I’ve worked for large companies in the past, and I never realized the effort that goes into balancing associate time off with company objectives…until I talked with Terry Schilling at Tugboat Software.

Tugboat Software specializes in Labor Scheduling and Vacation Scheduling Software for medium to large companies. To properly set up their EchoQuote instance, I needed to understand as much as possible about Labor and Vacation Scheduling Software, and how customers purchase it.

Labor Scheduling Software

The variables in Labor Scheduling are endless. For typical labor scheduling, one company has a requirement to move employees from job to job on an hourly basis; it reduces worker boredom and improves cross training. The software must handle that.

Vacation Scheduling Software

For Vacation Scheduling, organizational priorities must be blended with employee self-service functions. For example, the organization may designate some vacation blocks as “first-come-first-served” with instant approval. Other requests must be reviewed and approved by management based on seniority, vacation credits or other criteria. “Key staff” roles further complicates scheduling.

Of course, Tugboat’s Vacation Scheduling Software is built to handle a variety of requirements. The difficult part, according to Terry, is the upfront definition of the rules that govern time off. This is where Tugboat’s years of experience pays off.

So, before you leave on vacation, thank the person whose job it is to schedule your time. Remember that while we’re vacationing, it is their *busy* season. Even though your time off is well deserved, it must balanced with an endless set of rules and objectives to keep the organization on solid ground. The schedulers make it look easy, especially if they are using Tugboat software.

Is it Fall yet?

But how does a busy B2B sales person sort through the tools that are out there without wasting valuable time? The answer comes from two of our own; Josiane Feigon (Inside Sales Training) and Nancy Nardin (Smart Selling Tools). They have taken the time to research, filter and organize some of the best sales tools out there in easy to understand categories.

There are 10 categories and you can download the free eBook here (no registration required J). Here are the 6 that I found most useful:

Anyone that has taken the time to provide a quality eBook understands the time commitment these two made to help us all.

Giving away valuable content can lead to the same result - lots of fish around the boat but nothing to eat.

If you utilize a blog as part of your social media marketing strategy then you may want to consider adding a call to action other than “sign up for our newsletter”. What you use for your offer depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Do you just want to establish yourself as a thought leader or are you trying to surface potential customers for your company?

For professional speakers and consultants, the goal of being a thought leader may mean that you have a simple offer like Work With Me leading to a contact page. You can build your business by reputation and referrals.

For those whose goal is B2B lead generation, however, may need to use stronger offers and calls to action to connect. But where do you place them and doesn’t that violate some of the non-selling rules of social media?

In Gary Vaynurchuk’s book “Crush It” he advocates trying to engage potential customers in 2 specific spots. Your primary website and your blog.

While most marketers understand the need for calls to action on their corporate site they often do not put offers on their blogs because of the perception that it should be a sales-free zone. This can be a costly mistake and short circuit all of the *fish* activity you are generating.

To prove the point we have one client that generates 60% of their leads via the offer and call to action on their blog.

If you goal is to catch fish, drop your hook where they gather for your great content….your blog.

First, I think using Free Trials for B2B Lead Generation is a good idea, especially for on-demand software companies, because most people want to try something before they pay for it. However, the idea is so saturated that the offers are bordering on desperation. Marketers find themselves almost screaming “Just try it….PLEASE“.

So why don’t Free Trials generate the kind of buzz and conversion rates they used too? I’ve already mentioned what I think is the number one reason, overuse, but there are others.

Time

Trials take a potential customer’s time and effort. Time is money. Effort is lots of money. Figure out a way to make your trial compelling by focusing on results the client will achieve during the trial.

Possible Solution

How about this: you can try our XYZ product for 30 days *and* until you generate N results. If they customer has used the product for 30 days but has not achieved the desired results, the trial continues. This limits the customer’s resistance to entering into the trial because if they expect to be busy for the next couple of weeks they will opt out.

Future Cost

This one still amazes me for high-tech companies that sell products in the high dollar price range (ten thousand and up). Ask yourself this, would you start a free trial for an enterprise class piece of equipment without having an idea of the future cost? I doubt it.

Unlike consumer products where pricing and perceived value are understood, B2B buyers don’t always have a feel for estimated cost of a product. They don’t need firm pricing, just an idea that it fits in a budget range.

Possible Solution

Try using a Price Paper to help potential customers understand your offer so they will feel more comfortable about proceeding with a trial.

Have you created a successful Free Trial offer (non-consumer only)? Let us know.

@MichaelDell is on Twitter.

What’s interesting is that I’ve had an indirect link with Dell (the company, not the man) via a VAR business for the last 2 years since Dell bought a company called EqualLogic. Many EqualLogic channel partners were rightfully anxious and weren’t sure if they could trust a company the size of Dell. It turns out the company could be trusted. They communicated often and did exactly what they said they were going to do. The result? The partner channel is flourishing.

But having Michael himself on Twitter changes my perspective about the company even more. It feels more personal. Although I’ve never met Michael, I’m getting a better sense of who he is. For those of you that have read Crush It by @garyvee I would say that he lives by Gary V’s “Best Marketing Strategy Ever” - he CARES.

Michael has always been surprisingly available via email but now takes his access to the next level. It’s easy to understand why Dell continues to adapt to the ebb and flow of a fast changing business landscape - Michael Dell listens.

B2B lead conversion is a critical first step in a solid lead nurturing process. Paul Dunay (Buzz Marketing for Technology) and I discuss how to augment a lead nurturing system by creating a fast lane conversion process to capture sales ready leads.

While we discuss one specific way to implement it using EchoQuote, it is certainly not the only way and there are no silver bullets. Choose what fits for your organization and target customers.

The key to implementing a successful Fast Lane Conversion strategy boils down to the strength and value of the *offer*.

A strong B2B offer:

• … has high-value for your target prospects
• … appeals to serious prospects more than casual ones, regardless of their buying time frame
• … appeals to prospects early in their buying cycle, when their decision criteria can be influenced the most
• …. is scarce and is available only from your website to eliminate search abandonment
• … is easy to act on by a serious prospect with minimal friction to avoid abandonment

Thoughts?

Thanks again to Paul for providing this platform. I just picked up his Facebook Marketing book and it is fantastic.

“Marketingsage’s straightforward definition of a sales lead enables the meaningful ranking of opportunities as they enter the organization. In turn, the ranking allows both the sales and marketing teams to simultaneously apply different policies for sales lead management.”

The chart below gives you a basic idea of how they approach it. Note that the highest ranking request after an Order is a Price request. Since B2B companies generally do not facilitate ordering directly from a website, Price requests are considered the highest ranking.

The Price request category does not necessarily mean you must use a B2B lead conversion tool like EchoQuote, it can be a generic form as long as it attracts and converts potential customers.

Some interesting points in this paper include the idea that opportunities, especially for complex products and services, may span months, or even years. Lead ranking must allow for gaps in long sales cycles and aggregate all touch events as a single opportunity.

You can download the PDF here: Defining and Ranking Sales Leads

Enjoy!

I think web users are finally sick and tired of sneaky ways being used to get their information so a sales person can “help” them. Guess what? They don’t need help or at least not the kind you’re offering.

If you really want to help a prospective customer and you promise them something on your website, make sure you deliver on that promise before engaging them and even then you should probably use an email, not a call.

Clients that use EchoQuote to help their website visitors learn very quickly that when you get a request for budgetary pricing you need to approve that request before you engage them, period.

Here’s a sequence that works for our clients:

1. A quote is requested from their website via EchoQuote
2. The request is routed to the appropriate person/group for approval
3. The marketing/sales person quickly analyzes whether it is a friend or foe
4. If a foe, the request is denied and the quote is not sent
5. If a friend, the request is approved AND the quote is sent (no calls before the quote is sent)

Ten or fifteen minutes later a courtesy email is sent with the following message:

“Hello, my name is Mr. King and I’m with XYZ Corp. We approved your quote request and this is a follow-up to make sure you received it. If you have not, please check your spam filter.

My only question is: Have you defined the requirements for your project yet, or no?

We have gathered broad requirements from many customers and put them into a bulleted list. If you would like a copy please let us know.”

It’s understandable how skeptical potential customers are these days about requesting anything on a website. Too many companies pounce on incoming leads and simply scare them off. If you promise something in return for their contact information, make sure you deliver before you engage.

By the way, feel free to call me :).

The conversation was refreshingly candid and focused on five areas:

1. Idea
2. People (Team)
3. Money (Angel and VC)
4. Management
5. Marketing

I won’t spoil the content here but if you are in the process of starting or growing a new business, check it out. Once again, you can find it here: Money, Marketing & Management.

Many thanks to Dharmesh and Brian for sharing.

Stephanie interviewed Jay Hallberg, VP of Marketing of Spiceworks. Spiceworks surveyed some of their 800,000 Small-Medium Business Information Technology users and found the following:

• 75% don’t sign up for white papers that require registration.
• Those that do share their information obviously don’t mind doing so, but they DO mind a pesky vendor that calls them 10 times over the next 30 days.
• IT pros want to reach out to the vendor on their terms via their preferred channel, e.g. phone, email, or chat.

For those vendors that persist in using white papers as a lead generation tool, the article suggests:

• Write objective, educational papers, not product pitches.
• Show your expertise.
• Let people comment on your white papers, provide feedback, and rate them. This will help you produce better material of more value to the prospect.
• Integrate social media and let your authors and product experts have a conversation with prospects. In other words, create a conversation as opposed to using white papers as a way to bait and hook people. The white paper should be part of an integrated approach that helps start a conversation, move it along, or close it.

As resistance to white paper registration increases, it will be interesting to see how B2B marketers adapt to boost lead conversion.