Goals

1. Determine your corporate revenue goals. I suggest you set three goals at three levels:

- Minimum

- Target

- Stretch

2. Determine the percentage of your company’s revenue that needs to come from new business.

3. Determine the percentage of your company’s new business revenue that needs to come from marketing generated leads.

4. Determine the definition of a “qualified sales lead” that sales and corporate management agree with.

5. Determine how many qualified sales leads are needed to meet your revenue goals.

6. Determine how many new inquiries are needed to identify enough qualified sales leads to meet your goals.

Strategy

7. Determine the “pain” your products and services address.

8. Determine the “pain relief” your company can provide.

9. Determine your company’s competitive advantages and how best to articulate them.

10. Determine the best companies and contacts to target with your lead generation efforts.

Tactics

11. Determine where to find the best companies and contacts.

12. Determine the marketing resources you already have available.

13. Determine and prioritize how best to communicate with your target companies and contacts.

14. Determine and prioritize tactics for eliciting inquiries from these companies and contacts.

15. Determine and prioritize tactics for identifying qualified sales leads.

16. Determine and prioritize tactics for nurturing your “not-yet-qualified” leads until they are determined to be qualified.

Sales tools

17. Determine and prioritize the sales tools needed by your salespeople to:

- Demonstrate the pain relief offered by your company (both products and services)

- Demonstrate the advantages of selecting your company instead of its competitors

- Propose deals

- Close sales

Metrics

18. Determine how best to measure the effectiveness of those marketing programs designed to:

- Generate inquiries

- Identify qualified sales leads

- Nurture not-yet-qualified inquiries

- Provide sales tools for your salespeople

19. Determine how best to communicate the results of your marketing programs to management.

Resources and budget

20. Determine the resources and budget needed to accomplish all the previous steps and meet your company’s:

- Minimum goals

- Target goals

- Stretch goals

21. Use your marketing plan to justify the budget.

22. Get the marketing budget approved.

Implementation

23. Determine the best schedule of marketing activities designed to:

- Generate some short-term results to demonstrate competence and ROI

- Generate a steady stream of qualified sales opportunities and sales tools for your salespeople

- Determine the resources needed to implement these activities.

25. Assign responsibilities.

26. Start implementing!

M. H. “Mac” McIntosh is described by many as one of America’s leading sales and marketing consultants and an authority on inquiry handling and sales lead management. Visit his website at www.salesleadexperts.com, email Mac at mcintosh@salesleadexperts.com  or call him at 1-800-944-5553.