11
Converting Inbound Interest into Revenue
At least five times per month, I would receive the following email from one of our account managers at HubSpot:
Mark,
I could use your help with one of our customers. The customer signed up for HubSpot six months ago. They are doing great with their inbound marketing. When the customer signed up, they were getting a few dozen leads through their website per month. Now they are getting over 500 leads per month!
Here is the issue. The salespeople hate the leads. They believe the lead quality is really low. Would you mind jumping on a call with their head of marketing and their head of sales to help figure out the issue?
Of course I was willing to help. Every time I did, I found the same set of issues. Some of the issues were caused by the manner in which marketing was handling the leads. Some of the issues were caused by the manner in which sales was handling the leads. I will elaborate on both sets of issues in this chapter.
Marketing's Role in Converting Interest into Revenue
The Internet has empowered buyers. In many cases, the first few stages of the buying journey happen online. As such, marketing is playing an ever increasing role in the selling process, nurturing these prospects and passing them to sales at precisely the right time.
Here are the most common mistakes and the most important best practices marketing needs to adopt as they work with sales to convert interest into revenue.
The Most Common Mistake: Don't Pass All the Leads to Sales
Imagine for a moment that you're the head of marketing at the company described at the beginning of this chapter. In a span of six months, you have increased the number of leads generated through your firm's website from a few dozen per month to 500 per month. You are a hero! You are going to drive your company to the next level of success. Your instinctive reaction is to get these leads into the hand of the sales team as soon as possible so that the sales team can turn the leads into customers and revenue.
There is one problem. Not all of these inbound leads are qualified for the business. In fact, the majority are not. Let's appreciate the difference between an inbound-generated lead and an outbound-generated lead. Figure 11.1 helps us appreciate this difference.
Figure 11.1 Outbound Sales vs. Inbound Sales
Outbound sales is represented by the graphic on the left. Outbound sales campaigns start with a list of leads that are presumably a good “fit” for the business. If the company targets the Fortune 5000 telecom industry, the company purchases a list of CEOs from the Fortune 5000 telecom industry. Then, Sales and Marketing go to work on that list as aggressively as possible with direct mail, email spam, targeted advertising, and cold calls hoping that 1 percent of the purchased leads respond to these forms of interruptive, outbound selling. The leads that indeed respond probably have some form of “pain”, which triggers the response.
Inbound selling is represented by the graphic on the right. The inbound graphic is an inverse representation of the outbound graphic. Most of the leads generated from inbound marketing have a “pain” that needs to be solved. Why else would they have conducted the Google search, read the blog article, or downloaded the ebook? Unfortunately, not all of the inbound leads are a good “fit.” Some of the leads are perfect prospects, because they are executives from the Fortune 5000 telecom industry. These are beautiful leads. They represent the right person at the right company, and they have a pain that your product can solve. However, some of the leads are not a good fit. Some of the leads are PhD students from Asia, simply doing research for their dissertations. These leads will probably never be buyers of your product.
If some of the inbound leads are not qualified buyers, it does not mean inbound is failing. The situation simply needs to be managed in the right way. Let's get back to our example from the beginning of this chapter, in which the marketing team has used inbound tactics to generate 500 leads per month. Let's take an extreme case and assume that only 10 percent, or 50 of these leads per month, are properly qualified leads. These 50 leads are beautiful leads. The companies are a perfect “fit” because they all have a “pain” that you can solve. These leads will probably close at twice the rate in half the time when compared to your traditional outbound leads. This is a wonderful situation!
Here's the snag: if the marketing team passes all 500 of these inbound leads over to sales, representing the 50 great leads and the 450 weak leads, the sales team will ultimately hate the entire batch. Why? The sales team will need to crawl through 10 leads just to find one solid one, which is a frustrating experience for the salespeople.
Let's improve this process. If the marketing team filters the leads and passes only the 50 great leads to sales, the sales team will think they have the best marketing team on the planet. They will praise marketing. They will beg the executive team to invest more in marketing.
When a company is in the early stages of its inbound marketing journey, the lead filtering process does not need to be sophisticated. In many cases, someone on the marketing team can simply screen the leads and pass the best ones through to sales. In the early stages of inbound marketing, the lead flow is low enough that this manual process is manageable. As lead flow increases, more advanced techniques are needed, which I will address later in this chapter.
Avoid the Lead Scoring Trap
Once marketing teams increase their inbound lead flow volume, they often introduce a lead scoring system. In general, implementing a lead scoring system is a smart move. Unfortunately, lead scoring is often implemented in a manner that causes more harm than good.
Issues arise when the lead scoring algorithm becomes too complicated. This is a common situation. For example, the marketing team may announce, “Once a lead exceeds a lead score of 50, the lead will be passed to sales.” In a vacuum, this statement sounds harmless. But what does a score of 50 mean? How does the scoring algorithm work?
In many cases, the scoring algorithm is based on an overly complicated set of factors. For example, if the lead provides an email, the lead score increases by two points. If the lead views the pricing page, the lead score increases by seven points. If the lead requests a demo, the lead score increases by 10 points. The act of downloading an ebook increases the score by five points. Additional ebook downloads are two points each. There are so many permutations that could get the lead score above 50, or keep the lead score below 50. How do you know that passing the lead to sales precisely when the lead score exceeds 50 is the right move in all cases? Depending on how the lead score is set up, a start-up intern who downloads 20 ebooks on a Saturday night might get passed to sales, while an important individual who visits one page and requests a demo (but takes no further action) might not.
At HubSpot, we tried the lead scoring approach, but ran into the problems I just described. We evolved to implement an alternative approach we called the “Buyer Persona/Buyer Journey” matrix, or buyer matrix for short. Figure 11.2 shows an example of a buyer matrix.
Figure 11.2 Buyer Persona/Buyer Journey Matrix
The vertical axis (y-axis) shows the different buyer personas the company targets. Buyer personas are defined by primarily static attributes about the buyer that will not change. Example attributes include the size of the business, the industry of the company, the role of the buyer, and so forth. In the example in Figure 11.2, we are targeting three buyer personas: Small Business, Mid-Market, and Enterprise.
The horizontal axis (x-axis) shows the different stages through which the buyer progresses during the buyer journey. These stages of the buyer will likely change, hopefully as quickly as possible. In this example, we have three stages of the buyer journey: Problem Education, Solution Research, and Solution Selection.
With the buyer personas and the buyer journey defined, our example buyer matrix is established! The three-by-three matrix yields nine unique “buyer states,” with each buyer state representing a specific buyer persona at a specific stage in the buying journey. We are now in a position to customize the experience that each buyer has with our company based on who they are and where they are in the process. We can customize our marketing, our sales, our product, and our customer support to match their buyer state.
As an example, assume a potential buyer is in the “Small Business/Problem Education” buyer state. We should strive to customize her entire experience with our company based on her buyer state. When this buyer visits our website, she should be greeted with a call to action to download an ebook on small business marketing trends in 2014. If the sales team connects with this buyer, the sales team should reference educational collateral we developed for buyers early in their buying journey.
On the other hand, if we are dealing with a potential buyer in the “Small Business/Solution Selection” buyer state, the call to action on the website should be to read a case study about a small business customer in his industry. When the sales team engages with this buyer, the sales team should reference ROI reports summarizing our similar customers' success with our products. The prospective buyer's experience with the entire company is optimized for that buyer's state.
When you first set up the matrix, do not feel pressure to create a highly customized, thoroughly tested experience for each buyer state right away. Instead, implement something basic for each box. Use your gut. Form some theories.
Once the basic theories are in place, make sure you have a way to measure the performance of the tactics within each buyer state. How many buyers enter each buyer state every month? How many buyers move on in their journey? How many buyers get stuck or exit the funnel? Where do they get stuck and after how long?
A disciplined measurement strategy for the buyer matrix allows you to analyze, test, and optimize the entire matrix, one buyer state at a time. Take a step back and decide which buyer states are performing poorly and represent the best opportunities for improvement. Pick one. Analyze the performance of that buyer state. Take a deep look at buyers who are progressing quickly through it. What content did they consume? What actions did they take? What actions did your company take to accelerate them through that state? Then take a deep look at buyers who are stuck in that buyer state. Don't be afraid to call them to diagnose the blockers that are preventing them from progressing in their buyer journey. Form theories on how to resolve the issues. Run some experiments. Optimize and improve. Then move on to the next buyer state.
Use the Buyer Matrix to Determine When to Pass Leads to Sales
With a well-formed buyer matrix in place, let's get back to the original question. When should each type of lead be passed to sales? Let's address this question within the context of the matrix.
Start with a theory for each persona. Assume we want to pass the “Enterprise” persona leads to sales at the first stage of their journey, the “Problem Education” stage. Our gut tells us that Enterprise opportunities have sizeable revenue potential. If an employee at a Fortune 500 company even touches our website, subscribes to our blog, or mentions us in social media, we probably want a salesperson to follow up immediately.
For the “Mid-Market” persona, assume we want to pass the leads to sales at the “Solution Research” stage. These mid-market companies probably do not have quite as much revenue upside as the Enterprise customers. Marketing will nurture these buyers through the Problem Education stage. Once the buyer's actions suggest he has reached the Solution Research stage (perhaps he downloaded product information or requested a product demonstration), the buyer will be passed to a salesperson.
For the “Small Business” persona, let's assume we want to pass the leads to sales at the “Solution Selection” stage. These small businesses have a limited budget and, in turn, limited revenue potential. However, there are a lot of them. Marketing will nurture these buyers through both the Problem Education and Solution Research stages. Once the buyers indicate they are at the Solution Selection stage (perhaps they are actively using the free trial product), they will be passed to a salesperson.
Once your theory is in place, start funneling leads to Sales according to the proposed plan and measure lead conversion success. If lead conversion is remarkably low for a given buyer persona, consider moving the “pass to Sales” threshold to the right in the matrix. Require Marketing to nurture the buyers further before passing them to Sales. If the lead conversion is remarkably high for a given buyer persona, consider moving the “pass to Sales” threshold to the left in the matrix. Pass the lead to Sales sooner!
Figure 11.3 illustrates the lead conversion progress for each buyer persona in our example.
Figure 11.3 Analyzing When to Pass Leads to Sales
In this example, this analysis is conducted at the end of Q3, based on all of the leads generated in Q1. As a result, these leads have had sufficient time to work themselves through the buyer journey.
Let's take a look at the Enterprise segment. A total of 1,500 new leads reached the Problem Education stage and were immediately passed to the sales team in Q1. By the end of Q3, 3 percent of those leads had converted to customers, for a total of 45 customers. The average annual contract size for each of these customers was $700,000.
In the Mid-Market group, 7,000 leads were nurtured to the Solution Education stage and passed to sales in Q1. By the end of Q3, 6 percent of those leads had converted to customers, for a total of 420 customers. The average annual contract size for each of these customers was $200,000.
In the Small Business group, 11,000 leads were nurtured to the Problem Selection stage and passed to sales in Q1. By the end of Q3, 20 percent of those leads had converted to customers, for a total of 2,200 customers. The average annual contract size for each of these customers was $40,000.
With the conversion data in place, we can start to optimize the stage at which each buyer should be passed to sales. For example, one conclusion to draw from this data is that the customer conversion rate on Small Business leads is really high. Perhaps we waited too long to call these leads, and failed to call some closable prospects that hadn't progressed beyond Solution Selection. Obviously, this theory can be tested. Instead of waiting for small business buyers to reach the Solution Selection stage, we can start passing the leads to the sales team when the Small Business buyers reach the Problem Education stage. Let's assume, after running the experiment, we find that 30,000 Small Business leads were nurtured to the Problem Education stage and passed to the sales team. After a few quarters, only 5 percent of those leads converted to customers, for a total of 1,500 customers. The average purchase price remained the same at $40,000.
In this case, the experiment failed. When the Small Business leads were passed to Sales at the Solution Selection stage, the small business sales team converted 2,200 customers at an average purchase price of $40,000. They generated $88 million from those leads. During the experiment, the Small Business leads were sent to the sales team at the Problem Education stage. The sales team converted 1,500 customers at an average purchase price of $40,000. They generated $60 million from those leads. The team performed better when the leads were passed to Sales at the Solution Selection stage. When the leads were passed at the Problem Education stage, the team was likely overwhelmed with the volume of leads and wasted more time on lesser qualified opportunities. This, in turn, drove down revenue productivity.
Become a Buyer Matrix Expert through Microsegmentation
In this example, we started with a very simple buyer matrix. I recommend you do the same when starting out. However, as you begin to understand your buyer matrix in greater detail, you realize that there are more complex behaviors in play than this simple model can accommodate. For example, in the Enterprise segment, there are typically multiple individuals involved in the buyer journey. Each of these individuals has unique interests. Finance, marketing, and IT may all have influence over the decision. How do we account for all of these influences in the buyer matrix? In the Small Business segment, you may sell to multiple industries, such as technology, finance, and health care. Each industry has unique perspectives throughout the buyer journey. How do we account for these different industries in the buyer matrix?
As you become more of an expert with your buyer matrix, you can introduce microsegments to address these complications. Let's use the multi-influencer Enterprise example described earlier. Take the entire Enterprise row and create a new matrix for this row. This time the y-axis reflects the different influencer roles, such as marketing end user, IT, and finance. We'll keep the buyer journey the same. Now I can further customize the individual's experience with my company. As such, I may show different sets of content to the IT manager and the marketing end user, all adjusted to the stage they are at in their journey.
Sales' Role in Converting Interest into Revenue
Just like Marketing, Sales needs to evolve its strategy when handling inbound leads.
Any difficulties that salespeople have adjusting to these inbound leads usually stem from the fact that some of the classic training that salespeople have received over the past few decades does not apply when working with inbound leads. In fact, these legacy tactics can actually hurt the sale. There are three specific aspects of legacy selling that hurt inbound lead handling the most.
Scrap the Elevator Pitch—Lead with Context
Has your name ever been on a salesperson's call list? Did you receive a lot of voicemails from that salesperson over the course of a few weeks? Think back to those voicemails. Were they valuable? Did you learn anything that helped you? Or were the voicemails a carbon copy of the company's elevator pitch?
I probably receive about 20 cold calls a day from various salespeople. Here is an example call sequence I receive from a salesperson.
[Tuesday at 9 a.m.] “Hi, Mark. This is John from XYZ Company. Would you like to reach more decision makers with your sales team's calling efforts? Our company can deliver the names and contact information for thousands of decision makers at Fortune 500 companies. We have state-of-the-art technology that maximizes the accuracy of our data. Please reach out to me today so I can show you some sample lists.”
[Thursday at 8 a.m.] “Hi, Mark. This is John again from XYZ Company. Would you like to reach more decision makers with your sales team's calling efforts? Our company can deliver the names and contact information for thousands of decision makers at Fortune 500 companies. We have state-of-the-art technology that maximizes the accuracy of our data. Please reach out to me today so I can show you some sample lists.”
[Monday at 10 a.m.] “Hi, Mark. John over here at XYZ Company. You probably remember that we can deliver the names and contact information for thousands of decision makers at Fortune 500 companies. We have state-of-the-art technology that maximizes the accuracy of our data. I would love to show you these names. Call me today when you have a second.”
Torture!
It is hard to listen to this stuff. I can't imagine being on the other side of the phone, leaving this monotony of voicemails every day.
Not only is this approach inappropriate in any modern prospecting situation, it is also the kiss of death for an inbound lead. Your marketing team has invested significant amounts of time and money to attract this buyer, using quality educational content that is highly relevant to the buyer's context. The buyer has had a great experience perusing the articles on your blog, reading through ebooks, and attending webinars that your company has produced to help them frame their problem better. When thinking about the problems the buyer is looking to solve, the buyer perceives your company as smart, helpful, and relevant.
Then a classically trained salesperson calls the prospect and leaves one of the voicemails listed earlier.
Disaster! Insert explosion sounds here. All of marketing's effective inbound work is thrown out the window.
Here is what a HubSpot salesperson's voicemail sequence sounds like:
[Tuesday at 9 a.m.] “Hi, John. This is Mark from HubSpot. I noticed you downloaded our ebook on Facebook marketing best practices. I took a look at your company's Facebook page and had a few suggestions for improving it. I'll email those to you now. Give me a call if you want to discuss.”
[Thursday at 3 p.m.] “Hi, John. Mark again from HubSpot. Great news! I found a customer of ours in your industry who had enormous success with their Facebook marketing strategy. I am going to send you that case study now to give you an idea of the specific tactics they used and the results you should expect. Give me a call if you would like to review it together.”
[Monday at 12 p.m.] “Hi, John. Mark at HubSpot. I actually ran that customer of ours in your industry through our Marketing Grader tool and compared their presence on social media to yours. They scored an 87. You scored a 54. I am going to send you those reports now. It turns out there is a lot more opportunity outside of Facebook in the broader social media area for you. Call me if you want to walk through the report.”
And so on…
Compare this buyer context–oriented approach to the traditional stream of elevator pitches. With which salesperson would you rather engage? The buyer context sales approach is in perfect alignment with the experience the prospective buyer has had with the company thus far. It is educational. It is insightful. It is personalized to his context. It makes engaging with the salesperson feel like the right next step for the prospect to take.
As the salesperson attempts to connect with the buyer through a sequence of voicemails and emails, the salesperson should treat the process like a dialogue. Even though buyers do not always call back, they are usually listening. Add new information into each voicemail. Align the voicemails with the specific interactions the buyers have had with your company.
I will admit that we had a unique advantage at HubSpot when it came to this type of contextual prospecting. The pain points of our prospects were public information. We knew the extent of each prospect's social media presence, their rankings in search engine results, and the effectiveness of their company blog, all without ever speaking with the prospect. Not all sales teams have that luxury.
That doesn't mean you can't use this contextual approach to prospecting. Understand your prospects' context by reviewing the way they found you, the blog article they read, the ebooks they downloaded. From these actions, the salesperson can infer the prospects' specific interests. Share content related to these interests. Tailor the content to the size of their business, their industry, or their role. Instead of suggesting the next step be a demo of your product, suggest a free consultation on whatever topic will pique their interest. Ask one of your internal experts to help. Send your expert's bio to the prospect and offer to connect them on a call. There is so much opportunity to engage with the prospect in a contextual way.
Now, there is a critical element of the modern voicemail sequence that has its roots in traditional, old-school selling strategy. I need to tip my hat to my dad, Rick Roberge, for introducing me to it. Regardless of whether you are coaching your salespeople to leave three voicemails or 12 voicemails, the final message should always be the “going negative” voicemail.
“Hi, John. Mark at HubSpot. I left you a few voicemails with suggestions and best practices on Facebook marketing. I have not heard back from you. I am going to assume that Facebook marketing is no longer a priority for you this year. Give me a call if it ever becomes a priority again.”
For whatever reason, the “going negative” voicemail has the highest callback rate. There must be a psychological phenomenon at work here. In any case, if you have done a good job adding value through the contextual prospecting process, the prospect will likely call you back after this voicemail. You have been providing such great information to them. Why would they want the relationship to end?
[Potential Buyer] “Mark. I am so sorry I have not had a chance to call. It has been crazy over here. The information you have sent me is so helpful. Can you chat at noon tomorrow?”
[Salesperson] “Actually, I am tied up. But, I am free at 2 p.m. Does that work?”
[Potential Buyer] “I do have a meeting scheduled, but you know what? I think I can move it. If you are free at 2 p.m., let's chat then.”
Call Low, Then Call High
“Call high with the elevator pitch.”
That is how a classically trained salesperson approaches cold calling. Find a decision maker. Call with an elevator pitch that would resonate with a decision maker. Perhaps the elevator pitch highlights increased profit margin, or accelerated growth, or decreased COGS.
Now this classically trained salesperson receives her first inbound lead. The lead is from a company that is a perfect fit for the salesperson's product, but the contact is not a decision maker. The contact is a middle manager, or a frontline worker, or even an intern. Unfortunately, the classically trained salesperson does not alter her approach. She calls the contact and leads with her generic elevator pitch—the elevator pitch designed for the decision maker.
This approach is the kiss of death for an inbound lead. Here is what it sounds like:
[Salesperson] “Hi, John. This is Susie from XYZ Company. Do you have a moment?”
[John the Intern] “I guess.”
[Salesperson] “Great. John, we have state-of-the-art technology that helps companies like yours decrease COGS by an average of 20 percent and increase profit margins accordingly. I would love an opportunity to show you how we have done this. Would you be free tomorrow for a chat?”
[John the Intern] “Huh?”
The classically trained salesperson hangs up the phone, yelling to her teammates, “These leads suck.”
No, they don't. The salesperson is simply approaching the lead incorrectly.
The company is a perfect fit for the business, but the initial contact is not a decision maker. The initial contact is an intern.
So what?
Why do you think the intern is doing this research? A decision maker probably told the intern to do the research because the related problem is important to the business right now! So, this means your product can solve an issue that is top of mind for a decision maker. Let's engage in the right way.
There are two strategies the salesperson can take. One strategy is to ignore the initial contact from the inbound lead and instead call the decision maker directly.
“Hi, Mary. This is Mark from HubSpot. We have been receiving a number of inquiries from your team about generating leads through social media. I actually reviewed your Facebook page and had some ideas on how it can be a better lead generator for you. I will send those to you now over email. Call me if you would like to discuss.”
In this example, we leveraged the buyer context from the initial contact and assumed the decision maker had a similar context. It is a reasonable bet.
The alternative strategy, which I prefer, is to call the contact from the lead first and then call the decision maker as a follow-up. I call this strategy “call low, then call high.” When the salesperson calls the contact from the lead, the salesperson needs to engage the contact with a relevant value proposition, which is not necessarily the most appropriate value proposition for the decision maker.
“Hi, John. This is Mark from HubSpot. I noticed you downloaded our ebook on Facebook marketing lead generation. What specific questions did you have?”
This approach frames the conversation around the topics the inbound lead contact cares about. Give the prospect as many free tips and as much free consulting as possible. With each back and forth, the salesperson is developing trust with the prospect. The salesperson is earning the right to ask questions about the needs of the organization and where those needs are originating—for example:
- Why did you decide to research the topic of generating leads through Facebook?
- Was there someone at the company who instructed you to do so?
- Who do you report to? What have they been asking of you lately?
- What is on your CEO's mind these days? What did she talk about at the last company meeting?
- Can you tell me more about your CMO's areas of focus?
If the salesperson is skilled at this approach, she can be quite successful at transforming the inbound lead contact into a “coach.” Do not confuse a “coach” with a “champion.” In most cases, the inbound lead contact does not have enough authority to be considered a “champion.” In other words, the inbound prospect can't influence the organization enough to compel the purchase. However, as a “coach,” the prospect can be useful to provide internal context about the opportunity so that the salesperson is enabled to help the organization more effectively.
Once the interaction with the inbound prospect is completed, the salesperson can now call high to the decision maker.
“Hi, John. This is Mark from HubSpot. I have been working with members of your team on the company's Facebook lead generation strategy. I am aware that the company has recently decided to expand the sales team by 20 percent in Q4 and is working aggressively to identify new sources of qualified leads to provide to the newest members of the sales team. One of our customers in your industry has had great success with generating leads through social media and actually far exceeded the 20 percent lift you are targeting. Would you have a few minutes to walk through the details of their successful strategy?”
Decision makers are busy. They are hard to reach. However, this voicemail maximizes the likelihood that the salesperson can earn some of the decision maker's time.
Prioritize Prospecting by Level of Engagement, Not Alphabetical Order
Grab one of your salespeople today and ask, “Sally, when you come into the office in the morning and start prospecting, how do you decide who to call first?”
If the answer is, “I sort my leads by alphabetical order,” that is not a good sign.
Unfortunately, calling leads in alphabetical order is common at many organizations.
In some cases, the company has a more sophisticated approach and calls the leads on a certain cadence. For example, if company ABC is due for a call today based on when it was last touched, it will automatically be listed in the appropriate salesperson's call queue. This approach is effective in ensuring no leads fall through the cracks, but there are always exceptions.
Pop quiz: here are two leads that your salesperson could call next. Which lead do you think he should prioritize?
- A lead that was called yesterday, but just visited your company's website two minutes ago
- A lead that was called three days ago and is now overdue for a follow-up
Pretty obvious—call the first one…and do it quickly!
The engagement of the lead is the best criteria around which to prioritize prospecting calls. Unfortunately, few sales teams take this approach. As your marketing department attracts more prospects to your company's online presence, your salespeople need to be equipped with access to the details of each prospect's engagement so they can act on the information. Examples of prospect engagement include:
- A lead visited my website
- A lead opened my sales email
- A lead opened an email from my drip marketing campaign
- A lead mentioned a key phrase relevant to my business on social media
- A lead mentioned our company or our competition on social media
- A lead followed our CEO on Twitter
- A lead downloaded one of our ebooks
Salespeople need to know in real time when these engagements are occurring, and should be organizing their prospecting activity accordingly. Forget alphabetical order and deprioritize touch cadences.
Specialize Sales by Inbound versus Outbound
As we have discussed in this chapter, selling to an inbound lead requires a new set of skills. For this reason, specializing the members of your sales team by the types of leads they cover (inbound versus outbound) is a good idea. This specialization is also important for another reason: if a salesperson receives 50 inbound leads per month and is asked to supplement his pipeline with cold calling, that salesperson will not do the cold calls. Salespeople will always look for the path of least resistance to hit their goal. If you do not give a salesperson any inbound leads and tell them they need to hit quota through cold calling, they'll find a way to make it happen.
This is the approach we used at HubSpot as we scaled to $100M in revenue. We had one team that called the inbound leads exclusively. They got really good at using specific tactics to engage with these inbound leads. We got really good at sizing this team in order to optimize the lead flow per salesperson and the time spent on each lead. We had another team that had to get to goal by cold calling. These folks were given business development reps, or BDRs, who made the cold calls and set appointments for the outbound closing specialists. This team could take advantage of targeting perfect-fit companies but had the added task of educating cold prospects and creating pain points.
This tactic of specializing by lead source works really well during the $0 to $100 million journey. I have seen it implemented at many start-ups, and it immediately resolves issues of salespeople refusing to call inbound leads or refusing to make cold calls. In most cases, companies are transitioning from a small team that exclusively makes cold calls to a hybrid structure that accommodates inbound volume. The best thing to do is take your top-performing salespeople and rotate the inbound leads between them. That way, they can start developing the inbound-oriented tactical skills that work best. You can start to experiment with the right lead volume per salesperson and start scaling that team accordingly.
The one pitfall you need to avoid is the excuse from the inbound team that they can't hit their goal because the marketing department is not delivering. Even the inbound team needs to be empowered to hit their goal regardless of marketing's performance. There are a few ways to do this:
- Keep closers as generalists and specialize only the appointment setters by inbound versus outbound strategy. The closing salespeople deal with all opportunities generated, and can allocate their time based on where they (and their appointment setters) are seeing the most action.
- Provide each inbound salesperson with a set of named accounts that they can work in addition to the inbound demand that is coming in.