Latest from the Intellegentia Blog

B2B Technology Companies: Is your sales pipeline flabby or fit?

A tangle of pipes - does this mirror your sales pipeline?

I am not going to take the credit for coming up with the title of this blog. Bob Apollo , who I have great respect for, used this term in a really great piece of content about Proactive Pipeline Management. The points raised by Bob regarding the state of sales pipelines which I would like to expand upon I believe will resonate with Sales and Marketing leaders within technology companies.

It's an uncomfortable fact that sometimes when you take off the rose tinted glasses, you discover your pipeline may not look that great.

In this blog we look at what we mean by "flabby" and what can be done about it.

Topics: Sales Enablement B2B Lead Generation Industry Focus - Technology

Why you should be changing to inbound sales and marketing.

Is "Inbound Sales" just another alternative to Sandler, Holden, Miller-Heiman, SPIN, Value Selling, the Challenger Sale and other sales methodologies?  Or is it a new way of thinking?

Or both?

All the aforementioned sales methodologies teach us valuable lessons.  They teach how to seek out the "fox" (Holden), to "go for the no" (Sandler) and other techniques for qualifying out time wasters, getting control over the deal and progressing the sale faster than your competitors.  

Topics: Sales Enablement Inbound Marketing

4 Things Every Inbound Marketer Should Do in 2017

If you find some great content, it's worth sharing! Having read Brian Halligans inspirational blog on things inbound marketers should be considering in 2017, I wanted to share it in its entirety, adding some of my own thoughts. 

I was particually struck by Brian's thoughts on supply and demand dynamics. Increased competition means that marketing needs to work harder to engage buyers as earlier as possible which means finding different and more engaging conversion assets ... we are firmly in the "youtube age" and sales leaders need to find ways to make their sales teams more effective to beat the competition, which in some sectors means switching to a inbound sales mindset.  If buyers want a self-service experience (self-service research and self-service sales) then as Brian concluded the buying process needs to be automated and for 2017 I predict a surge in companies looking at Sales Enablement as a way to improve sales efficiency.  

Enough of me, sit back and enjoy Brian's insight.   

Topics: Sales Enablement Inbound Marketing

How to Maximise Lead Conversion with Inbound Marketing

In their book ‘Inbound Marketing’, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah co-founders of Hubspot, outline that marketers in mid-size and large companies spend 80 percent of their time worrying about conversion rates and 20 percent of their time getting more visitors to their website.

The emphasis on lead conversion vs website visitors varies from industry to industry. In the IT technology sector, particularly in the IT Channel, there is still a dependency on traditional outbound marketing, because quite simply that is the way most channel partners have grown in the past. 

Topics: Sales Enablement Inbound Marketing B2B Lead Generation

How Inbound Marketing will help you tear up your Sales Presentation

We’ve all been there: sat through a sales presentation that tells us how great a company is, what they’ve done and how superior their product or service is. By slide number 3, you’re already starting to check emails on your phone.

The reality is, presentations that simply relay what your brand does and the solutions it provides are a waste of time. The prospect will already be well aware of this information, having moved from Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) to Sales Qualified Lead (SQL), after reviewing your website, downloading your content, reading your blog posts and comparing you to other vendors.

The presentation needs to focus on value and establishing credibility; not product specs.

Topics: Sales Enablement Inbound Marketing