Larson's sales & marketing blog

As we move into May or 2012, I thought it might be nice to take a snap shot of what other B2B Marketers are doing in Social Media at the moment. Looking at the usage below, you will find no real changes in B2B SM Marketing. LinkedIn still rules with blogging and Facebook neck and neck.

30% - LinkedIn
20% - Blogging
19% - Facebook
16% - Twitter
 8% - YouTube
 6% - the 3 Fs (Friends, Followers, Family)
 1% - Google+

B2B User Preferences

LinkedIn is heads above everyone else, Facebook and Twitter (Blogging is not a SM site) virtually tied as alternative social media channels by b2b marketers. Then as you can see above YouTube, the 3 F’s, Then there are the other “guys” like Flickr, Digg,  Stumbleupon and Tumblr as favorite social channels.
 
No, most marketers engaged in SM are using a combination of several channels, there are clearly defined preferences. When b2b marketers were asked to choose the one most important method that they use for their social outreach), LinkedIn was the clear leader, chosen by 30% of respondents. Following it were blogging (20%), Facebook (19%) Twitter (16%) and YouTube (8%).
 
The Obstacles

The biggest problem B2B marketers are facing when it comes to SM is (after the legal department) an overall lack of resources. 70% of Business Marketing Managers find this to be the major problem toward implementing a good solid social media marketing program. Other problems encountered are: 57% a poorly defined success metrics and key performance indicators.  44% a “lack of knowledge about social media” is holding them and their companies back. Management resistance, cited by 22%, may stem from the preceding three obstacles.

Larson Notes & Satire:  As you all know I am working Facebook, then LinkedIn with some twitter. But with Ping.fm I can get a unified message to Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Plaxo, Google Buzz, Tumblr, Bebo, Flickr to name a few extras with one quick “PingIt” And, the faster the better

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

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Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Cold · Calling · Telemarketing · Telesales · Lead · Gen

You want more leads, my prospects more customers. Who doesn’t?

So what do you do? Join a Chamber of Commerce? At Professional Industry Association?  Formal Networking Groups? Let’s look at the cost incurred by each.

They all have their place if you get work out of them, or do you just like being in a group for the fun of it? Me, I join for the money. Friends are a side benefit. Education a side befit as well.

So what are the “true” costs?

Chamber Of Commerce

If you are the a-typical small business you open the doors to your business and trot off to join your local Chamber of Commerce.  Is it a wise investment? Well... It cost you say: $300.00 to join, then there are the 10 – 2 hour meetings a year at a cost of $20.00 plus time.  Join a committee? There is another 3 hours a month x 12. Then add in drive time or 1 hour a meeting and your “investment” is only $8400.00. If you don’t think your time is worth $100.00 an hour you might want to rethink your being in business. Total cost is $8700.00

Investment gap: If you pick up 5 clients at $1200.00 each, for $6000.00 in new business leaving a short fall of $2700.00

Professional Industry Association

Another business normality is to go off and join a Professional Industry Association. Cost might only be $500, if you’re lucky. Then there are (again) the 10 meetings a year, most likely dinner meetings so the cost goes up to $30... a pop in a plus 2 hours or drive time (at least here in the Chicago area) and you have a $4500.00 nut to crack.

Investment gap: If you can pick up 2 clients out of a group like this you are doing good. There might be more prospects but the competition for them is greater. Yet the pay back is higher to say $2000.00 per customer for $4000.00. Result a short fall of $500.00 I hope you’re getting $500.00 in education.

Formal Networking Group

The last of the big 3 in lead generation and referrals is the Formal Networking Group. These groups can be great as their sole purpose is the generation of business for their membership. Annual dues are $450.00 the weekly meeting and yes this is usually a weekly time investment is about 2 hours for time and a lunch cost of say $15.00. Out of pocket is $1200.00 for dues and lunches and time investment is $10,000.00 based on working 50 weeks a year, for a total of 11,200.00.

Investment gap: With the average sale being $1200.00 you need to get 10 new clients to break even.

Now the big picture cost if you did or do all three? Only $24,400.00

Now you can tell me, I write all this off for my business so it is a tax write off.  So the investment is only half that amount. Sure, ok but it is still money spent and it is out of pocket till you reclaim it back from Uncle Sam

Larson Notes & Satire:  Now just imagined if you took that money and put it into a targeted marketing plan? For $24,400.00 I could work wonders for you.

Give you a combo, Telesales, Direct Mail, Social Media Marketing plan.

If you choose to do a Larson Telemarketing Lead Generation Plan what is the pay back. Now mind you this is the stripped down bare bones program but if you were to give me $1200 a month or $14,000 a year, that would give you a program of 40 hours of concentrated Lead Generation work. And on the average that would give you a pay back of at least bare minimum 5 to 8 leads of which yes they are not customers yet but in 1 month that should be 20 to 32 leads or 240 to 384 leads a year. Do you feel lucky? Ask yourself what is your closing ratio? If you had that many leads could you would you fail? What is your closing ratio, all great sales people I know, know theirs. Good or bad, they know. 1 out of 10? 1 out of 5? Do you even know?

When they know their numbers they know what they need to accomplish number wise to hit the income figures they want to achieve. Numbers don’t lie, nor do ratios.

When we talk about what is truly cost effective or will give you the best payback, pick your path to your success.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?

Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Divison of US Telemarketing LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
630-358-4354
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Networking · Cold · Calling · Telemarketing · Telesales

In a survey by the Center for Exhibition Industry, their CIRE index overall trade show activity grew by 2.7%. Considering this is after 3 consecutive years of reduction there was of course cause for general excitement in the industry.

The index goes and scores 4 areas of performance.
+2.7% - Net square feet
+2.3% - Number of exhibitors
+3.4% - Number of exhibitors
+2.3% - Ad revenue

The area of strongest growth were machinery and finished goods showing a very strong 11.2% growth, with the building, construction, home and repair category going down 5.3%.

Does it make sense for you to make the trade show plunge? Are your prospects and customers there? Do you have the staff to work a booth? Do you have the money to put together a minor booth and stock it with necessary flyers and brochures?

Larson Notes & Satire: Should your business be in or back into exhibiting shows? The do have a cost and it can be pricy. Chamber of Commerce shows might be within reach and you might only need 3 or 4 new accounts to break even, but when you jump to the major shows you better have a plan to make it cost effective.

We at Larson have a service where we will go in and call all the attendees to invite them to your booth, we set up appointments for you while at the show so you have quality one on one time with the prospect (and your competition doesn’t) then after the show is all closed up, our post trade show calling service where we will call up all the business cards and badges scanned to see if they got the information they needed, to find out if they had any questions, if they need to see or talk to a sales rep again and above all else see it they are ready to talk to a sales rep to buy. If you don’t have a system for follow up you and I both know what will most likely happen. You will hand those leads to your staff; they will call the first 5. Get 5 no’s. Throw up their hands saying these leads are junk and stuff them into the top desk drawer never to see the light of day again.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.

Tags: Trade · Show · Shows · Telemarketing · Telesales

What makes a lead hot or cold?
 
Your company might choose to score leads by assigning points, using rankings like A, B, C or D, or using terms like “hot,” “warm” or “cold,” but what exactly constitutes a qualified sales lead, and can your marketing and sales departments’ productivity, efficiency and synchronicity get better with a scoring system?

Does quality lead scoring there are rules you need to decide upon such as:

 •What your ideal buyer profile is

 •What a prospect has to explicitly tell you in order to move forward in the buying cycle

 •What activities must be observed for a prospect to move forward in the buying cycle?

If lead scoring methodology is shared between sales and marketing and a qualified ranking of those leads is made to determine their sales-readiness sales should go up with less wasted time for the sales staff. Leads can be scored based on interest they show in your business, place in the buying cycle, and their fit with your business.
 
The first step in lead scoring is determining your ideal target. Creating this perfect buyer profile requires sales and marketing to sit down together (now there is a new concept) and come together on the definition. Then you can use both an explicit and implicit scoring to create a picture of each lead’s value. Explicit scoring is based on the information the prospect tells you, whereas Implicit scoring is based on the information that you observe, or infer, such as their online behaviors.
 
Use this checklist as a starting point to identify the key demographics that are relevant to your organization, as well as the key behavior-based scores to consider. We have listed more than 50 explicit scores and more than 200 implicit scores to help you find the ideal scoring rules for your company.
 
How to use this checklist:
 
Check off the attributes you think should be included in your perfect customer. Next to each attribute mark whether it is critical, important, influential, or negative.

Relationship scoring rules:
Title
Role
Purchasing authority
Number of direct reports
Level of manager (to whom do they report?)
Years of experience
Specialties
Type of email used (Gmail, corporate, Yahoo)
Years at current position
Designations/Certifications
Honors and awards received
Social network participation
Social network connections
Social network influence
Public recommendations
Affiliations - groups and associations
Career interests
Personal interests
Degrees received
Rankings/Stock Indexes: Fortune 500/Inc 500, etc
Number of employees
Company revenue
Revenue growth (growing, declining, etc)
Company financial viability
Number of divisions
Number of products sold (SKUs)
Location
Account type (Potential vs. Actual)
Previous relationship
Website traffic
Website plug-ins
Year founded
Organizational structure (proprietorship, partnership, corporation)
Geographic markets served
Competitors
Partners
Fiscal year end
Industry
Product(s) purchased
Complimentary technologies used (CRM, ESP, ERP, CMS, MRM, MA)
Recycled count
Lead source

Did everyone on your Sales and Marketing team the same attributes? We all look at things from our own personal perspective. Discuss and see if you can come up with the perfect relationship as a team.

200+ Behavior-Based Scores to Consider:
Budget defined (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually)
Timeframe (Project completion deadline)
City
State
Zip
Country
Phone area code
Headquarters or satellite
Location of branches
Size of branches
Customer
Partner
Competitor
Prospect
Investor
Ex-customer
Lost opportunity
Website
Sponsorship
PPC
Content syndication
Online ad
Surveys
Search Activity Podcasts
Online courses Videocasts
Certifications
Tradeshow
Visited
Completed
Viewed results
Participated in multiple surveys
Searches for company name
Searches for product name
Searches other (scored on term)
Search engine used
Listened
Listened multiple times
Downloaded
Subscribed
Viewed information on
Registered for
Completed
Registered for multiple
Completed multiple
Viewed
Viewed multiple times
Downloaded
Viewed information on
Registered for
Received certification
Received multiple certifications
Attended
Visited booth
Watched demo
Attended multiple tradeshows
Livestreamed events Web pages Community Additional Behaviors
Registered for
Viewed
Commented during
Asked question during
Reviewed follow-up recording
Rated event
Viewed landing page
Fills out form on landing page
Uses instant chat functionality
Uses request a call back functionality
Viewed - any
Viewed - product specific
Viewed - pricing
Viewed - customers or reviews
Viewed - multiple web pages
Viewed - multiple web pages in 1 WK
Shared via social sharing
Browser used
Submitted an idea
Submitted multiple ideas
Read about best practices
Read about ideas
Visit knowledge base
Read about product information
Asked a question
Asked multiple questions
Answered a question
Answered multiple questions
Shared a best practice
Shared multiple best practices
Roadshow/Seminar
Microsites
Registered
Attended
Attended multiple events
Viewed
Shared via social sharing

Again ask did you all mark the same attributes? Discuss any that don’t match and figure out what really matters. There might be some major disagreements but you need to get on the same page!

Bad Behaviors (Implicit data)
Email unsubscribe
Non-product web visit
No website activity for a long period of time
Change in purchase timeframe
No progression in buying cycle
Added to “Do Not Call” list
Spam complaint
Negative social media comment
Declines contract/warranty renewal
Career page
Press room
Investor page
Leadership page

While most action items give positive scores, there are actions that don’t. Don’t ignore these negative pieces of the sales and marketing process when building your model. You need to be honest with yourself. The only one you will be hurting if your not is yourself. If you this information to your advantage in conjunction with other scoring methods.

Larson Notes & Satire: If you this information to your advantage in conjunction with other scoring methods you may as an individual have developed you will start to find areas of attack where your odds of winning are stacked in your favor. Being a cherry picker from way back I like to pick the low handing fruit.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.

Tags: Prospect · Scoring · Telemarketing · Telesales · Cold

I have found in some 37 some odd years in business that there are 5 steps to better delegating and supervising that will bring you the kind of results you want to get your expectations met and successful results are achieved.

Step One: The first step in delegation is to be totally clear about the results that you want to achieve out of the job or project. The more clarity YOU have the greater the direction you show with towards the results expected. The easier it is for you to select the right person to do the job.

Step Two: The second step in this process is to select the best person based on their previously demonstrated ability and success at doing this kind of job. You want people all people to be successful so don’t set them up for failure. Never ever delegate an important task to a person who has never done that kind of project before. That is not to say you don’t want to push people into achieving a higher level to action that expands their abilities, but keep in mind their strong points and work into those when possible. It is essential that you delegate every task to the best person you have who you have total trust and belief in their ability to complete the task at a high level.

Step Three: Third, explain to the person exactly what you want done, the results that you expect, the time schedule that you require, and the preferred method of working. You have probably already mastered the task you’re delegating out to so use your knowledge of the job at hand to help them help you. Taking the necessary time to teach and explain the best way to do the job based on your past experience is not only an excellent way to ensure that the job will be done the way you want and on schedule I might add, but when a similar job comes up you have a ready trained person do delegate out to, again.

Step Four: Step four is to set up a schedule. The more important the task the more important it is to set up a schedule. Always build some slack into the timetable whenever possible. Then have a system to check on the progress of the task at regular intervals. Leave nothing to chance and you will be a happier owner or manager.

Step Five: Step five is to inspect what you expect. Delegation is not abduction. You are not dropping and running. Just because you have assigned a task to another person does not mean that you are no longer accountable for the project at hand. That is why you are the person in charge. The more important the project, the more important it is that you keep on top of it.
What task can you effectively delegate to someone else? Which one of your employees can handle the task efficiently?

Larson Notes & Satire: My way or the highway. The hardest thing about delegation is the lack of control. As most of you know, I look for clones of me to work with. Ya, lots of little Me’s running around. I shudder at the thought. Now I do some things very well, other things, I would truly be best finding a trusted person to make a hand off to. Let them do for me what they do best. Use your strengths and find people to fill in your gaps. This makes others around you stronger and you even more larger than life.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates, a Division of US Telemarketing Group LLC
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix?  Call today and find out.

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Tags: Delegation · Telemarketing · Telesales · Cold · Calling