Recently, I asked 15 marketing automation leaders to define Lead Scoring for me. Every one gave me a different answer!

For decades, salespeople scrunched their faces when I mentioned “how buyers buy”. I heard comments like: “I know what they need.” or “I understand exactly how they buy: price, price, price.”
But sellers only close 7%  of their prospects (and far, far less if using marketing automation).
If you understand how buyers buy, why do you have less than a 40% […]

You get paid based on closed sales. Fortunately, you don’t get paid on the % of sales you don’t close.
But actually, that is exactly what happens: you are missing income on the sales you aren’t closing. But if you based your efforts on the buyer’s decision paths rather than your solution, you can be closing a helluva lot more sales.
THE COST OF […]

Depending on the selling approach you’re using, you are closing between .6% – 7% , regardless of size of solution or industry.
These numbers are far lower than they need to be: so long as your primary focus is on making a sale and you focus on needs assessment and solution choice (factors which are the buyer’s final considerations), and ignore the […]

You’ve done your homework. You’ve found the right buyers – prospects with needs you can fulfill …

Sales folks like having control. You ‘understand the need’, ‘manage the relationship‘, ‘follow the digital footprint’, send the ‘right’ data at the ‘right’ time.
But what, exactly, can you be in control of? You are in control of the details about your solution, and how it’s used in a particular setting, and the data you seek from prospects. You certainly have […]