How Do I Engage Sales in Lead Generation?

Lead generation and its correlating sales activities is at the core of my Fractional Sales Leadership practice. I encounter questions about this subject from business owners and top executives regularly.

I began covering this hot topic in a previous blog. To recap, lead generation should be an ongoing activity, no matter what your sales look like. If your company is committed to growth. It needs a robust and diversified lead generation strategy and execution plan year-round.

For an overview of the fundamentals to consider with lead generation, check out my previous blog: How Do I Generate More Qualified Leads?

This piece is a compliment to that blog, and here I am focusing on what I consider to be the key lever creates the highest impact in lead generation ROI: Engaging your salespeople in lead generation.

Lead Generation in the Information Age

In my experience, the modern-day marketing and sales partnership is not as clear-cut for businesses. In fact, there are many different opinions on how best to go about generating leads these days let alone the role that sales should have in the process.

That is understandable given that the current digital age marks the most substantial shift in B2B marketing we’ve ever seen. As a business, you have more information at your fingertips than ever before. You can filter through that data and find compelling insights that you can leverage but it can also cause information overload. This might be why so many companies struggle with their marketing strategy- they don’t know where to start or what needs attention first because everything seems important. It’s hard to distinguish what’s most until we see it in hindsight as success in our reflected glory (or failure).

The good news is that the information age has progressed to a point of maturity in its application in all four of the primary business models. While it will continue to evolve just as we’ve seen in previous revolutionary shifts that have had a strong tie to socio-economic conditions, at this point, the digital age has settled in enough for us to leverage its benefits for powerful marketing and sales campaigns.

In my Fractional VP Sales practice, I focus on the two business models highlighted in yellow. A large area of opportunity my colleagues and I are seeing in those areas is the underutilization of a company’s salespeople relating to Marketing Funnel participation.

First, it’s important to note that this cross-over point for marketing and sales differs in the four core business models I cited. In the case of my focus areas, they are consistent.

Therefore, that’s the lens we’ll look through for the remainder of this article.

If your business adheres to one of the other models, please note some of the insights I share may not apply.

The digital era has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for prospecting, and it’s time to explore them. Let’s look at how Marketing Funnels intersect with Sales Pipelines in order create more creative methods that will generate leads on-demand.

Sales Participation Misnomers

Given our coverage across the US and exposure to hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses, we’ve broadly concluded that sales underutilization in the area of lead generation is the result of these three common reasons:

The company doesn’t understand how to engage their sellers effectively in the Marketing Funnel. As a result, we see salespeople being intentionally kept on the fringes until they are determined as marketing-qualified leads (MQL).
Sales teams are expected to continue producing results in an entirely new landscape. New sales skills are needed to effectively engage in business development activity (lead generation) that heavily relies on unfamiliar digital tools and communication methods. Essentially, the sales playbook has changed and the sellers weren’t given or trained on the new copy!
There is a misunderstanding by sellers on what their role is regarding prospecting activity in the digital age of lead generation.

This next image humorously depicts a seller waiting to receive offers from potential clients – like some kind-hearted soul offering help without any expectations involved! It actually reflects a real mindset that I see in my line of work.

Many entrepreneurs patiently wait for sales to come to them. They don’t market aggressively or compete for their share of business against competitors until they are notably underwhelmed by they inbound leads they get.

This isn’t surprising when you consider how so many digital marketers are promoting inbound marketing strategies focused around branding and content, and plastering articles and eBooks all over the internet about cold calling is dead.

These approaches suggest that the seller doesn’t need to have an active role in the buyers journey until the lead is ready to enter their sales pipeline; until it “falls into their hands”.

In the live business settings I engage in every day, this is the way things can go…

Sales wants and needs to play an active role in lead generation, just as they do in prospecting. These functions are the lifeblood of their sales pipeline. They need to be executed masterfully for the seller to capture the amount of lead flow required to achieve their sales goal.
Marketing wants and needs sales to be more engaged in progressing leads through the Marketing Funnel, especially when the lead starts interacting in the “Interest” and “Evaluation” stages. They want to see their creative, brilliant work turn into tangible ROI… closed deals; not just marketing qualified leads (MQL) handed off to the sales department.
Top executives absolutely want and need to see both sales and marketing functions hitting on all cylinders to maximize the company’s ROI on these high-impact resource investments.

If you are a top executive faced with changing these dynamics in your organization, I’m happy to be a sounding board to help you get started.

Navigating the Sales Pipeline

Now it’s time to introduce Sales Pipeline methodology. Notice how the last pipeline stage is “Sale”, and the lower Marketing Funnel stage is, “Purchase”? These two methodologies both focus on driving a lead from inception to close.

Marketing owns the Marketing Funnel. When a new lead enters the Marketing funnel, it’s up to marketers and salespeople to draw them out with targeted marketing efforts. Once they’re engaged enough we can convert them into qualified leads or Marketing Qualified Leads(MQLs). This is where the handovers start to happen in the Sales Pipeline where further qualification takes place before an offer is made, finalizing your deal.

The pipeline is a way to draw in leads from various methods and sources, including your marketing funnel’s contribution.

Sales’ first objective upon a lead entering their pipeline is to qualify that the lead aligns with the company’s Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). If it does, it is sales’ job to run the lead (now a prospect), through a prescribed sales process with the goal of closing the sale.

Once the salesperson gets to the “Qualification” in their sales pipeline process, they are back in the traditional sales realm that’s been the same through the ages.

The key to success as your seller drives towards the finish line is that they are equipped with a strategically designed, well-documented sales process. And, importantly for sellers who want their customers’ trustworthiness on display from start -to end of deal; you need them be trained exceptionally well in navigating this machinery so it works predictably every time.

Check out the article I wrote on sales process design called, Does Your Sales Process Generate Predictable Results?

Key Takeaways

I’ve covered a lot of ground in this 2-part series by doing my best to answer the questions I’m fielding day-in and day-out on lead generation. As I pull us back up to a 50,000-foot view, here are the key points to remember…

The information age marks the most substantial shift in B2B marketing we’ve ever seen. Use the guidance provided in this 2-part article series to integrate your sales and marketing functions.

Attract and secure “the right” new business by defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and training marketing and sales resources accordingly.

Utilize a mix of lead generation methods to feed your sales pipeline with healthy, diversified lead flow that is paced correctly to achieve current and long-term sales growth goals.

Take note of the Marketing Funnel and Sales Pipeline intersect points and design your sales playbook to make sales and marketing roles and key accountabilities incredibly clear.

…and remember, no matter what your sales results show quarter over quarter or fiscal year-to-date, your sales team should always be prospecting.

If you’d like to discuss additional ways your salespeople can sharpen their skills to generate and convert more leads, contact me through any of these methods: (404)271-6767 or dan@transcendentsales.com, or book a call through my Scheduling Tool.

I also invite you to follow me on LinkedIn to gain exposure to future article posts that will offer more valuable selling insights.

Another helpful resource I offer is a custom report you will receive after investing 2-minutes taking my SALES AGILITY ASSESSMENT. It’s filled with tips on how to optimize your sales environment based on your unique responses, making the report individualized and insightful!

Dan Mahony

President

I am part of a national group of Senior Sales Leaders who collaborate to share insights like the examples shown in this article. We formed because of our shared passion to help business leaders exponentially grow their revenue.