Managing the many paths to prospects

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Permalink Reply by Nesh Thompson on July 31, 2008 at 2:49am

Competitors? - Controversial, but I know that certain mobile phone companies target other network users to identify dissatisfaction and then actively campaign to get them to switch... this leads to some quite dirty tactics though.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Blackwell on September 18, 2008 at 10:17am

I noticed that you didn't mention "in-person" visits. ;)

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Permalink Reply by Steve Early on January 30, 2009 at 2:24pm

Multimedia vignettes ---

Designed specifically for a specific purpose and to be used at certain points in the sales cycle. They can be a link in an email, or posted to a web site or built into a presentation.

An example: http://avitage.com/a?f8wb8gd

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Permalink Reply by Karl Goldfield on February 1, 2009 at 12:48am

Nesh,

Good point for those in saturated markets. Competitor sites can enlighten you as to whose is using their products.

Jeff,

Unless you are cold calling in person, I would consider an arranged meet with a prospect, not a lead

Steve,

Interesting; expand as I am curious and would like to understand more.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Early on February 3, 2009 at 5:18am

Karl:

We all talk about the many disconnects that we have seen between marketing and sales organizations in companies we have worked for. One aspect of our business involves helping clients communicate to their customers through their sales people using multimedia vignettes. Rather than blast messages out to hundreds or thousands of people at once via typical marketing programs, we provide a way for sales people to pick and choose which messages to deliver to whom and when.

For example:

Sales people may need a prospecting vignette to highlight a key problem their organization solves. They can then place an initial phone call and even if they end up in voicemail hell, they can end it by indicating they are going to send the prospect a link to see if the problem they solve is one the customer can identify with. If the prospect views the vignette and it resonates with them, they become more open to your follow up call. The link in my January 30th response above is an example of a multimedia vignette that we use with our prospects.

After the initial follow up discussion, rather than set up a 1 hour meeting or schedule a demonstration (both of which can be costly), the sales person may close the call by saying, "Based on your answers to my questions, I think we might have something that will help you. Let me email you a short vignette that describes how we solve this problem. It will only take 5 minutes to view it and one of our existing customers will outline the results they have achieved by working with us on a similar problem. Let's chat again on Thursday at 9:30 to see what you think."

Let's assume that when I call back the customer was impressed, but has a very gnarly technical question. We have a terrific resource in our field support group that knows how to answer this question really well. The problem is she is in high demand and usually on the road - everybody needs her help - get in line.

No problem - my answer is: "Karl, I understand how you feel - almost everybody I talk to has felt the same way and had that same question. However, they found that once we explain how our solution is protected from external hacking attempts, they were more than satisfied with our approach. Trying to explain this verbally over the phone would simply waste your time and probably not be helpful, so let me send you another 2-minute vignette that will use visual aids to explain how we protect the data. Let's talk tomorrow at 1:00 and see if our explanation makes sense to you."

Don't tell anyone ( ;^) but in own case, we have it down to where we track the links we send so we know if and when the prospect opened each vignette. We then know how to time our callback. If the prospect doesn't open it in 2 or 3 days we can call and ask if they've had a chance to view the information (knowing they didn't open it) as a 'friendly reminder.'

I think you can see where this is going. We identify key selling challenges and work with the client to produce these vignettes and make them available for sales to use at the right point in their sales cycle. What is really cool is that once a link has been sent to a prospect, they can use it to sell for you when you aren't there. And we know they aren't doing a lousy job because they are using our stuff to explain it!! They can (and do) resend the link to others in the company and we can sit here and see that it has been viewed twice, now 3x, now 4x, etc. so we know that either the original recipient keeps viewing it, or they have emailed it to others and it is making the rounds in the target company - either of which can be good news.

I hope this has been helpful.

Steve

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Permalink Reply by Scott Anderson on May 12, 2009 at 1:52pm

Karl-

I'd be delighted to show off a new social networking site we've recently introduced called Reach. The two specific functions for our network is to help SR's find new leads/contacts as well as enable them to set up virtual collaboration networks. The key is we put you in direct contact with non-competitive SR's who know the people you're looking to meet with. So no more complete cold calls as you'll know more about the person you're connecting with. If you're interested; we'd love to have you join up....the service is free!

Regards,
Scott

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Permalink Reply by Advaith D on May 18, 2009 at 11:06pm

Hi Scott ,

Help us with the url for " reach " !!

Regards,

Advait

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