A Salesperson's Wishes from Marketing

Posted by James Obermayer on Nov 29, 2012 7:46:00 AM

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Salesperson's Wishes

James Obermayer, Executive Director and CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association and President of Sales Leakage Consulting is a regular guest blogger with ViewPoint.

“So, what do you want from Marketing?” I asked the gathered salespeople. “Don’t hold back; tell me like it is. Don’t be shy; open up and let me have it.” And that is how the conversation went with me saying very little for the next hour. It’s interesting…ask salespeople their opinions about a marketing campaign, copy, creative, or any number of marketing’s creative options and you’ll hear very little. But on this topic, their ‘wish list’ from Marketing, it was passionate and heartfelt, with a hint of mischief and desperation. I could give you an essay of ten thousand words, but these are the high points.

“We want qualified leads.”

“Webinar attendees aren’t leads; get me leads.”

“Please tell us about a campaign before you launch it so I don’t have that ‘deer in the headlights’ look when a prospect says, “So tell me about the free iPad mini if I buy from you by the end of November.”

“I keep hearing that I have to increase sales activity to increase sales. How about the marketing department putting a little skin in the game to help us increase sales activity? How about a little marketing activity?”

“I need to sell seven of these (bleeped) medical devices a month and I get 2 leads. What gives? If they want me to sell more, give me more leads.”

“When we look at a new CRM system (I refuse to use the one we have because it is so time consuming), can you have some of the users look at it first, and can we have some say in how it is set up, etc.? Why does Marketing or Operations get to choose the CRM but Sales has to live with it?”

“Can you qualify the unqualified sales leads before you give them to me?”

“We need sales meetings not sales beatings.”

“I’d like it if the marketing manager would travel with me on sales calls!”

“I need to produce $75K to make quota and $100K a month to make a decent living; can you give me at least 10 qualified leads a month to help me make quota?”

“The sales stages in the CRM system are nuts. If I make a sale early, I can’t just jump to ‘sold.’ I know it sounds crazy but they make me close out each sales stage before I go to mark it sold. It sounds minor, but I already spend at least an hour and a half a day on this CRM system.”

“This doesn’t have to do with marketing, but why does management cap my incentive system? Do they intentionally want to cap my potential? They give me commissions to motivate me and sell more, but when I reach $100K in sales a month they stop motivating me by stopping commissions. What gives?”

“We need phone numbers on leads.”

“We need e-mail addresses on leads.”

“How about some leads on products I have a quota on?”

“Webinar attendees aren’t leads. Can someone qualify these before we are given hundreds of these students and competitors and maybe a few prospects?”

“How about someone in Marketing forecasting the leads we need to make quota?”

“We need some information about the lead: how soon are they buying, what’s the application, and are they the decision maker?”

“I need more leads; good leads.”

Last month we ran a list of the wishes from marketers to salespeople. It was interesting and relatively a nice polite list, for the most part. This list from the salespeople has a tone of frustration, sometimes anger and a pinch of fear.

Marketing: read it and take their thoughts to heart. Anyone else want to chime in?


Tell us what you think!

Topics: B2B Marketing, Marketing & Sales Alignment, B2B Sales, Lead Qualification, Guest Blogs


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