Along with some of my colleagues, I attended the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals conference recently in Phoenix. Kudos to CEO Bob Perkins and COO Larry Reeves for a great networking and learning event. Televerde’s Donna Kent, our Senior VP of Global Sales, Marketing & Services delivered a presentation called “Inside Sales 2.0: New Skills, Technique & Opportunities” that was very well-received. The slide deck is on our website if you’d like to see it.

I came away from the event with a number of great ideas – including some fresh new ideas and in some cases just great validations and reminders of old ideas which tend to get taken for granted. Here’s a top 10 list – the ideas that caught my attention right out of the gate.

1.     Inside sales skills sets are becoming granularly specialized, including requirements for specialization in prospecting/hunting, telequalifying, voicemail messaging, email messaging, campaign management, presentations, handling objection, closing, account management, and LinkedIn expertise. So more training and development is needed in each of these areas.

2.     As the reliance on Inside Sales increasing, the function is getting a lot more visibility – and credibility — with executive management. Inside Sales professionals need to be able to validate their value to sustain the credibility and continue earning the right to a seat at the revenue table.

3.     As evolved as the Inside Sales function is becoming, there’s still room for skill set improvement, so investment is needed to enhance communication, presentation, email writing and vertical/segment knowledge skills.

4.     Inside Sales professionals need to improve on their ability to listen for “tone” during the course of a conversation with a client or prospect in order to have more context on the substance of the dialogue and where it’s heading.

5.     “Interest is the counterfeit of need!”  Don’t mistake what a buyer appears to be interested in or says they’re interested in for a genuine need. Interest can be a sales time-waster and need can be a deal-maker.

6.     During conversations with customers, use plain English – keep your messages simple, clear and concise. No need for vagueness and fifty cent words. We’re all humans and we all generally like to communicate and hear stories, so let’s have natural conversations with each other that are understandable, make points and contain calls to actions, next steps, etc. A logical application of this in a buyer-seller conversation is to use actual real-world examples of the experiences of another company. These examples can be referenced during the opening seconds of a conversation and in voicemail messages.

7.     Always relate your messages to what your buyers are interested in (i.e., their unique situation or set of challenges) – seek alignment and relevance. Your communication is always better when you reference metrics, use high-impact examples, appeal to recipients on a persona-based level, are specific, and paint a clear picture (i.e., convey a visual).

8.     Three key actionable take-aways for how to get your points across with prospects — tell a compelling story, tell it in a human-to-human way, and make your conversation relevant to the prospect.

9.     Great inside sales professionals know their buyers’ business and allow that knowledge to reveal itself in their conversations. Arm your inside sales professionals with the knowledge they need. Account profiles are excellent business intelligence tools.

10.  70% of buyers have already done more of their buying process research before even engaging in a conversation with a sales rep – inside sales or otherwise – so be prepared to have a conversation with a knowledgeable buyer. Don’t lose the sale by not knowing as much as they do.

I’ll recommend some of my other key takeaways from the event in a future blog post. In the meantime, start focusing more attention on the development of your inside sales team. Or, better yet (shameless self-promotion alert…), consider outsourcing all or parts of your inside sales function to a firm that already have a specialized set of skills, market knowledge, and best practices. Our clients have been using our services for 16+ years and during that time we’ve generated more than $3 billion in net new sales revenue for them.

Televerde had a strong presence this week at the American Association of Insides Sales Professionals 2012 Summit held in Scottsdale. Donna Kent, our Senior Vice President of Global Sales, Marketing & Services participated in the “Secrets of Top Selling Organizations” panel and we presented our own session – “Inside Sales 2.0: New Skills, Techniques, Opportunities.” We engaged with many of the attendees (including some current clients) and developed relationships with some prospective customers. (Always a nice byproduct of participating at this events.) We learned a lot, networked a lot, and of course shared our knowledge and experience with everyone we met. Below are the Top 10 Inside Sales Best Practices we presented at our workshop.1.     Do your research to know your buyers

2.     Automate to generate, nurture and prioritize more better qualified leads

3.     Build Account-Based Marketing Programs:

a.     Profile top accounts

b.    Identify multiple contacts

c.     Map relationships

4.     Target by personas

5.     Work closer with sales and marketing to tighten alignment

6.     Establish crystal clear lead definitions and  hone the lead hand-off process

7.     Assign/align ISRs by sales rep and accounts

8.     Train and certify for competencies

9.     Then organize by competency:

a.     Type of campaign objective – leads, appointments, etc.

b.    Market type – verticals, rev ranges, public/private

c.     Complexity/simplicity of the sale

10.  Outsource for specialized competencies, scalability, sustainability

Our entire presentation deck is in the Resources section of our website and includes what we believe are the market imperatives that are causing what we refer to as the “Inside Sales Spring.” We developed the slides intentionally to be self-explanatory as a convenience to anyone who couldn’t attend our session. But if you’d like to learn more, don’t hesitate to call us at +1 480-736-8137 or send us an email at info@televerde.com.

We’d love to know more about your inside sales best practices so feel free to share here.

I attended the SiriusDecisions “Maximizing the Impact of Marketing Automation Investments” Executive Advisory Forum at the Sofitel Hotel in Redwood City, Calif., last week.  I typically wouldn’t mention the location but it coincided with the Marketo Rockstar Tour event Televerde was sponsoring which was held at the same hotel.  The logistics gods from SiriusDecisions and Marketo couldn’t have made it easier for me as each event was within a few steps from one another.   This was the second SiriusDecisions Executive Advisory Forum I’ve attended.   In September, Larry Fleischman, our Director of Marketing, and I attended the “2012 B-to-B Sales and Marketing Planning Assumptions,” Forum which I found very informative as we started to think about our 2012 planning process, so I expected the same and wasn’t disappointed.

Here are my top 10 observations:

1. If you invested in Marketing Automation and haven’t achieved the benefits you expected from your investment, you’re not alone.  SiriusDecisions recently surveyed their clients and found the majority believed they are not utilizing their marketing automation platform to its fullest potential.  Many B2B high-tech companies in attendance at the forum shared similar sentiments.

2. Marketing Automation is still an immature market with the majority of platform providers relatively small companies.

3. Only 18% of B2B organizations are using a Marketing Automation Platform today, but anticipate an increase to 40% in five years.

4. Do some of these challenges sound familiar?   If so, again you’re not alone.  Here are the challenges shared by many of the attendees:

• Data quality or the lack thereof
• Change management issues
• Sales and Marketing alignment challenges
• Lead quantity vs. quality
• Having the right or enough content to fuel campaigns
• Predictive analytics and insights (not just email metrics) is a growing challenge

5. Companies often lack the skills and processes to apply marketing automation technology in innovative ways.  All too often when speaking with prospects and clients the focus is on technology when it should be focused on the People and Process consideration first.

6. Marketing Automation is rarely leveraged effectively at each stage of the cold-to-close process.

7. True revenue performance management is more than a stand-alone marketing technology solution. To understand what marketing is doing and the true revenue impact, a collection of sales, marketing and channel technologies need to be integrated.  An integrated solution of people, process, marketing skills and technology are needed to enable more effective demand generation.  Buyers are more educated today and the one size fits all approach doesn’t fit nor work.  Segmentation and targeting has never been more important to delivering campaign ROI.

8. Marketing Automation by the Numbers:

• 18% – The percentage of B2B organizations using a marketing automation platform (MAP)
• 40% – The percentage of B2B organization SiriusDecisions expects to be using a marketing automation platform by the end of 2015.
• 85% – The percentage of organizations that has purchased marketing automation technology and believe they are not utilizing it to the fullest potential.
• 25% – The percentage of large enterprises using a marketing automation platform that are highly satisfied with their vendor.

9. A core set of technologies significantly enhances organizations’ ability to efficiently deliver and track leads.  Considerations should include website content management and analytics, marketing automation, marketing database, campaign management and CRM/SFA integration. Start with the People and Processes components first. Technology alone without proper skills, knowledge and processes will NOT show measureable returns.

10. Leveraging the full potential of a Marketing Automation Platform relies on the vendor‘s experience in driving organizational adoption.  The overwhelming majority of organizations relied on external agency and services companies to implement and support. Services become a key differentiator in a commoditized technology market.  An overflow of customer requirements force MAP vendors to turn to outside agencies and consultants for help.  Customers are looking for a greater emphasis on CRM integration, best practices and skills education to see the returns on their MAP investment.  Many organization are now realizing they don’t have the skills, knowledge and process to achieve the success they originally thought they would get.

Is your organization maximizing the impact of your marketing automation investment?   Let me know.  I would like to hear how your organization is doing and let’s discuss how Televerde can help you.

According to Gartner, 30 million of the 138 million American workers will change jobs over the next 12 months. It has never been harder to ensure that a marketing campaign hits a target that seemingly is in perpetual motion. Research from DemandGen Report found nearly half of all B2B organizations feel inaccurate data affected their ability to reach the right people in prospect organizations.

Nevertheless, today’s marketing execs are under increasing pressure to generate high-value leads that ultimately produce revenue. To do that, a marketer must start with a database fueled not only by well-performing information, but also the best B2B lead data available. The key to moving a prospect from a high quality lead to a paying customer is clean, accurate data. But it doesn’t stop there…

A new eBook published collaboratively by Televerde, Reachforce and DemandGen Report provides lead data strategies and other critical components necessary to fuel high-performance campaigns, starting with connecting with the right prospect. The book breaks down these actionable areas into the following steps:

1. Clarify the Unique Data Needs of Marketing and Sales
2. Give Your Data a Tune-Up
3. Augment & Enrich Your Database
4. Automate the Data Management Process
5. Segment Your Database
6. Target Campaigns to Narrower Audiences
7. Communicate Across Channels
8. Integrate Inbound Intelligence Into Outbound
9. Increase Landing Page Fill Rates
10. Improve Funnel Conversions
11. Use Data to Improve Sales & Marketing Alignment
12. Consistently Address Common Lead Database Issues

Download the eBook

Read the SiriusDecisions research brief: “The Impact of Bad Data on Demand Creation”

Learn more about Televerde’s Exactus data products and services.

We’re interested in your data strategies to fuel high-performing demand creation programs. What’s working? What are your best practices?

Televerde’s Vice President of Digital Strategies, “there’s no doubt that many organizations are struggling to achieve the maximum results from their MA strategy. Our complimentary audit will directly address these issues.”

The typical audit is a one-week process that includes some telephone time with the individual or team responsible for an organization’s MA deployment to understand how the platform is currently being used, objectives, challenges, desired outcomes of the audit. Upon completion of the audit interview and gathering of preliminary data, the audit process will include an assessment of Tracking, Database Health, Subscription Management, Email Setup, CRM Integration & Lead Routing, Sales Enablement Tools, Nurturing Check, Social Media Integration, Platform-specific Settings and Best Practices, and Lead Funnel Conversion Analysis.

Audit requests should be scheduled to occur by no later than Dec. 31, 2011. To find out if you qualify, learn more about the offer, and see a sample audit report, call your Televerde Sales Executive or Client Success Manager. If you’re not currently a client, call us at +1 888-787-2829. In the meantime we’re making our “Elegance & Value of Integrated Nurture” white paper and integrated lead nurturing videos available on our website.

We have created a Client Success Department comprised of a cross-functional group of Televerde’s most experienced, skilled and knowledgeable staff assigned to each client. The new department is designed to enable us to deliver on key market imperatives with focus, specialization and flexibility. Some of the tangible benefits to clients include:

• A convenient, single point of contact for clients to communicate directly with whom will serve as the liaison to the Televerde team of specialists dedicated solely to their success.
• Actionable, insightful responses supported by specialists with market expertise who implement best-in-class practices.
• Results driven by manageable metrics that clearly illustrate the revenue value and ROI of the programs Televerde implements for its clients.

A quote from our President and CEO Jim Hooker that appears in our press release announcing the new department sums it up well: “Televerde is continually motivated by excellence. With today’s complex market conditions, helping our clients navigate the ever-changing modalities of sales and marketing alignment is paramount. This is the primary driver for the new Client Success Department which enables us and our clients to deliver on this imperative.”

Each team within the new department is assigned to a specific client and is solely dedicated to their success by ensuring that their programs are being executed to optimize performance and results.

To lead the new department, we’ve named Michelle Cirocco as Vice President of Client Success. Michelle has been with Televerde for more than 12 years and has collaborated with many of her peers and our clients to optimize campaign success. Her experience and deep knowledge brings an unequalled level of insight and value to the Client Success organization which we’re confident will produce desired outcomes.

When I spoke with Michelle for her perspective on the new department, she reminded me that Televerde has always been focused on client success, and the Client Success organization enables us to deliver even higher levels of excellence, market expertise and best practices while strengthening the strategic foundation of our relationship with clients and improved performance of their demand creation campaigns.

Right on Michelle!

If you’re a Televerde client, you’ll soon receive an email from us introducing you to your new Client Success Manager. As the leader of your Televerde team, your CSM will be accountable for all aspects of your relationship with Televerde and will play a significant role in the success of your programs. She will be the liaison between you and the Televerde team of specialists dedicated to delivering on your strategic imperatives. Together, the CSM and specialists will help to ensure that we’re meeting all of your expectations and that your programs are fully optimized to produce desired results.

Our commitment to Televerde clients is to deliver the highest level of excellence in all areas that lead to the strongest possible results from their demand creation campaigns. If you have questions or feedback, don’t hesitate to contact Michelle at +1 480-303-7087 or michelle.cirocco@televerde.com.

On behalf of Televerde I recently attended a SiriusDecisions roundtable in Redwood City, CA – “New Year, New Alignment: Five Core Competencies for 2012 and Beyond.” As usual, the information that Sirius and its attendees share was relevant, timely, helpful and actionable (the four criteria I use to vet all events as I decide if it’s worth my time to attend). Whenever I come back from one of their events or the half dozen or so other industry events I attend with my colleagues each year, I always feel like Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets” when he tells co-star Helen Hunt: “You make me want to be a better man.” These events make me want to be a better marketer.  More specifically, a better content marketer.

The event covered a lot of ground, including content marketing, lead management, sales enablement and social media. “Contact Data Strategies” was also on the agenda but the robust group discussion on the other topics didn’t leave time for this dialogue. L  We do agree with SiriusDecisions’ view on the importance of good data strategies and their research brief on the topic is on our web site. I’m not going to steal any of the Sirius’ thunder by sharing the specifics of the practices they’re seeing in the market in each of the areas covered, but I do want to address the broad strokes of the lively discussion on content.

Clearly, content marketing is moving closer to the center of the core of b2b demand creation marketing and lead nurturing. As early stage buying decisions are trending more toward online channels, content is the lever we all need to pull to enable the decision-making process. While online research is where the pendulum is swinging, some of the traditional research and vendor-vetting channels are still in play, not the least of which is the all-important referral from trusted peers. So a portfolio of good customer experiences is still critical for generating good, old-fashioned organic growth.

From my vantage point, what’s interesting is the relationship between referral marketing and content marketing. Pretty fundamental stuff actually. You have a good customer relationship, so you leverage it in multiple ways. Of course you add the customer to your “willing to be a referral” list and serve them up to potential customers where appropriate. Tease the testimonial out of the experience and publish it on your blog and website. (Here’s a few of our customer testimonials as examples.) Develop a couple of one-page to two-page case studies/business success stories. Ask your customer to participate in a podcast or video or webinar. Ask them to join you in an vendor-customer event presentation. Blog about the experience with the customer. In other words, pull all the levers in multiple channels. It’s content for a variety of formats and applicable in a variety of buyer journey stages – early, mid, late.

And of course there’s the positive referral you benefit from without your direct involvement when that customer is tapped independently without your knowledge by another industry connection who respects her/his opinion and asks for it during a phone call, round of golf, industry event, or during an online search which is happen a lot more these days. Keep this metric front and center: 75% of b2b purchasing decisions start online now!

SiriusDecisions and the attendees also talked about which specific types of content are applicable in certain buying stages, what content to gate and ungate on a web site, how to organize content, and how to enable the sales team and the tele team so they can easily access the content they need in each situation. All are subjects for future blogs but here’s a brief summary of my takeaway on organizing content and enabling others to use it…

A key ah-ha for me was that not having enough marketing content is really not the issue these days. The real challenge is that many organizations have too much content but it’s not categorized well, it’s not easily accessible by users, and it may not be as relevant it could be within the framework of aligning the buyer and seller journey. Thus the requirement for content auditing, gap analysis, and resolution. It’s a very worth endeavor and SiriusDecisions and the attendees were all in alignment on these points. So put content alignment on your must-do list. (Shameless pitch: Televerde offers this service.)

If you’re interested in more detail you can contact me directly for my perspective on how Televerde frames content marketing practices in our world of b2b demand creation and lead nurturing programs. Or you could become a member of Sirius of you’re not already to get the info first-hand so when we talk we’re all on the same page of the content book.

Interested in your feedback so please share.

Seven Reasons to Provide Support & Optimization to Your Sales Team

Are you hearing or feeling that your sales reps want to only spend time closing business that is hot? Have you ever considered who nurtures and massages the opportunities that aren’t ready to pop? Who warms up or re-qualifies those not quite ready opportunities and/or ensures that nothing falls through the cracks?

The concept behind Sales Support/Optimization is a “person” paired with a sales rep to enhance and advance day-to-day functions, allowing the sales reps to focus on closing hot business. Typically a weekly conference call provides one –on-one support for Lead Tracking, Lead Disposition, Forecast Information, Re-Qualification of leads, (no-shows, re-schedules) Nurture and outreach efforts. Through the SO role, sales reps can also achieve Account Optimization Profiling to assist with target account penetration. Sales reps will have key insight to decision makers and/or right party contacts, relationship/people maps, technology landscape and other intelligence to assist with penetration strategies, developing strategic marketing plans and better positioning of the organization when the opportunity comes down to the short list and/or is ready to close.

Sales Support and Optimization is ideal for companies interested in multiple sales opportunities or an accelerated account penetration strategy and keeping your sales pipeline strong. Here are seven key reasons why every organization should use some form of Sales Optimization and/or Support.

1. Allows your sales team to focus on the opportunities that are hot and thus increases conversion possibilities
2. Dedicated one-on-one support that serves as an extension of your sales group and ensures the warm opportunities continue to be nurtured
3. Sales ready leads primed for conversion and more relevant allocation of time to closing
4. Overall more effective use of your sales reps time
5. On-going communication and follow-up
6. Reliable pipeline reporting, forecasting and pipeline visibility
7. Cost savings to outsource versus in-house support

Conclusion: Supporting the key functions of your sales reps ensures that no opportunity is left behind. Ultimately maintaining brand awareness via nurturing, which leads to enhanced conversion rates and ROI. Why wouldn’t you provide Sales Support and Optimization to your sales team?

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “Nice guys finish last.”  I’m not here to engage in a drawn-out discussion about the validity of the statement, but I will say a kind gesture can go a long way toward nurturing relationships of any sort.  Some critical relationships we should all continue to develop: bosses, partners and clients.  All three of these groups have power over your livelihood, and they can force you into a fiscally uncomfortable situation at any moment.

Some people might call this sucking up, but I like to think of it as “flexing your charm.”  Last week, I baked 100 cake pops (a cake ball on a stick dipped in chocolate) for Televerde like the good intern I am.  Why did I do this?  Was I planning on sucking up to the head honcho so he might offer me a job after I graduate next year?  No!  I wanted to show the staff in our call centers and corporate office that I appreciate everything they do.  As a bonus, I won’t be forgotten come time to submit applications.

Don’t forget to thank your friends.

We recently sent a box of cupcakes over to our friends at Marketo to continue fostering our positive relationship with them and, unashamedly, to stay top of mind (via their tastebuds).  Doing something like that doesn’t cost much, and it means even more when you go out of your way to personally thank someone.

Next time you’re thinking about a valued partner or friend, do something nice for them.  Remember the rule of Karma:  “What goes around comes around.”

I would love to hear what you think about the concept of gratitude.  Here’s our pledge to spread the wealth: you respond to our blog posts, and we’ll respond to yours.

Salesforce.com’s annual Dreamforce conference was held Aug. 30- Sept. 2 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco.  I attended with two of my Televerde colleagues, Jeanne Penniman, Marketing Automation Nurture Specialist and Juma Bhavani Sankar our lead .Net Developer.  This was the first Dreamforce experience for each of us.  To sum it up…WOW!   I’ve been to many conferences and conventions over my 30 year sales and marketing career but none have been as enormous as Dreamforce considering all 45,000 registered attendees we’re there as a result of one company –Salesforce.com.  Dreamforce, now in its 9^th year, wins the prize for the largest user conference in the computer industry surpassing MAC World and Oracle OpenWorld.

Dreamforce is part conference, part trade show, part networking event, but most importantly it’s become the annual pilgrimage for those throughout the cloud computing industry and serves as the platform for new product announcements from Salesforce.com.  It’s a four-day jamboree of sessions, exhibits, networking and music which Jeanne, Juma and I took full advantage of.

Here are the 10 things I learned at Dreamforce:

1. Cloud computing is big and only getting bigger if attendance and the number of exhibitors are any measure.  Back in 2006 when the economy was humming along, 5,000 people attended Dreamforce and it drew 50 exhibitors.   By comparison this year 45,000 attendees and 270 exhibitors.
2. If any of you thought this social thing was a fad, think again.  The social revolution is here.  Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff unveiled a slew of social networking tools he said was inspired by the recent revolutions in Egypt and Libya.  In a world where entire governments have been overthrown thanks to citizens’ activism on Facebook, enterprises large and small are awakening to the reality that it’s no longer possible to operate in a world without social computing.   ”There were no signs that said ‘thank you Microsoft’ or ‘thank you IBM,’” Benioff said as he showed slides of Arab protesters during his keynote speech in a moving and elaborate video production.  “No.  Look at this:  ‘Thank you Facebook’, in all these different languages, in all these different cultures.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY3Df3BosK4&feature=relmfu
3. Delighting customers is to know who they are and what they like.  CRM 101 for many of us, which back in the day the corner merchant who served my parents and grandparents knew very well.  Unfortunately it got lost over the years but is making a comeback thanks to the integration of social media and marketing automation.
4. Eric Schmidt Google’s Executive Chairman is one smart guy with an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton and a Masters and PhD from Berkley. For approximately an hour Marc Benioff and Eric Schmidt discussed the future of cloud computing and what companies need to focus on to succeed in a fast moving and quickly changing technology environment.  It was a fascinating discussion.  Schmidt hit topics like the lessons learned from his time at Sun Microsystems, his take on Apple’s rebirth, the next wave of technological innovation and a frank critique of the current patent system. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDl5hb0XbfY
5. Integrated philanthropy.  The 1/1/1 model.  Salesforce donates 1% of its resources to support organizations that are working to make our world a better place.  Something we at Televerde share and are passionate about as well.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDl5hb0XbfY
6. With over 450 sessions and tracks for administrators, developers, sales, marketing and IT professionals there was something interesting for everyone.
7. Trade show floor was rocking.  Jammed packed for 3.5 days.  I could have registered to win no less than 15 iPads.
8. There was no shortage of entertainment and adult beverages to go around.  Metallica and wil.i.am performed at the Global Gala and Jay Leno, Alanis Morissette and wil.i.am played a benefit concert for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.  Then there were the many vendor events such as the Marketing Mixer Televerde sponsored and presented by ExactTarget and Marketo.
9. Oracle not wanting to be left out of the act hired some folks to walk the sidewalks with giant cloud balloons proclaiming #1 in CRM.  Can they still make that claim?
10. No telling how many attendees will make the pilgrimage next year but if this year is any indication you better book early if you want to get a decent hotel room.

Did you attend? Was your experience what you thought it would be? What did you learn?