You Can't Be Too Paranoid About Pre-Qualified Sales Leads

Sometimes when a sales team lays out their specifications for pre-qualified sales leads, some lead generators might think them a bit too paranoid. There might think that there are too many specifications. The channels they demand to be utilized could be beyond available resources (imagine requesting the use of direct mail while you've only barely mastered email marketing). Well, speaking of paranoid, Sarah Lucy of PandoDaily said something similar about Facebook's CEO:

“This is in part the genius of Facebook: It has never become too complacent. Mark Zuckerberg is a classic wartime CEO, even though it may appear he’s long since won this war. He is clearly intensely paranoid, perhaps the most paranoid CEO we’ve seen since the legendary Andy Grove. He might as well have a $60 gillion valuation. He operates the company as if it could crumble at any moment. And that’s why, to date, no social network has come close to toppling it.”

The rest of the opinion article just goes on to say how Zuckerberg's alleged paranoia is what keeps the company standing. However, perhaps there's a point to the man's constant 'overreaction.' This same point can also be applied to marketing (and hence, lead generation). Below you will find two areas where this so-called paranoia is necessary for pre-qualified sales leads.

• Competitors – Like Zuckerberg, it pays to be a little paranoid about what your competitors would do. They're everywhere! And when it comes to B2B marketing, you never know if a potential lead will be approached by them. This is why you need to keep nurturing your leads until they're ready to take the next step (like if they're ready to set an appointment or take a sales call). You also never know when competitors might overtake you so keep an eye on what they may be doing. As it says in the title of Lucy's article: copy-cat tendencies are a sign of strength.

• Prospects – You can't be too paranoid about prospects either! However, you should know by now that 'paranoid' here simply means you can never know enough about them. Learn about their preferred channel for communication. Identify their needs and use that knowledge to bring them further along the sales process. Knowledge is power after all. The more information you have on your B2B leads, the higher the chances you'll have at a successful sale. You can never bee too sure about a prospect.

Still, perhaps 'paranoid' may not really be the best word to use when describing the above behavior. Perhaps a better one would be: vigilance. It's all about keeping an eye on all things and being prepared to time your reactions.

When it comes to competitors, you need to acknowledge their constant presence. Be open to the possibility that they might overtake you. Be open to using what they're using in the event that they do.

For prospects, be vigilant about their qualification. Don't just send the leads to sales right away. Learn as much about them, their business, and their needs as possible so you'll have the best chances to succeed in the sales attempt. If this qualifies your business as paranoid, then so be it!

Modern Marketing Misconceptions Your Appointment Setter Must Avoid

About a month ago, the Harvard Business Review published a three part series that dealt with modern misconceptions among marketing professionals today.

But first, just what is being meant by 'modern'? It's modern because these misconceptions are not only relatively new, they're new because they're spawned from a new idea that originally was very ideal. At the same time, this ideal actually brought very positive results. The misconceptions however are the result of acting upon that ideal in the wrong way.

So what is this ideal? It's simply a strong focus on the consumer and less upon the business. It's the sort of marketing approach that is actually emphasized by channels like social media. Nobody wants a pushy salesman who doesn't care about what customers think. Everyone loves the salesman who kowtows to their demands for information and freedom of choice.

Improve Your Business With Lead Generation

Operating a business can be a hit or miss game, you can't always nail a deal. And when you don't have all the correct information, then you're going to be missing a lot more. However, there is a solution to help you improve your sales: lead generation services. This service can help you and your company find out who you need to be talking to and to see if who you're talking to is the real thing. You can't go looking for people who don't actually exist. And through lead management, you can better organize your lists to fit your needs.
Getting those leads, however, is another story. You may need to hire a company to generate them for you, either that or purchase them. Purchasing leads is a hard deal because you get what you paid for, meaning that if you want better leads, then you're going to have to pay top dollar for it. You don't want to be paying for useless leads. Another option is by hiring a company to do the lead generation services for you. Both methods cost money and one will be more expensive than the other. But if you're a business owner, you can't make money if you don't spend a little. One small investment could yield greater profit for you and your company.
Now that you have those much needed leads, it's time to focus on making your sales. But randomly walking into other people's offices in the middle of the day is not only time consuming, it's not a guarantee on your part. You don't want to be wasting your time not getting any positive results. Enter telemarketing, another service that goes hand-in-hand with lead generation services. By combining these two, you now have a powerful system that not only generates more leads for you, but can do appointment setting. They pre-qualify your prospects for you, meaning that you know who you want to be meeting. This time, it's still hit or miss - but you'll be hitting more.
In this day and age, appointment setting is one of the keys to success. It has helped numerous businesses meet with clients who are very interested in the services they offer. Aside from that, it helps businesses reach out to their target audience to make themselves known. Good leads help in the appointment setting process, they allow much more efficiency. That's why combining telemarketing and lead generation services is a powerful tool to have at your disposal. It can really improve or maximize your sales.
But instead of purchasing leads and hiring a telemarketing company, it is cheaper to find a telemarketing company that can do both at the same time. This allows you to cut back on your costs and make sales at the same time. They can also do appointment setting for you which will aid you in your campaign. The costs won't be that high and the benefits are big. You get to advertise yourself and make sales at the same time, you even generate leads for your company. It's a win-win situation. So how about it? Take some time to invest in this venture and see how it works for you. Lead generation is now a factor in a business’ success, a rapidly growing one. Give it a shot and it may be just what you need.

How to Combine Lead Generation Methods

Finding the right path to business success is sometimes, if not always, a hard and demeaning task to accomplish. If finding one method for generating quality b2b leads is hard enough, then what about looking for two methods to get such leads; or even three?

We must acknowledge the fact that there is not one, true single way to get these leads. For instance, one can implement Internet marketing means such as posting on social networking sites and posting videos on Youtube. Businesses can then mix an online lead generation method by getting the services of highly trained professionals in lead generation companies.

Question is, how can one combine these methods effectively?

If one marketing niche for lead generation and appointment setting is not enough for you then you can combine these methods to form a more powerful campaign. To do this, you can hire and train seasoned Internet marketing professionals to do the online part of your campaign. After which, you can hire the services of telemarketing companies to implement your offline part of your marketing course. Both marketing techniques will then be handled by professionals highly trained in their specific niche in letting your business generate your desired b2b leads.

Implementing two methods for your b2b lead generation and appointment setting campaign will allow one's business to increase the acquisition of financial success to a great degree. Such accomplishment can also be acquired in a shorter amount of time since there are now more hands working on the task.