The Funnelholic

I told you I would incorporate more sales centric content … well, here you have it.  I thought my interview with Craig Elias, the creator of Trigger Event Selling, would be a good post considering the importance of understanding trigger events in both marketing and sales. The Funnelholic isn’t the original report on Trigger Events as Elias has seen coverage on NBC news, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Sales and Marketing magazine. Not to mention his last business was chosen by Dow Jones as one of the 50 most promising companies in North America.

Here’s what he had to say:

1. What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

• A focus on the specific Trigger Events that shift a decision makers priorities and get them to buy right now — NOT next month or next year.

• Analyzing the sales that are won so you can identify the Trigger Events that created the buyer’s desire to take action on solving this problem now — what I call a Won Sales Analysis — so these won sales can be replicated. This differs from what most people do — a lost sales analysis, which was based on an organizations belief that if they lose the business, they need to make sure they don’t lose the lesson.

• A willingness to make a smaller initial sale with those who experienced a Trigger Event so new customers can be acquired faster, revenues can be generated sooner and further business obtained when other Trigger Events in the same account create additional, often larger, opportunities.

2. What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

• Identifying EXACTLY when those who are buying are going to buy.
• Getting to these highly motivated decision makers before the competition.
• Getting recently motivated prospects as far down the path of buying from you as possible to minimize the likelihood, and the impact, of prospects shopping your solution to your competitors.

3. What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?

The main thing is to get to revenues as soon as possible, so for me the three metrics I teach my customers to follow are:

• What Trigger Events caused prospects to become customers? These are the people who are most likely to buy in the near future.
• Which messages and visuals do the best job of capturing the attention of those who recently experienced a Trigger Event? These messages do the best job of letting your marketing resources generate the greatest return. See below for information on “selective perception.”
• Which mediums result in the shortest sales cycles by reaching recently motivated decision makers closest to the time when they experience a Trigger Event? These mediums allow you to capture the attention of recently motivated decision makers sooner and result in the highest close ratios.

4. What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

NOT keeping track of the newsletter subscriber email addresses that bounce or direct mail that gets returned. Every time this happens it creates a minimum of three opportunities for a sales team.

• Where did the original contact go?
• Who took his or her place?
• Where did the new contact come from?

Unfortunately most organizations miss the biggest single opportunity to create new customers and generate additional revenue from existing customers by taking these people off their marketing or email newsletter lists.

5. What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

Harnessing the power of selective perception. Let me give you an example:

Have you ever noticed that as soon as you buy a new car you see it all over the road? When women get pregnant, suddenly they start seeing other pregnant women everywhere. When couples give birth to their first child, they stop noticing pregnant women and now start seeing babies around every corner. This is called selective perception. We tend to see the things that reinforce what we believe, or the things we can relate to. The rest we usually disregard.
The Trigger Events we experience change what we see. Every time we experience a Trigger Event a new version of selective perception is created. We begin to notice things that were always there. We did not just “see” them.

Why is this important? By focusing on those who recently experienced a Trigger Event you can use the words, visuals or scenarios, that are highly likely to resonate with them. In sales, that means saying the words that will capture your prospects’ attention. In marketing, that means using the words or visuals that will make your advertising jump out of the page and get noticed by those readers who recently experience a Trigger Event and are most likely to become your customers.

The next time you are crafting a message, focus on the audience that recently experienced a Trigger Event. Focus on shaping your message so that when they see it, they will take that most important step to becoming your customer — phoning you.

6. What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

For me the answer to this question is related to what creates a highly motivated buyer and how to turn these highly motivated buyers into customers.

The tools I like the most are:

1. Trigger Event information services like Dow Jones’ SalesWorks and Factiva.com. They do a phenomenal job of giving you first-mover advantage with highly motivated buyers who are highly likely to make a buying decision in the very near future.

2. Marketing automation systems like ActiveConversion.com that get you the contact information of those who visit your Web site and let you know when they have visited more than once.

3. Systems like EchoQuote.com that empower a recently motivated buyer to get pricing information while at the same time helping a salesperson follow up before the competition learns of the opportunity. Nothing turns highly motivated decision makers off and causes them to visit the competition’s Web site more than not having access to the pricing information they want EXACTLY when they want it.

7. What do you hope for in B2B sales and marketing for the new year?

Stronger relationships between sales and marketing, so organizations can align and harness the aspirations of both sides of their revenue generating team.

This is the second time in two weeks we have interviewed a leader of a new type of sales or marketing service. Today’s interview is with Tom Blue, the founder of Lead411.

Here is his interview:

1. What are the three trends you see emerging in 2009?

• Direct marketing: Direct marketing efforts increase during recessions. Many of the channels that were producing plenty of leads in 2007 aren’t doing the same today. That means more people go back to cold-calling and direct marketing. We have noticed this in our business. While we lost some customers due to users’ losing their jobs, we have seen an increase in new interest in our offering.

• Increased target email marketing: More and more people are doing one to one email marketing.  This has to do with the trend I mentioned above, as well as the realization that it can be quite an effective and inexpensive model to depend on.  In addition, more and more executives are increasingly more tolerant of email messages coming in their inbox (as long as they are targeted)

• Social media networking: This trend will continue in 2009 and 2010.  It is important for sales and marketing people to be in front of as many people as possible. The more sites, networks, etc. you and your company belong to, the more people will be able to find you and will talk about you on these mediums.

2. What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

Fear: Our prospects that aren’t being closed are people that have a lot of fear. They are unsure of how much revenue they are going to have in the next few months so they are very hesitant on purchasing additional services. Even if they need it. The fear isn’t nearly as bad as the end of last year. Things have improved since then, but some fear still lingers.

3. What are three metrics that B2B marketers should care about and why?

I think this varies per company so I am going to refer to my personal experience.

Referring site information: It is important to know where your traffic is coming from. For example, a click from an advertisement usually doesn’t do as well as a keyword from a Google search. If you are like most sites, you are getting referrals from over 100 places a month. They could be ads, partners, search engines, etc. You need to know how valuable each one of these is so you can increase in that area (if needed).

Signup/Lead/Trial Conversion per new visitor: This is very important because this will tell you how good your sales/marketing copy is.  If you make wording changes to one of your entry pages you want to know if that increased interest in your prospect.  Did you get more trials/signups/leads from it?

Percentage of close/sale: From the lead that comes in you want to know how well your salesperson does with that lead. You can match up each salesperson to see who is doing the best and be able to figure out what would be a good quota, etc.

4. What are the top oversights marketers are making regarding lead generation?

Social Media, PR marketing and news: Larger corporations seem to be missing the boat on the newer Internet marketing methods. Twitter and the like are great ways to stay in touch with Joe Customer and to curb any dissent on your product/service.  I also believe that these services could bring in other leads that they aren’t getting.  It is also a good PR move for them to be “hip” and cutting edge.

As for general PR, it isn’t just getting a mention in the newspaper anymore. You want every blogger and online site mentioning your company. You want your press releases blasted everywhere. Not only will this increase awareness, but this will increase your authority ranking on Google (Page Rank). This really increases your search engine marketing efforts.

Finally, it is important to follow news in your territory. You can find many leads by looking at companies that are growing, opening new offices or have gotten new large customers in your area. This is extremely beneficial to salespeople.

5. What will you prescribe to marketers to carry out effective lead generation?

In my opinion, the most important marketing focuses are: SEO (search engine optimization), CPC advertising, social media public relations, individual sales rep networking and territory news tracking.

6. What three Web 2.0 applications, cutting-edge technologies or lead generation sources do marketers HAVE to consider to be successful?

Twitter, LinkedIn and some type of news alert system.  E.G. Buzzgain, Google Alerts or a site like mine will provide you alerts about companies in your area in which there is a good lead opportunity.

7. What do you hope for in B2B sales and marketing for the new year?

Positivity.  I feel things have stabilized and we should focus on getting back to work instead of worrying about the future.

I wrote a well-received post awhile back on how marketers can and should take the time to learn as much as possible about their organization’s sales process and their individual sales reps’ pains, pitches and needs, entitled “Eating Nails for Breakfast.”

The sales and marketing alignment movement is on. Everyone talks about it in the blogosphere and at conferences.  One of the keys to this sales and marketing “glasnost” is for both sides to understand as much as they can about not only what each other does in the organization but general best practices for each specialty.  But, I know you’re thinking, “Where do you find the time?” There is never enough time. If you clock in at 9, eat an hour-long lunch and leave when the clock strikes 5,  you’re right: you have no time and I can’t help you. (Who still does that by the way?) This post is for people who want to be the best at their job.

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One of the benefits of running a blog is being introduced to new solutions as they come to market.  Sales 2.0, the lead nurturing/marketing automation  movement, social media and the rise in visibility for demand generation has spurred investment and innovation.  In other words, (for a guy like me) we’re living in exciting times.

Today’s interview is with David Anderson, founder and CEO, MyWay Interactive.  MyWay Interactive has created a new way for sales and marketing departments to trade leads online and track the leads activities on Twitter (hello social media).  It’s an exciting new solution and worth checking out. David’s been around for awhile,  having  served previously as the founder and CEO of Silicon Valley Networks, and was on the founding teams of three multibillion dollar public companies (Mercury Interactive, Pure-Atria and Valid Logic) where he ran sales and marketing.

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