First in a series of exclusive interviews with senior marketing executives
It comes as no surprise that Ralf VonSosen considers sales intelligence the secret sauce for getting in the door in pursuit of new business.
Prospecting today is all about creating relevance to construct a meaningful conversation, says VonSosen, Vice President of Marketing at Inside View and a player in the CRM space since its early days.
"You knowing my phone number and email address does not in my mind entitle you to my time or attention," he says. "We know that over 92 percent of executives today feel the same way."
Nor is a referral in itself enough of an inducement to clear a path for a potential sales. "There's an automatic connection there," VonSosen says. "But in addition there needs to be something relevant in terms of the message so it's clear they understand what is important to me today."
Google "sales intelligence" and the second search result is an Inside View article on "Sales Data vs. Sales Intelligence" (a Wikipedia definition ranks first). Third is a link to the company, where VonSosen's thought leadership spans InsideView's marketing operations, brand management, corporate communications, demand generation, and product marketing.
Other VonSosen observations from a telephone Q & A session:
Q. How has the customer-and-sales process changed over recent years?
A. The biggest driver is the availability of information to customers during their buying process. Customers that once relied on a company or supplier for information -- they would contact a sales person for info about the service or product -- are researching online. There's so much information out there, that the customers are about 70 percent done with the sales process. And then they reach out to the salesperson.
Q. What is today's customer expecting from the salesperson?
A. Now they reach out and expect the sales rep to be there to take them that last mile, to understand the questions they will have and not to start the whole buying process again. The process has changed completely. The sales rep needs to be aware of where the customer has been, the conversations they've had with peers, for instant conversation with the customer.
Q. So what should be sales reps be doing to prepare for those conversations?
A. The flip side of the buyer having all the information available and places to go (to gather information) is that the seller who used to be hidden from that. Now the seller has the ability to see what conversation the buyer been involved in, based on what they're saying online, what questions they are asking online, and what articles the buyers are reading. However, making sense of the buyer's intentions by sifting through the vast amount of social media and online information is pretty overwhelming.
Q. How should sales reps go about sorting through the vast amount of information online?
A. What we focus on is taking a look at three main pieces that a salesperson needs: know the right person to be talking to, be informed about what is relevant to that person, and what's the right time to talk to them. We try to focus on finding the right information about the right contact, then develop a profile about that person. What can I learn from the person's profile that can help me start a conversation? How am I connected to that person? What challenges is the person looking to address?
Q. InsideView features automated specific alerts about triggering events at target prospects. Why not just use Google Alerts?
A. A Google alert on Boeing will produce a pageful of stuff each day, but not necessarily relevant to being able to sell them tax auditing software. What I want to do is put in an alert specific to Boeing having auditing going on, or tax litigation, so I can be very specific. What I'm trying to do is get away from this deluge of data into something very specific.