The CRAP Report

Last week I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday talking about how the characters from The Breakfast Club relate to B2B lead generation; Andrew Clark, Claire Standish, and John Bender respectively.  As the athlete, Andrew Clark represents the strong business profile section that deals with a prospect’s pain.  Claire Standish, the princess, represents the budget section, as every good princess is concerned with money.  John Bender, the bad boy of The Breakfast Club, represents the decision making piece of a fully qualified sales opportunity.  Today, I want to continue with the discussion (monologue, really, unless someone wants to comment) surrounding the brain of the group, Brian Johnson.

Brian Johnson, played by Anthony Michael Hall, is the smarter kid of the group, concerned with his math club, Latin club, and physics club.  As he is more scientifically inclined than the rest of his peers, it is that reason alone that leads me to believe that Brian Johnson is really analogous to the timeframe portion of a fully qualified sales lead.  Brainy kids tend to like numbers, and what is more numbers oriented than dates?  Times to purchase?  Okay, maybe I’m reaching here, but trust me, it works.

I’ve talked about the importance of the scope of an opportunity, the budget a prospect has to solve the problems that either your outsourced lead gen team or your internal team have uncovered, and I’ve spoken about who makes those decisions.  All of that information is great, don’t get me wrong, but I would say that one of the most important pieces of information left to uncover is when your prospect wants to (or can for that matter) solve the problems that have been uncovered in the qualification process.  Although these dates, at times, can be hypothetical, they are one of the most critical pieces of information we, as a sales prospecting community, can send over to a sales rep.  Ask any sales rep which lead gets followed up on more – the one with timeframe information or the one without.  You and I both know the answer to that.

Additionally, what timeframes am I talking about?  That needs to be answered, too.  BDR’s need to collect information on timeframe to purchase and timeframe to implement.  Those two times are certainly not mutually exclusive; one response does not always answer both.  Knowing when a prospect wants to implement a solution is very different than knowing when they can pay for said solution.  Obviously there is a big difference between both; both pieces of qualification information are vital, though.  If your BDR is good enough and they can ascertain both times, it really sets up your sales rep for greater success.  A good sales rep can walk a prospect through a timeline that exposes their need to implement sooner, thus pushing closer the date at which they should be purchasing a solution.

Brian Johnson knew the timeframe he had to work with – he had one Saturday to write an essay describing to Mr. Vernon who he thought he was.  His co-detentionees got him to write their essay collectively.  What type of timeframe information does your B2B lead machine pull together for your sales rep?  If they’re not gathering both, why?  Those are some questions you should be asking yourself, and more importantly, asking your teleprospecting managers.

Tomorrow I’ll finish up The Breakfast Club with where Allison Reynolds, the isolated member of the group, fits in all of this.