Transform your business development
We’re delighted to announce that Qualifa were winners in the category ‘Most Promising New Business’ at the Sussex Business Awards.
Huge congratulations and thank you to all employees, in particular those that have been with us since the early days – Fiona Pritchard, James Lewendon, Clare Mace, Fabiana Macri and Jean Le Gal.
Special thanks to Vanya Gencheva for completing our submission.
Regular blog readers may remember a few months ago I fondly referred to our basement Brighton office as the ‘Dungeon’. It may not have had many windows but it housed the Qualifa team for around ten months until we outgrew it in February of this year. We were at one point in four different offices around Brighton and were on the hunt for a suitable place for our Headquarters where we would be able to fit all 40+ of us in. It has been what seems a long time in the making but we are finally ensconsed in our new 50 capacity sea-view open-plan office and for the members of staff who were inhabitants of the ‘Dungeon’ it is a welcome change!
Here are a few pictures to show you our new home, please click on this link for the Flickr Slideshow .
Please feel free to come and visit us we are at 5th Floor, Queensberry House, 106 Queens ...read more
You want more sales leads? You want more potential clients in your sales pipeline? No access to a telemarketing company or lead generation agency?
Here’s a simply DIY prospecting guide to sending targeted letters via email…
When writing introduction emails to potential new clients, think about how much time the recipient has to read what you are sending. Has a Marketing Director got time to scroll through a page of text? Has an IT Manager got the spare 30 minutes to read that 10 page pdf? No – and you knew that already.
So, make what you draft succinct, punchy and scan readable.
If the decision maker can take a quick squizz at it in 10 seconds, they’ll make a swift judgement on whether they are interested or whether to pass it along to some one who will be. If they have to read too much information they will most likely file it away for another day (so never read it) or worse still delete it.
Follow this format:
State who you are
State what you do/who you work with
State what it is you’d like to talk to them about and why
Provide a ‘call to action’ to close a telephone call or meeting
It really should only be a maximum of three short sentences. Any longer and they can no longer scan it – so cut it down as far as you can.
Some other must do’s are:
Make it personalised
Make it relevant and researched
Don’t cut and paste ‘blurb’ (it stands out a mile when you do)
Don’t attach large files that won’t get opened and might even mean the email gets blocked.
This isn’t email marketing, its electronic personal letter writing and less is most definitely ...read more
I thought it time to write something about more than just finding good sales leads. After all, its what happens after the initial meeting or presentation that really makes the difference to the success of a company.
With growing technology and digital media businesses (and some larger companies) there is often a recurring issue post initial client meeting. First meeting done, follow up email or proposal sent – sit back and wait for the order…. Sound familiar? Well perhaps that’s an exaggeration but its certainly the case that companies are not doing all that they can and should to move the sales cycle along and progress their opportunities.
But what can you do if you’ve seen the decision maker, submitted a proposal and been told to ‘wait to hear back’? Lots actually.
Consider that selling is not a linear process. In fact, picture each opportunity as a sort of Venn diagram attached to multiple satellite nodes – that would be a more accurate representation of how a sales actually looks when you consider the perspective of all those involved. Put your main contact in the middle of the diagram and start to consider who the other major players are in the decision making process:
Etc etc.
The next task is to map out each of these contacts and with the help of your prime contact establish who has a say in the decision (relating to your sale) and what influence they have. Once done its time to think about how you will start to build a relationship with these people to begin the process of educating them about your offering and how it will impact them personally/their department.
Of course, invariably you’ll require the permission of your prime contact to start selling to other people, however even if they say ...read more
‘We only want super qualified hot sales leads’ – is what we hear on a daily basis here at our lead generation company. AKA – get us meetings with people who have a need for our product or service and who are ready to buy NOW!
Frankly, that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Imagine how hard it’s going to be to find a company that not only needs what you are selling, but who is sat there waving the cheque book waiting for the phone to ring. Hard work, trust us. Fact is, if you are lucky enough to find any of the above they’ll most likely by already talking to suppliers, if not in an advanced state of negotiation on the deal – meaning you’ll be on catch up mode from the start.
So what’s the answer? ‘Speculate to accumulate boy!’ (as my Granddad used to say).
By speculation here we mean that companies looking to build their sales pipeline should research and target their ideal customers and start to network with them and book introductory meetings. There may not always be immediate requirements, but you’ll start the process of being in their thoughts as and when they do have a requirement.
More importantly – GO AND SEE THEM, don‘t just make a phone call. Things happen when you meet with people face to face. Such as:
More than this, you leave with a new business ‘connection’ that, if used to your advantage should serve you well in the future.
Make sure you:
Some companies we speak to, and in fact nearly all as they mature, will turn to in-house telemarketing and sales lead generation functions.
Why?
It’s probably a control thing.
Most organisations want to shape their own sales destiny, and not leave it in the hands of a third part supplier.
Natural evolution is another reason. As companies evolve, their professional sales departments need to evolve and grow with them. You need a good ‘internal sales‘ learning ground to breed the next generation of field sales people.
Past a certain point in their persuasion we can’t stop companies brining telemarketing ‘in-house’. But we can still present the reasons why we think it might not be the best idea.
Before we can help you understand why outsourced lead generation works, you need to appreciate just how difficult establishing an in-house sales team can be.
Here’s our thoughts on some of the challenges faced by companies looking to develop internal sales lead generation functions. You’ll see the process poses difficulties and problems right from the beginning.
Okay picture the scene, you decide the way to grow your business is by hiring an internal sales person. There’s just a few hurdles to get over: You’ve got no sales people. You’re not a sales person and you’re not really sure what they should be like.
Sounds impossible from the start, yes?
Well it’s the situation most growing technology and digital media businesses find themselves in when they move from relying on word of mouth and referrals to grow onto creating sales with outbound sales and promotion.
Unless you’ve worked in sales-driven organisations, amongst true sales people, it will be very hard to know what to look for.
In most situations we have seen, the recruitment process fails to deliver the right amount of quality short listed candidates, normally ...read more
Many growing digital media companies say that their main problem is ‘closing’ sales opportunities. They get shortlisted in a competitive pitch and stake the next wave of plans on a one in three chance of winning. The reliance most digital media and technology businesses place on closing a small number of key sales leads presents a big problem – if you lose one, there’s nothing to fill the void.
There’s a tried and tested way of hedging against this situation -successful pipeline management; the more quality leads you have, the more you are likely to win.
Companies need to protect against over-reliance on winning major projects by ensuring that the supporting pipeline is kept full at all times with quality sales leads and consistent lead generation.
So, what is pipeline management?
Typically a 3:1 ratio applies: of three final stage (shortlisted) pitches, typically one will be won. Taking this further back in the sales cycle, the ‘times three’ effect is usually accurate. To get three quality leads to the point of final pitch, you’ll need nine sales leads to get to the stage of formal proposal. To get nine to formal proposal, you’ll more than likely need over 20 ‘value proposition’ meetings or presentations. This means you’ll need around 80 quality sales leads in active conversations.
Of course all of this doesn’t unfold overnight. Lead management and maintaining a healthy sales pipeline is ongoing and often has a time frame of three to six months from initial conversation to contract sign off.
With this in mind it makes sense to take a long term view and get strategic about gaining introductions with new business. Setting aside other elements of your marketing and client acquisition strategy (search engines, events & exhibitions etc) the single most effective way to generate quality leads and interest in your proposition is to ...read more
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