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ARTICLES:

• Nominations End October 29th for 2010 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management
• SLMA Radio Interviews with Movers and Shakers in Sales Lead Management
• Book Review: The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance
• Small Changes to Trade Show Follow Up Leads to Big Success - by Chris Tremblay, President Event Technologies
• Chasing Leads- Offline Lead Tracking in SEM Campaigns - by Brian Cooper
• Major Trends Pushing Marketing Automation Software- by Lauren Carlson, CRM Analyst, at Software Advice
• Leads 360: Strike While the Iron is Hot!
• How Social Media Can Help Your Business by John Foley Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially.

Articles:

Nominations End October 29th for 2010 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management

Nominations for the SLMA yearly voting on the 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management will end on October 29th.    Voting from the list of nominees will begin November 1st and end November 30th.  The winners of the vote will be published on December 6th, 2010. 

Nominations are only taken from members (membership is free).  However, non-members may nominate someone once they join SLMA.

Votes may be cast by members and non-members. 

Read the full details >>

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SLMA Radio Interviews with Movers and Shakers in Sales Lead Management

Since SLMA launched its talk radio program in July we have interviewed 17 CEO or CMOs.    The information in these interviews is informative and inspiring.  If you’d like to hear the interviews go to SLMA Radio and scroll down the list and listen to some uncommon wisdom.   To listen live each week go to SLMA Radio and click on"Listen Live at 5 PM PST Thursdays" and then Click Listen Here, Listen Live.

SLMA Radio guests to date have been:

1. Phil Fernandez, CEO of Marketo
2. Joe Payne, CEO of Eloqua
3. Dan McDade, CEO of PointClear
4. Laura Patterson CEO of Vision Edge Marketing
5. Carlos Hidalgo, President of The Annunitas Group
6. Russell Kern, President of the Kern Organization
7. Lisa Cramer, CEO LeadLife Solutions
8. Gary Slack, Chief Experience officer and CEO  of Slack Barshinger and the Business Marketing Association
9. Dan Rogers, CEO of AdTrack Corporation
10. Andy Brownell, CMO of LeadMaster, Russ King, CEO of LeadMaster
11. Mac McIntosh, The Sales Lead Expert
12. Mari Anne Vanella, CEO of the Vanella Group
13. Marge Bieler, CEO of RareAgent
14. Fred Yee, CEO of Active Conversion
15. Jill Konrath, Chief Sales Officer of Selling to Big Companies
16. Jeff Solomon, SVP and co-founder of Leads360.
17. John Foley, CEO of Grow Socially.

Upcoming Guests and Commentators are:

1. Phil Fernandez of Marketo (commentary)
2. Jeff Solomon of Leads360 (commentary)
3. Jeff Pedowitz  CEO of the Pedowitz Group
4. John Hasbrouck, CEO of NewLeads
5. Mike Michalowicz author of the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
6. Mike Emerson, CEO of Birst Business Intelligence
7. Anneke Seley author of Sales 2.0
8. Michael Falkson, CEO of eti Sales Support
9. Victor Kippes, CEO of Validar
10. Dan McDade,  (commentary)

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Book Review: The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance

by George W. Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson

Reviewer: Paul McCord

List Price: $22.95

Seldom do I review a bok that has been on the market for years, much less decades. But I ran across myold beat up copy of the Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance: Earning What You're Worth in Sales and decided sincde the book was in such poor condition I'd order the newest edition. After reading it again, I thought I'd do my small part ot encourage as many sellers and sales leaders as possible to pick up a copy and set aside some time for some serious - and potentially highly productive reading.

Authors George W.Dudley and Shannon L. Goodson are psychologists who have spent decades researching one of the key barriers to sales success - call reluctance. The Pychology of Sales Call Reluctance: Earning What You're Worth in Sales (Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Inc: 5th Edition 2008) is designed to help sellers and sales leaders recognize the issues that are keeping them from prospecting effectively and to overcome them.

View the full review here >>

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Small Changes to Trade Show Follow Up Leads to Big Success

Chris Tremblay, President Event Technologies

Of course, every sales manager feels the pressure of the pending quarter close.  A sales analytics application can provide a fact-based answer to one of the toughest challenges—delivering a realistic and defendable forecast.  Every sales executive and their lieutenant in sales operations knows the drill—run the reports, populate the master spreadsheet, estimate the probability of close, and make a best guess for the final number.  And if you are like most, you worry about your forecast and your ability to allocate all of your resources to get the desired results.

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Chasing Leads: Offline Lead Tracking in SEM Campaigns, Pt. 2

by Scott Buresh, Medium Blue

The newly coined term 'results measurement' is used by companies to define the purposes of lead tracking in SEM campaigns, and is a valuable means of understanding the many decision factors your prospects use to choose your company for its products/services. A finely-tuned lead tracking channel - often aided by your search engine marketing company – demonstrates to the potential customer that his or her inquiry about your company's products/services was received with a sense of urgency.
For SEM campaigns, proper lead tracking may not be the only fast track solution to increased sales, but does give potential customers insight into how your company values its leads. With a greater ability to track leads and responses, an immediate follow-up is also possible, allowing prospects to decide if your response time was fast enough and if your company provided a better customer experience than your competitors.

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Major Trends Pushing Marketing Automation Software

by Lauren Carlson, CRM Analyst, at Software Advice

Marketing automation software is arguably the hottest segment of the CRM industry. While it was a relatively quiet niche several years ago, marketers are now adopting these systems aggressively. Vendors such as Eloqua, Marketo and Pardot are reaping the benefits and growing fast. The marketing automation software industry clearly has a steady tailwind at its back.
These tailwinds are actually someone else's headwinds. The increasingly challenging B2B sales environment is forcing companies to explore new ways to market and sell their products. We've experienced these challenges first-hand through our phone calls with thousands of business software buyers. A confluence of trends is changing the way business buyers purchase, making marketing automation software essential.

Let us outline the macro trends that we see pushing buyers towards adoption of marketing automation.

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Leads 360: Strike While the Iron is Hot!

Previous Leads360 research has illustrated that a contact strategy incorporating swift speed-to-call, a six-call approach,
and optimal timing between call attempts, maximizes the chance of converting a new inquiry. This new research
demonstrates that a sophisticated lead response strategy should also include responding to leads received outside the
classic work week (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm). The study concludes that leads received and responded to outside the classic
work week were 11% more likely to be converted compared to the average. Additionally, leads received on Saturdays,
while low in volume, convert 10% better than the average inquiry.

Read the full story (PDF) >>

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How Social Media Can Help Your Business

By John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially 

Social media adds an enormous amount of value in terms of business networking, establishing expert credibility and sharing industry content nowadays.  Before social media, you were pressured to pack a year’s worth of networking, business ideas and proposals into conferences that only occurred a few times a year.  With social media, you can easily promote yourself and your business every day to business colleagues without any stress at all.  Social media gives you the opportunity to share your portfolio in creative ways, it gives you a chance to be an industry expert in online discussions and it helps you become easily approachable for people who are curious to learn more about how you can help their business.   

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