the definitive guide to b2b phone selling · the definitive guide to b2b phone selling optimizing...

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO B2B PHONE SELLING

Optimizing your Sales Team's Performance

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

LEAD GENERATION FACTS OF LIFE

BANT QUALIFIED LEADS

DEFINED

HOW TO GENERATE THEM

B2B PHONE SELLING DO'S AND DON'TS

THE SEVEN RULES OF COLD CALLING

RULE #1 – IMMEDIACY

RULE #2 – PERSISTENCY

RULE #3 – OPTIMIZE

RULE #4 – TIME OF DAY

RULE #5 – DAY OF WEEK

RULE #6 – GET DIRECT DIAL NUMBERS

RULE #7 – LOCAL PRESENCE

RULE #8 - ACTION

2 Mercury Leads, Inc. © ~ mercuryleads.com ~ 303.820.0830

Introduction

As the cost of sales increase B2B inside sales teams are playing a mission critical role in today’s sales process. At the same time conversion is king. This ebook is designed to give you some ideas about how professional outsourcing companies optimize the conversion process increasing revenue while simoutaneously optimizing the conversion process to lower (CPL) cost per lead.


Lead Generation Facts of Life

DID YOU KNOW

Research shows that 35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. (Source: InsideSales.com)

79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to Sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

Just 56% of B2B organizations verify valid business leads before they are passed to Sales. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

A whopping 68% of B2B organizations have not identified their ideal prospect profile. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

57% of B2B organizations identify 'converting qualified leads into paying customers' as a top funnel priority. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

79% of B2B marketers have not established lead scoring. (Source: MarketingSherpa)

Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Source: Forrester Research)

Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (Source: The Annuitas Group)

Companies with mature lead generation and management practices have a 9.3% higher sales quota achievement rate. (Source: CSO Insights)

Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales. (Source: Gleanster Research)

The average sales cycle has increased 22% over the past 5 years due to more decision makers being involved in the buying process. (Source: Sirius Decisions)

Nearly 2/3 of B2B marketers identified engaging key decision makers as their top challenge. (Source: Forrester Research)


BANT Lead Defined

A long time ago, IBM revolutionized sales with the introduction of BANT. A BANT qualified lead

will have the following defined:

Budget – Tele-verified has a budget. Capture prospect information

Authority – Tele-verified +has decision making capability

Need Tele-verified + Purchase Authority + Collection of Purchase Intent

Timeline – When will your Prospect move into the buying cycle


Beyond BANT

Many of our clients ask for the BANT to be defined before they will take the meeting. We go

beyond this simple process. So what does that include? Here are some of the elements we

have determined as KEY to a successful sales introduction:

#1 – Ability to ‘control’ the sales process over the phone

#2 – Engagement to uncover business objectives

#3 – Determine what challenges exist: “Pain or gain”

#4 – Do the resources and processes exist to make a decision?


B2B Phone Selling Do's & Don'ts

One of the most challenging aspects of sales B2B appointment setting is the first conversation. You have less than a minute to prove yourself worth of the time spent by your prospect. Whether you’re new to an inside sales role or you’ve been doing B2B appointment setting for years, it’s important to know how the best techniques for holding a quality first conversation with your prospects. Below are some tips Mercury Leads offers based on our experience:

1. Don’t waste time with the wrong person. After introducing yourself, immediately let your prospects know that you understand their time is valuable, and make sure they’re the right person.

2. Do your research. Know enough about your prospects to understand their business and pitch them in terms of “their” objectives. Use the “WIFM equation, or what’s in it for me!

3. Eliminate fluff. When it comes to B2B appointment setting call guides, we hate fluff. Get to the point quickly and ask them questions about their environment and their current technologies.

4. Avoid product dumping. Leave the product information for later conversations have a :15 second elevator pitch prepared for the initial call; anything longer could be overkill.

5. Don’t be One Dimensional. Creating an effective online presence of 1) sufficient critical mass and 2) compelling content to engage with and capture prospects looking to solve the problem you can address, and engaging that prospect in a consistent stream of relevant communication – communication that nurtures, cultivates, educates, and maintains brand awareness – until that prospect is ready to buy. 7

Mercury Leads, Inc. © ~ mercuryleads.com ~ 303.820.0830

B2B Phone Selling Do's & Don'ts (cont.)

7. It’s OK to keep it brief. Gather key information from the prospect, and then ask for 30 minutes in the upcoming week to do a needs analysis.

8.Play detective. Ask probing questions that will help you determine quickly whether or not prospects are a good fit for your product or service.

9.Less talking, more listening. If you are talking for the majority of the call – STOP! The initial call is all about the prospect.

10.Role Play. Practice makes perfect as they say. Work with somebody and role play between yourselves until you work out the entire B2B sales call.

11.Create a list of objections – Let’s face it, B2B appointment setting is a tough assignment without a face-to-face meeting. Create a list of objections and keep adding to it as you optimize your program.

12.Control the B2B sales call – If you’re going to be successful at scheduling an appointment, you need to control the process. See above.

13.Be cheerful. Do whatever is necessary to make the job fun or find other employment. You are scheduling B2B appointments with perfect strangers. You can’t succeed unless you lighten up, have fun, and convey confidence, and remember a “no” is as good as a “yes”, but no call disposition is not. 8


The 7 Rules of Warm Calling

1. RULE #1 – IMMEDIACY

2. RULE #2 – PERSISTENCY

3. RULE #3 – OPTIMIZE

4. RULE #4 – TIME OF DAY

5. RULE #5 – DAY OF WEEK

6. RULE #6 – GET DIRECT DIAL NUMBERS & EMAIL

7. RULE #7 – BE LOCAL 9 Mercury Leads, Inc. © ~ mercuryleads.com ~ 303.820.0830

Rule #1 - Immediacy

Best Practice

Contact leads within 5 minutes.

The odds of a sales rep actually contacting and qualifying a web lead drops a hundred times from waiting thirty minutes.


Rule #2 - Be Persistent

Best Practice

Sales rep should make 6-9 calls before

giving up.

Reality

Most sales reps are making one or two calls

per lead before giving up. Think about

that If the contact ratio is between 10 and

11 percent and the sales rep is only make

one or two calls, they’re only going to

reach 10 or 20 percent of the people They

want to talk to.


Rule #3 Optimize

A few years ago, a reseac was doing a research study with FranklinCovey. Their reps were calling people back immediately when they were abandoning the sales process half way through, only to experience the leads getting upset with them for calling. Their reps called a few of these individuals back on a later date and surveyed them. This is what they said,

“I was halfway through buying a day planner and I forgot my credit card.

I didn’t have it with me.

I didn’t want you calling me – I just went and got my card.”

Tip

Put a field on your webform that says,

“When is the optimal time to call you?” If

the lead wants you to call, they will tell you

when the best time to contact them is.


Rule #4 - Time of Day

Assuming you’re calling into your same

time zone (if not, then adjust accordingly)

the best times to dial are between 8:00

and 9:00 a.m. or 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. If you

call during these times, you’re going to

have much higher contact ratios than if

you’re calling around lunch time.

What This Means for Business If your

morning sales team meeting is at 8:00

a.m., you’re wasting the best calling time

of the day!


Rule #5 Best Days of the Week

In addition to the best time of day to call,

the study also revealed the best days of

the week. Tuesday is the worst day to be

calling. Thursday is the best.

Why

Most people go into work on Monday and

then get slammed from everything that

came in over the weekend, only to spend

all of Tuesday digging themselves out. By

Wednesday, they’re ready to talk to

people again.

Tip

Do some testing and figure out the best

days of the week for your target industry. 14 Mercury Leads, Inc. © ~ mercuryleads.com ~ 303.820.0830

Rule #6 - Get Direct

Do your best to find the desk phone or cell phone number of the prospects you are trying to reach. Take a look at rep number

six with an average of 33 appointments per month. Vorsight went into the sales reps’ database and found 97.6 percent of the sales reps’ personal data base included direct dials. The results of rep number six’s

efforts were triple that of rep number one’s.

The good news is that this is mostly a technique, not even a technology. Teach your sales reps the importance and impact direct numbers can have.


Rule #7 - It's Good to be a Local

If I call you from San Jose, California, area code 408, and you live in New York, area code 212, you probably aren’t going to answer my call. However, if I call you from a number with area code 212, you’re probably going to answer the phone. The odds of your prospect answering is 57.8 percent higher if the call is from their own, local area code verses a blocked, toll free or even a long distance number. How This Impacts Cold Calling Efforts If you have ten sales reps and you boost their productivity by 57.8 percent with a local presence. It’s the equivalent to hiring six additional fulltime sales people.


Rule #8 - Action

Every touch you have with your prospects should cause some type of action. Clicks to your site are nice but conversion is king. Your mission should be compelling your prospect to opt-in, complete a request for more information, or the ultimate picking up the phone to call YOU.

Lead scoring provides a mechanism to rate your prospects and your organization should carefully apply a scoring system that can include;

1. Contact Validation

2. Form Completion

3. Email Opt-in, Opens & Validation

4. Direct Dial Validation

5. Visits to Important Pages

6. Industry Segmentation

7. Product/Service Affinity

8. Pipeline Migration

Rarely are decisions made by a single individual in today’s B2B selling environment and particularly the higher the ticket. Use your marketing tools to identify decision trees in your prospects organization.

Here are some other actions that companies tend to ignore

Opens – It’s pretty obvious that you’ll contact these prospects and the sooner the better. But how can you use your sales team and marketing automation to CONVERT?

Out of Office Notices – Many times these notices give you other contacts and key influencers.

Unsubscribes – An opportunity to redirect if your prospect fits your profile or to keep your database healthy.

Bounces – 30-40% of prospect files become obsolete every year. This is your chance to identify other individuals at your prospective customers.


Summary

B2B selling is increasingly challenging in today's environment. It really needs to become a

science at your business. Constant testing of all the elements is critical to eliminate waste

and maximize revenue. Remember this famous quote by philosopher Jorge Santayana:

"Those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it".

Don’t doom your sales effort!


About Mercury Leads

Mercury Leads is a sales outsourcing company whose sole focus is delivering your company high-quality, actionable sales opportunities. Whether we're bringing your existing sales team warm leads and appointments or we're on point selling your products or services.

At Mercury Leads, our mission is clear, and our strategy is simple. Understand your product and market as well or better than you do. Identify your ideal prospect. Develop a custom sales lead generation plan using a powerful mix of channels. Then execute, test, measure, refine and repeat. Our extensive experience in lead generation has allowed us to develop the people, process, and promise to deliver your company fast, qualified, new business opportunities that result in superior ROI. See our promise guarantee. 19


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