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The lead-qualificationprocess described in the preceding chapter is one of the most important elements in developing the new sales coverage model. The lead process is badly broken in most companies, and that defect is a root cause of poor sales productivity. As mentioned, obtaining input and agreement from the sales group is key in being able to execute an improved lead process. Unfortunately, your job doesn’t stop with hand- ing off the lead to the sales group. One of the overall mandates is to sell more, and marketing people must begin to assume more accountability for results and not just activities. Therefore, working with the sales group extends through the sales-conversion process. Obtaining feedback will therefore be critical to analyzing if the leads that are being handed off do meet the qualification criteria and produce sales results.
audience of marketing people and recite, “We sent the leads to the sales group, and they disappeared into a (pause)”; without prodding on my part, almost everyone answers in unison, “black hole.” Then someone in that audience will ask, “We spent lots of time and money to electronically automate the feedback system so that all the salespeople have to do is enter the data on the website or their sales software, and they still won’t do it—why?”
Well, it all begins with the starting point that marketing people use in designing feedback systems. The start is usually derived from manage- ment’s wanting result measurements on marketing programs. Marketing can measure activities, but to get to results, they need information from the sales group as to what happened to the lead—a sale or no sale. To obtain this information, feedback forms and systems are developed and worked on within the confines of the home office. At the next sales meet- ing, someone from the marketing communications group stands up in front of the sales team and presents the new “this-will-be-good-for-you”
feedback system. If you’ve been in sales, you know that the program dies during the bathroom break. The salespeople look at one another with a
“can-you-believe-this?” eye and then trash it quickly on the way out the door.
Two mistakes have been made that will ensure that little, if any, feed- back will be obtained. First, little or no input was solicited from the sales group. The design of the program makes this fact obvious to the entire sales staff. Second, and more egregious, the benefits of the feedback sys- tem flow exclusively to marketing and management. The system primar- ily satisfies marketing’s needs, and that is clear as well. There are no stated or implied benefits to sales, just additional work for sales to do, and they will tell you in no uncertain terms that they already have more important things to do with their time.
If you want to develop a feedback system that will work, the starting point must be figuring out what the benefits are for the sales group. Then and only then can you integrate the needs of marketing. Here are several well-accepted starting points to consider as the benefits to sales:
• The feedback will be used in a way to allow them to make more money! Yes, salespeople are motivated by money. This benefit could be phrased as simply as “better leads equals more sales.” The rationale is that the more we know about which leads are good and which are not,
the better we can adjust and seek the ones that convert to sales at a higher rate. There are other ways that good feedback can result in helping to achieve better sales results. Find as many benefits as possible that justify the feedback system and the time the sales staff must spend to provide the information requested.
• If better feedback is obtained, the lead-qualification process will improve and yield better information to salespeople when they make the first call on a company. This clearly points to not only more sales but also an easier job. Traditionally, the “lead” has been given to sales with- out much more information than name, address, and product or service of interest. Better feedback equals an improved understanding of what information is beneficial beyond the basic sales needs.
• With more knowledge, we may well be able to zero in on better educating and preselling the lead so that the number of calls required to close is reduced.
Feedback is not limited to results on leads, even though that is the most common subject. Another area in which sales must cooperate is main- taining the accuracy of the contact information for individuals and descriptions of their functions. At one time or another, almost all com- panies have made this request: “Please update this customer list (either hard-copy or electronic forms are sent) with the names of the current con- tacts.” If you have sent out this type of message, you know what hap- pens—or, more accurately, what doesn’t happen! When prodded, the sales group complains either that this is not their job or that they don’t have the time. Sound familiar? And, in fact, they are right. It shouldn’t be their job to correct your mailing list. They are too busy and, frankly, cost too much to be asked to perform such a menial task. In addition, many salespeople do not know all the contacts for each customer and don’t want to have this lack of knowledge uncovered. If the company uses standard sales soft- ware, much of this information is on the record and should be gathered by a data-replication process whenever the salesperson logs into the server.
There’s no need, then, to ask for an update with a special request. If no networked software exists, then it may be marketing’s responsibility to update the list and present it to sales for review.
Another reason that some sales groups and/or individuals do not cooperate is the concern that if the company knows everything about a
salesperson’s territory and customer base, the person is in jeopardy of los- ing his or her job and being replaced by an inside tele-sales person. There is some validity to that concern, as this is happening to sales groups throughout the country. You must remember that salespeople live in a world that cannot be fully appreciated from a seat in the home office. Not only are they physically detached from the company and see almost no other staff members on a weekly or monthly basis, but they also talk to other salespeople—within the company and from other companies as well.
They develop their own perspective on “what’s going on,” and it may or may not be based on reality. I know, having spent five years covering sev- eral states in the Midwest and experiencing everything that has been pre- viously mentioned.
The message that I’m trying to pound home is that if we are going to work more closely with sales, we have to start from their viewpoint and situation or we won’t get very far. We have to integrate with them and not vice versa. To convert more sales, we need to convert the salespeople.