Ken Krogue

When Ann Holland from MarketingSherpa asked Dave Elkington and I to present InsideSales.com’s research findings with MIT and Kellogg back in 2007, I’ll admit we were excited for a chance to “show off” a little bit what we thought was some “pretty cool little research” on lead management and lead response.

To say that the response since then has exceeded our expectations would be a major understatement. That same research has practically spawned the the entire lead response management industry, and I’ve seen at least ten follow-up studies from other sources since.

So when Ann contacted me to let me know she was moving on from MarketingSherpa, I was both surprised and intrigued to see where she was going.

Ann’s had an ear to the ground, and her finger on the pulse of sales and marketing, especially in B2B, for a long time now. She’s an industry insider in the best sense of the word, and the work she did at MarketingSherpa helped make it one of the most respected thought leaders in professional sales.

One of her two new ventures, Which Test Won? is a fascinating take on split variant marketing testing. Using actual samples of marketing content, she has users predict which content actually performed better in use–and then show the actual answer. It’s still ramping up, but this is the type of real, actionable data that we marketers can use in our everyday work with a vengeance.

Check out the Web site here.

Her other site, Subscription Site Insider, gives users a well-informed view of how to better manage their subscription Web services, with great content on managing legal issues, renewals, content, and more.

Check it out here.

Even though Inside Sales is becoming noticed more and more as a primary method of lead generation and sales, many people are unaware of the potential leverage they can bring to bear to dramatically increase productivity.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has become commonplace in almost every sales department, whether tradition face-to-face, or a remote selling model like inside sales. Salesforce is the leading provider of on-demand CRM software on the planet. I get asked a lot why saleforce.com users should consider on-demand power dialer solutions. Here are 6 reasons:

1- More Revenue: In 2005 a landmark study was done by CSO Insights that showed companies that use CRM software have 17% more revenue.  That is notable, but not overly compelling. Dialers coupled wth CRM software often increase overall revenue by 200%, 300%, or more by significantly increasing dials, contacts, appointments, and talk time, while lowering costs and wasted time.

2- More Dials: Our internal lead generation department department and many of our clients make 300 calls per rep per day.  Most internal lead generation departments in companies we come across fall between 20 and 70 calls a day.  Most outsourced lead generation companies we are familiar with make between 70 and 110 calls a day.

3- More Contacts: By combining immediate response (web-form callback technology) with consistent response (power dialer technology) we have documented 700% increases in contacts on the first call and increases from 45% of all leads contacted to 92% of contactable leads contacted.  It becomes obvious that the most basic, but overlooked practice of lead management and sales is just making contact with more leads.  Our research is showing that as much as 45.1% of leads NEVER get contacted at all (see Omniture ’08 Study.)

4- More Appointments: It becomes obvious if you make 300 calls a day versus 40 or 50, you will make a LOT more appointments.  Besides the power dialer for Salesforce technology that is becoming popular as an integrated tool within salesforce.com, immediate response technology that calls a web lead back in 8-10 seconds from a visitor inputting their information on a website shows the odds increasing by 21 times according to the groundbreaking MIT Study by Dr. James Oldroyd of qualifying the lead or setting the first appointment.

5- More Phone Time: While Lead-Gen reps in an inside sales department make a lot more dials, Closers who take the appointments set by Lead-Gen are able to do eight hours of work in two or two and a half hours. This is in the form of talking to a lot more prospects through the entire sales process.  A dialer increases quality time as well as quantity of time.

6- Lower Capital Outlays: Whether it comes in the fact that sales reps can cover three to four times as much ground in the same time, or in the incredible savings in lessened time wasters (see 15 Time Wasters), money and time are saved in large increments by using the power of dialer technology that is now integrated natively within salesforce.com and other CRM solutions.

As you can see, sales is still about numbers.  And while CRM helps salespeople bring order to the sales process, a dialer offers the leverage to dramatically impact the numbers.  That is important, especially in todays economic adventures.

Top 20 Articles on www.KenKrogue.com

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