Going back 10 years, leads were a considerably different game. You obtained leads for people that might be interested in your product or service, and followed them up. Usually your prospects knew relatively little about your products, and relied on you to provide them the information.

1. The
Lead Machine
Pain Points of Sales Management and How to Overcome Them

2. Nikolaus Kimla
Email: n.kimla@pipelinersales.com
Website: www.pipelinersales.com
CEO at Pipelinersales Inc.
Written by...

3. Changes in Lead Generation and Management
Going back 10 years, leads were a considerably different game. You obtained leads
for people that might be interested in your product or service, and followed them up.
Usually your prospects knew relatively little about your products, and relied on you
to provide them the information.

4. Changes in Lead Generation and Management
Because information on your product or service is now
so freely available online—along with that of your
competitors—it is very easy for potential buyers to
compare products.
60 to 70 percent of the decision making in B2B sales is
made before the decision maker approaches the
supplier.

5. Changes in Lead Generation and Management
These changes don't mean that all of the old ways for
obtaining leads and selling are obsolete—many certainly
still work. They just need to be adjusted to take the new
buyer role into account.

6. The New Industry
This radical change has given life to marketing
automation companies such as HubSpot and
Marketo—and has helped create an entire new industry:
Inbound marketing. Along with Inbound marketing came
a whole new universe, that of social media.
In Inbound Marketing, the prospects are qualifying you
first, instead of the other way around.

7. Sticking to SaaS
Since my company is in the SaaS business, as are many of our prospects and
clients, we'll stick to SaaS and how a successful lead machine operates
in that industry.

8. Sticking to SaaS
In SaaS, the web site is central to everything. Much like
the sun is central to the solar system, everything
revolves around that web site and feeds into it.
All of the “orbiting” elements—such as Google AdWords,
banner ads, articles, blogs, press releases, product
reviews, white papers, and many more—feed leads back
to the web site. All of these elements must convince
seekers of your type of solution that yours is at least
one they should check out.

9. Sticking to SaaS
Taking care of all of these inbound
channels, providing them content
and making sure they are current and
performing, is considerable work,
and is never-ending.

10. The New Sales Model
One leading sales company demonstrates how Inbound
marketing works organizationally:
● Marketing executes campaigns, which bring in
marketing-qualified leads
● Sales Development Reps further qualify the leads for sales,
and set up meetings for account executives
● Account Executives close orders
● The Customer Success Manager handles customers after
they have purchased, makes sure they're happy and
interested in buying more of your product line

11. Different People
for Different Functions
Back in 1776, Scottish economist Adam Smith observed
that division of labor would increase productivity. Today
we still see this observation in action: It takes
completely different people with different skillsets to
perform inbound and outbound lead generation.

12. Why So Important?
I strongly believe if you have a predictable lead
generation machine, and enough leads, you can
practically screw up everything else, and you will still do
well. You will never run out of business.
Said another way, you can have the best-built rocket in
the world. But without the right rocket fuel, it will never
leave the ground, let alone connect with a space station.
Your sales force is the rocket. Leads are their rocket
fuel—and without them, they will get nowhere.

13. So make sure you've got your lead
machine in working order. Because unlike
other factors—yes, folks, this is
rocket science!

14. NEXT SLIDESHARE IN THIS SERIES:
Keeping That Customer—It’s Called
Account Management

15. CRM (R)Evolutionized—Instant Intelligence, Visualized!
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