Stop the insanity. It is time to rethink lead generation.
We have all read the headlines:
- 80% of B2B Sales Interactions Between Suppliers and Buyers Will Occur in Digital Channels by 2025
- B2B buyers are nearly 70% through their buyer journey before ever contacting your organization
- Only 13% of customers believe a sales person can understand their needs
We are officially in the buyer-led era. And yet, we see thousands of sales organizations failing to adapt. And the outcomes of this failure are clear as day:
- Average tenure of an SDR is 1.4 years
- It takes an average of 3 months for an SDR to reach full productivity
- Median annual turnover for the role is 50%
- Only 63% of SDR reps are hitting quota (for AEs it’s even less ~50%)
- It now takes 100-150 attempts to generate one quality conversation
Thousands of sales organizations are putting their least experienced, shortest-tenured people in what is one of the hardest roles in sales. These same organizations are also entrusting the first interaction a potential buyer has with a carbon-based life form in the hands of those who are often least equipped to have a conversation that the buyer will view as having added value.
Over one trillion dollars are spent annually on sales forces and both CAC and COGS continue to go up and up and up.
This. Is. Crazy.
So, what is to be done? In this blog series, we’ll provide some answers based on what we have already seen work, and we’ll share some ideas that early adopters and innovators are proving out now. We’ll explore:
- Shifting from cold outbound to intent-based outbound
- Recognizing that Inbound v. Outbound doesn’t matter, focusing instead on tight alignment across marketing, demand gen, lead gen, sales, and support
- A total reimagining of the SDR (and BDR) role, and by extension the revenue organization as a whole
- Building content journeys that help prospects sell internally, self-serve during the sales process, and are personalized across all channels
- Focusing on community (customers, influencers, etc.) to create demand
- And, of course, no good blog series will fail to mention the role of AI, automation, and data analytics
Forcing buyers to speak with us is so 2014. Designing a better buying journey that meets and supports buyers at their key moments of need is what this moment demands.