CRM SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) has been around for a while now, and per seat costs can range from the unbelievably low to “nose-bleed” level highs. Underneath those numbers lay the true costs that involve much more. I am specifically referring to costs for:

1. Software Installation & Set-up
2. Professional & Administrative services
3. Customization
4. Lead Processing & Fulfillment
5. Training

It is easy to be lulled into thinking of CRM costs as the simple $xx/seat license published by vendors, however that won’t be your “true cost”.  Making sure your CRM implementation budget accounts for these things is important.  You don’t want them creaping up on you when you didn’t expect them.

CRM Landmark is a site that provides independent information about CRM program total-cost-of-ownership and more.  It’s information well worth giving a look if you are trying to determine the “True” cost of your CRM program whether you have an existing program or are planning to implement one.  What is your CRM program costing you…really? 

Today’s CRM programs typically offer so many features users require “Ground School.”  Even programs that are intuitive and relatively easy to use have a learning curve that can be steep.  So CRM success demands good training.

Successful CRM implementations require three things:

1. Meeting stakeholder needs

2. Ease of use

3. Training

  Oh…and did I mention “Training”?

I recently participated in a user training session for 30 sales people for the launch of their new CRM program.  Training sessions are always revealing.

During the morning break, the sales director leading the session commented to me about his “20-60-20″ Rule. Intrigued, I asked him to explain. He stated that in his years of training experience, about 20% of people “get it” right away; 60% require more effort; and 20%, no matter how hard they try, just never seem to get it.

If true how can management expect to achieve CRM success if 20% or more of their sales people can’t figure out how to use the system?  How can users meet the compliance expectations?

A CRM program becomes “easy-to-use” if it is intuitive and all users “get it.” That requires proper training, support, user feedback, monitoring and yes… more training!  As you evaluate your CRM implementation plan, whether new or existing, give a serious look at your training plan.  CRM software is a tool, and a sophisticated one at that.  No one ever learned to fly a plane without serious training.  Your sales people and your CRM program can take flight if you provide the same.

What kind of successes are you having at training for CRM?

Learn more at www.ultimatelead.com

If your trade show ROI is important, then lead follow-up is important to you, too.  Chances are you use email to fulfill most show inquiries (as opposed to print and “snail mail.”)  That means there is a chance that your email blasts following a show can get you “blacklisted” as a spammer if you are not careful, and if too many recipients flag your emails as “spam”.  And that can mean BIG trouble!

There are four key things you can do to help avoid getting blacklisted:

1. Obtain permission from your prospects to email them after the show. (Consider going to your website and have him register online.)
2. Immediately email the prospect with a “thank you” acknowledgement for “opting-in” to your list.
3. Send your follow-up emails within 24 hours of the show with a subject line:  ”Following up your request from the XYZ trade show.”
4. In the first paragraph of the email remind them of your meeting at the show and their request for more information.

Most email campaign providers like Constant Contact, iContact, Exact Target & Silverpop have strong anti-spam policies, and you can get shutdown if you don’t abide them. The ability to document that the people you have emailed requested your follow-up can help get you off of blacklists if you end-up there.

So consider asking for email permission while qualifying your leads.  It may help you from “seeing red” if you end up “in the black.”

“A lead is the identification of a person or entity that has the interest and authority to purchase a product or service. ”

Her company uses the Sirius Decisions Lead Spectrum and BANT criteria to ensure qualified opportunities are generated for sales people.  Below are the 5 suggested qualification criteria to use to confirm that a lead is a LEAD:

BANT – (Budget,  Authority, Need and purchase Timeframe)

Criteria 1- Inquiry from an individual from a marketing campaign or trade show, or someone who has taken proactive steps to demonstrate interest in your message, product or service.

Criteria 2- A meaningful interaction (via phone or email) with the individual confirming that the company meets qualifying criteria as a bonfide target prospect.

Criteria 3 - The individual identifies a specific NEED for your product or service. (Application)

Criteria 4 - The individual is in the process of defining purchase requirements for your product or service. (Budget & Timeframe)

Criteria 5- The individual has confirmed they have the Authority, Budget and a defined Timeframe for purchase.

Obviously, numerous factors affect sales cycles and timeframes, and every company must tailor their BANT criteria to their products and industry.  Incorporating BANT sales lead qualification into your lead nurturing and cultivation of prospects must be artfully done so as to not be effective and not off-putting.  BANT is a good place for marketing and sales to start working together to come to agreement on what makes a lead a LEAD.  For more information from experts on how and when to use BANT criteria visit:  BANT Discussions

Now you can! LEADADVANTAGE  enables you to identify companies that visit your website, their interest (pages viewed), key contacts and more.  Great stuff for the B2B marketer interested in identifying new prospects.  Visitors to  B2B websites typically visit seeking information on particular products or services.

Who’s Looking at YOU?
Common web analytics program can provide web site traffic counts like page views, cost-per-click, unique and return visitor.  B2B marketers need more.  LEADADVANTAGE provides detailed company information like address, phone number, size and industry and contact information from sources like LinkedIn and Jigsaw. For B2B marketers, its not enough to just know how many are visiting your website, but who!”

Identifying and capturing website visitors is an excellent way to develop ”soft leads” of prospects and new sales opportunities.  Its also a good way to learn which or your existing customers are visiting your website in search of information.  Since these visitors chose to visit your website, don’t let them slip away unknown and lose potential sales opportunities.

Learn more about how to gain the LEAD ADVANTAGE.  Call 800-323-0550 for a no obligation 10 Day Free Trial.

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Over the years, I’ve worked with a number of companies that made lead follow-up an imperative with their sales forces.  In every case where it was required it yielded successful and profitable results reporting hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in sales.

There is much discussion in internet groups about “aligning marketing and sales” and lead follow-up is a critical part of this discussion.

In a recent post I shared a formula for projecting sales (and a budget) from leads, and discussed the value of leads. “Did you Buy” studies conducted by Thomas Publishing, Penton, the Advertising Research Foundation and others revealed the sales potential of  advertising leads.  The Center for Exhibition Industry Research showed similar findings for trade show leads.  Bottom line…about 67% of all inquiries are from prospects who plan to purchase within 6 months and 1 in 5, or 20%, should buy from you.  The logic shouts that if the leads generated are worthless then the promotion investment was a waste.  It follows then that if research has proven that leads are indeed valuable then the waste comes from not following up.

The most successful sales managers I’ve worked with partnered with marketing and focused their efforts on educating their sales force in four specific areas:

1.  The value of leads (research) and the marketing effort/rational behind the campaign.

2.  Training on effective lead follow-up and qualification techniques.
(What makes a “qualified” lead a qualified lead?)

3.  Communicating clear, realistic expectations regarding lead follow-up.

4.  The need for feedback for Continuous Performance Improvement.

Of course, companies each took different tactical approaches, but the fundamentals remained the same.  Managing a sales force is a tough job and aligning sales with marketing is a challenge.  But good sales people just don’t ignore new business opportunities and good sales management won’t allow it.

Why don’t sales people follow-up on leads?  There are a number of reasons but the big one is this:   When sales lead follow-up isn’t required by management it just won’t happen.

Here is a sample goal: You need to sell $1,000,000 of a product that sells for $5,000. How many inquiries will the sales force need to make the number? Let’s also assume there is 100% follow-up of the inquiries.

Scott Tate proposed the following formula edited here for space:

Quarterly sales revenue target (A): $2,000,000
Portion of revenue required from marketing sources (B): 50%
Quarterly revenue target from marketing sources: C = A x B = $1,000,000
Average deal value (D): $5,000
Deals from Marketing sources required to hit target: E = C/D = 200
Forecasted opportunities needed to yield 1 deal (F): 5 (20% conversion rate)
Forecasted opportunities from Marketing sources needed to hit target: G = E x F = 1,000
‘A’ leads from Marketing sources needed for 1 forecasted opportunity (H): 3
‘A’ leads from Marketing needed to hit target: I = G x H = 3,000
Leads needed to yield 1 ‘A’ lead (J): 4
Leads needed to hit target: I x J = 12,000

Now, you can go further to use this figure to tell the boss what you need for a lead generation budget. Here’s how:

Average cost per lead: $20
Lead gen program budget required: $240,000

Scott shared that the classic sales defense is that marketing doesn’t do a good job of pre-defining lead quality, and applying those standards before turning the leads over to sales. The antidote is to:

1) work proactively with senior sales management to define what constitutes a quality lead,

2) encourage the reps to notify you when the lead quality did not pan out as advertised, and

3) audit the questionable lead and provide the results to all parties involved.

By doing this, Scott says he has bridged the classic gap between marketing and sales.

Obermayer adds that if you have a CRM system and the salespeople are updating it without fail you can measure your success from formulas like these.

The primary variable in this formula is the follow-up by your salespeople. If the follow-up is only 50%, the number of inquiries needed to make quota jumps dramatically. This demonstrates the power of simply following up every inquiry. And the time frame may shift depending on the value and buying cycle for your products. Less expensive products that are commodities may have 45% buy in 6-9 months. Large capital equipment products may take 15-18 months to cycle through.

Another important variable is your cost-per-lead which can take some homework to determine.

The power of following up every inquiry is demonstrated by the marketing automation companies that rightly claim that if their system is used (and they do the follow-up) sales can increase between 300-400% from inquiries.

If you have a formula of your own, I’d like to hear from you.

It wasn’t that long ago that sales reps were eager to get their hands on laptops to manage their activities better in the field. Apparently laptops are quickly becoming “so yesterday!” With instant messaging, social media, email and mobile apps on Blackberries and iPhones, are laptop days numbered? Well, maybe.

The viewable real estate on cell phones and other palm devices is small. Users just don’t have the space to display robust applications and information. No doubt the market for laptops will be around for a while, though tablet PCs and iPads will take sizable market share. Younger generations eagerly embrace new technologies that are faster, easier and jazzier. Verizon’s new offer of iPhones has sold out within days, iPad orders have gobbled up 50% of laptop sales at Best Buy and according to Mobile Marketing Watch tablet orders are predicted to eclipse laptop sales by 2015.

If you are marketing or sales manager who hasn’t given a serious look at mobile technologies for delivering leads and managing CRM functions, perhaps its time. With newer technologies being more eagerly embraced by the newer generation it might be wise to get ahead of the curve.

Here are some highlights:

• Most companies let new business opportunities slip through their fingers… and don’t know it!
• Recent studies found that some 80% of website visitor inquiries are ignored. Earlier studies found that 67% of inquirers are real prospects, yet 72% never hear from a salesperson. 
• In this webinar, you will learn how to maximize the sales opportunities in every lead and maximize the return on your marketing investment.
• Learn how to follow-up on all leads quickly, affordably and effectively, how to improve follow-up effectiveness in the field, and how to implement easy-to-use tools to measure results.

I look forward to your joining me on September 14th for an interesting presentation and discussion on how to increase sales!