Is it about the list or about the salesperson?

I just attended the Marketing Sherpa B2B Summit in San Francisco and there were tons of list brokers, dealers, scrubbers, wheeling and dealing on their cost per lead. I heard conversations such as, “we outsource the dialing functions with a small army in Mumbai” to “we have a team of retired vets in Sunnyvale dialing away.” And as the hours passed, the price per lead seemed to drop- from $11. per lead to .60 per lead and of course each was more qualified than the other. From tracking online behavior to providing intelligence- they all  aggregate, nurture, and fit tight into salesforce.com. 

 I wasn’t part of the numbers discussion, I was part of the people discussion because all these expensive, sophisticated, analytics are only as good as the people behind them- the people making the calls, the talent that sits on the phone and online. Their voice, intonation, pacing, word choice that captures attention on the call. Their intuition and courage to qualify the prospect on the first call. The knowledge to speak to their pains and the insight to understand the decision-making hierarchy.

My book examines these skills and the talent that hides behind each call. When it comes to lists and campaigns, salespeople have their own recipe for burning through leads. That’s right, their criteria includes impatience flavored with stressed and sprinkled with assumptions. Here’s a realistic lead qualification scenario that happens when lead gen teams burn through lists:

It all starts with the marketing department who spends tons of  money purchasing great lists- they upload these into their CRM, divide it for each geo territory and support it with emarketing efforts. Now the salespeople get their hands on it and here’s what happens in their qualification efforts:

Dead Lead- I tried calling them, the guy who answered didn’t sound interested so I didn’t want to bother him

Not interested Lead- Prospect didn’t understand what I was saying, sounded foreign and don’t think they are interested

Cold Lead- I left a voice mail introducing myself and sent an email but no response

Warm Lead- Someone answered the phone, I asked if they have a project, they said yes and to call them back in 2 months

Hot Lead- they participated in a demo, downloaded white papers, set an appointment and want a conference call with our SE

Forecast Ready Lead- they love our solution, holding a proposal for 7 licenses and gave me a verbal they would like to get this going next month.

Perhaps as dillusional as sales may be on the lead development and nurturing areas- marketing may also have their set of unrealistic expectations. They may be so attached to the numbers and analytics that they lose sight of the talent.