The CRAP Report

If you asked me who the Holy Trinity of Hip Hop was, I’d tell you without skipping a friggin’ beat that ONE crew comprised that moniker, and that group was Run-D.M.C.  Armed with two turntables and two mics, Run-D.M.C. stood on the shoulders of the fathers of hip hop and vaulted the genre into the face of America.  With Run as the lyrical leader, D.M.C. as partner in rhyme, and Jam Master Jay (RIP) manning the Technics, Run-D.M.C was as perfect as you could get when it comes to a hip hop team.  If you’ve recently outsourced your sales prospecting efforts, I have to ask you, what about your lead generation team?  What does your team look like?  I’ll tell you who should be involved after the jump.

The Jam Master Jay of your B2B lead generation project needs to be some sort of manager.  Whatever you call them, you need to have someone who’s sole responsibility is managing the relationship between you and your chosen vendor.  Much like JMJ managed the music for Run and D.M.C. on stage, cutting here and scratching there, you need someone doing the same thing for your project.  The manager of any lead generation project needs to be concerned not only about client relations, but also with the rest of his/her team, making sure they have everything they need to succeed and over achieve for their respective client.

The Run of your sales prospecting efforts is your BDR.  What is that person like?  Run was essentially the face of Run-D.M.C., and the BDR that is calling on your behalf is going to be the first impression that a prospect has with your organization.  You need a BDR who is at both times polished and conversational, and one who can talk technology but not at great lengths so that it leaves your sales reps or sales engineers with nothing to talk about.  Your BDR needs to be as skilled at prospecting and qualifying as the good Rev. Run was (is) at rhyming.

Lastly, the D.M.C. of your telesales team is the person supporting your BDR, be it a training person or an implementation manager-type person.  If my memory serves correct, D.M.C. rarely started a Run-D.M.C. song, however, his presence was always strong during his turn.  That needs to be the same with your vendor’s sales prospecting team.  You need someone supporting your BDR to make them better, make sure that they’re up to date with the latest tricks of the teleprospecting trade, or to simply enhance the list that they’re calling into.  MAYBE they even need to pick up the phone, too, if the project isn’t progressing as quickly as you feel it should.

There you have it, my way of relating the greatest hip hop crew to ever bless a microphone to B2B lead generation.  For all you Sucker MC’s, It’s Like That!