Quick Summary
- Know your intended positioning.
- Define what an actual sales-ready lead is in your organization.
- Do not hand off undeveloped leads to Sales.
- Have a specific plan for generating inquiries and turning them into sales-ready leads.
- Use many coordinated marcom modes in your plan.
- Move cool leads back to earlier development stages instead of letting them die.
Review
I believe that a sale of scientific instrumentation qualifies as a “complex sale,” and was pleased to find that the author wrote with familiarity about issues relevant to my work and my clients’ concerns. Lead Generation for the Complex Sale (© 2006 by Brian J. Carroll) initially and properly reminds the reader to establish a solid positioning platform: figure out who you’re selling to — your ideal customer — and specify the unique value proposed by your product to that individual.
Carroll says we then have to define and agree upon what we mean by “lead.” He points out the critical distinction between the sales readiness of someone who has just disclosed his or her interest in your product (an “inquiry”) and someone who is actually ready to receive the time and attention of your direct sales force. Sales doesn’t follow up on the “leads” generated by marketing programs because they’re junk, says Carroll. Agreement over the definition of a lead should clear that up and make everyone’s effort more worthwhile. The specific definition will of course depend on the size, skill, cost, and technique of the sales force, and the price and other characteristics of the product being sold.
Carroll then suggests creating a process for generating new inquiries and developing them into sales-ready leads. The programs and activities specified by the process are then to be attached to the calendar to form a time-and-events schedule. Carroll’s book is nearly up-to-date with respect to tactical recommendations, assigning advertising to a supporting role under branding, which itself is one of the eight legs of a lead-generation octopus diagram. The diagram and the surrounding text reflects the realization among marketers that lead generation is now necessarily a much more fragmented and multi-modal undertaking than it was previously, when advertising and direct mail could relied upon as solid lead-generating mechanisms, even for expensive capital equipment.
I was initially surprised by the presentation of direct mail as a legitimate tactical component of lead-generation programs. Carroll explained though, that he was talking about using ordinary business letters as well-timed, low-key reminders to bridge intervals between more substantial communications. He wasn’t recommending old school mass-mailings of flashy postcards and heavy brochure packets.
Given the cost and complexity of generating new inquiries, Carroll’s recommendation that cooling-off sales leads be “recycled” makes a lot of sense. Having a mechanism in place for re-assigning cool leads back to earlier stages in the lead development process preserves the investment made in acquiring them, allows them to stay on track towards conversion, and reduces the likelihood of losing an eventual sale to a competitor.
If your sales lead generation activities are essentially ad hoc, or if your current practice is to dump all new inquiries into the database with the expectation that your company’s direct sales force will eventually get around to them, this book is worth reading and will convince you in both cases to do otherwise.
For help with sales lead generation programs and activities, contact Matthew Wygant at matthew@wygant.net.
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