Marketo Blogs
Love Every Lead – 4 Ways Marketing Automation Benefits the Sales Cycle
Posted on:
March 13, 2012
Marketing automation solutions bring significant benefits in terms of demand generation to a wide range of companies. It’s very clear that marketers can now generate, score and nurture leads to a level that was not possible just a few years ago. However many companies fail to convert this breakthrough into success as measured in terms of pipeline created. The reason that many companies fail to exploit their demand generation success is that they fail to implement strong structures and…
Beat the Dead Horse or Cold Call
Posted on:
November 16, 2011
Repeated pipeline reviews are often a source of great stress between sales managers and sales people. As you’d expect, there are the usual suspects when it comes to questions at a typical pipeline review:
- What deals will close this month?
- What cover does the sales person have to meet their quota?
- How much of the pipeline is new business versus add-on?
- How does the pipeline feel relative to other months?
- Are marketing delivering on their demand gen targets?
- What are the next steps in…
Deconstructing a Quota
Posted on:
September 22, 2011
The best time to start discussing quota and pipeline with a salesperson is at the interview stage, not after the salesperson has started in the company. It’s also a good way to find out if the interview candidate really knows their business and their territory.
The quota should be related to the on-target-earnings (OTE) of the salesperson. A quota can be somewhere between five times and ten times OTE. In smaller companies it tends to be higher, but in larger companies it may be lower…
If It’s Truly Easy-To-Use, Let Sales Do the Demo
Posted on:
August 24, 2011
Recruiting good salespeople is difficult in any business, but most especially in the software world. Many Cloud/SaaS companies have solutions they claim are easy-to-use, easy-to-deploy and easy-to-adopt. Salespeople love to highlight simplicity as a selling point, as it can be used to generate more leads and help them to close more deals.
But if these messages are true for your product, the salesperson should be able to demonstrate the product soon after on-boarding, rather than relying…
People Still Buy from People, but How We Sell Needs to Change
Posted on:
August 3, 2011
Companies engaging in B2B marketing and sales are starting to recognize that the way people buy has changed dramatically over the years, with the continued development of Internet search and the emergence of B2B social media. What many of these companies haven’t yet realized, however, is that they may need to respond by changing the way they sell.
The maxim that “people buy from people” remains true, but how the selling is done needs to change rapidly. Continuous face-to-face selling…
