Are Your Sales Reps Still Panning For Gold?

Times have changed and manually sifting through a subscribed database or purchased list is a complete waste of a sales rep time.  Sure – occasionally nuggets of responsive prospects can be found, but the most productive B2B prospectors know there’s a much better way to mine for revenue.A recent trip up to the gold country in Northern California made me think of the early prospectors and how they evolved their methods in a very short period of time.  Starting with pans, to sifters, to sluice boxes and eventually machinery, they quickly became more efficient. Today we are witnessing the same evolution in B2B sales prospecting.   As list subscription products become commoditized, we are now seeing extensive consolidation among traditional data providers. B2B sales teams leveraging the same dataset are seeing diminishing returns just like when too many prospectors crowded a single stream.

Stop panning for gold from the same river.

When you see it, gold is easy to spot.  But in B2B sales, the real opportunity is harder to find.  The prospecting landscape has changed with a greater need to engage with relevancy and personalization.  B2B firms are carving out niches with targeted offerings to very specific personas experiencing unique challenges.  Traditional datasets simply don’t contain the data points needed to reveal hard-to-find opportunities.The most progressive B2B firms are recognizing that they don’t need to be limited to commoditized data sets. Instead, they partner with firms specialized in sourcing the hard-to-find data enabling them to focus on the right prospects at the right time, with the right message.  Is tailored data more expensive? Of course. Is it ROI-justified? Absolutely. Especially when you consider the cost of traditional marketing combined with the cost of having the sales team sift through data that does not prioritize targeted opportunities.

Scale your prospecting efforts.

The gold rush of 1849 quickly saw the augmentation of individual prospectors with the formation of mining companies capable of extracting gold out of the region at scale.  Today we are seeing the same evolution in B2B sales prospecting. Savvy sales and marketing teams are augmenting individual sales efforts with advanced data mining solutions.  Industry leaders like Salesforce, Google, Square, and DoorDash, are known for their ability to rapidly scale.  They’ve partnered with LeadGenius to source the hard-to-find data that is not available in traditional data sets.  With advanced targeting capabilities, they now leverage dramatically more efficient resources at multiple points of the customer lifecycle.  The net result is a lower cost of acquisition, shorter sales cycles, rapidly expanded customer relationships, and lowered costs of retention.

Is there still a need for commoditized data sets?

Yes.  In fact, nearly every one of LeadGenius’ clients still leverages these data sets. In many instances, LeadGenius augments multiple data sources to find and validate the opportunities that simply can’t be found due to missing data points.  As these opportunities are revealed at scale with LeadGenius through relevant and personalized communications, sales teams may use other sources to round out account coverage to influencers. This is quite common with an ABM approach. Successful ABM campaigns engage clients via multiple communication channels ranging from email to phone to social and direct mail.  As engagement levels surpass defined thresholds, more expensive channels like direct mail may be deployed. LeadGenius researchers are flexibly leveraged to validate not just correct contact information but the key data points that boost response rates from ABM campaigns. How and when LeadGenius is leveraged is tailored to each company’s unique prospecting process and data resources.   Regardless of data sources already in use, rapidly scaling companies know that sales teams are not the right resource to validate data accuracy or source hard-to-find data.

Prospecting technology and techniques continue to evolve.

In 2011 the founders of LeadGenius recognized the need to augment traditional data sources with hard-to-find data that will accelerate sales cycles.  Since then, partnerships with many of today’s most successful B2B marketers have fueled investment into a set of multiple data sourcing technologies that can be tailored to each client’s unique criteria.  The founders and clients also recognized that these technologies must be combined with globally dispersed researchers capable of recognizing and validating the elusive gold nuggets. If you see the need to leverage this blended solution of technology and humans to deliver a steady flow of revenue opportunities to your team of prospectors, we’d be delighted to have a quick chat.