This is Part 3 of 7 in a series of tips on focused outreach outbound prospecting for sales and marketing. Parts 1 and 2 cover how your objective is defined, and making key internal and external players — including your buyer — part of the process. Part 3 outlines the importance of planning.
Would you build a house without a plan? Hopefully not. Then why would you build a focused outreach outbound prospecting sales and marketing initiative without a plan? The consequences of building a poorly planned house are the same for a poorly planned focused outreach outbound prospecting sales and marketing initiative.
Planning is critical to success. Without a roadmap, the process can be chaotic at best, doomed for failure at worst, and nearly impossible to adjust for maximum results or to make appropriate, educated and informed changes while underway.
Companies may feel compelled to charge ahead and execute without a documented, approved plan. Once they dive in, managers begin to understand the importance of planning as they soon discover:
- looking at historical data would have prevented painful mistakes
- previous messaging is dated or doesn’t address the current objective
- representatives don’t know how to define or distinguish leads
- representatives are unsure who to call if they need an answer to a prospect’s question
- pain points and solutions don’t really apply to this target audience
- prospect lists don’t really reflect accurate contact titles
- Sales doesn’t feel lead generation is sending qualified leads
- previous metrics are not optimal for this type of a focused outreach outbound prospecting sales and marketing initiative
- lead qualification and generation representatives don’t know where to collect lead qualification data in their CRM system
- Sales doesn’t know where to find lead qualification and generation data in their CRM system
- key data gathered to make internal decisions is hard to find and access
- reporting is inaccurate and time consuming
- new tools are needed to improve efficiency and productivity
- there is disagreement over which markets to target
- guides are dated and no longer compelling
- process is lacking
As companies review their previous outbound sales and marketing prospecting initiatives, it becomes evident that “look before you leap” is a sounder strategy than “jump in with both feet” before you know how far down the bottom is.
Discussion, input, final agreement and approval of a plan will provide a framework for implementation and adjustment.
What have you encountered when planning a focused outreach outbound sales and marketing prospecting initiative? Join us for Part 4 as we discuss assigning the right resource to the right job and why it is important to assign a manager.