Hot answers tagged leads
9
Here's a Mixergy video interview with Andrew Mason, the founder of Groupon. It will probably tell you everything you want to know about how he made it work. If you're not a member of Mixergy, you can get the Podcast for free here. It's #67.
And my personal advice is to build some sales materials and hit the road trying to sell some local businesses in your ...
7
Look for people who are asking
questions about the kind of problems
your software solves. LinkedIn
Answers, for instance.
Ask for referrals from existing clients; ask people you know who say their company doesn't need your solution if they know any who do.
Do competitive research. Identify your competitors (or companies that provide a solution targeting the ...
5
Am I missing something? You would pay $2,000 for a $20,000 deal and only $1,000 for a $100,000 deal? Good luck getting any salesperson to do that. Salespeople are simple creatures, they are coin operated and they can do math. Creating compensation plans is simple: pay more for more desirable behavior.
4
Our team pays 10% on the total value of the contract or 20% on the value-added margin. It is simple and clean.
Every attempt that we have made to create tiers has created confusion, complexity and resulted in either an alienation of an existing sales professional and no traction ever kicking in on a new one.
I think that tiered compensation works far ...
4
We have a survey to understand our client better, we say this helps to tailor the demo to be relevant to them because our product is so configurable.
Some of the questions are Size/volume questions, no of employees etc.
From this we either send key sales people, arrange a webex demo or if they are too small they can't answer sufficent questions and we ...
4
You have a few options:
Automate the process of an online demo
Do a live multi-client web demo scheduled weekly or something like that
Just accept the fact that you have to spend time with tire-kickers
Call their BS early on and ask them right away what their revenue/business is like and who cares if they get offended?
EDIT:
You also may want to ...
4
Get on the phone, ask for 5 minutes to demo your product. If it's that good buy them lunch and demo over lunch. Ask your current customers if they know of any other contacts that you think your software might benefit, offer them a push back if they get your foot in the door to a sale either with cash in hand or a discount on a subscription.
Totally agree ...
3
Inbound Marketing
Have you heard of Inbound Marketing? It is perfect for finding great B2B leads on a low budget. According to some research I read, inbound marketing-dominated organizations experience a cost per lead 62% lower than outbound marketing-dominated organizations.
Inbound marketing leverages the fact that consumer's behaviors have changed ...
3
Yup. Classic tradeoffs, how do you reliably separate the wheat from the chaff?
Is there the possibility of doing a recorded demo that people can view/watch online? That can help eliminate some of the basic time-waster stuff.
Not sure what exactly your product and market is, but I'm pretty sure there are some ways to make better decisions about who is ...
3
"I get close to 0 responses. What am I doing wrong? Or is it normal that most people don't reply? Should I change my approach?"
My guess would be that most people probably classify your email as spam and never even read it. But your entire approach is limiting your possibility of success.
How do you keep your emails from being classified as spam?
Are you ...
3
What I read from your post is that you're trying to sell to professional Salespeople. That is a monumental challenge IMHO. Why are you targeting Sales Directors/Execs at target organizations? Their job is usually to sell their product, not necessarily to buy yours.
In addition to the recommendations from GaryE, I'd also recommend you change the ...
2
We're a company about the same size as yours selling a B2B software product for a few hundred dollars online direct -- people find us through Google, etc. We hired somebody with experience in sales & business development to look into establishing a reseller channel for us, but our progress was disappointing. Lots of companies like to talk, sound ...
2
Nothing wrong with getting their level of interest. Ask the following:
Does the person have the permission to buy? If not, find out who does and try to speak to them. If you cannot get this person, they may be less serious.
Do they have a budget for your product?
What is the timeframe to implement? Are they thinking about it? I'd rather someone say next ...
2
You need a big sales team and a good group of evangelists who are out there building your user list.
You also should think about specializing in a particular sector, which is how a lot of new daily deals clones are trying to carve out some market share.
The evangelists should be people who are in your exact target demographic, because they will likely ...
2
Yes. It can be a very valuable service. And because of that-- there are a significant number of vendors in the market that provide this service. There is a wide range of quality. And there is a wide range of price.
If you live in a town of 15,000 -- it might not make sense to pay for this service. If you live in and are marketing to businesses in Houston ...
2
10% will be a fair referral. And it is a good place to start.
Think of the steps that go into the overall sales process. From lead identification, qualification, all the way through negotiation and close -- the marketing and sales process has a cost. Whether you front end with marketing dollars in advertising, or your time in blogging -- or whether you ...
2
I personally think a business arrangement is "fair" when the terms are clear, all the parties are competent adults entering into it voluntarily, and everybody continues to do what they agreed to do.
In that light, any commission structure can be fair. Instead, I'd suggest you figure out what kinds of projects you prefer, and how much money you'd like to ...
2
Agreeing with Jennifer, are you saying you're spending many thousands per month to build a product and $0 to promote it? Doesn't make sense does it?
Cold-calling is rarely cost-effective, so I agree you need a lead-generation approach in which the people who already need you will discover you for themselves.
An easy way to spend a little money to get a ...
2
I've got some empathy for you. I have to make a bunch of those phone calls today as a co-founder of a company, and I'm a biz-dev background vs. pure sales, but we have to do what we have to do.
Regardless of how well you know these contacts, they should (if they are professionals) understand that you're trying to make a living, and they should expect to be ...
2
The chamber of commerce would be a great place to start. You can also file a press-release with your local papers about your service, and you might get some free publicity from that.
Since it's a fairly local area, you might just want to start beating the streets. As long as the service is useful, you're bound to get some interest if you show up at your ...
2
Not clear if you are referring to California or Canada.
In the US - refer to the CAN-SPAM rulings.
Here is a comparison to EU and US spam laws
Including when the person signed up, including a simple opt out option, and maintaining signup records help in keeping your from being labeled a spammer and getting your mailserver blacklisted.
And - just ...
1
I think it depends on the leads type you have. D&B (www.dnb.com) is a billion dollar company selling very customized and targeted leads to companies. So I won't say leads are out dated, I think it depends on the product you are trying to sell. At nochallenge.net, we do often buy leads for targeted audience and often had success. Good luck.
1
If you are getting a lot of subscribers and they are loving your product the best thing you can do is think of a creative way for them to encourage their friends, co-workers or other businesses to use it.
Mass email - ask them to tell a friend, run a contest, send out some promotion codes, incentives for recommending people. Month free for each friend who ...
1
A simpler first step might be to sell some advertising space on your site to Universities or Colleges.
This would have a couple of advantages:
You don't have to bother about privacy issues at this stage
You would meet the relevant contacts at the Universities and find out what their needs are
You get immediate (and re-occuring) income (when you have made ...
1
If you are in one of the markets served by Business News then they have a "Book of Lists" that provide a lot of information that can be helpful in targeting desired local businesses. Your local branch of the Small Business Administration can also have a substantial body of local business information that can be helpful.
1
It's impossible to put numbers on your question without an understanding of your product/service, the market competition and your ability to create compelling marketing. I think a better way of looking at it is what source is most likely to generate sales:
You personally know the customer with an identified need you provide a solution for
Personal referral ...
1
I would personally be very skeptical of the leads genreations people without some serious qualification.
My companies have been around for 10 and 14 years respectively and we have 1 salesman who can actually open the doors and get us the meetings we need. He is employed full time now but there have been many who have tried to claim that ability.
To address ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
