The CRAP Report

By now, I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie Jerry Maguire.  Pre couch-jumping Tom Cruise as a the titular character, Jerry Maguire, a slimy sports agent who has an epiphany and writes a dissertation on how ethics need to be brought back from the dead into an industry that would rather keep them buried.  Jerry’s manifesto gets leaked out to his entire company and he winds up getting fired by his friend.  Renee Zelwegger leaves with him and she and Jerry start their own sports rep agency.  Long story short, Jerry only has one client, wide receiver Rod Tidwell, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. (who won an Academy Award for the role).  Rod is a very arrogant player who believes he is worth more than he is, and Jerry has to kowtow to him for most of the film.  There comes a point in the film where Jerry is trying to get Rod a new contract signed with the Arizona Cardinals.  After arguing back and forth about Rod not working hard enough to deserve to be paid what he wants, Jerry begs Rod to, “help me help you.”  Jerry wants Rod to help him out by proving to the Cardinals that he is really worth what he thinks he is.  I want the same thing Jerry does for my clients – for them to be happy and make a lot of money.  I need them to help me help them.

Working with all different kinds of technology companies, from small start ups to some of the big dogs, they all want the same thing – more qualified sales opportunities to put in front of their sales teams.  That’s good news for me, right?  That’s what I do!  There becomes a problem, though, when clients don’t necessarily have the time to wait for my teleprospecting team to build a pipeline of their own.  Sure, if we start calling into their targeted lists, we’re bound to find some low hanging fruit.  However, if we’re going to develop a lead nurturing program that will feed their sales teams with sales qualified leads, that is going to take time.  That isn’t going to happen overnight.  What I would say to those organizations out there that are looking to speed up the lead generation process would be this – “help me help you.”  Whether you’ve got an inside team qualifying leads for you or you’ve partnered with a B2B sales prospecting firm, there are three things you can do that will help them get sales qualified leads over to you faster: 

1. Give them recent data.
2. Give them accurate data.
3. Give them prospects that have been touched multiple times by the same message.

Okay, the first two are pretty obvious.  If you want sales qualified leads faster, put recent databases in front of your teleprospectors.  It does no good to come to the table with lists that are over a year old.  Sure, they’re good in a sense that you’re giving my folks more of an opportunity to find you a qualified lead over a longer period of time, but that’s not what you’re looking for, right?  Get yourself (and your teleprospectors) lists of the most recent tradeshow attendees, the most recent webinar attendees, and the most recent white paper downloads.  Put those lists in front of teleprospecting to have them QUALIFY first, rather than giving them right to sales.  Remember, sales has too much to think about in terms of running demos, putting together proposals, and hopefully, closing business.  Letting your BDR’s call into those databases first will most definitely put more qualified opportunities into the hands of your sales team, and do so in a faster manner because your team has a strategic call plan in place, right?  Of course they do.

Next, if you want sales qualified leads faster, give your teleprospectors accurate data.  Yes, I want them to have the most recent lists, but I want them to also have the most accurate lists, too.  Do you know how many times my BDR’s have called into lists (from my clients) and the list was flush with CLIENTS?  Do you know what that does to your reputation?  It makes it look like you can’t tell your ass from your elbow.  Make sure the lists that your teleprospectors call into have been culled through for current clients, or maybe in the unfortunate case, the client who left angrily.  Another thing, and don’t get me wrong here, I love list companies, but if you’ve bought lists for your BDR’s to call into, make sure you’ve got someone checking on that information and seeing that it’s accurate, too.  Just because you bought it yesterday doesn’t mean that the information is up to date as of yesterday.  If the name of the game, right now, is to get more sales qualified leads faster, having BDR’s call into lists that are full of people who no longer work at companies that no longer exist is only going to slow that process down.

Lastly, if you want sales qualified leads faster, give your BDR’s prospects that have been touched multiple times by the same message.  I’m getting at the inbound marketing hand raisers here.  Just because someone stopped by your website doesn’t mean their ready to buy yet.  I’m talking about putting into the hands of your BDR’s those prospects that have had a targeted marketing effort directed towards them and they have responded on multiple occasions.  For example, the folks who attended a webinar, downloaded an eBook, and visited a specific webpage on one of your solutions.  They’ve taken multiple actions on a particular solution and again, rather than giving these, albeit warmer leads, into your sales team’s hands (because, remember, they’re still not qualified yet), teleprospecting should still qualify them in the areas of pains and needs, timeframe, budget, and decision making process.  Giving those individuals to your teleprospectors is ultimately going to give your sales team fully qualified opportunities faster, which again, is why where here.

There you go – my thoughts on how you can “help me help you.”  What do you think?  What are some other ways that you can get more qualified leads into your sales team’s hands?