by Catherine Brown

It always makes me happy to learn something about business from someone else and not have to “reinvent the wheel” in my professional life. Last week I was preparing for a board meeting by running Initial Call’s sales numbers for my presentation, and I used some of the very same reports that we provide to our clients on a regular basis from the sales databases we keep for them. Thanks to a sales team that puts in great notes (and SF.com technology), I could determine Initial Call’s costs to generate business both from cold calling and from client referrals.

I continue to be thankful for the many client referrals we get each year; it is so much less expensive to keep clients happy and work from their referrals than it is to generate new business from scratch.

I would like to investigate how other businesses ask for referrals, if you have any information you’d be willing to share on how you’ve found it’s best to ask for referrals, please email me at cbrown@initialcall.com.

by Catherine Brown, President Initial Call

I was purchasing some equipment at a medical supply store in town yesterday when I overheard a salesman make an in-person cold call that didn’t go very well. This was a painful interaction to overhear. It went like this:

First, the salesman walked in to the store asked who the right person would be to talk to about his (blah blah blah…) supply chain assessment service.

The person behind the desk stated that probably the owner of the store, whom I’ll call John, was the right person but said, “What is this about?”

In painful detail and full of logistics and supply chain technical jargon, the salesman explained the ins and outs of the consulting service that his company offers.  I was trying to have my own conversation about the product I was buying but could see out of my peripheral vision that the store employee was starting to shut down and “glaze over” while the salesman was talking.  The salesman then went for the big push: he asked if the employee, who was not the decision maker, would agree to schedule a meeting for the store owner for them to “explore further if it makes sense for us to talk further.” 

The employee refused to commit his boss’s time, and the salesman left stating the he would call again Friday. No meeting was scheduled.

When the salesman was safely out of earshot, I asked the store employee why he didn’t agree to speak to his boss on behalf of the salesman. The employee replied that he didn’t believe that their company needed this service and that they “get solicitations all the time.”

So, what went wrong? How did this salesman fail to differentiate himself?

The salesman didn’t give the store employees any reason to believe it was worth talking for more than two minutes.  I can’t help but think how much more meaningful it would have been if the salesman had walked in and shared some real facts about what his firm had done for other companies.  Share real numbers, like, “We’ve saved companies like X, Y, and Z  10% on their …”  or “We helped companies like A, B and C, reduce their inventory by 15%.”  Case study data would have added to this salesman’s credibility.

It’s a shame that the call wasn’t more productive, because it takes time and costs money to walk in and cold call in person…and rejection has a way of spiraling.  With a better planned approach this gentleman could have experienced a positive outcome.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development

Whether you engage a firm like Initial Call or hire a new employee to do sales prospecting, you need to be able to assess how they are doing. Selecting the right firm or person is a challenge, because a complex sale generally requires a more sophisticated individual who can operate without a lot of direction and handholding. A “smile and dial” approach will not succeed here.

In making your final selection you might have relied on past successes, or personality, or experience in your industry. But now you are wondering how you will know if they are on track for success - since it is unlikely that the individual will generate sales appointments the first day of work. So how can you tell if your hiring decision was a solid one? Ask yourself these five questions.

First, are they communicating effectively? Are they asking questions to indicate they understand the message? Can they articulate the nuances of your product’s message? Can they readily identify the potential pain points in a prospect’s vague response?

Second, are they respecting your processes? Are they navigating your CRM, using fields correctly, and inputting notes that your sales people can work with? Every company has different documentation requirements and workflow protocols. Are they fitting in with the culture in your organization?

Third, are they penetrating the list strategically? Every situation is unique. Sometimes it is smarter to quickly touch each contact and then circle back to further validate a prospect’s interest; some sales managers use this approach to identify viable leads in the list. Other times it makes more sense to be precise in finding the right contact, and avoid multiple touches. Does your sales person instinctively know what approach is best for your organization right now? Or do they at least ask you for clarification versus assuming you will tell them what to do each and every time?

Fourth, are they getting close to securing a meeting? Can your sales person name specific people at specific companies with whom they are building relationships? If they give you a vague answer such as “I’m making headway on a few” without further details, you should be skeptical. Notice whether the anticipated appointments begin to appear in the calendar. Be concerned if you are repeatedly pacified with potential appointments that never materialize.

Fifth, and finally, are appointments are booked and held? Your resource’s appointments should be on track and match the qualifications you outlined. When your staff makes the sales calls that have been arranged by your sales person, your potential clients should be well informed as to the nature of the call and are not surprised by the agenda for the meeting. Over time, meetings should turn into sales activity in your pipeline.

Your “fail tolerance” for any one of these questions may vary, but these key test points give you concrete data for use in evaluating success before any financial ROI becomes evident.

Initial Call pleased to announce Talbot Goodyear, Lyn Watson, and Elissa Harrell have joined us!

As Sales Executives, Talbot and Lyn will introduce Initial Call's broad-based, consultative approach to providing contracted inside sales support to organizations that are looking to keep their employed sales personnel focused on closing new business.  Talbot lives in the greater Boston area and will focus on the Northeast and Lyn resides in the Oklahoma City area and will focus on the Midwest.

Elissa joins us as a Project Manager and will work closely with our clients to make their sales pipeline, marketing databases, and sales materials more robust than they have ever been.  Elissa is based in San Antonio, Texas.

by Catherine Brown, President, Initial Call

I recently participated in a discussion on LinkedIn where a group of sales and marketing consultants were debating the meaning of the word “lead.” Definitions vary, but in the interest of brevity, I’m going to cover the three most common ways people talk about “leads.”

First, some people see a lead as the original inquiry that a potential customer makes about a product. In this example, when a person hits your company’s website and says, “Send me more information,” this is a lead. The person inquiring about your company may not have a budget or meet any other buying criteria; they are just asking for information. The inquiry is called a lead until you know more about what they need. The fact that people use the term to mean both the company AND/OR the person making the inquiry poses many sales-tracking challenges. (See our whitepaper on managing leads in Salesforce.com.)

The second use of “lead” is in sales cycle mapping. In this case, the noun “lead” is defined by the adjectives in front of it. The word “lead,” paired with another word, tells you where you are in the sales process. For example, a “marketing-qualified lead” or “sales-ready lead” indicates that this potential buyer is moving through the steps of qualifying. A “qualified lead” implies you know enough to propose work to them. In this situation, it’s the adjective that really clarifies where they are in the sales process, not the word “lead” alone.

Finally, some people see a lead as a potential buyer who has reached the highest point in the qualification process. In this scenario, a lead is someone with whom you’ve spoken, possibly multiple times. You’ve determined that this prospect has the budget and the authority to buy your product, as well as a real need that your solution addresses.

At Initial Call, we use “lead” according to the first explanation. We say “lead” to mean someone who has inquired of our services but about whom we know little. Once we begin conversations with the inquiring party, we refer to them as an Account, whether a Suspect Account (meaning we need more information) or a Prospect Account (meaning it is qualified as a potential client). Much confusion can be averted by limiting the use of the term “lead” to only those early inquiries into your product. 

We will provide more information about this way of tracking sales in future newsletters. In the meantime, no matter how you define “lead,” the single most important thing is that everyone within your company use the word the same way. 

Don’t assume that they do. 

Ask them.

by April Karli

I notice a lot of bloggers and talking about generosity in the sales and marketing world. The idea is to give away your content, advice, or help while expecting nothing in return. One of my favorite articles talking about this is from Seth Godin. In this article he talks about getting something after you've given something. You give money and get lunch in return. You give time and money and get a university diploma.  

But, he says, "Online, though, I'm not sure the math is so obvious." 

And he goes on to say, "Online, the something, the quid, the this, doesn't cost cash. It takes heart and energy and caring, which are scarce but renewable resources. As a result, many people are able to spend them without seeking anything external in return. Even better, the act of generosity, of giving without expectation, makes it easier to do art, to create work that matters on its own."

Another blogger, Michael Hyatt, says the tools we use online like Twitter and Facebook are relational tools, not transactional. He suggests a 20-to-1 Rule - you give 20 relational deposits for one withdrawal.

When I think about blogs I read, people I follow on Twitter, connect with on Linkedin, or friend on Facebook, I don't respond well to those who seem to be using the platform purely to promote themselves, their businesses, or their books/blogs. I connected with them to learn, not just about their products, but about them. Otherwise, I'd just read their website and other marketing collateral. I quickly "unfollow" and "unfan" anyone who is updating their status or Tweeting a link to their book multiple times a day. I followed them to learn from them. I want to know what they're reading, who they follow, and what they think is important. 

Like Seth Godin says, it's "Santa Math." Santa flies around the world giving away presents not because he expects anything in return. He does it because he's generous. It's in his very nature to give things away for the pure joy of giving.

How do you respond to people online who are generous? What about those who aren't? 

by April Karli

In our last internal newsletter we included the following article explaining our new social media efforts. We asked contractors at Initial Call to participate in discussions on our blog, follow Catherine (@InitialCall) and me (@AprilatIC) on Twitter, and let us know how they’re using social media.

It made me wonder, how is your company using social media internally? Are your employees kept in the loop about your social media and marketing efforts? What works for you? What doesn’t? Below is the content from our internal newsletter. I’d love to hear what you think.

---

Everyone seems to be talking about social media these days. Living in Austin I was bombarded a couple of weeks ago by SXSW Interactive which kicked off the SXSW annual film and music festival. Hundreds of tech-Twitter-Facebook-savvy people descended on downtown Austin tweeting and blogging the day away. I didn't attend (though I think it would be great fun to go sometime), but I did try to follow what was happening as much as I could. Luckily, the very thing they were talking about, social media, made it easy for me to do so.

Here at Initial Call we are rolling out several new efforts in social media. One of the best ways to know what's going on is to follow Catherine and me on Twitter (@InitialCall and @AprilatIC) to keep up with what we are learning and reading about sales, marketing, and social media.

Also, in the coming weeks look for the blog, Leave the Hang-ups to Us, to become more active with content being published frequently. Our website is also getting a facelift, and should be ready in the next few weeks. According to Robin Fox, a social media coach who has been helping me launch our efforts, Initial Call has a strong set of resources we can leverage to build our credibility in the sales industry. We will use the blog and website to promote our strong original content, white papers, ebooks, and client stories.

See part of Catherine Brown's training seminar, "Talents and Traps," which addresses the strengths that women bring to the sales process, as well as the easy-to-avoid pitfalls in selling.

Catherine spoke to several chapters of the Executive Women's Forum, International, a peer-advisory professional association for women business owners.

Some highlights include:

• defining sales in a way that leverages your natural strengths,
• utilizing your existing network of relationships to increase your sales numbers and 
• guarding the power you have as an individual with a valuable product or service

by Catherine Brown, President, Initial Call

Is “outsourcing” a bad word? Admittedly, the idea can have a negative connotation, but in B2B sales, seeking expert outside help for key professional services is becoming more and more acceptable. I experience this personally not only as we help other businesses decide whether to outsource their sales work and but also in the running of my own business. For example, with tax season coming up quickly, I am reminded how much I enjoy outsourcing accounting. Although I appreciate my competent Certified Public Accountant throughout the year, I am especially grateful for her services in April. Why? Because although I could do my business taxes myself, I am freed from a tremendous burden in time and management energy by trusting this to a professional. Recruiting is a similar function. Some companies hire only through HR, but others utilize a competent contract recruiter to help. The inside sales role is similar for sales executives. When deciding how to build or grow your organization, ask yourself, “Do I want to run this process myself or am I willing to delegate?” Evaluate what is best for your business model as well as for your personality. If you lack the bandwidth to find, hire, and actively manage resources, then outsourcing may be best for you. To make a final decision, consider two more key points - Training and Budget. 

Regarding training, do you have a product or service that contract labor can be trained to learn? Even if your product or sales qualification process is complex, the answer to this question is usually “yes.” Of course trusting someone else with your messaging is a big hurdle. Remember that, in reality, you must do that very thing if you hire an employee. There is no other way to grow. Rest assured, if you have a definition of what a “qualified opportunity” means for your company, it’s likely that you can provide the information that an experienced contractor needs to be successful in finding sales for you. A good vendor will have an established project launch process to guide you.

The other important consideration is budget for the work relative to your offering price. Analyze your cost of sale. Determine what your budget would be if you were to hire someone for the role then research what that dollar amount buys when outsourced. Contractor prices vary, depending on the level of resource appropriate for your pitch. The vendor price may appear either very affordable or very expensive at first glance. You must dig deeper and consider what’s included then compare the hidden costs of employees. From the intangibles such as lost time when a person doesn’t work out to the add-on costs of taxes and benefits, employees can be expensive too. Contracting the right level of inside sales talent tends to cost about the same as hiring when you analyze the whole sales cycle, from the process of building a target list to qualifying opportunities. 

Elements of your sales cycle may dictate in-house operations. For example, does the same person who cold-calls also do an on-the-spot in-depth demo? Thinking about your management style, you may simply enjoy building inside sales teams, training people to cold call, and overseeing performance. . If you want to listen to cold calls in person and see your team around the water cooler, you will likely be more satisfied with a team of people in your physical location. If you are a person who needs high control over your whole sales organization, you may be dissatisfied with outsourcing, no matter how good the vendor. Embrace that you want to own all sales operations--even the gory details! Let’s say that the above does NOT describe you. You simply want good sales opportunities but you don’t have to be intimately involved with every detail of acquiring these opportunities. If you lack the bandwidth to find, hire, and actively manage resources, then outsourcing may best for you. 

Determining whether to outsource or hire requires careful thought as to what is better for your business in addition to your own preferences. We talk more on our blog about Eliminating the Risks of Telesales if you’d like to see more suggestions. I’d also welcome the opportunity to discuss our findings about true costs of outsourcing if you want to contact me to talk further. cbrown@initialcall.com

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization

Google the term “annoying business phrases” and you will find plenty of reading material so I’m not sure I need to add more to the canon.  While figurative language is colorful and helps communicate meaning, it can be overused to the point it ceases to have meaning or be interesting.  Recently, I ran across two phrases that I’d never heard before so they stood out for me.

In one of our earlier blogs was the following quote:

Speaking of the keynote address, Jason S. from Seattle Tweeted, “...Marc melted my face off!”    

I must confess I’m not sure what “melted my face off” means.  I googled it and I still don’t know.  Is it me?  Do lots of people know that term or is it too bleeding edge?  If so, is it good business to using bleeding edge terms in business? Beyond that, is the use of pop culture phrases professional? Unless your target audience is only the hippest clients, are these phrases getting business for you?

For my second example, I recently I received an email from a previously unheard of vendor that started with:

Hi Colleen, Can we circle?

Now that just annoyed me.  I can figure out what “can we circle” means, and the answer is NO.  No, we cannot circle as that just does not sound like a good use of my time, fun, or even appealing.  So NO, we cannot circle.  I don’t know you and I’ve never heard of your product so I’m hitting the email delete button now.  I’m pretty sure my hitting the delete button was not the sender’s goal.

Do our attempts to be fresh and relevant inadvertently have the opposite effect? Do we risk turning our audience off by using phrases they don’t understand or that sound unprofessional?  Or have they worked for you?  I’d love to hear your experiences.

by Catherine Brown, President

Over the Christmas holidays, I was catching up on some of the discussions from the LinkedIn groups that I follow, including the B2B Lead Generation Round Table. Chris Knipper at Kuno Creative posted an article titled, “Is Direct Mail Marketing Dead? Not If You Do It Right.” This topic piqued my interest, as I’ve been tracking Initial Call’s own direct mail successes this last quarter.

 In a world of instant gratification, direct mail is still an art. Letters still work in reaching people, precisely because direct mail is such an old concept, it almost seems new again. “Snail mail” gets attention in a world of e-mail marketing. I love direct mail because it gives the opportunity to do many things: to demonstrate that you’ve specifically chosen to reach out to X company because you have reason to believe they’d be a good fit for your services; to provide a targeted case study with quantitative, measurable results that don’t look sales-y; and finally, now you have a reason to call them since you’ve put a call to action within your letter.

I believe that mass mailings are hard to do well because lists always involve bad names. Sending to the wrong name and title at a company undermines the personal touch you are striving to have. I like to send small batches of letters at a time, where we choose an industry that we want to target because of our success story therein. Then we send personal letters that reflect that we have good reason to be a fit to work with a particular company, including a case study. Finally, we call and set up an appointment to speak further. The final step is essential, as even an interested party may be just busy and not get around to calling you even if they mean to call you. Make it easy for them by telling a strong story about why they should speak with you with quantifiable results, and follow up to schedule a time to speak further.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

CRM systems are the heart of most inside sales operations. Many of Initial Call’s clients use Salesforce.com, so we are passionate about best practices. Hence my recent trip to Salesforce.com’s 2009 conference, dubbed Dreamforce. This “Global Gathering” occurs every fall and serves to unite partners, prospects, and users around Salesforce.com’s vision.

The event is surreal and dream-like on many levels--complete with an ethereal sky motif perfectly suited to cloud computing. Giant inflated Mylar cloud balloons are tethered to a fleet of Mini-Coopers outside the event center. Inside, the theme continues everywhere you look.  In tangible and intangible ways, Salesforce.com taps into common human thoughts, emotions and desires. Since sales and customer relations are both objective and subjective, let’s take note of how Salesforce.com makes Dreamforce attendees feel--and the powerful lessons we can all apply from it.  

“I’m special!”  
Somehow Salesforce.com masterfully affirms each attendee as valuable while simultaneously feeding the power of the crowd mentality. Like junior high students, we all deep down want to be “in” with the popular crowd. And Salesforce.com made sure the cool kids were at Dreamforce. Any prospects on the fence about purchasing or renewing the tool were swayed by the big business names endorsing the solution. On the BART train to the airport, I connected with a fellow attendee and current user who is up for renewal. He confessed that he had been considering other CRM tools but that his Dreamforce experience convinced him to stay. 

While not so subconsciously assuring attendees that “everyone who is anyone” is using Salesforce.com, our host also offered several activities aimed at highlighting individuals.  Breakout sessions and lunch roundtables were tailored to each attendee’s interest track or company role. Customized conference schedules negated the herd mentality that could have easily prevailed. I had my photo taken with the Saas-y mascot, and Salesforce.com posted my and others’ photos for viewing in the hallway. All attendees got eco-friendly tote bags.  Live Twitter feeds displayed continuously to multiple jumbo screens throughout the facility.  Speaking of the keynote address, Jason S. from Seattle Tweeted, “...Marc melted my face off!”   

Have you found a way to develop a sense of community and belonging among your clients without losing a personal touch?  Salesforce.com modeled how to expertly strike this balance. How will you mix social media, mass communication with direct interactions to make your clients feel valued?     

“I’m Powerful!”
Dreamforce had plenty of hype, but the core message of making CRM accessible to everyone--not just “the big guys”--still rang through loud and clear. Salesforce’s original mission was to democratize databases. Dreamforce delivers on this mission with hands-on training and information sessions to empower users. Salesforce.com says, “You can build it.  You can customize it. You can manage it. We will help you.” Salesforce.com takes the complex and makes it relatively simple and user-friendly. Their openness has not cost them business but has instead earned allegiance and yielded growth.  

Surely your business exists to serve your customers and meet a need--to make them better, faster, or more economical in some way. Reflect on how Salesforce.com “opened their kimono” and de-mystified the how-to of customizing and creating applications. Examine whether there is any part of your service or product offering that is unnecessarily confusing or overly complicated--somehow inaccessible. Salesforce.com shows how eliminating customer fear and impotence will build loyalty.  

“I’m on vacation!”
Clearly the CRM system conference is work-related, but holding the event in the destination city of San Francisco lends a getaway feel to the week. The conference atmosphere and amenities are first class and fun, with everything from bean bag lounges to tofu lunch choices to DJs spinning hot dance tunes in the atrium.   

Few of us are likely to hold events on the Dreamforce scale (19,000 attendees), but we should consider whether our clients ever feel like our interactions with them are “all business” in a negative way. We can’t escape our work obligations and must always be professional, but we should strive to provide levity for our clients where we can. As often as possible, be a blessing rather than a burden to your client. They should see your dealings as a privilege and a help rather than drudgery. At this time of year, make sure your holiday greetings exude sincerity and gratitude.  

Wake Up Call  

So, in our dreams, sugarplum fairies dance in our heads. Reality is relative and we can be or do anything. In real life, well, there are limits.  

Conference gifts included Marc Benioff’s new book, Behind the Cloud. In it, Salesforce.com’s CEO weaves the company’s story into 110 tips to grow your business.  What becomes clear during the read is that Salesforce.com is unique--birthed and grown within a bubble of high-level Bay Area power players and with rare financial resources.  While Benioff paints a quaint picture of the early days when his team worked in Hawaiian shirts from his living room, he later relates how just two years into their founding they were spending between $2 and $3 million per month on advertising. (pg. 45)  

So, we can’t all be Salesforce.com. I don’t take regular six-month sabbaticals to India or bounce ideas of my good buddy Michael Dell. But dreams do inspire. Having been part of Dreamforce, I am motivated to ensure all our clients feel valued, empowered and in a small way even swept away by the service we provide.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

Why does Initial Call not contract on a pay-for-performance basis? It might be easier to sell our services this way, but we moved away from this model because we have seen that commission-only terms do not form the foundation for a long term, win-win relationship.

When companies are shopping for contracted inside sales support, they face two major trust hurdles. #1, what firm is good enough to represent our company and our complex offering? #2, how can we eliminate all other risk when contracting?

Initial Call wins on point one, but vendors who offer commission-only terms or who make meeting guarantees beat Initial Call--at first glance--on point two. Since it is natural to want to avoid risk, our prospects are likely to have concerns when weighing our model against a “sure thing” vendor.

Buyer Beware. Commission-only terms may feel safer but are really not inherently less risk. Consider these points:

1. If you yourself do not have extensive metrics about what it takes to schedule qualified meetings from scratch, how can anyone else make a guarantee around such? Each client offering is unique, and we do not see consistent metrics in any one vertical. Anyone who says that “we will get you X meetings by X date” or “meetings with X title cost $X” is over-simplifying.
2. Promises may get you to buy, but then you will be stuck if there is a delivery problem. Be wary: actual sales meetings may be sub-par or take much longer to schedule than pledged, costing valuable time you cannot get back.
3. If a vendor compensates their employees or contractors on a commission-only model, it is likely that they have a high-level of turnover. Meeting commissions are one part of our compensation, but we eliminate volatility and hence retain the level of talent essential to our services.

We understand that prospects want their contractor to “have skin in the game” and may think that pay-for-performance or profit-sharing is the only way to do this. We have been providing complete inside sales management for over 7 years now. We know enough to know what we don’t know—and can’t know--about a new client. So we avoid making promises we can’t keep. However, we do have a two-part solution to ensure our clients see ROI from their relationship with us.

First, we engage with new clients in a Discovery Pilot, the primary aim of which is to uncover comprehensive information about the first 1/3 of their sales cycle. A solid pilot sets the stage for future performance and a win-win partnership. At the end of a 12-week testing period, our clients have their CRM customized, a complete sales playbook, and metrics around qualified sales appointments set.

Secondly, we offer a no-penalty termination clause. At any time, if you are not satisfied with our services, you can end the engagement immediately.

The one thing we do guarantee is that we treat you and your project like one of our own.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization

Remember the days when it was nothing to fly cross country for a 3-hour meeting? Sure, you tried to meet up with other colleagues or customers to fill up your day, but sometimes you went just for the one meeting. So yes, the ability to conduct business over conference calls is one of my favorite technological advances. I’m thankful that business culture has embraced the idea – or – perhaps conference calls are one silver lining of recessions!

However, there are times when I have to remind myself how much I love conference calls because they aren’t always pleasant:

• Barking dogs and crying kids. Bad enough but even when someone screams “be quiet” into your ear. Ouch.
• Participants who use the freedom of conference calls as an excuse to travel somewhere else, traffic noises, dead zones, and cops (in states with Bluetooth laws).
• Hold vs. Mute. If you need a minute to answer the door, put your phone on mute. Using hold frequently treats everyone else to your annoying Muzak service.

Here are some tips we can all benefit from:

Leading the Meeting:

• Do set up the meeting in advance and communicate the dial in number, passcodes, agenda, and any other information.
• Do manage the call as a real meeting. Prepare an agenda, take notes and send a wrap up email - especially if you want people to complete follow up actions.
• Do start the meeting on time. Determine who is present and don’t punish those who arrived on time by starting the call over or repeating what’s already been said. Make the latecomers figure out where you are on the agenda.
• Do close the meeting formally, thanking everybody for participating. Summarize next steps and send out to-do’s generated in the call.

Attending the Meeting:

• Do use the right phone in a quiet, undisturbed room. Don’t attend a call while taking a walk or driving (even if you are a passenger in a cab). It may be more convenient for you but it is disruptive (and annoying) for everyone else.
• Do join the call on time and if you are late, don’t monopolize the meeting by making excuses for why you are late. Simply announce yourself and listen to determine where the call is on the agenda.
• Do use the mute button appropriately and only when necessary. Then remember when you did mute the phone so you don’t cause everyone to wait while you fumble for the mute button.

For additional tips read Conference Call Etiquette – 15 Dos and Don’ts of Multi-Way Phone Conversations.

by Catherine Brown, President Initial Call

This week I read an article on the art of speaking well when selling. I thought I’d pass this along, as there are some helpful tips to keep in mind when selling in person. (See Marshall  W. Northcott's blog article, The Art of Conversation.)  The article made me think about the huge advantages that a person has when selling in person versus on the telephone. At Initial Call, we do almost all of our selling on the phone. When someone speaks on the phone, they are disadvantaged by not being able to watch body language; it is also easy to overlook or misinterpret the “tone.”

One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned in selling (and have to keep reminding myself!) is this:  it is okay to be quiet. When cold callers get nervous, they often fill in the gaps and jump in and speak before their prospect can speak. When soliciting an answer, wait a few seconds before answering. I’ve even been known to count to 10 in my head while waiting. This will seem like an eternity on the telephone when you are wondering if someone is going to hang up on you, but you will often have the opposite response that you expect. By giving the prospect an opportunity to think about your question or ask you a question, you will likely engage in a more productive conversation.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

The concept of controlling the sales cycle is simple to grasp in theory yet elusive in real life, especially in the Complex Sale where 1) your primary Buyer needs to coordinate with others in the prospect organization and 2) they really do need time to make a deal happen.  No single-purchaser, click-to-buy easy close here.

The Complex Sale, like Gilligan’s cruise, can easily deteriorate from a straightforward 3-hour tour into a storm-tossed wreck.  Here are two tactics which will keep you at the helm of your sales relationship:

1. Tell your Buyer what your sales process is--who helps evaluate your solution and how long it will take.  Your language might look something like this, “We have found that, typically, the key roles for evaluating [our fabulous offering] are CEO, CFO and COO—and that it usually takes about three weeks to confirm that we are a fit.  We have come to you as a key Decision Maker and are reaching out to X and X as well.  We can schedule a group meeting to discuss the merits together or loop back to you next week…”
   
   With this phrasing, you have spelled out not only the timeframe within which you hope to receive a preliminary “yes” or “no” but have also acknowledged the reality that multiple Buyers are involved.   You have set the stage that you will be contacting others which might motivate this contact to become your Champion.  At the very least, this one contact now lacks the power to stall the process. 
   
   
2. Next, determine what is stalling your prospect: a genuine lack of interest or the weakness of human nature.  If your prospect truly has no interest at this time—for whatever reason, you are unlikely to move the account forward no matter what you do.  However, some prospects are open to you and your offering, but simple procrastination and the “tyranny of the urgent” may prevent them from acting.

If you don’t have clear “no-go” signs, you will need to nurture your prospect along in specific ways.  Break down the tasks you currently do after a prospect commits to moving forward and see if you can move some of those milestones earlier in your sales cycle.  In essence, create Baby Steps which lead your prospect to “yes.”  This idea works especially well when the services you do for your client (typically after you close) only reinforce the rightness of your solution.  Do you see any ways to separate and sequence your sales process?  Do you gather requirements or run numbers?   Consider giving away more analysis or consulting so that perhaps some heretofore “post-close” steps will actually help finalize your sale for you. 

In other words, make it very easy to buy.  A story to illustrate:

I had wanted to refinance my house for months and had made some calls and web inquiries to vendors.  I had two Good Faith Estimates sitting in my in-box…for weeks.  Then I got a call from the loan officer who ultimately earned my business.  Before I realized it, we were walking through the necessary info in a phone interview—no burdensome forms.  He did some quick calculations and asked if his numbers were as good as or better than the other quotes I had.  They were.  Then, he closed the sale without me ever having to say a word.  “What I am going to do now is overnight a package that will be on your doorstep by 8:00 a.m.  All you have to do is sign the top paper and return it in the postage-paid envelope.  If you want to send some or all of the other forms, great—but don’t let that hold you up.  We can get those by email or fax later.  We will get you locked in and from that point your rate can only go down—not up.”

This master closer didn’t let me say that I needed to think about it, or else his quote would have languished in my in-box along with the others.  He took charge and took a risk by mailing me a package, but with that action he created a simple Baby Step for me.  Everyone else was waiting for me to say “Yes, I pledge to working with you,” before taking any action.  Having been through the home-purchasing process more than once in the past, I got stalled in making a decision because I knew I would then have to gather and copy countless forms and mail them in—after finding or buying a jumbo envelope and going to stand in line at the post office and paying postage for my jumbo package on top of all that.  It all felt too annoying and troublesome to deal with, so I kept stalling.

Clearly I was interested in refinancing or I wouldn’t have contacted several lenders.  By taking an action step that others saw as post close, this loan officer cemented my business.  Your prospects are the same as I was; they have an interest in your offering or they wouldn’t be taking your call.  Now—don’t wait for your prospect to say “yes” or “no.”  Don’t make those the only choices.  Don’t make it hard to move forward.  Instead, walk them through your sales steps, positioning each task as “providing them what they need to make an informed decision.” 

By definition, there are many ways that The Complex Sale can’t be simplified; however, it can be streamlined and accelerated.  And you can be in control of more elements of the timetable than you may assume.  Map a course and then help the “maybes” become “yeses” by steering your prospect through waypoints that you define—ones that have been there all along.  Share any sales process steps that you can--prior to closing the sale--and you will guide into your harbor those prospects who otherwise would have likely drifted out to sea.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Talent & Organization Development &
Amy Keuper, VP Sales

We are frequently asked how projects are staffed at Initial Call. Initial Call has a robust recruiting and staffing infrastructure to ensure the best possible fit between our clients and our contractors. Here is an overview of our processes.

We recruit Sales Managers who have a strong background in Sales and Lead Generation, averaging over 10 years’ experience. Initial Call retains a high level of talent because we attract individuals who are now at a point in their career in which part-time work is the best fit. The average tenure for Sales Managers at Initial Call is two years. Each Sales Manager has specific skills but is prized primarily for an ability to learn quickly and adapt in order to represent a wide variety of client offerings.  

Initial Call is ever-growing and therefore adding new individuals to our pool. Client Teams are carefully selected to include proven veterans who can mentor newer Sales Managers. To be successful, Initial Call Sales Managers must:

• show an ability to work smartly and think like the client
• set well-qualified appointments within the hours-to-appointment ratio average of the individual client,
• respond promptly to voice and e-mail,
• take well-crafted notes within the CRM, and
• adapt according to the changing needs of the client.

When assembling project teams, we match our Sales Managers’ individual strengths and preferences (background and available work hours) with client needs. We consider:

• total project weekly man hours
• any significant time zone parameters
• which CRM will be used on the project
• skill sets needed to achieve the clients goals, and
• the complexity of messaging and appointment qualifiers.

Initial Call’s primary value proposition is that we provide complete inside sales management for companies who do not want to or are not currently prepared to build their own inside sales department. We absorb 100% of the Human Resources burden to provide a turn-key launch experience for our clients. In the rare case that we determine a Sales Manager we have placed on a team is not a fit, we act proactively and rapidly—and at our own expense--with whatever remedies or substitutions are necessary.

Initial Call’s commitment to superior performance frees our clients from the chore of finding, hiring, training and managing people. Our clients are then free to focus on their core competency---growing their business.

We are often asked this question while speaking with potential clients. Or said another way, people ask “Will you confirm and qualify X information and then let our sales reps call and schedule a sales appointment?” Initial Call has performed this kind of contract work in the past but more recently, we have come to a new answer: don’t do it. 

If you sell something really simple, and it’s not hard to find the Buyer’s name within a mid-sized company, it may be a reasonable use of money to pay a firm to confirm your prospects’ contact information and basic qualifying information. However, if what you sell is difficult to explain, requires heavy qualification, and the Buyer is deep within the company, it could well take our Sales Manager 50 different activities to get this person on the phone. If we have the potential Buyer on the phone and confirm that they are the right person with whom you should be talking, we want to schedule a sales appointment right then and there.   Nine times out of 10, when we forward researched information about a Buyer to a client, the client later struggles to get that Buyer on the phone again.  It usually doesn’t make sense for our clients’ expensive sales reps to spend time trying to chase down people we can reach for them. 

Beyond Default Settings: Best Practices for Managing Leads within Salesforce.com when you have a Complex Sale

Promote Initial Call's VP of Sales, Amy Keuper's, idea for a session covering the topic of Leads and the Complex Sale at the next Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco this November: http://dreamforce.ideas.salesforce.com/people/amykeuper/articles

Trying to track sales and qualification efforts without a protocol for immediately converting Leads can drive your organization into a workflow which does not fit your sales process if you have a long sales cycle.

We at Initial Call, Inc. provide contracted inside sales management. We maintain that, in the case of a Complex Sale (multiple Buyers, protracted education phase, expensive and/or complicated offering), the Leads tab should ideally function as an in-box—not a work platform.

Managing sales from within the Leads tab creates several specific challenges:

1. Leads are related to and tracked as individual people—not to the company they work for. You won’t have a master view of the target account unless you create an Account.
2. The “Company” field within a Lead record is freely keyed—not standardized. This causes multiple incorrect iterations of account names.
3. “New” Leads may not be new. Your sales team could “cold-call” someone you already have a relationship with.
4. Working in Leads causes duplication of effort. Two of your representatives can easily be, simultaneously but unknowingly, assigned different Leads at the same company.
5. Working in Leads can create conflict of ownership. Assigning Leads by territory or some other objective field is not error-proof due to factors such as HDQ/branch office location differences, parent/child relationships, etc.
6. Good salespeople are often not detail-oriented. Orders to “Find Duplicates” may not be followed.
7. Duplicate Leads skew reports about how many actual unique sales leads exist. An individual may appear in a database multiple times and be counted as a Lead many times over.

Leave with a plan to use Leads in a way that works for the Complex Sale.

Click here to promote our idea! http://dreamforce.ideas.salesforce.com/people/amykeuper/articles

Catherine spent some time last month chatting with Britton Manasco of Manasco Marketing Group in Austin, TX. Britton produces a thought leadership strategy blog at Illuminating the Future and has contributed to many business and marketing journals and magazines. Below is a transcript of Catherine and Britton's conversation. 

Catherine:  Thanks for speaking with me today, Britton.  As you know, our newsletter is tailored to people who are responsible for sales and marketing in their organization. In my article this month, I wrote about how the Internet has changed lead generation.  Do you agree with my premise: that sales and marketing professionals need to think differently about the way people buy today versus a few years ago? 

Britton:  Yes. It’s true that the Internet has made it much easier for people to gather insight and perspective that will help them in considering the issues they have to address, as well as the potential solutions that might be available to them. The Internet helps them identify the trusted authorities on a particular issue and get a handle on what others like them have experienced and achieved. Good marketing, in this sense, sets the stage for a credible sales conversation – a business conversation. 

Catherine:  So, what are some of the things your clients are doing to provide the knowledge that buyers are looking for about their products?

Britton:  I call this idea “marketing assets” or “content assets.” It’s my view that anything you produce should be thought of as a tool to help guide the buyer through a decision and through actions that will make them successful. What I found in the past (that is still a problem even now) is companies tend to create content or material that is very much inward-looking or introspective in nature. Companies talk about themselves, their products, their features and functions.       Sellers often aren’t locking on to the fact that their buyers really want to hear about themselves and others like them. They want to know, first off, that the seller really understands the problems and challenges that they face.                  

Sellers, as I see it, largely differentiate themselves with buyers based on the thoroughness of their diagnosis of a buyer’s pain or problem. However, you are far more likely to set up smart meetings and have these successful diagnostic conversations if you have already established trust and credibility. That’s a key objective of marketing assets such as white papers, case studies and webinar presentations. So, marketing assets should reflect the problems and challenges and issues that the prospective buyer is facing. That’s how you engage them. Otherwise, they’re not going to see the seller as credible or as a trusted authority. They won’t be provoked or enticed to meet with you in the first place.

Catherine:  One of the terms that I’ve heard people use to describe how sellers should want to come across in their written materials is as a “thought leader.” How do you recommend someone show this in their marketing and sales assets?

Britton:  You demonstrate thought leadership by showing that you have a perspective on where things are headed.  To the extent we’re engaged in a complex sale involving a high-risk, high-impact investment, the buyer is looking for someone they can trust and that they can commit themselves to for some period of time.                  

So they are naturally gravitating to what I would call “thought leaders” or “trusted authorities.”  You need to have research that demonstrates what’s happening out in the marketplace and be able to show what successes you’ve had with other companies like them.                  

This needs to be documented and demonstrated to build credibility.  You must articulate the key trends out in the marketplace, the business challenges that your prospect may be facing and the potential solutions they might invest in. You position yourself as an advisor – and provide reliable guidance.   

Catherine: What else should companies do?  

Britton: Companies need to be thinking about production, packaging and presentation. First, they must produce relevant and compelling content and research – marketing assets that draw prospects into your gravitational field.  Then, you must package those assets.  When I say “package” it, I mean package it as a white paper, a case study, a videocast, or a presentation at a conference or for a webinar.

Marketers can take their initial content and package it in any or all of the above.  In fact, that’s how you magnify the value of that initial content and ensure you’re getting a better result from your initial investment. You need to find more ways to package it.                  

And then,  finally, presenting the material is a critical issue. You may present information by sending it out to your house list, in an email or through a newsletter.  You can present it through social media like LinkedIn and Twitter.  You can run a PR campaign or you run a press release promoting the content you’ve created. You can present it in an event. You can do all of the above. 

Catherine: This sounds like a lot to do. 

Britton:  I realize that all of this can sound intimidating for some companies but it’s important to recognize that there are ways to enter into this gradually and make small investments in content that have a big impact.                  

A lot of the media, for instance, allow you to present your ideas in the marketplace inexpensively or free.  Your time isn’t free, but the media to deliver it is.  This can be an incredible advantage for smaller companies. They can’t compete on the level of buying ads or big trade booths, but they can compete as thought leaders.                  

Companies can elevate their image in a grand fashion and differentiate themselves from much bigger companies.  They can even come off as far more credible by making minor investments in excellent content.                  

This is a great time for smaller companies to be looking at how they’re going to position themselves in the marketplace, differentiate themselves from bigger players, build credibility with the client base they’re trying to build, and accelerate their whole sales process.       

Catherine:   Okay, great.  My next question relates to your blog.  You mention the term “high-performance content factory.”  Tell us more about that.

Britton: Yes, companies shouldn’t be intimidated by this idea.  They don’t have to invest enormous resources in developing content or hiring big PR firms to go out and represent them in the marketplace to create a content factory.                  

Business leaders do have to make some investments though.  They have to produce articles and presentations that represent some of their best thinking.  It may be something as small as producing one white paper per quarter…something that represents a provocative point of view on a key issue.                  

And then, once that white paper’s produced, they can go out and take that content and reformat it, repackage it in different ways.  If they have case studies, they can repackage this material all over as articles, as blog posts, as newsletter pieces, as presentation material, as examples for webinars. Sales people will use these stories to illustrate their points and strengthen their business cases. 

Companies can do a lot of this very inexpensively. 

Catherine:   Is there a rule of thumb about how many times something can be used?

Britton:  No. As long as it’s working, you can keep presenting it in different ways.  Take a white paper: you can just keep refashioning the main elements of that white paper in different ways for different articles for different presentations.  Just as long as the prospects are still interested in it, you can continue to present it.                  

Quite often, by refashioning it for different audiences, you create new interests.  By making it more relevant to them, you raise your results.                  

I have a simple equation for this.  I say, “Relevance times Reach equals Results.”  This means that the less relevant your material is to an audience, the more outreach will be necessary to get the results you’re trying to achieve.                  

The more relevant your content to an audience, the less outreach will be necessary.  It’s my view that the reach part of it is a far more demanding investment than the initial investment in relevant content.  What you want to do is make that equation work for you.  You need both: you need outreach and you need relevant content.                  

But too few companies actually invest adequately in relevant content.  And, thus, end up working themselves to death to get the results they want to achieve.

Catherine:   Okay, so my last question: can you give examples of companies or web sites that you would direct people to in order to demonstrate that they presented their marketing assets very well? 

Britton:    There’s a company out there that’s very hot right now.  You may be familiar with them.  They’re competing with SalesForce.com; the company is called Infusionsoft.  They have done a very nice job of building a portfolio of great content assets: white papers, case studies, think pieces of varying kinds.  They’ve got customers who just love them and they turn that enthusiasm into great stories and case studies. This information further fuels their growth engine.  I think they’re doing well in presenting themselves as thought leaders in the marketplace.

Catherine:   Great, I’ll check out that example.  Britton, thanks for helping us identify some of the key steps to create reusable customer-oriented materials that help drive sales. 

Miss our webinar: 7 Reasons Not to Manage the Compex Sale in Leads? You can see and hear the presentation at the following links:

View the PowerPoint slide deck here

Listen to the webinar audio and view the presentation here

Please take a minute to endorse Amy’s idea for a Dreamforce breakout session.  It only takes a few clicks!

Promote Amy’s idea for a session covering this topic of Leads and the Complex Sale at the next Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco this November: http://dreamforce.ideas.salesforce.com/people/amykeuper/articles

If you have any questions, comments or feedback regarding our webinar or Initial Call you can contact us at bvishanoff@initialcall.com.

by Colleen McCarty, VP Organization & Talent

What is your organization's policy toward Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media? Lately it seems I'm hearing more stories about Social Media mishaps: 

• A friend who works for a major rental car agency saw a video posted to Facebook by two employees left alone in the branch. The video clearly shows that they were in their place of business, goofing off and vocally wondering if their boss would see this (yes, since they were Facebook "friends" with their boss and their boss’ boss). 
• A North Carolina judge became Facebook "Friends" with an attorney. Not unusual, except this attorney  happened to be the attorney for the client on the judges’ current case. Via Facebook they posted several messages referring to various aspects of the case. Hmmm, even a layperson can see the problem here. You can read more here.

Perhaps the stories above have you shaking your head and recalling the motto that "common sense isn't so common" but still wondering what do they have to do with you?

Well consider the example of the public relations executive who tweeted:    

"True confession but I'm in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say 'I would die if I had to live here.'"

The executive was in town for business with his client FedEx. FedEx employees saw the post and were not pleased with the public disparagement of their hometown of Memphis. Not pleased to the point where they wrote a scathing letter in response which you can read here. 

Since Sales is all about networking, we frequently "friend", "link" and "follow" our clients and prospects. And while the venue seems casual, your team is frequently representing your organization in a public, or semi-public forum. Are you comfortable with what is being said? Rex Stephens offers some good suggestions here. Use these suggestions as a starting point for talking with your team. The challenge is to use social media to strengthen client relationships and increase sales without getting into hot water or worse!

by Catherine Brown, President

 Many thanks to my friend, Jay Horne and his friend - the amazing trainer Giovanni Gallucci - for their class that came to Oklahoma City on April 21.  Extreme Social Marketing was not just about social media theory; I am proud to say that I learned a few things that I began using immediately.  

One of my new skills is searching for topics on Twitter so you can connect with people who may be asking about things that interest you.  (Go to search.twitter.com and type in your key words.  It's a little more confusing if you want to search by a geographical area but if you want to email me at cbrown@initialcall.com, I'll tell you more.)  This is pretty great.  I've been answering people's messages and expanding my network with this search ability.  Another lesson I took away from the seminar is how to use the website ping.fm.  Creating a ping account was very easy (really!), and with this, you can do all of your status updates at one time.  So, I can write one message, and it will automatically update LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter all at once without my logging in to those sites.  While it's not particularly onerous to log in to only three sites today, I can see that ping would be particulary great for people who use YouTube, Flickr, and even more social media sites on a regular basis.  If you are lucky enough to have one of these classes come to your area, I encourage you to attend.  If not, email me and I'll tell you the short cuts that I learned.

Check out the the website to see if an Extreme Social Marketing workshop is coming to your area.

by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

We at Initial Call specialize in representing companies with a complex sale which, by definition, is harder than the average sale.  And by “hard” we mean hard.  The ever-increasing “opt-in” mindset poses real challenges for businesses who want to expand sales beyond the scope of their current social network.

Pursuing target accounts remains a vital part of most sales operations.  Cold-calling is a tried and true method of reaching someone you believe would benefit from what you offer.  If only you can reach them, then you can solve their problem—maybe one they haven’t even defined yet. 

The problem is that we are all culturally wired to resist uninvited contact.  Looking honestly at our own thorny reaction to unsolicited communication helps clarify why sales and marketing are so difficult.  If we won’t accept someone’s call or email, how can we expect them to allow ours? 

What a fine line we walk!  We must strike the balance between rightly reaching out to new individuals to grow our business and unintentionally irritating folks who hang up on us or unsubscribe thinking, “I don’t know who you are and I didn’t sign up for this.”

Ironically, most businesses employ outbound marketing yet are themselves locked down tightly against any kind of cold-calling or email campaign.  Their phone systems are “press X for X” labyrinths without any human beings and their networks reject all email as spam.  Since a primary lead generation goal within the complex sale is to qualify accounts, not to bother anyone unnecessarily, the problem of unwelcome communication would in fact shrink if getting market intelligence were easier. 

A prospect actually gains time by investing time in a call or email to self-qualify in or out of the target pool.  He finds a solution to a need or wards off unwanted future contact.  By devoting just a few seconds to listen to the pitch, the prospect can achieve both his and the caller’s goals: determining whether it makes sense to talk further. 

Adherence to The Golden Rule would smooth the seller-buyer relationship. Thoughtful and tempered prospecting would be met with courteous and understanding replies.  Sales empathy and marketing civility—ahhhh, a dream?

Given the reality that we can’t easily change prospect behavior, scheduling highly-qualified, VP and C-level meetings is hard.  Your success hinges on breaking through company defenses with a smart message delivered by the highest level talent possible, which is where Initial Call excels.

by Catherine Brown, President Initial Call

Has one of these scenarios ever happened to you?

A contact at one of your existing clients visits your website and downloads a document which creates a new Lead in your system. You are mortified when your marketing department sends your client an introductory email and follow-up call as if they were a new prospect.

Two of your sales representatives independently follow up on new Leads. Because the associated company names were entered differently in your system, your representatives are unknowingly calling into the same prospect.

It's a sales manager's nightmare, but it is avoidable if you know how to tame your CRM. If you have experienced the challenges of tracking the complex sales cycle in Salesforce.com and you've been frustrated, you are not alone. The beauty of this CRM is that you can make changes to optimize the tool for your company's unique sales cycle.

Download our whitepaper: Entropy in Salesforce.com: 7 Reasons Not to Manage the Complex Sale in Leads to find out more about how to avoid these problems, keep your CRM organized, and your sales cycle running smooth. Then join in the discussion or ask questions right here on our blog.