DRIVING BUSINESS GROWTH: THE LEAD-TO-REVENUE …...THE LEAD-TO-REVENUE JOURNEY The internet and the ease of digital communication has forever changed customer buying behavior. This

DRIVING BUSINESS GROWTH: THE LEAD-TO-REVENUE JOURNEY

The internet and the ease of digital

communication has forever changed customer

buying behavior. This change has cataclysmic

impacts to the sales and marketing functions of

all companies, but nowhere is the challenge

bigger than with small to medium size

companies that have yet to start the journey to

an integrated sales and marketing lead-to-

revenue management (L2RM) process.

Educational content, social media and digital

marketing are supplementing direct sales person

contact as a means to nurture the sale.

Companies that fail to execute in these areas

will become increasingly invisible to potential

customers and at a competitive disadvantage to

their more digitally savvy competitors.

Managing the L2RM process in this new

paradigm requires sales and marketing to

operate outside their traditional silos and

collaborate to identify critical decisions to

improve the buying journey. Developing a

decision driven approach can be challenging but

the benefits in business growth make the

journey well worth the effort.

THE NEW BUYING PARADIGMB Y J A Y T H O M A S

Central to L2RM is

understanding how your

customer buys and organizing

your sales and marketing

activities around that behavior.

The traditional boundaries

between sales and marketing

are no longer valid. Your

website and other digital

content can move the customer

significantly along the buying

journey in tandem with, or

sometimes in absence of, sales

person involvement. Today’s

reality requires a new approach

to sales and marketing.

Where are we Going? - Vision

Developing these capabilities is not without its challenges, as the marketing

department may have to acquire new skills, people and technology to

successfully implement. However, a majority of the change required exists

within the marketing department and can be managed by a strong marketing

leader. Eventually, the early success will plateau and marketing will become

frustrated at their inability to improve their impact on revenue. To get beyond

this plateau requires a transformation of the existing sales and marketing

system organized around department silos to one organized around the

customer.

Executive buy-in to this new paradigm can be challenging and may require

significant education and communication. Time invested during this important

step will avoid resistance along the journey.

Change

Management will

be Needed

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The essence of L2RM is

understanding how your

customer buys and organizing

your sales and marketing

activities to facilitate the process.

The traditional process of

marketing generating interest

and then sales educating the

customer and nurturing the

process is no longer valid. Your

website and other digital content

from your company can move

the customer significantly along

the buying process in tandem

with, or sometimes in absence

of, sales person involvement.

Today’s reality requires a new

approach to the sales and

marketing process.

A combination of management team presentations and one-to-one

meetings will be needed. As logical as the L2RM process may seem, the

changes necessary to implement it may meet with significant

resistance. The changes required may run counter to decades of

experience held by existing managers. In other cases, the perceived risks

to change may not seem worth the hard work necessary to implement

them. Understanding the perceptions and motivations of each of the

management team executives goes a long way to developing a rapport that

will foster support for the journey. What is important to each executive and

how can you integrate their needs into the project? Illustrate how the

envisioned end-state will make it easier for the executives to achieve their

personal and professional goals. Of most importance is the sales leader.

The marketing and sales leaders must present a unified front to the

organization to ensure a successful journey. L2RM breaks down walls

between sales and marketing and organizes the company’s activities

around the buyer journey rather than the functional activities of the

individual delartments.

Communicating down the organization is also important. Certainly, the

marketing team must be on-board and be active advocates for the journey,

but the entire organization needs to be introduced to the vision and helped

to understand the benefits to the organization and themselves. Regular

updates via an employee newsletter or email updates and bulletin board

material can help ease the change management necessary to

garner organization-wide support. Don’t leave them guessing!

An effective tool to illustrate the vision is the use of case studies. Let the

experience of a similar organization tell the story of the L2RM journey. If

possible, bring in a guest speaker to communicate their experience and the

benefits that their organization achieved.

• L2RM requires a

transformation of the sales and

marketing relationship.

• Communicate a clear vision of

the journey and destination.

• Schedule one-to-one

meetings with all management

team executives to build

rapport for the vision.

• To the extent possible,

integrate the needs of individual

executives into the project to

secure support.

• Teaming with the sales leader

is critical to success.

• Garner employee support for

the project through regular

communication about the

project and progress.

• Use case studies to illustrate

the benefits of the

transformation to a L2RM

company.

TripTiks

Page 3

Who is Driving? - Leadership

The marketing and sales leaders must embrace the vision and have a clear

understanding of how to achieve it. They must be collaborative yet not

compromise the objectives of the project. Keeping the vision alive through

project updates and internal promotion will help to maintain project support.

Don’t assume that people know what is going on. In the presence of an

information vacuum people assume that nothing is going on! Be a self-

promoter and publish the successes along the way. Find advocates in each

department to help promote the project.

Communicate

Project

Successes

TripTiks

• Success requires

collaboration between

marketing and sales leaders

that share the same vision.

• CEO sponsorship in small to

medium size businesses is

necessary.

• Ongoing internal project

status communication and

publication of success stories

will keep the vision alive.

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Who's on the Bus? - People

Identify

Sales Lead

Users

Identify lead users from within the salesforce and use them as evangelists with

the rest of the team. Manage the pace of change so as not to interrupt current

sales activity and ensure continued positive chatter between the sales people.

Devote more education and staff to support than you think is necessary.

Nothing will slow down change faster than frustrated employees. This will

require time and patience but the stakes are high and the rewards are worth

the investments.

Marketing may require significant

change in orientation depending on

its current role within the

organization. In some cases, this

will require taking inventory of

current talent and redeploying

and/or providing additional training

and in other cases it will mean

bringing in new talent.

Key Marketing Capabilities

• CRM administration

• Digital marketing (Website

management, search engine

optimization, pay-per-click

advertising, marketing

technology specialist)

• Content development

• Graphic design

• Project management

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The essence of L2RM is

understanding how your

customer buys and organizing

your sales and marketing

activities to facilitate the process.

The traditional process of

marketing generating interest

and then sales educating the

customer and nurturing the

process is no longer valid. Your

website and other digital content

from your company can move

the customer significantly along

the buying process in tandem

with, or sometimes in absence

of, sales person involvement.

Today’s reality requires a new

approach to the sales and

marketing process.

Take the opportunity to use this project as a mentoring and career

building moment with your existing marketing staff. Spend time

with each person discussing their career goals and aspirations

and where they fit in the vision. It is an excellent opportunity to

build buy-in and excitement in the project if you can tie the

employee’s career aspirations with the company transformation.

This exercise can be an excellent change management tool and

will help you to understand where people fit relative to the needed

capabilities. Sometimes this will mean identifying training

opportunities to further develop skills and sometimes it will result

in people stepping off the bus. In either case, you will have a

much clearer understanding of your current human resources.

• Organize changes to the

sales process around helping

sales people to sell more.

• Initialize sales changes in a

controlled fashion through lead

users to avoid current sales

activity disruption and to

maximize positive chatter.

• There are a core set of

capabilities required on the

marketing team in order to

succeed in the L2RM journey.

• Use the project as an

opportunity to coach and

mentor each marketing

employee on their career goals

and link them into the project

journey.

TripTiks

Page 6

What is the Best Route? - Strategy

A key to the strategy is being realistically aggressive in the approach. Over-

reaching and falling short can cause the project to lose momentum, while being

too conservative in the pace of the project can lead to underperformance and

management disillusionment. Determining the right balance is a mixture of

company culture, organizational capabilities and personal style. The success

of the strategy is highly dependent on the skills and ability of the marketing and

sales leaders. Drawing from past experience while at the same time being

cognizant of current conditions will help the leaders to develop a successful

strategy. Remember, there is no one right strategy! There are many paths that

can lead to the desired destination. Its understanding the route and being

aware of obstacles that require course corrections that is crucial.

Shoot for

Short Term

Project Wins

TripTiks

• Determining the strategy for

project implementation is

greatly influenced by the

unique situation of the

company.

• The success of the strategy is

highly dependent on the skills

and ability of the leaders.

• Be open to changing the

strategy based on changing

conditions or new learning.

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How Will We Ge There? - Plan

• Take inventory of the current situation

• Identify plan goals and objectives

• Prioritize next steps

• Assign task responsibility

• Develop timelines and milestones

• Set-up a regular progress meeting schedule

Don’t lose sight of the

customer. A successful

L2RM process is customer

centric at its core. Identify

target customers and the

buying sphere of influencers

and decision makers

surrounding the

purchasing decision.

Develop customer persona’s

of individuals within these

groups of people based on an

understanding of the

psychographics derived from

customer interviews. It is

these customer personas

upon which many future

product development,

communication, sales training

and other important decisions

will be made.

Major Plan Development Steps

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The plan development stage is also an excellent opportunity to

generate project buy-in and excitement from the project team.

Brainstorm the project tasks, resources needed and timelines. Plan

development is a very iterative process and requires stake holder

input and sponsor approval. It is important that you have a check-in

meeting with the CEO or project sponsor to ensure that expectations

are being met and any necessary course corrections can be

implemented before time is wasted in plan finalization.

TripTiks

• The plan must be influenced

by the unique company

situation.

• Close collaboration between

the sales and marketing leaders

is critical.

• Take the time to map the

current L2RM process.

• Develop personas for the

people within the key functions

of your target customers.

• Include a mid-course check-in

with the CEO/project sponsor to

ensure you are meeting

expectations.

• Customer data management

• Customer persona development

• Opportunity management

• Lead management

• Sales process

• Technology plan

Major L2RM Building Blocks

Page 9

What Are The Waypoints? - Process

Page 10

For sales, the biggest hurdle is giving up perceived control. L2RM

requires breaking down silos between sales and marketing and

developing an orientation towards a shared responsibility to assist the

customer in the buying journey. Changing perceptions from sales

ownership of the customer relationship to organization ownership of the

relationship can be a very difficult cultural change.

It is crucial to the success of the project that the sales leader champion

L2RM with the sales people. Conveying the benefits and ensuring that

sales compensation is in alignment with the project will help to ensure

achievement of revenue goals.

TripTiks

• Success requires

collaboration between

marketing and sales

leaders that share the

same vision.

• CEO sponsorship in small

to medium size businesses

is necessary.

• Ongoing internal project

status communication and

publication of success

stories will keep the vision

alive.

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What's the Best Mode of Transportation? - Technology

Selecting the right set of technologies can be daunting. The

key is to focus on your sales and marketing process and

decide where technology can scale your production, delivery

and measurement.

Don’t be daunted by the size and complexity of a full-blown

technology stack. Start simply at the beginning and build

towards more automated processes as resources and

experience allows.

Start with your existing prospect and customer database. Do

the work necessary to clean the data as the first step in the

journey. Eliminate obsolete and duplicate information. Update

and augment your current customer data to ensure

completeness and accuracy. Your customer data is the

foundation upon which your entire L2RM strategy is built.

Spend the resources necessary to make this information as

accurate as possible. This includes corralling all of the

customer information held locally by your sales people.

Customer information is a company asset. Make it easy for

the sales people to comply by offering them several different

methods to provide the data.

The Customer

Database is the

Foundation of the

Technology Stack

The marketing technology industry is in the

midst of an exponential growth curve, with

more than 2,000 companies geared towards

this space. And no wonder, marketing

technology spending is projected to reach $32

billion by 2018.

- Radius - http://bit.ly/2zN6loc

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Selecting the right set of

technologies can be daunting.

The key is to focus on your

sales and marketing process

and decide where technology

can scale your production,

delivery and measurement.

The technologies can be

thought of and organized

around the sales and

marketing process - customer

awareness, lead acquisition,

lead nurturing, lead

conversion, customer

development and data

collection and analysis.

TripTiks

• L2RM is built on a foundation of good customer

data. Solidify the foundation before implementing

a software solution.

• Start the technology journey with your customer

data management software. Choose an option

that will allow you to grow into your technology

stack with as much flexibility as possible.

• Grow into additional technology based on your

sales and marketing process and where it can

improve efficiency and effectiveness.

• Collaboration tools - team project management and

information sharing

• Content management system (CMS) - technology used

to manage your website and blog & SEO (CRM)

• Customer relationship management tool - the data

warehouse to store and manage contact, account and

transaction history of prospects and customers

• Email/Nurture software - automation of marketing

campaigns

• Social media management

• Advertising technology - paid media management,

display ads, PPC, retargeting

• Measurement - website and marketing analytics

Common Components of the Marketing Technology Stack

Tech stack example from Chiefmartec.com - http://bit.ly/2n2JRvk

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Are We There Yet? - Metrics

Resist the urge to collect data for data’s sake. Decide on the pertinent

data that will drive decision making. Too much irrelevant data can be

as debilitating as too little data.

Test mercilessly. Conduct A-B testing to isolate variables. The drive

towards effectiveness is an endlessly iterative process of continuous

improvement.

Seek out industry benchmarks and measure yourself against them for

context. Set goals for improvement and measure progress.

Communicate current metrics and progress towards goals. Celebrate

success and self-promote them within the organization.

TripTiks

• Define metrics based on

understanding the data

needed to improve the

process.

• Be ruthless about only

monitoring and measuring

the data needed.

• Test, test, test.

• Communicate progress

relative to goals.

That which is

measured improves.

- Peter Drucker

Page 14

The Road to L2RM is a Continuous Journey, Not a Destination

L2RM is a disruptive force within your organization that will

challenge the status quo. A strong vision and leadership is

necessary to ensure success. Change management will be

necessary, especially as it relates to the relationship of sales

and marketing. L2RM is focused on optimizing the buyer

journey from need to sale. The traditional fence where

marketing qualified leads are passed over to sales is removed

in favor of a team approach to nurturing and closing the sale.

Many companies fail to make this transition and are frustrated

by their inability to improve beyond optimizing their current

lead development process.

Understanding the challenges and the steps in the journey will

help you to organize your plan and put you in the best position

to succeed.

The Buyer Journey

is Being

Transformed

Jay Thomas is the founder and President of

Decision Driven Marketing. He has more than 30

years of experience in helping companies of

various sizes implement business development

processes to improve

sales and marketing

and drive business

growth.

[email protected] linkedin.com/in/jaywesleythomas

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