Jeff Fischer, Marketing Director

Given that the overwhelming, number 1 challenge, of Marketers is developing qualified sales leads, one must consider how the changing landscape of how solutions and services are sold today will impact your growth tomorrow.  Few would argue that a dramatic shift is underway in how products and solutions are sold today.  How a marketer lays out their “Sales 2.0 Strategy” will be critical to the success of their solution and/or product achieving acceptance in the marketplace.  At OnTarget, we are committed to both consulting with and implementing these strategies for our clients.  To that end, we have spent considerable resources on following the trends of “Sales 2.0. Practices”, and have begun to offer these services to our clients.  So, in the coming year, we will be asking the relevant questions of our clients:  How do you build awareness?  How do you develop interest and consideration?  How do you develop a Sales Opportunity? How do you ensure accurate and timely follow-up? And ultimately, how do you close a sale? 

Each company needs an expert in operations, product excellence, and truly understanding their customer in order to move to a “Sales 2.0 Environment.”  What are your customers saying about you?  Where are they saying it?  Who are the key influencers driving purchasing decisions?  Clearly, there are many questions that we have posed, and frankly, we don’t have all of the answers.  We welcome your stories in how you have used “Sales 2.0” tactics to drive your sales process, and begin to move to a “provocation-based” selling atmosphere.  It is not important to have all of the answers, what is first needed is asking all of the questions, and beginning to take these concepts as something that is important from both a tactical and strategic viewpoint.  What we can say, for certain, is that successful people, strategy, process, and technology are all needed, working together, to drive sales, and increase revenue.

Jeff Fischer, Marketing Director

Check it out!  It’s true!  We made it!  http://www.cox.smu.edu/web/guest/press-releases/-/blogs/smu-cox-recognizes-dallas-entrepreneurs-at-the-20th-annual-dallas-100%E2%84%A2-awards?_33_redirect=/web/guest/press-releases  OnTarget has been named one of Dallas’ fastest growing private companies in 2010.  We are honored to be included in this list, and wish to thank our valued clients who have helped make this achievement possible.  We were honored to attend an event at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Downtown Dallas to be recognized, and hob-knob with our fellow Dallas peers.  That “I.M. Pei” is one exceptional architect, and of course, the building is a tribute to how one’s mood can be uplifted by great design, and execution.

The event itself was first class without being too pretentious.  Carl Sewell, of Automobile Dealership fame (and someone that our CEO, Ed, has studied throughout his career), was the speaker and he gave a great speech. We like to think that here at OnTarget, we strive to implement Carl’s vision each and every day.  “Listen to your customers, and then listen some more” was a core theme in what made Carl so successful.  Then go out and determine what “best” really means for your customers (hint: it can be different for each customer) and give them what they want.  And by all means value your employees, and give them ownership to make their own decisions, with their own responsibilities.  The truth is that we would not have gotten to this point without the dedication and commitment of our employees who keep our clients top of mind everyday as they (hopefully) have a great deal of fun working here.  The reality is that we have a long, long way to go, and as we continue down the path to be a better company, and deliver increasing value to our clients, we hope to have fun along the way.

Scott Bratcher, VP of Operations

You know I have read a lot of articles and blog posts related to this topic and everyone always screams quality, quality, quality. Now I am not here to disagree with those opinions (in fact, I agree with most of them) but I do want to tell you that although quality is very important, there must be a level of quantity in a demand creation campaign to justify its existence. The quantity/quality spectrum does not just have 2 points on a line but instead has hundreds of points between the two. We always want to lean toward the quality side but we have to understand there has to be a component of quantity to ensure success. I like to compare this to baseball. You can throw the best hitters in baseball a fastball right down the middle and on average only 1 out of 3 times will they get a hit. This same element is true for most sales people as well. We can get them the highest quality lead but that does not ensure they can close it. This dilemma is why we marketers not only have to get the sales team “fastballs down the middle“, but as many as possible so they can have multiple chances to “get a hit.”

Look at it another way, as marketers we know that we have to send the sales team leads that are as qualified as possible – otherwise, we run the risk of the sales team rejecting the leads or accepting them and never following up. Herein lies another dilemma – once a lead is passed over to the sales team we marketers lose control. No matter how qualified that lead was, if the member of the sales team that received the lead does not close it, it must have been “crap” in their minds. We must continue to feed them qualified sales leads to ensure they have multiple chances to close a deal.

The bottom line is whether you run a lead generation or appointment setting campaign internally, or utilize a third party vendor, you have to create a certain level of qualified sales leads, without ignoring the element of quantity.

Scott can be reached at 214-618-4956, or via email at sbratcher@ontargetpartners.com.

Adam Linscomb, Director of Delivery

Timing is everything. A vitally essential tenet to the success of any sales & marketing team is timeliness. In past corporate generations, the “word of mouth” method of discovering new leads (that are congruent with the service offering) too often led to hap-hazard, guess-based strategies. Making a blind call or inquiry into a company to gauge interest in a value-added service, without proper knowledge of need, budget, etc., can lead to a significant number of “dead-ends,” and in the long run, puts a great deal of strain on resources (a basic mis-step when evaluating Opportunity Cost).

In today’s corporate landscape, a robust increase in number of providers coupled with the ability of an industry’s largest vendors to adapt to a greater scope of needs, time (or more appropriately, timing) is more important than ever. A premium is placed on finding the right opportunity at precisely the right time. Unlike the “good fortune” method discussed above, companies can no longer afford to sift blindly through the marketplace hoping to strike a hot lead by chance. A company with little to no sense of timing continues to come up short, while rival companies reap rewards for their assertiveness based on prior knowledge of Trigger Events. Event-triggered marketing allows an organization to “rise above the noise” of other (competing) vendors, giving them the valued leverage of being able to say that they were the first in the door, the first to hear the news and (perhaps most importantly) the first to be proactive.

Does your organization have a plan in place to monitor the corporate landscape in real-time? Do you have the resource bandwidth to be able to properly and proactively pursue leads before they might even be considered leads? Most companies would say no. Allow your sales & marketing team better “at-bats” by equipping them for success: purchase them the commodity of time.

Jeff Fischer, VP of Marketing

Increasingly, companies – both large and small – are realizing that an integrated CRM is no longer a luxury, but is increasingly becoming a mandatory component to the operation. With a staggering number of options available, how does one choose what is right for business today, as well as tomorrow? Does one maintain the data in-house or use a SAAS model, supported by an outside provider? How will a CRM integrate to an existing ERP?

Unfortunately, some of the difficult questions posed above can not be answered in a vacuum. The people wanting to have this discussion are the same ones that simply want to sell you an integrated package that will allegedly cure all your ills. Therefore, it is our hope that we can begin a discussion with some of the experiences that you have had with your CRM and how you found, or perhaps are still looking for, a solution. Next week, stay tuned for a frightful story about our experience with CRM integrations.

Jeff Fischer, VP of Marketing

The skills that your Sales Team possess are typically not conducive to what may be referred as “cold calling.” Getting the right people on the phone to determine interest level in a particular product or solution is more of an art, rather than a science.  There is no magic bullet.  Individuals, stemming from a wide & diverse background, are typically more effective as they are able to speak to what drives new business:  Solving Key Business Objectives.

Think about it.  What solution has ever been sold that did not help to address a key business issue or directive?  Be it cutting costs with F&A, A/P, A/R, HRO, to providing some software that helps drive new revenue, all solutions, ultimately purchased, address a Key Business Objective – otherwise, proposals go to die on the Executive vine.   In fact, asking questions, and listening (after preparation, and proper introduction) are the ways to determine if a Sales Opportunity exists.  An outside firm, setting you up for success, is not trying to “sell, sell, sell” over the more important aspect of listening, and uncover key business issues – issues that may or may not be germane to the solution being offered.  With that said, have you considered an outside firm to help you close your deals and assist you with warm calling?

Scott Bratcher, VP of Operations

When trying to gain an understanding of how a particular contact fits into the operations of a company, organization, or buying unit, the title of the individual can only tell you so much.  Some titles that have multiple meanings include the following:  COO; CAO; Director of IS/IT; HRO Director; CBO Director; Director of Accounting; Controller; Director of Purchasing; Director of Materials Management; Director of Sourcing, etc.  One has a better chance of understanding how they fit into the organization using a Ouija board vs. guessing by their title.

Additionally, there is no common standard that business use to delineate what a title might stand for – and commercial business typically uses different Titles than government agencies, non-profits, NGO’s, etc.  To that end, one most consider the individuals’ functional area of responsibility to shed some light about where buying decisions are coming from.

There is no short-cut to finding out an executive’s or contacts functional area of responsibility within their particular enterprise:  primary and secondary research.  When considering how your sales team will use contact lists, one must look at capturing this information.  A firm with access to secondary research tools, and with the knowledge and expertise to understand how to call and have these questions answered accurately, is your source of help in developing your business leads.

Jeff Fischer, VP of Marketing

Mergers, Acquisitions, Consolidations, Bankruptcies:  All big words making headlines in today’s industries.  For the marketer trying to sell goods and services into this vertical, knowing who’s who today, and keeping up with the changes, can be like keeping up with where that damn second sock ended up in your clothes’ basket or dryer.

Executives, SVP’s, VP’s, Directors, Managers, come and go at an ever-increasing rate.  Keeping up with contact’s functional area of responsibility becomes increasingly more difficult for your marketing and sales teams.  Who is the correct executive to target? What is their new role within the entity?  How do you even begin to develop a good target list for pursuit?  Marketers can not afford to have their sales teams wasting effort on the wrong contact.

Certainly, a quick search of the internet will yield many firms, willing to sell data to you, on the cheap.  “Executive Contact Lists”, “Free Business Lists Available”, “Finance Leads” – are but a small sampling of many of the hooks used.  Unfortunately, if a marketer, who is often working on developing leads to input into their CRM, relies on the voracity (or lack thereof) of this data, they are headed for white water.

Managing data deterioration is focusing on the following factors:

• How recently was the data updated?
• What is the functional area of responsibility of the contact?
• How complete and accurate is the information?
• Was the information verified – and if so, how?

Happy Hunting to you all – remember the old adage (albeit a bit changed):  if it was really cheap, it will end up costing you in other ways – such as wasted time and effort.