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).

I promised myself I wouldn’t make predictions, year-end lists, Christmas wish lists, New Year’s resolutions and so forth. Then I was forced to answer the question: “What do you see for b2b marketers in 2011?” I was asked twice: in an interview with Maria Pergolino from Marketo, then while considering predictions about b2b marketing trends for 2011 on Focus.com.

Here is my 2011 sound-bite: Live boringly.

From 2008 to 2010, it was basically a “content bubble” for marketers. All of us in the blogosphere have been riding high; talking about lead scoring, lead nurturing, content marketing, social media, sales and marketing alignment. So much sizzle and sexiness, it’s been a fantastical ride as marketers ate it up. Everyone in the world of marketing had endless new toys to talk about, and talk we did. But now, marketers must live boringly. Not to be a sensationalist, but our survival is at stake.

How to Live Boringly

Focus on execution and how to get it done, or said another way: Stop talking about it and just do it. I love this article by Carlos Hidalgo (Funnelholic all-time fave) on marketing automation. As Carlos mentions, in the case of marketing automation, less than 25 percent of us have implemented marketing automation to its full potential. In other words, a lot of hype and nothing to show for it. Create simple goals for next year, let sales and the C-suite know what they are, and hit them. Just as a VP of Sales must hit his or her metric, marketing does too. All the social media, lead nurturing and so forth are means to an end. An example of a metric might be pipeline-created qualified leads, appointments or revenue. I don’t care, but all the really “bright shiny things” have to align with achieving goals that the organization cares about.

Do This, or Else

Do you really want marketing to end up back where you started before the Marketing Content Revolution? The marketing automation vendors are trying to help you now. Look at market leaders Marketo and Eloqua. Their marketing has switched from tactics and techniques to revenue. Marketo’s Jon Miller likes to say, “More marketers are getting a seat at the revenue table.” This may be true, but that seat is hot. The revenue table is a “you’re-either-helping-or-you’re-getting-in-the-way” spot. If you’re helping, you get to stay. If you’re in the way, you are gone and won’t be back.

So, take my advice and live by my 2011 mantra: Live boringly.

Sincerely,

The Bore-aholic

This week, Focus.com released the Book of Funnels, officially titled Focus Experts’ Guide: Sales and Marketing Pipeline and Funnel Models. The book includes interpretations of pipelines from sales and marketing thought leaders, providing insight into how frameworks can vary. To gain some insight into the processes they used to get their visions on paper, The Funnelholic caught up with some of the contributors. They provided some well-considered feedback, and a deeper understanding of their one-page funnel models.

To kick off my interview series, I had the chance to interview Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo, the revenue performance management company that’s transforming how marketing and sales teams of all sizes work — and work together — to accelerate predictable revenue.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote a pretty popular post about the blogosphere wars in the marketing automation space: Who’s Going to Run This Town. I didn’t plan to post on this again, but with a new breakout of marketing-automation-vendor-on-marketing-automation-vendor violence, I had to jump in. Actually to be clear, this should be defined as marketing-automation-vendor-on-marketing-automation-reseller-(with-another-marketing-automation-vendor-jumping-in) violence.

If you live in a hole, here is my timeline (note: I may not know everything and am open to “timeline” changes):

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