Sales Lead Management Today

The Power of Planning: Getting What You Asked for!

Tom and I met at a Sushi restaurant, something we’ve done once or twice a year since I consulted with his company on sales/marketing and planning several years ago.   Tom is his company’s VP of Operations, and we try to meet regularly to discuss the company’s progress, but we had not had a meaningful discussion in nine months.

Two years ago I moderated their sales and marketing plan.  The end result was a full Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) assessment, a plan with Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics, etc.  As we started in on our pot sticker shrimp appetizer, I handed over the planning document and asked him, “Well, will you make the $X Million product goal for Z Product and $X Million for Y Product this year, as set out in the plan?” 

He smiled as he took the document, looked at the goals and said, “Yes, we will make these numbers.”  He beamed, and then looked more deeply into the plan. 

As he flipped through the pages he said, “Of course we worked the plan in the months after the planning meeting, but the review meetings faded away as everyone got busy.  Yet, as I look through the tactics, I see that even without the review meetings most of it got done, and here we are at the two-year mark having made goal. That’s neat.”

I chalked it up to an example of the power of positive thinking and putting that thinking down on paper.  It’s the power of getting a team to think together and explore the company’s strengths and weaknesses, while identifying opportunities and threats.  It’s the power of creating goals, objectives and plans to accomplish it all, with assigned tactics and dates for completion. 

Having review meetings is helpful, but it’s the thinking and the recording that make a difference.   It’s having tactical assignments along with corresponding dates and the names of those who are responsible that makes it work.   It’s the power of team thinking.  

But ultimately, Tom and I agreed, it’s the power of planning.  

 

Its that time of the year to create your own plan.  Create a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) document.  From that create your goal (usually 2-3 years in the future), then create the Objectives, Strategies and Tactics.  All tactics need a person responsible for its achievement and a date for completion.  No exceptions.  

 

Tomorrow, another planning entry: Creating the marketing plan based on a sales lead forecast. 

  

 This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, VanillaSoft and GoldMine CRM Software. 

 

 

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SLMAReco Read ON24 Survey Finds B2B Marketers Plan to Double Down on Analytics in 2015

Two years ago I moderated their sales and marketing plan.  The end result was a full Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) assessment, a plan with Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics, etc.  As we started in on our pot sticker shrimp appetizer, I handed over the planning document and asked him, “Well, will you make the $X Million product goal for Z Product and $X Million for Y Product this year, as set out in the plan?” 

He smiled as he took the document, looked at the goals and said, “Yes, we will make these numbers.”  He beamed, and then looked more deeply into the plan. 

As he flipped through the pages he said, “Of course we worked the plan in the months after the planning meeting, but the review meetings faded away as everyone got busy.  Yet, as I look through the tactics, I see that even without the review meetings most of it got done, and here we are at the two-year mark having made goal. That’s neat.”

I chalked it up to an example of the power of positive thinking and putting that thinking down on paper.  It’s the power of getting a team to think together and explore the company’s strengths and weaknesses, while identifying opportunities and threats.  It’s the power of creating goals, objectives and plans to accomplish it all, with assigned tactics and dates for completion. 

Having review meetings is helpful, but it’s the thinking and the recording that make a difference.   It’s having tactical assignments along with corresponding dates and the names of those who are responsible that makes it work.   It’s the power of team thinking.  

But ultimately, Tom and I agreed, it’s the power of planning.  

 

Its that time of the year to create your own plan.  Create a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) document.  From that create your goal (usually 2-3 years in the future), then create the Objectives, Strategies and Tactics.  All tactics need a person responsible for its achievement and a date for completion.  No exceptions.  

 

Tomorrow, another planning entry: Creating the marketing plan based on a sales lead forecast. 

  

 This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, VanillaSoft and GoldMine CRM Software. 

 

Infographic - The Best Practices for Lead Response: Offered by Insidesales.com

This infographic is very interesting.  It is based on the research of James Oldroyd, PHD, visiting research fellow at M.I.T. &  David Elkington, CEO of InsideSales.com

Nice single page infographic published in the Hardboard Business Review. 

How should your sales team be responding to marketing leads? InsideSales.com research identified 3 best practices for optimal sales results.

Learn:

• Best days of the week to make contact.
• Best times to make contact
• What happens if you call after five minutes 
• What is the fall-off between 5 and 10 minutes
• How persistence plays a huge role
• Average call attempts per rep

Our take on it:

• Information priceless
• Don't print it out as it is useless to try and read.
• View on your screen.

 Author Elkington and some of his crew have been nominated in the election for the 40 Most Inspiring Leaders in Sales Lead Management. 

Aside : Mick Hollison, CMO at InsideSales was on the SLMA Radio program with the topic: How to Increase Sales 30% in 90 Days. 

Disclaimer:  InsideSales is not a sponsor of the SLMA.    This review does not have the approval of InsideSales. 

 This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, VanillaSoft and GoldMine CRM Software. 

 

 

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Salary for Chief Marketing Technologist

Product Marketing Manager Salaries

As is normal, location and industry make a big difference in salaries for a position.  There can also be a significant difference in total compensation – all in with benefits.   

SimplyHired: Average $75,000

Average Product Marketing Manager Salaries

The average salary for product marketing manager jobs is $75,000. Average product marketing manager salaries can vary greatly due to company, location, industry, experience and benefits.  This salary was calculated using the average salary for all jobs with the term "product marketing manager" anywhere in the job listing.

 Product Marketing Manager Salary Information

This free salary calculator uses salary data from millions of job listings indexed by Simply Hired's job search engine. The product marketing manager salary comparisons feature allows job seekers to get the information required to make important career decisions and negotiate salary ranges.

For additional product marketing manager salary information, we recommend visitingPayscale.com.   So we did:

Payscale.com

Product Marketing Manager Salary MEDIAN: $83,874  (United States)

Product Marketing Managers in the United States can expect to earn an average of $84K annually. In the world of Product Marketing Managers, total cash compensation can vary between $53K and $135K. Each package generally includes bonuses and profit sharing proceeds, and in exceptional cases, those amounts can reach heights of $20K and $19K, respectively. The company is the biggest factor affecting pay for this group, followed by geography and experience level. Nearly all enjoy medical while most get dental coverage. Vision coverage is also available to a strong majority. Men working as Product Marketing Managers who took the survey just slightly outnumber women at 56 percent. The majority of workers are highly satisfied with their job. The information for this rundown comes from respondents who completed PayScale's salary questionnaire.

Glassdoor

National Avg    $111,587

 Product Marketing Manager Salaries

1,123 Salaries    Updated Nov 18, 2021

 This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, VanillaSoft and GoldMine CRM Software. 

 

 

10 Reasons to Prioritize ELEVATE - 30 Speakers

The SLMA endorses the Elevate Event Sales Kickoff Event.  The speakers are tremendous and we are looking forward to the program.  Velocify did not pay for this endorsement.

By Nick Hedges

If you are a sales professional or work with sales in any capacity, ELEVATE is an event not to miss. This free virtual sales kickoff sponsored by Velocify and the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP), will help you and your team perform at their highest level in the coming year with access to more than 30 of the greatest minds in sales.

Still not convinced? Here are 10 reasons to attend ELEVATE:

AMA CEO Russ Klein on Contact Marketing and the Future of Marketing.Listen While You Work

Stu Heinecke; host of Contact Marketing, a program on the SLMA Live Channel, interviews American Marketing Association CEO Russ Klein (right).  Russ joins Stu to talk about Contact Marketing and how it fits into the best and next practices of marketing and selling plus and how it all fits into the current AMA mission.

 

Host Stu Heinecke and Russ Klein discussed:

• How do you reach hard-to-reach people?
• What is the one question you can ask to get a conversation with hard to reach people?
• What is Karaoke Marketing?
• What is best versus next practices?
• What is Best Person – Best Practices?
• What are AMA Best Practices?

Russ Klein
CEO
American Marketing Association

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ActiveConversion Joins the Sales Lead Management Association as a Hi-Visibility Sponsor

 

November 16, 2021 - - Bellevue, WA - - James Obermayer, CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association, announced that ActiveConversion is now a Hi-Visibility sponsor for the SLMA.   “We are intrigued that ActiveConversion provides a single tool to measure marketing and enhance sales,” he said. “Their sales and marketing platform for industrial companies uses an “intelligence process” to nurture and advance the most likely sales prospects through the sales cycle.  Measurement seems to be their mantra and that fits nicely with the Sales Lead Management Association’s 8,200 members.”

Fred Yee, CEO of ActiveConversion commented: “ActiveConversion is proud to be a sponsor of SLMA, which represents companies that are leaders in sales lead generation and management. ActiveConversion’s leadership in sales and marketing systems for manufacturers, distributors and other industrial sectors fit well with SLMA’s goals.”

Is Marketing Automation Leading or Bleeding Edge? Listen While You Work!

In this interview with Justin Gray, CEO of LeadMD we discuss how to avoid being part of the 87% of marketing automation users who fail. The host this week is Susan Finch.   Lively program, great insight. 

It’s one thing to buy a marketing automation tool and install it. Its another thing to use it every day to manage and nurture, your most precious asset: sales leads. And yet some would say that this leading edge technology could be aptly named bleeding edge because of the effort it extracts from the users to make it work.

Justin Gray , CEO & Chief Marketing Evangelist

You might know Justin from the incredible amounts of quality best practices content

Listen While You Work: How can Sales KPI's Make a Sales Manager Outperform Competitors?

In this interview with Pipeliner CEO Nikoluas Kimla and John Golden, Chief Strategy officer for Pipeliner, they discuss the five KPIs that every sales manager should use to understand how to coach their teams to extraordinary success. The host is SLMA's Jim Obermayer.

Watch now:

Key Performance Indicators aren't new, but for many sales managers KPI's aren't defined, tracked or used as pointers to help them manage salespeople. Maybe it is the lack of easy to use tools to track KPIs.  Maybe it is the sales manager's inability to understand how they can use KPIs to look at the past and predict the future;  regardless, the excuses aren't valid anymore. 

About Nikolaus Kimla

Nikolaus is a true entrepreneur: over the last 40 years he has created six businesses, three of which are still going strong today. His experience in the software industry goes back over 20 years to his founding of uptime ITechnology. Through his work at uptime he learned software development from the ground up and, as noted above, the company has been a resounding success.

Go Figure: 98% of Exhibit Money is Spent on Showing Up, Only 2% on Lead Acquisition

Before I start, let me preface my remarks by saying that exhibit management, pound for pound, produces more wealth for their firm than anyone else in the company.  My belief is they create more qualified leads that close with fewer touches than most other lead sources.  But they can do more; 300% more with little effort or money!

That said, “Why” I ask, “does an exhibits manager who chooses the best space, builds terrific exhibits, selects the best freight lines, understands booth traffic flow, writes  signage that stops people in their tracks, creates theaters and entertainment, negotiates the best hotel rates, sets up exhibits in record time, deals with unions, creates special events surrounding the trade show, all to attract the best prospects, and then breaks it all down in 24 hours, fail so miserably when it comes to trade show lead acquisition?” 

We have to ask, "What is an exhibit all about if not to talk to and get the names of prospects to increase revenue for the company?” Hey exhibits manager, it’s all about leads.  Of course the manager says, “Well, I ordered the trade show lead acquisition system that will read the badges, what more do you want?” 

“I’d like the most qualified leads the exhibits manager can create, but frankly, most rental systems available from show organizers don’t cut it.”  A $300-$500 system that provides nothing but name, company, address, maybe a phone number, and maybe an email address (20% of this information likely wrong anyway) isn’t enough.

Why it’s important:

“Why do exhibit managers always go cheap on the sales lead acquisition system?

It’s a costly mistake that reduces the return on show investment by 200-300%.”

Sales Lead Management Association Opens Voting for the ’40 Most Inspiring Leaders in Sales Lead Management’

6,000 to 10,000 votes expected in search for Leaders in Sales Lead Management Field 

Bellingham, WA - - November 5, 2021 - - The Sales Lead Management Association announced that it has opened the virtual voting booth to determine the ‘40 Most Inspiring Leaders in the field of Sales Lead Management’ for 2015.   Those voting must be members and membership is free. This is the seventh year for the election.

“Those who manage sales leads manage sales growth and marketing