Sales POP - Purveyors of Propserity
Sales Management and Lead Generation: The Lead Machine
Blog / Sales Management / May 3, 2016 / Posted by Nikolaus Kimla / 5118

Sales Management and Lead Generation: The Lead Machine

In our continuing series on the pain points of sales management, we have explored the categories of sales management, the primary pain point of being a sales manager, the technology required by sales management, the vital subject of management, and specific pain points of sales management at a new company (part 1 and part 2). Most recently we took up a very crucial subject for sales managers: sales forecasting.

Now let’s look at that which a sales force cannot do without: a lead machine.

If you go back 10 years or more, you’ll see that leads were a considerably different game. It was simple: a salesperson obtained leads and followed them up. A prospect normally knew very little about the salesperson’s product and relied on the rep for information about it. Similarly they also relied on the salesperson’s competitors.

Because of the advent of the internet, today lead generation has radically changed. Information on your product or service–and that of your competitors also–is freely available. It is extremely easy for your prospects to compare products. For this reason 60 to 70 percent of the decision making in B2B sales is made before the decision maker approaches the supplier

All of this has a profound influence on lead generation. This doesn’t mean all of your tried and true lead generation methods and selling techniques are obsolete—many certainly still work. They just need to be adjusted to take the new buyer role into account.

New Industry

This fundamental change has given life to an entirely new industry: Inbound marketing. Along with Inbound marketing came a whole new universe–that of social media.

In Inbound Marketing, the prospects are qualifying you first, instead of the other way around.

Sticking to SaaS (Software as a Service)

Lead machines can vary widely from industry to industry. My company is in the SaaS business, as are many of our prospects and clients. For that reasons let’s stick to how a successful lead machine operates in that industry.

In SaaS, the web site is the center of everything. If you liken the web site to a solar system’s sun, you’ll see that everything (like the solar system’s planets) revolves around it. All of the “orbiting” elements, such as Google AdWords, banner ads, articles, blogs, press releases, product reviews, white papers, and many more, feed leads back to the web site. These elements must convince those seeking your type of solution that yours is one to take into serious consideration.

Taking care of all of these inbound channels, providing them content and making sure they are current and performing, is considerable work, and is never-ending.

Qualifying

Qualifying leads,in Inbound marketing, is a healthy part of the job. As we have already mentioned, your prospects are qualifying you before they arrive at your virtual door.  But at the same time, you must always qualify them, too, so that you know they are a proper customer fit for your company.  

The New Sales Model

Here is how one leading sales company demonstrates the organization of today’s inbound:

  • Marketing creates and executes campaigns, which cause an influx of marketing-qualified leads
  • Sales Development Reps take these leads and further qualify them, setting appointments for Account Executives
  • Account Executives close orders
  • The Customer Success Manager takes care of customers following purchase, making sure they’re happy and interested in further products or services from your company.

Technology for Lead Management

Since lead management is so vitally important, the CRM solution chosen must be more than adequate to that task. CRM must provide for rapid and easy entry of leads into the system. Once leads have been entered, qualifying must happen as quickly as possible, and the lead must then be moved into the next pipeline stage, or sent back to Marketing. Pipeliner CRM makes management of leads–as well as the management of opportunities that leads turn into–totally and visually easy and flexible.

Why So Important?

I strongly believe if you have a predictable and efficient lead generation machine, you can practically screw up everything else and still do well. You will always have business.

Taking another analogy, you can have a rocket that is unbelievably well-built. But with no rocket fuel, it will remain firmly on the ground. Look at your sales force as the rocket–leads are their rocket fuel, and without them, they will get nowhere.

So make sure you’ve got your lead machine in working order. Because unlike other factors—yes, folks, this is rocket science!

Pipeliner CRM makes lead management a total snap. Try it today.

About Author

CEO and partner of pipelinersales.com and the uptime ITechnologies, which I founded in 1994 and has since played a significant role in the development of the IT-environment. pipeliner is the most innovative sales CRM management solution on the market. Pipeliner was designed by sales professionals for sales professionals and helps close the gap between the requirements of C-level executives for transparency and the day-to-day operational needs of field and inside sales. I am also the founder and Initiator of the independent economic platform GO-AHEAD!, which orientates itself on the principles of a free marketplace in terms of liberal and social responsibility. Connecting people, the trust of business leadership in terms of values such as freedom, self-responsibility, and entrepreneurial spirit, and strengthening their awareness in order to create a dynamic boost within the economy triggered through spontaneity, all stand for the initial ideas surrounding GO-AHEAD! I studied in Los Angeles and Vienna and received my Masters's Degree in 1994. I am married and have 3 children My Specialties are in: Sales Management, Sales CRM Software, CRM Cloud Solutions, SAAS, Business Strategy, Software Development, "Pipeline Management", Social responsibility, outbound sales, b2b sales, inside sales, sales strategy, lead generation, sales process, entrepreneurship, coaching, mentoring, speaker, opportunity management, lead management, Austrian School of Economics

Author's Publications on Amazon

This is a practical manual covering the vital subject of Sales Management. I firmly believe that sales are the most important profession for dealing with today’s turbulent world and Econo my, for salespeople create wealth and produce peace. But salespeople need a competent, stable leader—and…
Buy on Amazon
Inside this eBook, you’ll discover a series of chapters dedicated to some of the most important areas facing sales today. From the sales process definition to measurement, lead generation, and proven sales techniques, this comprehensive eBook will provide you with the information you need to…
Buy on Amazon
A common term in sales today is EQ, which stands for “emotional I.Q.” It means the skill a salesperson has in reading emotions and utilizing them in sales. It means empathy and a number of other abilities. The short version is, it’s an I.Q. when…
Buy on Amazon
People are smart to question the future of automation, for it has become part of everything we do. With the quantity of applications and technology around us, we yet still crave more. We become convinced of its power when our package is delivered from Amazon…
Buy on Amazon
Sales management isn’t a simple subject by any means. But at the same time, it does have some basic and somewhat simple fundamentals—and that is what we are bringing to you with this book. First come pain points of sales management, and how to overcome…
Buy on Amazon
Today the Internet has transformed a seller's market into a buyer's market and author Nikolaus Kimla states that the role of sales has never been more crucial. It is now time to give salespeople the role they factually can play: entrepreneurs within the enterprise. They…
Buy on Amazon
This is our public declaration of the intentions behind Pipeliner, and our objectives and motives for the product and for our company. Behind the development of that CRM application and, in fact, behind everything we do, we have a real cause. The story begins with…
Buy on Amazon
For the future, there must be a perfect balance of humans and technology. You have to have the perfect technology, andthen the perfect human being in application, performance and presentation. Today and into the future, it’s a 50-50 balance. In the past it was perhaps…
Buy on Amazon
The salespreneur is based on the concept of the entrepreneur. Before we can explain the salespreneur, you have to have some understanding of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur plays a crucial role in any economic system. The entrepreneur seeks out information that can be utilized for…
Buy on Amazon
A seasoned captain would never leave port without a competent navigator. In a similar way, a sales manager might be a total ace at "commanding the ship" – at inspiring and coaching sales reps, pointing out and getting agreement on making quotas, and keeping everyone's…
Buy on Amazon
..
..
..
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. For information on cookies and how you can disable them, visit our privacy and cookie policy.