YOUR GOOD LEADS ARE DYING. HERE’S WHY (AND HOW TO FIX IT)

Two important questions you should be asking yourself:

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Why these questions? Because the focus for measuring demand-

generation progress performance has shifted from documenting

the quantity of leads to demonstrating hard-dollar impact on sales metrics, such as pipeline and revenue.

The thing is, most companies are finding their content isn’t ready

for this challenge.

What percentage of your leads is

CONVERTING TO QUALIFIED PIPELINE?

What percentage of your leads is

CONVERTING TO ACTUAL CLOSED DEALS?

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2.

EXPLOREMORE

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The Conversion GapOften times, content such as eBooks, infographics, and playbooks are created separately by the demand generation and sales enablement or sales training teams. This leads to a lack of consistency between the self-service and sales enablement conversations, confusing your prospects and giving them no reason to leave their status quo situation.

These factors lead to something we call the “Conversion Gap,” an abyss between demand generation and sales enablement/training where conversion rates suffer and good leads go to die.

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Alignment is Everything

Put simply, the primary cause for the conversion gap is a lack of alignment between demand generation and sales enablement/training. And unfortunately, this lack of alignment appears to be rampant.

A recent Corporate Visions survey, which polled more than 420 B2B marketers and sales professionals, found that only 10 percent of companies believe they have complete coordination between demand generation and sales enablement/training.

Opportunity creation: The most important conversation

BELIEVE THEY HAVE COMPLETE COORDINATIONBETWEEN DEMAND-GEN AND SALES ENABLEMENT

only10%

39%39 percent of companies that describe their demand generation and sales training teams as “uncoordinated” or “somewhat coordinated” believe their lack of alignment leads to fewer converted leads and fewer closed deals.

Conversely, 68 percent of companies that describe their teams as “coordinated” or “completely coordinated” believe this has a positive impact on their lead conversion efforts.

Check out more results from the survey here:

Crossing Conversion Gap InfographicBELIEVE LACK OF ALIGNMENT LEADS TO FEWER CONVERTED LEADS AND CLOSED DEALS

WHAT WE ALSO FOUND:

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Opportunity Creation

Another recent Corporate Visions survey shows that nearly 40 percent of marketers and sales professionals identify “opportunity creation” conversations as having the highest impact on helping achieve quota. That level of response was higher than any other conversation type, including “competitive differentiation” and “product presentations.” Yet, only half of participating companies feel prepared for the opportunity creation conversation with the content and training provided to them by their companies.

SAY “OPPORTUNITY CREATION” HAS HIGHEST IMPACT ON ACHIEVING QUOTA

CONVINCE YOUR BUYER TO MAKE A CHANGE AND LEAVE THE STATUS QUO

40%

It’s exactly this dynamic that’s behind the conversion gap. To create a seamless handoff between demand generation and sales—to create opportunity—you need the right kind of content for this tricky sales enablement phase. Because you likely still need to convince your buyer to make a change and leave the status quo.

Check out more results from the survey here:

Bridging the Great Conversation Divide

VIEW MORE RESULTS:

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Tools for the “Why Change” conversationIf your sales enablement content is geared for the “you vs. them” conversation (“Why You”), instead of the “Why Change” one, you may be giving your salespeople the wrong content for the wrong phase of the buying cycle.

Chances are, you still need to convince a buyer to say “yes” to the “Why Change” conversation. You have to persuade buyers to take on a change management project.

What’s the solution? Here are two tools specifically built for this status-quo busting “Why Change” discussion:

• Point of View Whiteboards

• Opportunity Creation Playbook

A few stats to consider: Sales Benchmark Index found that 60 percent of qualified pipeline end up making no decision and elect to stick with their status quo.

What’s more, another analyst firm, Forrester Research, found that only 11 percent of reps get a call back after the first conversation.

For that first meeting, your salespeople need to lead a conversation that’s engaging, memorable, and delivered with purpose. To accomplish this, they need to deliver presentations that are spontaneous, impactful, and dynamically assembled. Static, prepackaged presentations won’t help your reps stand out during this initial conversation.

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Point of View Whiteboards, dynamically assembled in front of prospects, can help your reps address the “Why Change” question. This tool connects the dots between the lead hand-off and first meeting, giving you a specific choreography that moves prospects off their status quo.

“Why Change?”THE POINT OF VIEW WHITEBOARDS:

Pipeline makes no decision

60%

Reps get a call back

ONLY 11%

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How it worksThis visually dynamic tool helps your leads cross the conversion gap by taking prospects from a provocative insight to your solution. Here’s the sequence:

INSIGHT: Tell them something they don’t know about a problem they don’t know they have.

UNSAFE: Show them why their status quo is unsafe and why they can’t get there from where they are.

NEW SAFE: Link the “unsafe” with a “new safe” by showing them a contrasting new path that resolves the risks you’ve identified.

PROOF: Tell a story with contrast about a comparable company that you helped find a “new safe” through your solutions.

THE POINT OF VIEW WHITEBOARDS:

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Why Whiteboards?Did you know: Humans remember only 10 percent of what they heard, just two days after hearing it? But when you add a visual to that presentation, that figure jumps to 65 percent?

This is called the Picture Superiority Effect. Most of us would agree with the old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” But what kinds of pictures are most effective in the areas of engagement, retention, and selling impact?

Stanford Professor Dr. Zakary Tormala found that whiteboard-style visual stories provide a statistically significant advantage compared to static PowerPoint presentations in the areas of clarity, engagement, and retention.

By employing rich, visual storytelling techniques, you’ll really see why pictures—especially hand-drawn ones—are worth a thousand words.

LEARN MORE:

Tormala’s Research on Whiteboard Presentations

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A Seamless Lead Hand-offBuilt for the “Why Change” conversation, Opportunity Creation Playbooks help your salespeople create urgency around a buyer’s status quo situation, then show how your solution is uniquely qualified to resolve those risks.

OPPORTUNITY CREATION PLAYBOOKS:

LEARN THE VALUE OF:

Opportunity Creation Playbooks

The contents of an opportunity creation playbook should:

• Define the status quo. This often involves sizing up an industry. You’re considering how most companies are doing business today. You might consider what tools, processes, and people are in place to accomplish the most important business objectives. You’re also looking to better understand the business rationale behind common industry practices.

• Identify deficiencies. In other words, what challenges, emerging trends, or missed opportunities are creating risk? Where is the status quo falling short in addressing these problems?

• Describe the change. What new needs are emerging that your prospect’s status quo isn’t equipped to address? What unconsidered or overlooked needs must be prioritized and included in a buying checklist?

• Demonstrate the business impact. Speak to the business and financial results of the change management project you’ve proposed. Which of your prospect’s strategic objectives will be improved by it? In what ways will “money flow” be positively impacted?

• Tell a story that shows contrast: How have you helped other companies in similar circumstances fix their problems through a comparable change? Demonstrate specific ways they’re now succeeding because of the change you initiated.

Convince Prospects, It’s Time! So many companies send their salespeople into that first meeting thinking it’s time to convince prospects why they should pick you instead of your competitors.

But at this critical juncture, many buyers have not been sufficiently persuaded that it’s time to make a change. With powerful, visually compelling tools such as “Why Change” Whiteboards, and status quo-busting conversation guides like Opportunity Creation Playbooks, your salespeople now have the tools they need to make sure your qualified leads convert.

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LEARN MORE:

Sales Strategies to Ensure Generated Demand Gets Closed

Call toll free: 1.800.360.SELL (US only)

Phone: +1 415.464.4400 | Fax: +1 775.831.9676

Email: info@corporatevisions.com

Copyright © 2015 Corporate Visions® Inc. All rights reserved.

Corporate Visions is a leading marketing and sales messaging, tools, and skills company that helps global B2B companies create more sales opportunities, win more deals and increase sales profitability by improving the conversations salespeople have with customers. Companies engage Corporate Visions to help in three key areas:

• Developing compelling messages to break the status quo, differentiating their solution, justifying a purchase decision and protecting margins;

• Deploying that message through tools and visual stories to enable salespeople to engage multiple decision makers across the buying cycle; and

• Delivering sales skills training that helps salespeople confidently use these messages and tools to create, elevate and capture more value in their customer conversations.

Corporate Visions helps clients such as ADP, Motorola, Philips, UPS, Cisco and others align marketing and sales with a repeatable approach for developing and delivering winning customer conversations.

CONVERSATIONS THAT WIN

Conversations That Win