Articles

Top 5 Excuses Why Your New Business Appointment Was a “No Show”.

When developing your lead generation processes, you may need more than fresh cold calling techniques or a mailing list of prospects; you need insights into “how” and “why” the sales process works like it does, and fresh ideas for how to make it better. When you’re dealing with lead generation for B2B sales leads, you need to keep in mind that the sales cycle can be a long proces.... Read more »

3 Reasons Why Good Leads Die Young

For many sales organizations, lead generation is the place where sales and marketing combine and too often, collide. Dividing responsibilities between the “marketing” and “sales” teams can often be a cause for confusion, especially when the marketing team is taking on additional lead generation responsibilities that used to belong to the sales team. If your organization is trying .... Read more »

Confirming Sales Appointments: Are You Asking For The Cancellation?

"Hi, this is Bob Jones. We have an appointment tomorrow at 10 a.m. Would you like to cancel?" It sounds ridiculous, right? No one would intentionally call a prospect as part of an appointment setting call and set themselves up for a cancellation. However, if you take a closer look at your appointment setting process, if you aren't careful when calling to confirm your sales appointments, y.... Read more »

Cold Calling: Warming Up Your Sales Lead Process

Warming Up the Cold Call: Choose Your First Sales Qualification Question Carefully Imagine you walk into a store you've never been in before. As soon as set foot inside the door, you're approached by someone wearing a name tag and a huge, insincere smile. "Welcome to THE STORE. Will you be paying by cash or credit?" Startled, you manage to stammer "I-I'm just looking, th.... Read more »

Do you need “Lead Generation” or “Lead Management”?

One of the frequently asked questions that we get from clients here at Strategic Sales & Marketing is: “What is the difference between lead generation and lead management?” The answer is really quite simple, but if you don't know the difference, you could end up making some costly mistakes in your B2B lead generation efforts. Here's the difference: Lead generatio.... Read more »

5 Signs Your Sales Lead Pipeline Needs A Makeover

When clients come to us for lead generation services, they often think they need one thing (“more sales leads!”) but typically they need something in addition – a better process for qualifying their existing sales leads, or a better way of working to maximize their long-range business leads. The B2B sales leads pipeline is a unique ecosystem all its own – you need to know how to m.... Read more »

4 Lead Management New Year’s Resolutions for 2012

Every New Year brings the promise of renewal and rejuvenation for everyone who works in sales. Jan. 1 presents a clean slate and a chance to do things differently – reconnect with promising prospects, enhance your sales processes, improve your efficiency, and find new ways to add value for customers. If you’re looking for new ways to take your business to new heights in 2012, you can .... Read more »

Are Too Many Sales Proposals Killing Your Pipeline of Sales Leads?

Getting to the proposal stage of a sale is usually reason to celebrate. After all, the metrics of proposal writing are simple: the more proposals you write, the more sales you are going to close. But many sales people get carried away with producing sales proposals in an assembly line fashion in an effort to keep a full pipeline of business leads. Most sales managers support this kind of high-inte.... Read more »

B2B marketers are asking “Is it a contact list or a sales lead list?”

We’ve been in the sales lead management and lead generation business for the past 22 years, and during that time we’ve seen a lot of continuous “rebranding” and confusion about what the definitions of “sales leads” and “business leads” really are. A simple Google search for “sales leads” creates a long list of definitions and companies who are trying to sell business l.... Read more »

Appointment Setting: How to deal with “no show” sales leads

Few things are more frustrating for a sales person than encountering “no show” sales leads. When you go through your daily schedule, putting out fires and dealing with client emergencies and making every effort to be on time to your appointments with sales leads – only to find out that the prospect has had to cancel, that can be disappointing, to say the least. However, even more im.... Read more »