Expert insights. Personalized for you.
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. All real salespeople love sales leads and don’t ever believe anyone who tells you differently. The argument comes when salespeople define a lead. Until SalesForce came along and called every raw name in the database a lead, most of us thought—there are inquiries and there are leads. MORE
Yet according to CSO Insight’s 2010 Sales Performance Optimization study, only 52% of sales reps met quota in 2009, and companies achieved only 78% of their revenue plans. In contrast, today’s best companies are using a new revenue engine that uses repeatable marketing and sales 2.0 MORE
Must Read: Steps to Reintroduce BANT in Modern B2B Sales Cycle. Must Read: How To Generate Sales Leads Without Cold Calling. The advantages of B2B marketing plan are in plenty today. If you want to grow your business you need to have strategic B2B marketing plans. MORE
We are working with several clients to help them improve their lead nurturing program to deliver a higher volume and quality of sales ready leads to the outside sales team. We have found a tendency on the part of Inside Sales to conduct their work from what I would term a traditional mindset. In many cases they are actively prospecting for new leads from an unqualified list. ” Or, they are actively trying to set appointments for sales reps. MORE
This is why it’s important to qualify every lead as by not doing so, you run the risk of getting stuck in a long and frustrating sales process that may never convert. The marketing process is a lot smoother when lead qualification is conducted at the start of the sales cycle. MORE
I like to do book reviews once in a while on Biznology, and this one was a natural because I know Ruth Stevens and I know her expertise in B2B marketing, so I needed to pore over her book, Maximizing Lead Generation , for tips–and I found them. Image by shutterhacks via Flickr. MORE
Joe argued that “in an ABM world, sales enablement is a necessity” and that as you think about your ABM strategy, it’s important to start small and identify the pools of accounts that are most valuable to fish in. May the Sales and Marketing Force Be With You. Shorter sales cycles. MORE
You wouldn’t send your B2B sales team into the field with such a generic, one-size-fits-all pitch. To begin executing this plan, you need more than just a vendor who can take a few demographic filters and plug them into its lead machine. In a B2B sales environment where lead quality is still a major stumbling block , building a trusting relationship with your strategic prospecting partner is one of the smartest investments you can make. MORE
Walk out of your office and ask the first three marketers and the first three sales executives you encounter one question: What constitutes a lead? With technology it is now possible to get more poor quality leads to sales faster than ever before. Watch this brief video to learn how to establish a lead definition. Knowing the difference lets us engage the “real” leads in a meaningful and far more efficient manner. Marketing & Sales Alignment Sales Leads MORE
Sales-Qualified Leads. In the B2B sales funnel, they’re the key that unlocks the door to a sale. They’re the leads that have been carefully and skillfully nurtured. They’re the ones, that with the right discussion points, could turn a prospect into a sale. MORE
Want to learn how to nurture leads? In this article, we explain exactly what lead nurturing is, and why it’s necessary. On top of that, we also do a deep dive on 3 different lead nurturing tactics that you can apply to your own company. What Is Lead Nurturing? Lead Fit. MORE
In a way, sales reps are like nurses or doctors. Sales reps would get a good sense of how interested someone was in their company’s products or services by spending some time with them. But successfully qualifying leads for sales means having three key fundamentals in place: 1. MORE
Tweet Recently, we ran a live test for our audience at MarketingSherpa Lead Gen Summit 2013 and as I discovered, this isn’t the easiest thing to do. For example, the design process forced us to examine two important questions: what is a quality lead, and how do we measure it? MORE
No offense, but most of your B2B leads most likely won’t convert into sales. As B2B marketers, you need to assess which of your prospects have the attributes and behaviors that make them high-quality leads. You must also qualify leads based on their potential lifetime value (LTV) or the predicted net profit that a customer will contribute to doing business with your company. But how can you predict LTV and conversion potential before the sale? MORE
He was willing to provide the sales team one of six choices: 200,000 targeted contacts (name and title) in the right vertical (no email addresses). 81 highly qualified sales opportunities with the right contact who has a need backed by some form of compelling event. What is a Lead? MORE
Over the past few months I have had the pleasure of interviewing nineteen influential B2B sales and marketing leaders to discuss their views in areas like traditional and new media strategies, current and future trends, B2B lead generation, and sales lead management. MORE
Sure, you're generating sales leads, but are they good leads? Here's how to step up your lead quality. The same kind of logic, applies to generating better quality B2B sales leads. To begin to generate quality leads, get sales and marketing in the same room. MORE
Salesforce recently rebranded their social marketing application as the Marketing Cloud, and their website says you can use their solutions to “optimize campaigns from lead to close, on every channel”. Primarily sales and sales management, some marketing. Sales Forecasting. MORE
Sales-Qualified Leads. In the B2B sales funnel, they’re the key that unlocks the door to a sale. They’re the leads that have been carefully and skillfully nurtured. They’re the ones, that with the right discussion points, could turn a prospect into a sale. MORE
What Is Lead Nurturing? Lead nurturing is the process of developing relationships with potential buyers, and moving them down your sales funnel. Before we talk about how to nurture leads, we must understand why lead nurturing is so important for the success of your business. MORE
In my experience, most of the mental energy and strategic thinking around the practice of lead nurturing and lead management is usually applied to the goal of accelerating prospects through the sales process – from MQL to SQL, from SQL to Opportunity, and so on. MORE
There is a growing trend in the content syndication space, and among Cost Per Lead (CPL) programs in general, for media vendors to offer B2B clients the option of pre-qualified leads. Naturally, you pay a big premium (in the form of a higher CPL) for pre-qualified leads. MORE
Tweet For years, marketers have been testing messages on emails, websites and pay-per-click ads to determine which ones drive the most sales. MECLABS has its own leads generation group working with clients to help them drive more revenue through teleprospecting. MORE
This terminology is also used to for the software that is used by the businesses to manage the customer relationship and drive sales growth. L2RM: Lead to Revenue Management. Lead to Revenue Management is a customer engagement model. BANT: Budget, Authority, Need and Time. MORE
Author: Stacey Thornberry A joint Marketo and Reachforce research piece found that businesses are 67% better at closing deals when sales and marketing work together. He spoke about “Lead Generation: Strategies that Kill the Competition.”. Lead Scoring. SQL = sales qualified lead. MORE
Lead scoring can help. What’s lead scoring? Lead scoring is the technique of assigning a numerical value to an attribute or action based on the degree of buying authority or purchase likelihood those characteristics represent. Lead scoring in practice. MORE
Knowing which of your sales leads have the highest potential to buy is key to effectively allocating your resources and optimizing your sales & marketing spend. We’ve touched on the idea of how to approach lead scoring , but this post will elaborate on defining a lead scoring criteria that fits your business’ needs, and more importantly, your target audience. You can talk to your customers and your sales teams to determine which of these metrics matter most. MORE
Tweet I was recently reading your blog “ Lead Generation: Who knows the customer better – Marketing or Sales? It’s been really fascinating to me to try and figure all this sales and qualifying a lead thing out. Do you have any advice or books on how to effectively get leads and qualify them and the processes involved in doing so? I’ll focus on some fundamental questions you should answer as you craft your lead gen program. What is a lead? MORE
Sales has come a long way from the Glengarry Glen Ross days of high pressure and aggressive tactics. Especially in the last five years, sales and marketing roles have shifted and this impacts the way the funnel breaks down as well. Sales is hard. Sales infrastructure. MORE
For quality leads — that are more effective in the long-term — inbound marketing undoubtedly provides better sources for lead generation than outbound. Well, for starters, inbound prospects, by definition, choose themselves as leads. What is Inbound Lead Generation? MORE
A broken lead generation strategy could mean trouble for your sales and marketing team, but not just because of the fundamental misalignment between the two departments. Have marketing and sales decided on a shared definition for a qualified sales lead? MORE
Many thanks to Stone Payton and Todd Schnick, hosts extraordinaire of High Velocity Radio, for the interview on my new book, The Truth About Leads. The B2B lead generation and sales lead management strategies we discussed included… Shifting from a full BANT approach to focus on two areas: authority and discovering need. MORE
In this post, I’m going to share seven tips to help you improve lead routing for more sales. Have you intentionally managed and optimized your marketing qualified lead routing and assignment process? If not, you could be losing sales, and marketing ROI not know it. MORE
Should marketing and sales agree on the definition of a lead? Per sales, a qualified lead is based on criteria they understand, but marketing is in dark. In my book, “ The Truth About Leads ” , I provide ten attributes of a well-qualified lead. MORE
Jim is the founder of the Sales Lead Management Association. SLMA is the sponsor of the yearly Sales Lead Management week and initiatives to identify both the Top 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management and 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management. MORE
30 years ago, I learned how IBM qualified leads for sales. And unless you have seriously revisited it the last few years, the Internet has broken your B2B sales process. So, what is the real way to qualify leads? Photo credit: eric.delcroix. I’m old. MORE
Unbound B2B
MAY 8, 2020
This is why it’s important to qualify every lead as by not doing so, you run the risk of getting stuck in a long and frustrating sales process that may never convert. The marketing process is a lot smoother when lead qualification is conducted at the start of the sales cycle.
The Point
JANUARY 14, 2014
In my experience, most of the mental energy and strategic thinking around the practice of lead nurturing and lead management is usually applied to the goal of accelerating prospects through the sales process – from MQL to SQL, from SQL to Opportunity, and so on.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
The Forward Observer
JUNE 30, 2015
Sure, you're generating sales leads, but are they good leads? Here's how to step up your lead quality. The same kind of logic, applies to generating better quality B2B sales leads. To begin to generate quality leads, get sales and marketing in the same room.
ViewPoint
JUNE 18, 2013
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. All real salespeople love sales leads and don’t ever believe anyone who tells you differently. The argument comes when salespeople define a lead. Until SalesForce came along and called every raw name in the database a lead, most of us thought—there are inquiries and there are leads.
B2B Lead Blog
MAY 13, 2019
In this post, I’m going to share seven tips to help you improve lead routing for more sales. Have you intentionally managed and optimized your marketing qualified lead routing and assignment process? If not, you could be losing sales, and marketing ROI not know it.
ViewPoint
OCTOBER 5, 2018
He was willing to provide the sales team one of six choices: 200,000 targeted contacts (name and title) in the right vertical (no email addresses). 81 highly qualified sales opportunities with the right contact who has a need backed by some form of compelling event. What is a Lead?
|
Avitage
MARCH 7, 2012
We are working with several clients to help them improve their lead nurturing program to deliver a higher volume and quality of sales ready leads to the outside sales team. We have found a tendency on the part of Inside Sales to conduct their work from what I would term a traditional mindset. In many cases they are actively prospecting for new leads from an unqualified list. ” Or, they are actively trying to set appointments for sales reps.
Marketing Action
MARCH 7, 2013
Sales has come a long way from the Glengarry Glen Ross days of high pressure and aggressive tactics. Especially in the last five years, sales and marketing roles have shifted and this impacts the way the funnel breaks down as well. Sales is hard. Sales infrastructure.
ViewPoint
FEBRUARY 23, 2016
A broken lead generation strategy could mean trouble for your sales and marketing team, but not just because of the fundamental misalignment between the two departments. Have marketing and sales decided on a shared definition for a qualified sales lead?
ViewPoint
DECEMBER 14, 2016
Should marketing and sales agree on the definition of a lead? Per sales, a qualified lead is based on criteria they understand, but marketing is in dark. In my book, “ The Truth About Leads ” , I provide ten attributes of a well-qualified lead.
Marketo
MARCH 25, 2010
Yet according to CSO Insight’s 2010 Sales Performance Optimization study, only 52% of sales reps met quota in 2009, and companies achieved only 78% of their revenue plans. In contrast, today’s best companies are using a new revenue engine that uses repeatable marketing and sales 2.0
|
ViewPoint
MARCH 14, 2011
Many thanks to Stone Payton and Todd Schnick, hosts extraordinaire of High Velocity Radio, for the interview on my new book, The Truth About Leads. The B2B lead generation and sales lead management strategies we discussed included… Shifting from a full BANT approach to focus on two areas: authority and discovering need.
ViewPoint
OCTOBER 2, 2012
Over the past few months I have had the pleasure of interviewing nineteen influential B2B sales and marketing leaders to discuss their views in areas like traditional and new media strategies, current and future trends, B2B lead generation, and sales lead management.
PureB2B
FEBRUARY 22, 2018
No offense, but most of your B2B leads most likely won’t convert into sales. As B2B marketers, you need to assess which of your prospects have the attributes and behaviors that make them high-quality leads. You must also qualify leads based on their potential lifetime value (LTV) or the predicted net profit that a customer will contribute to doing business with your company. But how can you predict LTV and conversion potential before the sale?
Marketo
APRIL 8, 2019
In a way, sales reps are like nurses or doctors. Sales reps would get a good sense of how interested someone was in their company’s products or services by spending some time with them. But successfully qualifying leads for sales means having three key fundamentals in place: 1.
B2B Lead Generation
MARCH 17, 2014
Tweet I was recently reading your blog “ Lead Generation: Who knows the customer better – Marketing or Sales? It’s been really fascinating to me to try and figure all this sales and qualifying a lead thing out. Do you have any advice or books on how to effectively get leads and qualify them and the processes involved in doing so? I’ll focus on some fundamental questions you should answer as you craft your lead gen program. What is a lead?
B2B Lead Generation
OCTOBER 28, 2013
Tweet Recently, we ran a live test for our audience at MarketingSherpa Lead Gen Summit 2013 and as I discovered, this isn’t the easiest thing to do. For example, the design process forced us to examine two important questions: what is a quality lead, and how do we measure it?
ViewPoint
JUNE 15, 2012
Jim is the founder of the Sales Lead Management Association. SLMA is the sponsor of the yearly Sales Lead Management week and initiatives to identify both the Top 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management and 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management.
The Point
MAY 23, 2017
There is a growing trend in the content syndication space, and among Cost Per Lead (CPL) programs in general, for media vendors to offer B2B clients the option of pre-qualified leads. Naturally, you pay a big premium (in the form of a higher CPL) for pre-qualified leads.
Only B2B
NOVEMBER 26, 2019
Must Read: Steps to Reintroduce BANT in Modern B2B Sales Cycle. Must Read: How To Generate Sales Leads Without Cold Calling. The advantages of B2B marketing plan are in plenty today. If you want to grow your business you need to have strategic B2B marketing plans.
Biznology
NOVEMBER 1, 2012
30 years ago, I learned how IBM qualified leads for sales. And unless you have seriously revisited it the last few years, the Internet has broken your B2B sales process. So, what is the real way to qualify leads? Photo credit: eric.delcroix. I’m old.
B2B Lead Generation
DECEMBER 2, 2013
Tweet For years, marketers have been testing messages on emails, websites and pay-per-click ads to determine which ones drive the most sales. MECLABS has its own leads generation group working with clients to help them drive more revenue through teleprospecting.
Biznology
NOVEMBER 17, 2011
I like to do book reviews once in a while on Biznology, and this one was a natural because I know Ruth Stevens and I know her expertise in B2B marketing, so I needed to pore over her book, Maximizing Lead Generation , for tips–and I found them. Image by shutterhacks via Flickr.
Only B2B
FEBRUARY 6, 2018
This terminology is also used to for the software that is used by the businesses to manage the customer relationship and drive sales growth. L2RM: Lead to Revenue Management. Lead to Revenue Management is a customer engagement model. BANT: Budget, Authority, Need and Time.
PureB2B
JANUARY 30, 2017
Knowing which of your sales leads have the highest potential to buy is key to effectively allocating your resources and optimizing your sales & marketing spend. We’ve touched on the idea of how to approach lead scoring , but this post will elaborate on defining a lead scoring criteria that fits your business’ needs, and more importantly, your target audience. You can talk to your customers and your sales teams to determine which of these metrics matter most.
Marketing Action
SEPTEMBER 12, 2013
Lead scoring can help. What’s lead scoring? Lead scoring is the technique of assigning a numerical value to an attribute or action based on the degree of buying authority or purchase likelihood those characteristics represent. Lead scoring in practice.
TrueInfluence
APRIL 2, 2019
You wouldn’t send your B2B sales team into the field with such a generic, one-size-fits-all pitch. To begin executing this plan, you need more than just a vendor who can take a few demographic filters and plug them into its lead machine. In a B2B sales environment where lead quality is still a major stumbling block , building a trusting relationship with your strategic prospecting partner is one of the smartest investments you can make.
Zoominfo
JUNE 24, 2020
For quality leads — that are more effective in the long-term — inbound marketing undoubtedly provides better sources for lead generation than outbound. Well, for starters, inbound prospects, by definition, choose themselves as leads. What is Inbound Lead Generation?
SnapApp
AUGUST 21, 2018
Sales-Qualified Leads. In the B2B sales funnel, they’re the key that unlocks the door to a sale. They’re the leads that have been carefully and skillfully nurtured. They’re the ones, that with the right discussion points, could turn a prospect into a sale.
SnapApp
AUGUST 21, 2018
Sales-Qualified Leads. In the B2B sales funnel, they’re the key that unlocks the door to a sale. They’re the leads that have been carefully and skillfully nurtured. They’re the ones, that with the right discussion points, could turn a prospect into a sale.
Marketo
MAY 12, 2016
Joe argued that “in an ABM world, sales enablement is a necessity” and that as you think about your ABM strategy, it’s important to start small and identify the pools of accounts that are most valuable to fish in. May the Sales and Marketing Force Be With You. Shorter sales cycles.
Marketo
APRIL 7, 2016
Author: Stacey Thornberry A joint Marketo and Reachforce research piece found that businesses are 67% better at closing deals when sales and marketing work together. He spoke about “Lead Generation: Strategies that Kill the Competition.”. Lead Scoring. SQL = sales qualified lead.
Albacross
JULY 11, 2019
What Is Lead Nurturing? Lead nurturing is the process of developing relationships with potential buyers, and moving them down your sales funnel. Before we talk about how to nurture leads, we must understand why lead nurturing is so important for the success of your business.
Albacross
AUGUST 7, 2018
Want to learn how to nurture leads? In this article, we explain exactly what lead nurturing is, and why it’s necessary. On top of that, we also do a deep dive on 3 different lead nurturing tactics that you can apply to your own company. What Is Lead Nurturing? Lead Fit.
Marketo
NOVEMBER 15, 2012
Salesforce recently rebranded their social marketing application as the Marketing Cloud, and their website says you can use their solutions to “optimize campaigns from lead to close, on every channel”. Primarily sales and sales management, some marketing. Sales Forecasting.
200 
Let's personalize your content