunnyvale, California. We are a team of highly-experienced B2B and B2C marketing professionals with specific expertise in digital marketing, demand creation, data generation and clean-up, and sales appointment setting. That s why global companies like Sony, Adobe, and PayPal trust NorthboundDGS for their demand generation activities. p4