Salespeople - how are drumming up biz?
Discussion
How are those of you working as sales execs/account managers etc finding life at the moment, and what are you finding is working well for brand new business?
My pipeline is a little concerning 12 months into the future so wondered what you’re all finding works well these days, anywhere between hammering the phone to more modern ways of doing things? General discussion really.
B2B primarily
My pipeline is a little concerning 12 months into the future so wondered what you’re all finding works well these days, anywhere between hammering the phone to more modern ways of doing things? General discussion really.
B2B primarily
mikef said:
As a thought - how about stopping bugging people about sh!t that they don’t want to hear about (or they would go look for it) and maybe find a line of work that you can actually be proud of?
How did you get work for your business when you started it from scratch and nobody knew you existed or how good your product was?It's hard. I'm in product, not sales, but I spend a lot of time on lead generation and qualification as we are building a new business.
Most of the Sales folk do this through local industry events and via LinkedIn. We also spend dollars on google adwords which yields a fair number of leads for the sales team to bug.
For lead gen in product, you need to find a method of generating leads that are vaguely qualified in order to feed the sales team. For us (also B2B), it is a combination of partnerships, webinars, and content (e.g. blogs, articles (LI and industry things) as well as having a clear message that drives people to you).
If you get the direct sales piece and the lead gen piece working, you should be able to measure the various activities and their cost / success rate. We have a pretty reliable model so if we know that if the pipeline is falling in 3 months, we can up the ad spend / marketing effort before it becomes a problem.
Most of the Sales folk do this through local industry events and via LinkedIn. We also spend dollars on google adwords which yields a fair number of leads for the sales team to bug.
For lead gen in product, you need to find a method of generating leads that are vaguely qualified in order to feed the sales team. For us (also B2B), it is a combination of partnerships, webinars, and content (e.g. blogs, articles (LI and industry things) as well as having a clear message that drives people to you).
If you get the direct sales piece and the lead gen piece working, you should be able to measure the various activities and their cost / success rate. We have a pretty reliable model so if we know that if the pipeline is falling in 3 months, we can up the ad spend / marketing effort before it becomes a problem.
mikef said:
As a thought - how about stopping bugging people about sh!t that they don’t want to hear about (or they would go look for it) and maybe find a line of work that you can actually be proud of?
Wow, that was harsh 
and rather presumptive.Admittedly I didn’t go into any detail, but we don’t manufacture and supply any old superfluous crap.... it’s highly likely you have products in your house or at work that have components I or my company have supplied, likewise in most other countries.... things that range from entertaining you to saving lives.... so I am in fact quite proud to be involved in that to some degree.
Nor am I bugging purchasing people for things they don’t want to hear about. Engineers tend to be the beginning of my relationship.
My question was more general, and probably more along the lines of how does one carry on making progress in “slower” times. That was all. I know there’s a lot of experience on PH.
mikef said:
Simpo Two said:
mikef said:
Not cold calling, that’s for sure
Go on, spill the beans and help a PHer.fat80b said:
It's hard. I'm in product, not sales, but I spend a lot of time on lead generation and qualification as we are building a new business.
Most of the Sales folk do this through local industry events and via LinkedIn. We also spend dollars on google adwords which yields a fair number of leads for the sales team to bug.
For lead gen in product, you need to find a method of generating leads that are vaguely qualified in order to feed the sales team. For us (also B2B), it is a combination of partnerships, webinars, and content (e.g. blogs, articles (LI and industry things) as well as having a clear message that drives people to you).
If you get the direct sales piece and the lead gen piece working, you should be able to measure the various activities and their cost / success rate. We have a pretty reliable model so if we know that if the pipeline is falling in 3 months, we can up the ad spend / marketing effort before it becomes a problem.
Thanks for that Most of the Sales folk do this through local industry events and via LinkedIn. We also spend dollars on google adwords which yields a fair number of leads for the sales team to bug.
For lead gen in product, you need to find a method of generating leads that are vaguely qualified in order to feed the sales team. For us (also B2B), it is a combination of partnerships, webinars, and content (e.g. blogs, articles (LI and industry things) as well as having a clear message that drives people to you).
If you get the direct sales piece and the lead gen piece working, you should be able to measure the various activities and their cost / success rate. We have a pretty reliable model so if we know that if the pipeline is falling in 3 months, we can up the ad spend / marketing effort before it becomes a problem.
As a company we have I have to say been pretty “old fashioned” for the last few decades but there’s a lot of emphasis and investment recently in expanding the “online presence” - as above, general “content” in the usual areas.
I’m just finding it hard in general to gain any traction anywhere recently, even the dignity of a response sometimes from even existing and good customers
Hoofy said:
I continue to witness people who sold well sell well (IYSWIM!). Whether it's in an economic boom, a global pandemic or a global economic crash. Primarily they develop relationships and when the time is right, the customer buys. No slimey hard sell.
Agreed - and certainly no slimey hard sell from me, in fact the complete opposite (3 year cycle sometimes, but mostly 1-2 years.)Perhaps I need to just get out there and busier.
What I have noticed though is a massive increase in being ignored!!! Mainly since
Covid. Everything requires multiple chases, or is just blanked. These are people who “should” be talking to us.
Krhuangbin said:
Wow, that was harsh and rather presumptive.
Admittedly I didn’t go into any detail, but we don’t manufacture and supply any old superfluous crap.... it’s highly likely you have products in your house or at work that have components I or my company have supplied, likewise in most other countries.... things that range from entertaining you to saving lives.... so I am in fact quite proud to be involved in that to some degree.
Nor am I bugging purchasing people for things they don’t want to hear about. Engineers tend to be the beginning of my relationship.
That sounds pretty similar to what we do. and rather presumptive.Admittedly I didn’t go into any detail, but we don’t manufacture and supply any old superfluous crap.... it’s highly likely you have products in your house or at work that have components I or my company have supplied, likewise in most other countries.... things that range from entertaining you to saving lives.... so I am in fact quite proud to be involved in that to some degree.
Nor am I bugging purchasing people for things they don’t want to hear about. Engineers tend to be the beginning of my relationship.
It does seem particularly awkward in the UK vs even the rest of Europe and certainly the US, in that engineers tend not to give out mobile phone numbers here and a lot are still working from home so contacting them can be difficult. People that we know will respond to email but it's very easy to ignore.
For quite a bit of our stuff we really need to get to CTOs or sometimes Product Managers / Directors. Product Managers are usually OK but it's more of a concept sell to them.
I'm not sure there an easy answer - just do lots of work and some of it will pay off. We're very focussed on potential value now - we get a lot of people contacting us and invariably it's small beer. We don't ignore people but we're pretty blunt with them as there's nothing in it for us if they don't ultimately buy a reasonable value of product.
For every person like mikef I'd say there's as many who expect to be sold to, they won't go out looking for stuff.
Krhuangbin said:
Hoofy said:
I continue to witness people who sold well sell well (IYSWIM!). Whether it's in an economic boom, a global pandemic or a global economic crash. Primarily they develop relationships and when the time is right, the customer buys. No slimey hard sell.
Agreed - and certainly no slimey hard sell from me, in fact the complete opposite (3 year cycle sometimes, but mostly 1-2 years.)Perhaps I need to just get out there and busier.
What I have noticed though is a massive increase in being ignored!!! Mainly since
Covid. Everything requires multiple chases, or is just blanked. These are people who “should” be talking to us.
Krhuangbin said:
How are those of you working as sales execs/account managers etc finding life at the moment, and what are you finding is working well for brand new business?
My pipeline is a little concerning 12 months into the future so wondered what you’re all finding works well these days, anywhere between hammering the phone to more modern ways of doing things? General discussion really.
B2B primarily
What exactly do you sell?My pipeline is a little concerning 12 months into the future so wondered what you’re all finding works well these days, anywhere between hammering the phone to more modern ways of doing things? General discussion really.
B2B primarily
Prospect calls - you best have a damn good pitch but this still works. We employ a lead gen who just calls and she books our reps decent intro meetings.
LinkedIn - more for staying in touch with existing clients / industry connections
Webinars - we track who attends and then tailor the pitch around that
Membership organisations - this works well, we have good connections and sponsor many events through the year.
Hospitality - sports / lunches / drinks - works well.
LinkedIn - more for staying in touch with existing clients / industry connections
Webinars - we track who attends and then tailor the pitch around that
Membership organisations - this works well, we have good connections and sponsor many events through the year.
Hospitality - sports / lunches / drinks - works well.
Louis Balfour said:
Krhuangbin said:
How are those of you working as sales execs/account managers etc finding life at the moment, and what are you finding is working well for brand new business?
My pipeline is a little concerning 12 months into the future so wondered what you’re all finding works well these days, anywhere between hammering the phone to more modern ways of doing things? General discussion really.
B2B primarily
What exactly do you sell?My pipeline is a little concerning 12 months into the future so wondered what you’re all finding works well these days, anywhere between hammering the phone to more modern ways of doing things? General discussion really.
B2B primarily
But I manage the entire process from design to shipping, with the teams/tools at my disposal.
Nothing inherently disadvantageous in the model in 2023, it’s more me I think and need to change tack! Hence the question
Edited by Krhuangbin on Wednesday 22 March 20:50
Hoofy said:
I continue to witness people who sold well sell well (IYSWIM!). Whether it's in an economic boom, a global pandemic or a global economic crash. Primarily they develop relationships and when the time is right, the customer buys. No slimey hard sell.
Hoofy, without giving away trade secrets, would you mind expanding on your process?I'm selling B2B road transport services which is a commodotised, highly competitive & price sensitive market & I'm up against some very powerful players. I'm far from a natural salesman although I do enjoy doing it but I am finding it very difficult to open doors right now, either cold or trading off contacts.. I try to tread the line between persistence & a pain in the arse carefully but need to see better numbers soonish.
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