The Funnelholic

I hesitated to write this post, because Marketo’s Jon Miller has already written quite possibly the best, as-close-to-definitive guide to lead qualification.

OK, now that I have led you off my site, let’s get back to business. I decided to write this because I continue to believe in my heart of hearts that one of the single biggest levers a revenue-focused organization can pull is to have a dedicated phone qualification team. Also, I was cleaning out old paperwork and found some of my old notes from my days at SalesRamp.

First, some clarifications: I’m talking about a multichannel process that includes dedicated phone-based resources and automation designed to determine whether or not a lead fits the agreed-upon qualified lead definition and is deemed ready to speak with sales. Or CliffsNotes-style: There are people on the phones who qualify leads or inquiries before handing them to sales.

There are a number of different names for this: inside sales, sales development, lead development, telebusiness, lead qualification, and so forth. No matter what you call it, there’s a buttload of things to do when building an LQT (lead qualification team). I can think of at least 54:

1. Establish a business plan.
2. Create definitions; in particular, your qualified lead definition (more on this later).
3. Determine your “value-chain,” starting from revenue the organization needs to generate then go in order from there: a) Opportunities: How many opportunities do we need to hit the revenue number?; b) Qualified leads: How many qualified leads do we need to hit our number?; c) Leads or marketing-qualified leads (MQLs): How many leads do we need to hit our qualified leads number?
4. Draw the value chain from top of the funnel to the bottom.
5. Create metrics for each step in the value chain.
6. Determine your leads’ needs (demographics and so forth).
7. Determine lead/inquiry generation flow (what are the sources, etc.).
8. Figure out how leads will be entered into the system.
9. Establish the merged/purged database process.
10. Develop a list of prospects/customers not to call.
11. Develop a definition of a qualified lead. I know I mentioned this earlier, but it is the most critical definition — what criteria must you uncover in order to pass this lead to sales?
12. Sales has to agree to the definition, or nothing on this list will work.
13. Get a commitment from sales to follow up on the qualified lead. Some might call it an SLA (besides Dan Waldschmidt).
14. What is the deliverable to sales? Is it an appointment? Demo? What is the information provided?
15. What’s the closed-loop process? Sales needs to provide feedback on the qualified leads; try to do it using your CRM.
16. Create lead stages just like sales stages, but make them mimic the phone qualification process.
17. Develop the quota of qualified leads (as my old boss Stu Silverman called it, “The ‘keep-your-job’ quota”).
18. Develop a commission plan for the LQ reps. It should be a qualified lead number with a bonus for revenue generated.
19. Develop a commission plan for the manager.
20. Determine how to track calling statistics. Yes, sir (or madam), you need to do this. (P.S. You may or may not be able to do this in the CRM.)
21. Tie your qualified lead flow with the overall sales forecasting process.
22. Establish the territories for the lead qualification reps.
23. Develop “hang-on-the-wall” materials: value propositions, call guide including voice mail, qualified lead definition, competitive comparison guide, list of customers and partners, diagram of the field organization, buyer personas.
24. Set content-delivery strategy - what should be sent when.
25. Create scoring (this is if you don’t have marketing doing scoring). You should score on lead source, demographic info that hits your sweet spot (title, for example), and so forth.
26. Score will determine level of effort and time spent.
27. Create a “connect-strategy” that includes phone and email — a series of calls and emails over time.
28. Determine the number of voicemails you will leave (if any; some people don’t).
29. Create a web-researching strategy. Allot a certain amount of time to research each account. Provide an application to do research such as Inside View.
30. Create a process for inbound calls including call routing. (P.S. Here is to hoping you get inbound calls!)
31. Get senior executive staff to buy into the LQT.
32. Write all of this down in a strategy document. Not just to look cool, but for your own good.
33. Develop automation strategy, customizations, reports.
34. Choose a CRM system if there isn’t one. Figure out how to support your process if there is one.
35. Ensure you set up CRM to make lead qualification reps’ lives easier. They need to live in it.
36. Write an automation cheat sheet. Lead qualification reps should hang it on their walls.
37. Establish a process for tracking qualified leads.
38. Develop a lead source report — goodness of sources and goodness of follow-up.
39. Make sure leads are seamlessly entered into the system. Make sure lead qualification reps are alerted when they enter the CRM system.
40. Train, train and train: industry, buying personas, market, technology, product, company, your new lead qualification process, the automation, the message, objections.
41. Sit with the lead qualification reps; it’s the best way to help them.
42. Determine headcount.
43. Create job descriptions. Copy other job descriptions of like jobs to make sure you are thorough.
44. Advertise on craigslist, it works for this position. And send out word to your network. After you get one or two, pay for referrals. The average age will be young for this position, and the young’uns like working with their friends.
45. Manage the group toward hitting its goals.
46. Monitor calling. Use a splitter. It sounds invasive, but it works great.
47. Continually communicate goals and results to management. They don’t always get it.
48. On second thought, continually communicate to the entire company.
49. Have a closed-loop meeting with sales. It should be weekly. Accept feedback and do something about it.
50. Have a closed-loop meeting with marketing. It should be weekly too.
51. Have marketing listen to calls of their leads so they can see what is working/not working live.
52. Constantly optimize.
53. Expect a year to 14 months of maximum output from lead qualification reps.
54. Wake up do it again (think Groundhog Day).

Today The Funnelholic is pleased to introduce Jesse Noyes, the in-house journalist at Eloqua, who covers the trends, surprises, events and the movers and shakers of the marketing industry. Guest posts don’t often appear here, but Jesse came to The Funnelholic saying he was dying to spit some “funnel” game, and he thought this would be the place to do it. Now, that is my kind of opportunity. He sent over what he wanted to post and it was great — far better than what I can do. So, now The Guestpost-aholic is lucky enough to have a great post from Jesse. I hope everyone enjoys it as well.

Quick question: How many different illustrations of a funnel are floating around in your sales and marketing departments? Two? Ten? Too many to count?

Marketers will tell anyone within earshot to “visualize the funnel.” What they usually mean is to imagine the steps, content and definitions you need to move a prospect through each stage of an integrated of sales and marketing cycle — an important element of a functional lead management system. They aren’t typically referring to a literal, graphical manifestation of the funnel.

That’s too bad. Visuals matter. They give people a common, physical framework to map out thoughts. And in the case of the funnel, having too many flying around your offices can result in a lack of consistency. We sought out to address that internally at Eloqua, which is why we had our graphic designer punch up a classy version that could serve as a building block for anyone in the company. “One funnel to rule them all,” so to speak.

With that in mind, I thought I’d take you on a short tour of some of the sample funnel concepts we’ve used at various points over the years. Enjoy the evolution!

I call this one the Tron because it has about as much sophistication as an early Atari game.

As far as funnels go, it’s pretty basic: three stages and simple trajectory. In fact, it’s too basic and doesn’t convey the complexity of a modern marketing and sales process.

Here we get more detail. The stages a buyer goes through, as well as how the leads progress, are more clearly defined and explained.

Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads are addressed. While it provides greater detail, it still lacks that visual “umph” quality.

Now we’re getting warmer. The stages are all there, but this time there’s even more detail.

The roles of lead scoring and lead nurturing in directing prospects progressively through the funnel have been introduced. But this looks like a figure you might see in a college textbook. Let’s move on, shall we?

This may well be the Avatar of funnels.

It’s visually appealing and gets the point across. We see how top-of-funnel prospects emerge from the shadows, revealing their digital body language, as they move deeper down the funnel. The downside is that, for all its visual splendor, you can’t play with it as easily as the previous concepts. It’s more difficult to customize with additional layers of behaviors or content that influence buyers. Sure is pretty though.

Ah, yeah…that’s the stuff. Here’s what we came up with. It’s simple, clear, and eye-catching without being flashy.

This image takes the best from previous iterations of the funnel, including the most heavily employed stages of the buying cycle, and lays it out in an immediately understandable fashion. Additionally, it provides wiggle room. Depending on your needs, you can easily adapt it based on a particular company’s business model.

It’s not going to win any artistic awards, but it delivers the perfect mix of consistency and coherence. How about your business? Are you working on one vision of the funnel or relying on many different images?

– Jesse Noyes

I present a webinar with Mark Feldman of Netprospex titled “You Bought a List, Now What?” that over the years has been one of the more popular presentations we have done together, as 1000s of people typically sign up. We are doing it again on Wednesday, March 2 and Thursday, March 3 at 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET).  I have made some updates to the webinar and have new rantings on the topic (thus prompting me to write this post).

First, allow me to get on my soapbox. What we are talking about is outbound vs. inbound, or push vs. pull. The vast majority of chatter in the marketing blogosphere is about content marketing, earned media, inbound marketing, and so forth; in other words, everyone is advocating for pull. One of my good friends Adam Needles basically called outbound email “stupid s#!*” in our Focus Roundtable together. I am a gigantic advocate for pull marketing as well. I believe in the tenets of inbound marketing. Hey, who doesn’t want someone to walk into their store? But it’s just not realistic all the time. Sometimes you need to put out the sandwich board and entice people to come into the store, and if it works, why wouldn’t you do it all the time?

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What an amazing couple of weeks it’s been since I wrote my midlife crisis post, “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and asked the question, “What should I do with my industry-specific blog now that I want to create different content?” on the Internet love of my life, Focus.com. Besides blog comments from friends and strangers, my angst went global (I got email from Sweden - Daniel Wood, who is a great sales and motivation blogger).  I spoke to people at length. Just yesterday, I was talking on the phone about my midlife crisis with Gary S. Hart, who is a sales blogger as well. The consensus is to keep The Funnelholic brand. Whether you delivered the message via phone or Web, thanks to everyone who gave your input.

Here is what I decided: The Funnelholic stays, and I will write about whatever floats my boat.  The entire process became a real awakening for me about why I blog. It’s because I love it. If I lose some readers, I have to live with it. If I started writing about things I don’t care about, then The Funnelholic would fail anyway.

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