Phil Lauterjung

Posts Tagged ‘sales pipeline’

We all know that sales cycles have lengthened for most of us.  However, The TAS Group, a sales software and training company, has aggregated anonymous data from their customers to come up with some very interesting insights into what’s really happening with sales cycles.  Please note that they kept in mind good business practices and privacy issues in this data.

Here are 5 facts that you might find to be surprising:  Read more... (456 words, 2 images, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

We are now in the dreaded fourth quarter, and some are saying that the recession is over.  Maybe, maybe not.  That doesn’t change the fact that sales teams everywhere are scrambling to put up bonus-earning numbers for 2009.  That, of course, assumes that you were dealt reasonable quotas to begin with.  Okay, okay I hear the grumbling already about that topic.  You’ll need to take that up with your boss – I can’t help with that one.  Read more... (481 words, 2 images, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

Before we dive into Marketing Automation I think it would be good to clarify a very important point.  Leads are people.  I know that might be stating the obvious, but it is critical that we keep that in mind.

The person at the other end of your electronic piece of information has hopes and dreams, fears and frustrations, goals, maybe a family, friends who like them, etc. – just like you and I do.  Never, ever lose sight of that while you are trying to sell to them.  Marketing Automation is all about developing relationships that will lead to long-term customer relationships.  Read more... (729 words, 2 images, estimated 2:55 mins reading time)

If you’ve been following along in this series (if not, why not?), you have hopefully started what you need to in order to get more leads.

Now you’ve got to decide which are the HOT leads?  Remember, we mentioned before that only 20-25% of your leads will be “sales-ready”.  How do you figure that out?

Start with lead scoring.  A process that should be done before you start getting leads, but if you haven’t yet done that don’t worry.  No time like right now to get it done.  You’ll want to take that exercise you went through earlier in developing a typical buyer profile and use that to develop a lead scoring process.  Read more... (608 words, 2 images, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

The lifeblood of any business is leads – right?  If you don’t have leads to follow up you won’t have many sales.  Seems simple enough, but in today’s marketplace it has become VERY difficult to get well qualified  leads.

According to Todd Defren at Shift Communications you should consider using the PR power of social media.  Todd taught a class for Inbound Marketing University today called PR for Inbound Marketing, and had some great insights worth passing along.  Read more... (530 words, 2 images, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

As the recession wears on more and more companies are trying to find sales nirvana.  The number of articles, postings, tips, tricks, and short cuts are increasing every day.  But, once again, reality bites.  Point-of-the-post alert!! – There are no short cuts, only hard work!!

A report released a few months ago by Dow Jones and CSO Insights on Sales Performance Optimization noted that the number of companies using a formal or dynamic sales process decreased this year.  The reason they concluded that happened was that it required hard work.  An astounding 63% of the companies surveyed only had a random or informal sales process in place.  I hope I don’t need to tell anyone that those companies had worse sales results than the 37% with a formal or dynamic sales process.  Read more... (483 words, 3 images, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)