The Funnelholic

Anneke Seley is our first interview in the series. Anneke Seley was the twelfth employee at Oracle and the designer of the company’s revolutionary inside-sales operation. She is currently the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a consultancy that helps large and small businesses build and restructure sales teams to achieve predictable, measurable, and sustainable sales growth. Her book, “Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology,” is available at online retailers. For more information, visit www.sales20book.com.

Everywhere you go in Silicon Valley, people know Phone Works. In my eyes they have evolved their messaging to the point that they are directly associated with the Sales 2.0 movement. I am excited to have them involved in the Funnel Thought Leadership Interview series.

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

• Proliferation of Sales 2.0 — the use of innovative sales practices enabled by technology that creates value for both the buyer and seller.
• More focus on measurable, predictable selling and lowering cost of sales.
• Strengthening of customer relationships and alignment with buyer preferences.

2.   What are the biggest challenges for 2009?

• Finding new customers with budget and resources this quarter.
• Keeping sales teams motivated.
• Getting creative and strategic when it’s necessary to do more with less.

3.   What are three metrics that b2b marketers should care about and why?

• The number of qualified leads they are adding to pipeline weekly/monthly/quarterly. Volume is important, but numbers alone won’t help sales make its numbers.
• ROI on marketing investments (best sources of qualified leads) to drive future investments in the most effective programs and avoid spending money on ineffective programs
• Conversion rates from qualified-lead stage to future stages such as opportunity and close. To align marketing goals with sales objectives, leads should be tracked all the way through the sales cycle. Compensating marketing for generating leads that turn into revenue strengthens this alignment.

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

• Not measuring quality or conversion from lead to close.
• Not communicating with sales on what constitutes a “qualified lead” or “target prospect”
• Under-investing/not understanding volumes of qualified leads needed in the pipeline for sales to make its numbers.

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

• We design sales processes that clearly indicate the volume of qualified leads required for revenue objectives to be met.
• We work with marketing to define target prospects, lead-rating criteria and lead-qualification processes and establish sales development functions to track demand-generation program effectiveness as well as effectiveness of marketing messages, positioning, pricing, lists and offers.
• We recommend marketing automation tools that can accelerate the sales process and test the results of those tools with pilot programs.

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

If forced to pick only three, I would pick a well-designed, easy-to-use, expandable CRM as the foundation, a great contact list/data source that is well-maintained and accurate, and sales analytics tools to facilitate sales process measurement. But there are many other effective tools that help engage or qualify customers online, accelerate the process of connecting with them live, shorten the contracts cycle, and so on.

In order to pick the best technology for you, first establish a sales process to track and measure your sales steps consistently to understand where the selling cycle is stalling or sales challenges are occurring. Only then can you determine which tools can have the most impact for your company.

7.   What do you hope for in b2b sales and marketing for the new year?

• Close communication and collaboration — with each other as well as with customers and prospects.
• Changing mindset to embrace Sales 2.0 and the science of predictable selling.
• Staying positive, optimistic and creative!

One of the young guys I work with asked me the other day how I come up with blog posts.  The truth is, they typically come to me throughout the day regardless of whether I am working with clients or at home watching television.  An idea will pop in my head, and I realize I can blog about that.  Conversely, when these epiphanies don’t pop in my head, I am completely screwed.

Here is what you need to know, I am wholly focused on helping marketers improve what they do in general and put the strategies and processes in place to make it through the economic storm that is in full swing.  The other thing you need to know, is that I want to be irreverent and fun in the process.  So, I was sitting there watching “Good Fellas” this weekend (for the 20th time), and a couple lines stuck out to me as bloggable.  I decided that I should take a whack at some Martin Scorcese lines in my next blog post.  Now, here we are.

1. “Every man … every man has to go through hell to reach paradise.” — Max Cady (“Cape Fear”)

I had to start with this one. Who knew that Scorcese’s psychopathic killer in the horror movie “Cape Fear” would make the list.  The quote just resonated with the times that we face today.

I wonder if there is a silver lining to the world’s current chaos. Nothing forces people to improve than adversity.  In good times, efficiencies are just good ideas.  In bad times, they become necessities.  For one, this applies to anyone in marketing. All the things on your list must get done: Marketing automation, ROI tracking, quality control, effectiveness, and payback in all your marketing activities. Now more than ever, marketing departments need to eliminate waste and become efficient, optimized machines. Doug Pepper from Interwest told me two years ago: “We believe marketing is the last place in the organization where there is opportunity to optimize their processes,”  He’s right, and now the pain is more acute than ever.

Your marketing should reflect this ideology as well.  No matter what  you are selling, you and your organization are trying to help companies and people make it out of the downturn.  Don’t talk. Make your processes better to win when every one else is losing.  Those fun little features aren’t interesting anymore.  We need companies to understand in times of extreme pain, it’s time to change, and my solution is the way you get there.

2. “I got some bad ideas in my head.” — Travis Bickle (“Taxi Driver”)

Direct mail with little return, “sexy” campaigns built with your ad agency that look good but bring no return, physical trade shows, tchotchkes… These are bad ideas.  These are antiquated marketing vehicles that marketers did so that they could show their boss something tangible, but now the boss wants tangible results.  Cut the “cute.”

By the way, this does not mean you shouldn’t try no ideas, but just keep in mind, that these should be focused on results not the overall sizzle factor.

3.  “In the casino, the cardinal rule is to keep them playing and to keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose, and in the end, we get it all.” — Ace Rothstein (“Casino”)

Great quote, something I wish I would remember at 2 in the morning in Vegas when I am even or up.  This quote conjures up one thing: lead nurturing.  I am a broken record on this one, but I can’t get over the  idea that 80 percent of leads deemed unqualified end up buying anyway.  In 2009, we have to stay in our prospect’s faces.  Budgets will open up and when they do, you need to be there.  And you need to make sure you are fighting for the few budgets that are left.  The case for lead nurturing is strong. Take it from Ace: you’re job is to keep them in the casino.

4.    “You put my money to sleep, I’ll put you to sleep.” - Nicky Santoro (“Casino”)

Marketing in 2009 is going to about real cost-savings and real return on investment.  No one will buy anything next year because they want it, it will be because they need it.  The way you achieve that is developing real stories with real numbers about how your solution will either save them money or make them  money.  And here is the challenge: they don’t believe you anymore.  Terms like ROI, cost-effective, and so on that have been part of your marketing and value prop for years are old news.  The trick is to market real stories of real cost savings with real people.  Studies show that more and more buyers turn to their peers when deciding on a solution.  What this means is  get real customer stories with numbers they can understand and show them how spending money with you makes them money in the long run.  Simply put: you lose if you don’t.

5.   “ … the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week no matter what. Business bad? F**k you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? F**k you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? F**k you, pay me.” –  Henry Hill (“Good Fellas”)

Sorry for the profanity, but here is the message to marketers:  this is how sales guys look at the world.  The way sales is measured is so much easier to quantify than almost anywhere else in the organization, “F**k you, pay me.”  Welcome to their world people. ROI is the name of the game here.  If you have read my stuff before, you know that I believe that marketing ROI should be judged by opportunities and pipeline created.  That being said, you have to actually achieve these goals.  Do not spend money on anything that does not pay out … and remember, no excuse will work, management wants to get paid.

6. “Lennon said, ‘I’m an artist. You give me a f**king tuba, I’ll get you something out of it.’   The point I’m making with John Lennon is - a man could look at anything, and make something out of it. For instance, I look at you and I think ‘what could I use you for?’ ” - Frank Costello (“The Departed”)

I will follow this up with Donald Rumsfield: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.”  As an ex-consultant and third-party “listener” to what’s going in marketing, all I hear are complaints about the constraints on their job: “product sucks, sales sucks, I have a small budget, I need resources to get it done.”  None of this will help you in 2009.  You have what you have and you need make the most out of it.  You are marketers, you should be able to take the product and “make something out of it.” Your job is to to sell ice to Eskimos.  That’s right, we used to say that only about sales, but that falls on the marketer too.

So there you have it, Martin Scorcese’s marketing tips.  And I had fun writing it …

The oldest link-building trick in the book is the “best of” list. But this is not merely a link-building exercise. Actually, I have been dying to write this for a while. Since I have started the blog, I have found places on the Web to gather ideas and have had a chance to really think about the people that have given me the foundation for my ideology.

Continue Reading »

In last week’s post, “Building a Successful Lead Development Program,” I focused on Part 1, the people making up your team. This week I want to focus on how to manage your group. I’m going to save marketing automation and CRM for a post of its own. Instead, I want to talk about how department management should work with your company’s lead developers to support their success.

First, I want to once again pound into your heads the difference between lead development and lead qualification: Continue Reading »