Why do we bother with all this technology? That's easy to answer ... Because it's cool!

Wrong

It's because we know applying it to our business (when done properly) helps grow our business. Actually it's all about selling stuff ... Because as a wise man once said, "Nothing happens in business until someone sells something..." or words to that effect.

What amazes most folks is that people buy when they're ready to buy - not before. Not on your calendar, or your sales departments calendar - but their calendar. Not very sporting of them is it?

To make matters worse, according to Gartner Research "67% of the prospective buyers who tell you NO today will be ready to buy in the next year."

So that means after all the work it took to 'make that pitch' the prospect is likely to say "No thanks" and wander off ... Only to buy within 12 months anyway. The cheek of it!

I thought you'd find this interesting:

48% of companies quit "selling" on the 1st attempt
24% on the 2nd
12% on the 3rd
6% on the 4th
10% quit on the 5th

And this is the cherry on the proverbial pie... 81% of all sales close on (or after) the 5th touch (sales attempt.)

Amazing isn't it?

So this means that if you warm up a client and then quit before the actual sale is made, you are working for the competition -- because the client doesn't really care how many "touches" they got from whom ... Just that they did.

And paying your sales force to follow up with every single lead is expensive (and doesn't scale well either) not to mention the fact it's human nature to drop leads that seem to be going nowhere.

So what can you do about it? The answer lies in automation.

Consider implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System with a full suite of automated follow-up marketing processes to support your sales team. Doing this allows your business to process 100% of sales leads - no matter the calibre. Using automated sales and marketing also pre-warms and pre-qualifies leads so your sales team can do what it does best - focus on the 'serious' clients who will become evident during the process.

In conclusion, don't treat every lead equally - they're not. But don't assume you can determine the quality because you typically cannot. That's why you need a system to process your leads efficiently and effectively and a CRM with automated processes is one excellent solution.

Technology often fails to sell because whoever's doing the selling - whether it's a sales professional working with an external prospect or an IT director trying to "sell" the CIO - isn't doing a very effective job helping the prospect understand the business value of said investment.

From where I sit, if I get a call from a CRM vendor telling me how great automation is, I doubt I'll say yet even after a dozen calls. But if that CRM guy is able to get into my business head and articulate his offering's value proposition in a way that makes sense to my business, I'm sold.

Which reinforces the overriding point that we're not really talking about technology at all, are we? Or at least we shouldn't be.

Carmi

Agreed.

It's NOT about the technology, it's about the psychology.

Yes, the focus is regularly wrong which is why most people suck at sales...

Sales isn't about me, it's all about you and yours. But that's a whole other post

Wow - many interesting thoughts in this thread! Let me see if I can bring a little additional focus to three that struck me...

Working backwards from the third post - it's certainly true that psychology has a huge influence on whether people are good or bad sales people. Let's face it - no one likes rejection (why are there so many authors who never send out manuscripts? Or so many wallflowers at a dance?). Rejection is an inevitable part of sales, though...so we either hire only masochists, or we hire people who learn to compartmentalize rejection, rationalize it as "part of the process," and move on. Even these people are likely to need support, though (rationalization will get you through a rejection, and on to the next call - but will it get you through five "no's" from the same customer?). Here, the use of automation - as per the initial post - would be of huge benefit, since it helps to keep the process moving even as human motivation flags.

With respect to Carmi's post - I think this has a tremendous impact on the type of opportunities that we can address. I believe that IT buyers basically start from two positions - "I need a product" or "I need a solution to a business problem." Buyers in the first category are generally replacing something that already exists in their infrastructure - and as James/Gartner point out, these purchases are aligned with the buyer's upgrade/replacement cycle, not the seller's quarterly quota. Buyers who are looking to solve a business problem have a starting point that is further away from a transaction than the "I need an upgrade/replacement product" buyers. These folks may not be saying "no" directly to close-oriented pitches five or more times before they make an acquisition, but they will certainly need a large number of "touches" before they get to a purchase.

To the original point...I attended a Marketing Sherpa conference a few years ago that discussed the need for parallel funnels. One was the traditional sales funnel, and the other was a lead nurturing funnel that a prospect entered at the first "no," and through which the prospect was managed until he/she was ready to make a "yes" decision (for your product, or a competitor's). It struck me at the time that this is a better sales model than the traditional one-funnel approach, and I still believe that it is. Using technology to manage this parallel funnel, and to ensure that there is no leakage from the system between "We see a need within the buyer's organization for our product/service" and "the buyer has resolved the issue that our product/service addresses" would go a long way to improving the sales success of virtually any organization, and would provide some evidence that IT-enabled sales management systems are more about "selling" than "cool"...