In fact, a recent study showed that sales and marketing misalignment can prevent nearly 75% of leads from converting into sales. On the other hand, professional services firms can increase sales by 38% when they bring sales and marketing into alignment.

So, how do you reap the benefits of alignment by getting the left hand of sales to talk with the right hand of marketing — without triggering an arm-wrestling match? 

At Hinge, we’ve developed actionable strategies to help our clients receive the transformative benefits of sales and marketing alignment – and we’re excited to share them in this handy 10-minute guide. 

But before we jump into the strategies, let’s explore the fine-grained difference between your sales and marketing teams, and how they get disconnected in the first place.

Please use the following links to navigate this guide:

• What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?
• How Sales and Marketing Disconnect
• 4 Proven Strategies That Boost Sales and Marketing Performance
• Final Thoughts About Sales and Marketing Alignment

What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?

Both your sales team and marketing team are essential for growing your firm’s client base, increasing profits, boosting sales, and improving visibility. However, each of these teams will fulfill different roles in support of those goals. 

Here’s how sales and marketing teams are different:

What Are Sales Teams?

Sales teams are defined as primarily being concerned with nurturing client relationships, closing deals, and helping customers see the benefits of buying your products and services. To support these efforts, sales teams need to evaluate the suitability of potential new clients and customers, educate them about your products and services, and eventually seal a commitment to buy. 

Also, depending on the sales strategy – and the needs of the firm – your sales team could be involved in the process of identifying and creating new business opportunities and writing detailed proposals for new clients and customers. 

What Are Marketing Teams?

Marketing teams on the other hand are defined as primarily being concerned with identifying and understanding your marketplace, customers, and competitors. After identifying and understanding these elements, marketing teams showcase your strategies and services in a way that reflects the unique attributes of your marketplace, customers, and competitors. This allows your marketing team to strategically promote the visibility of products and services while communicating how potential new customers will benefit from working with your firm. 

Also, depending on the marketing strategy – and the needs of the firm – your marketing team could be involved in educating clients and referral sources, strengthening client relationships, connecting with referral sources, creating new business opportunities, and writing detailed proposals for new clients and customers.   

Observations of Sales and Marketing in the Field

It’s common for certain roles to flip-flop between marketing and sales. For example, in Hinge’s Visibility program, we’ve seen marketing departments performing lead generation or proposal writing activities at some firms, while at other firms, we’ve seen sales departments fulfilling those roles. 

Another thing we’ve noticed is the fact that many sales and marketing strategies are highly “reactive” at professional services firms. Instead of proactively engaging in sales or marketing efforts, these firms wait for customers to approach them with requests for proposals (RFPs). Then, the marketing or sales team will “react” by writing the proposals and hoping to win the jobs. Most of these firms don’t have a clear sales or marketing strategy beyond waiting for RFPs and writing proposals. Although this can work for some organizations, a lack of proactivity can significantly hinder visibility, profitability, and growth. 

At the end of the day, sales and marketing teams share the same goal of driving growth and profitability. They just have different methods and motivations behind their work – and in too many cases, they’re disconnected in their efforts to achieve those goals.  

How Sales and Marketing Disconnect

According to Hinge research, only a small majority (54%) of professional services firms maintain strong coordination between their sales and marketing efforts. In the rest of the firms (46%), lost opportunities and wasted effort result from sales and marketing team misalignment. 

In the vast majority of cases, sales and marketing teams lack alignment due to the following three reasons:

• Habitual pattern of organizing workflows: Many firms have been operating with disconnected sales and marketing teams for years – or sales and marketing simply grew apart as the size of their teams began to grow –  and no one sees how this lack of alignment could be counterproductive
• Lack of effort and planning to ensure alignment: No processes or intentional activities are in place to support communication between sales and marketing teams. In other words, decision-makers have not made sales and marketing alignment a priority. 
• Lack of knowledge: Neither team realizes the importance of sales and marketing alignment. They have not considered the potential benefits of alignment, and they simply don’t know that the disconnect is hurting the entire company.

Is Your Firm Suffering From a Sales and Marketing Disconnect?

Disconnected sales and marketing teams can cause poor performance, low sales, inefficient resource allocation, reduced visibility, and wasted marketing content. Even worse, misaligned sales and marketing teams can work against each other, inadvertently blocking each other’s success. Unfortunately, most professional services firms do not realize that a lack of alignment is the source of these challenges.

If you’re questioning whether your firm is suffering from a sales and marketing disconnect, listen to what each team is saying about the other. The marketing department could say, “We’re bringing in plenty of leads but the sales team isn’t closing the deals.” Or, the sales department could say, “We’re not closing any deals because marketing isn’t bringing in the qualified leads we need.” Either way, this kind of finger-pointing is a hallmark sign of a disconnect.

The Importance of Sales and Marketing Alignment

To help you understand why sales and marketing alignment is important, imagine that your marketing department is busy developing messaging, content, and collateral to boost your firm’s visibility to suitable clients. However, the marketing team hasn’t met with sales to learn about the unique pain points and defining characteristics of the clients who are the most likely to purchase your services. This lack of communication between sales and marketing is a problem because it can lead to marketing efforts that convey the wrong message, attract the wrong leads, and fail to highlight the most attractive elements of your brand. 

Since your sales team connects with clients daily, there is no better resource for your marketing team to learn about industry trends and the defining characteristics and pain points of your clients. Therefore, it makes sense for your marketing team to work closely with sales while creating customer profiles and fine-tuning its messaging. Your sales department can provide golden nuggets of information that will radically improve all marketing and lead generation efforts.

Despite the potential benefits, a surprising number of professional services firms don’t try to align their sales and marketing teams. Instead, they allow their sales and marketing departments to silo themselves, resulting in setbacks to growth and profitability.  

4 Proven Strategies That Boost Sales and Marketing Alignment

Now that we understand each team’s role, how marketing and sales can grow apart, and why collaboration is important, the next question is: In what ways can they work together? 

Fortunately, sales and marketing have plenty of opportunities to align across joint activities with client-focused priorities. Here are a few:

1. Team Configuration: Rethink the Traditional Rainmaker Model and Build Your Marketing and Sales Teams

Instead of using sales and marketing teams to attract and secure customers, a lot of firms rely on one or more “rainmakers” to pound the pavement, network in the community, and bring in the bulk of their business. These individuals are usually founders, partners, advisors, board members, or star salespeople who close deals on behalf of the firm. They’re the reason some firms don’t engage in sales or marketing, but simply wait for new RFPs to roll into the office.

Although rainmakers are extremely valuable assets, contemporary sales and marketing is becoming more complex and requires a much broader skill set than rainmakers alone – especially if you want to thrive in today’s digitally-driven marketplace. 

In this respect, evolving beyond the rainmaker model into the “team” model is a much better way of structuring your business development strategy. For firms that haven’t already done so, this involves the building of your sales and marketing teams. Once they’re assembled, you can start aligning their efforts through a mutually collaborative relationship. 

Let’s take a look at how you can build a team-oriented marketing structure at a firm that doesn’t already have a marketing team:

• Present the “Why Change Argument”: A shift from the rainmaker model to a team-oriented marketing strategy is going to impact a lot of people at your organization. So you’ll need to develop and present good reasons for the change to others at your organization. This way, others will join you and support the effort. For example, what will your marketing team look like after the configuration? Why are these changes going to be good for the organization? 
• Get policy buy-in to test the team model first: Some organizations will immediately see the benefit of the team model. But if that’s not the case at your organization, we’ve found that it’s a lot easier to get buy-in to test the team model instead of jumping directly into a wholesale change. 
• Identify the gaps in skills: As for building the marketing team, first, identify your strengths. Do any team members have good speaking, writing, or digital design skills? What skills are you missing? Maybe you’re lacking skills in marketing automation and client research. Write down your skills gaps and start engaging the resources needed to close those gaps. Often, those human resources are already in your organization!
• Develop an operation plan: Decide which team members will fulfill which marketing roles and how often. Then, iron out any inefficiencies or incentives that could be working against you. Once you’ve put it all together, you’ll find that the team-based marketing model is more flexible, resilient, and productive than just relying on rainmakers alone. 

If your firm is also lacking a defined sales team, here’s an additional resource on developing a sales team structure.

2. Strategy Alignment: Aligning Sales and Marketing Strategies 

Both your marketing and sales teams know that attracting new clients is essential to the health of your business. But are your sales and marketing teams implementing the same kind of approach to achieve this goal? Or, could they be working against one another and not even realize it? 

Many firms don’t know the range of sales and marketing strategies available, and they might not have taken the time to identify the unique strategies their sales and marketing teams are currently leveraging. This can result in the sales team choosing an approach that isn’t compatible with that of the marketing team.

In this respect, aligning your sales and marketing strategies starts with identifying the strategies each team is currently using. Next, the teams should discuss what they’re doing. Then, they can align their efforts and eliminate inefficiencies to achieve better results. 

Here are the most common strategies that sales and marketing teams are using today:

• Seller-doer strategy: This is the most common strategy in smaller firms. The person making the sale is the person doing the work. Not only is this team member finding new prospects and closing deals, but he or she is also performing the actual service. 
• Traditional seller strategy: This strategy involves a specific person who is responsible for creating and closing opportunities. After closing the deal, another employee – the “doer” – performs the work. In this strategy, the seller maintains a relationship with the client to find and close new opportunities. This isn’t the most common strategy in professional services firms because the client can’t evaluate the “doers” expertise or establish trust – which is usually a critical element in closing the deal. 
• Seller and expert strategy: This strategy is needed when extensive proposal and contract negotiation phases are required before closing a sale, which is usually the case with government contracts and large construction projects. This strategy requires a salesperson who manages the relationship and an expert who helps create the proposal and contract and will likely manage the actual work. This strategy is typically limited to large-budget projects.
• Business developer and closer-doer strategy: This model uses a salesperson to create opportunities and nurture leads, but they don’t provide an in-depth technical perspective to the client – nor do they close the sale. Many professional services firms label this role as a “business developer” as opposed to a salesperson. This frees up the doer’s schedule to spend more time on doing the job as opposed to finding and nurturing new client relationships. 

After reviewing the above sales and marketing strategies, you can align your sales and marketing efforts by holding a meeting — with both teams in the same room — to answer the following questions: 

• What sales and marketing strategies does our firm use to boost profitability, visibility, and growth? 
• Do we use different strategies at different times depending on the job?
• Would it be better to use different strategies than we’re already using?
• What roles do the sales team and the marketing team carry out to support the current strategies? Where do these roles align to support each other, and where do they conflict? 
• What changes can we make to bring sales and marketing efforts into better alignment around these strategies? 
• Or, if we change strategies, how can we align sales and marketing efforts to support the changes?

When you bring sales and marketing into a meeting to conduct discussions like this, a lot of creative solutions and “aha moments” rise to the surface. Soon enough, both teams will harmonize their strategies toward dramatically better results.

3. Aligning Forces: Best Practice for Getting Sales and Marketing on the Same Page

The previous section touched on the benefits of bringing representatives of sales and marketing into the same meetings. In this section, we’ll dive into the specific topics that sales and marketing should regularly discuss. Holding joint meetings on the following topics is a great way to keep the teams in sync:

• Strategy development meetings: First and foremost, sales and marketing should continually collaborate on determining the best strategy for communicating the firm’s messages, pursuing leads, nurturing client relationships, and measuring the results of these efforts.
• Content development meetings: Marketing teams spend a lot of time developing educational content such as blog posts, articles, webinars, and whitepapers. When the sales team participates in content development meetings with the marketing department, salespeople can provide valuable topic ideas based on their first-hand knowledge of what resonates with the target audience.
• Campaign development meetings: Marketing teams also spend time on creating and promoting new campaigns – such as events, ads, and speaking engagements – to boost visibility and attract new leads. Since it’s the sales team that will be communicating with those leads, the sales team should be involved in campaign development meetings to ensure that the marketing team is attracting the right clients.
• KPI meetings: Finally, it’s crucial that sales and marketing teams review the same key performance indicators (KPIs), and they should meet to review them at the same time and in the same room.

4. Aligning Metrics: What KPIs Should Sales and Marketing Review Together?

One of the most common reasons for misalignment happens when sales and marketing teams track different success metrics. That’s why it’s important for sales and marketing to hold regular KPI meetings where they review, discuss, and understand the latest KPIs together.

Here are the most important metrics that sales and marketing should review together:

• Implementation metrics: These figures relate to the various sales and marketing techniques and technologies your teams are implementing. They reveal the time, cost, and energy required for different strategies. Examples of implementation metrics might include statistics on CRM software – for example, how many team members are using it, how are they using it, and how much does it cost to use. It could also include figures related to sales tactics like the time and cost of reaching out to potential clients with personalized emails and phone calls. 
• Visibility metrics: These figures reveal how visible your firm and its services are to the target audience. Examples of visibility metrics include total website traffic, social media metrics, attendance numbers at events, Google search rankings for your website, and other stats that reveal how many people are seeing and interacting with your brand. 
• Expertise metrics: These numbers show the degree to which your potential customers are seeing and interacting with your thought leadership content. In other words, how successful has your firm been at demonstrating its expertise? Examples of expertise metrics include blog views, premium content downloads, guest post metrics, webinar attendee figures, and attendance at speaking engagements. 
• Impact metrics: These figures show the impact and success of your marketing and sales campaigns. In other words, they tell marketing and sales how worthwhile their efforts have been. Examples of impact metrics include figures on new leads and inquiries, sales pipeline stats related to different lead stages (i.e., raw leads, sales-ready leads, etc.), sales wins and losses, and monthly revenue figures to show how sales and marketing efforts are contributing to the bottom line.

Ultimately, if sales and marketing aren’t looking at the same KPIs in regular meetings, they’re not going to align their strategies to overcome challenges, and they could be creating more setbacks and challenges along the way. 

Final Thoughts About Sales and Marketing Alignment

Thanks for staying with us and reading through this guide. At Hinge, we’ve held the hands of countless firms along the journey toward better sales and marketing alignment – and to our delight, we’ve watched our clients radically transform their businesses by implementing the simple tips and perspectives outlined above.

If you’d like to grow your business with lasting momentum, focusing your marketing and sales teams on the same goal makes sense. After all, better alignment between these two departments allows them to work together to attract the type of clients who are desperately seeking your services — and your company’s unique style of delivering them. 

The post Sales and Marketing Alignment: Proven Strategies That Help Your Sales and Marketing Teams Work Together appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Even in the days preceding Covid-19 and the new business environment this pandemic has created, we’ve been studying the behavior of an elite group of professional services firms that have managed normal marketplace ebb and flow and achieving high growth – to the tune of 20%+ annual growth for 3 consecutive years or more. While firms in this high-performing category have different business models, serve different audiences, and span across all of professional services (i.e. consulting, IT, AEC, accounting & finance, government contracting), they have one habit in common: digital disruption.

Of course none of us really knows how much of what we’re all experiencing today is going to be here for the long-haul. One of our recent studies reports on certain patterns that began emerging 3-5 years ago that have not only prevailed, but have become more prominent in this pandemic environment and are likely to stay.  Here are a few of those:

• Finding firms through referral is on the decline. In 2013, more than 70% of buyers reported turning to their network when they needed a new service provider. While referrals remain the top search method, in today’s world, less than 60% of today’s buyers ask for referrals — a 15% decrease.
• While referrals are on the decline, they are still the primary search method of professional services buyers. But, finding firms through online search has surged in adoption. Nearly 1 in 5 buyers today look for firms to address their key challenges through online search – an 11% increase from 2013.
• Expertise seals the deal. At the end of the day, while firms use several different criteria as they are looking for firms, building their lists and then narrowing those lists, when it comes to final selection, expertise is the #1 criteria over reputation, cost, and relationship.
• It’s all well and good when you know you’re the top expert, but the sad reality remains that it’s hard to get others to know that. In fact the last trend I want to bring up is that it’s getting harder to be visible. Beyond an intuitive feeling, buyers validate this. Today, a mere 16% of buyers think their service provider is highly visible in the marketplace — a more than 25% decrease from the 2013 study.

Now back to the digital disruptors.

Professional services firms that caught onto these trends and then built their marketing programs with digital disruption in mind are in fact the firms that not only have high visibility, they have meaningful visibility – visibility around the type of expertise relevant to their client’s top challenges. Findings in our recently release High-Growth Study illustrate the characteristics and habits of these digital disruptors:

1 – New business pipeline is primarily digital

Firms that generate more than 66% of their leads from online sources grow more than twice as fast as companies that generate less than 33% of the leads from online sources.

2 – Marketing teams have stronger skills in social media, research & and SEO

Marketing departments of digital disruptors have a skills advantage in 3 areas that are critical to successful online lead generation. They are savvy social media dialoguers, they understand the science around keywords and use SEO to build visibility for their firms and their content, and they know how to get their content published in outside publications where their audiences are reading (outreach). They also have a strength in audience research, so they are bringing key insights around their audience behavior that helps drive efficient and relevant marketing.

3 – Marketing programs prioritize promotion of expertise

Marketing programs of digital disruptors prioritize educating audiences and providing valuable, informative content over promotional and overly salesy collateral. Relatively speaking, these firms are 3x more likely to invest in digital advertising, almost 2x more likely to offer downloadable content, and make greater use of social media, email campaigns, SEO, and open-access content such as blogs.

4 – Traditional marketing techniques act in concert with digital techniques

Digital disruptors aren’t all or only digital. These firms incorporate traditional marketing techniques that complement their digital campaigns, and vice versa. The investment they make in traditional techniques such speaking and networking for example brings excellent visibility to their digital assets (who doesn’t look up a speaker’s website after an impressive performance?), and the stronger their digital footprint is, the easier it is for them to be tapped as speakers. They also show a propensity to reinforce their digital marketing initiatives with phone marketing and strategic partnerships.

There are a couple of overarching lessons we can take from these digital disruptors.

First and foremost, there is a strong case for going digital.  Our data shows a strong positive correlation generating leads through digital means and rapid growth. Buyers of professional services now more than ever need fast, efficient ways to learn about you, connect with you, and ultimately work with you.

Second, going digital is only part of the story. Equally important is building your marketing program around a set of digital and traditional techniques that work in concert to support each other. If you blog and that’s all you do, that will not get you anywhere, even though it’s one of the marketing techniques digital disruptors adopt. A blog must be supported with well-researched keywords, a website that makes your expertise abundantly clear, and exposure for your blog though channels other than just your website, such as social media.

Lastly, if you’re not relevant, even the best digital marketing will have little impact. Digital disruptors prioritize researching their audiences so that as they develop their marketing programs, they have assurance that they are writing, speaking, and using messaging in a way that gets at the heart of what those audiences are grappling with and reflects how they make their buying decisions.

If you’re interested in seeing more of the findings around digital disruption in professional services you can find the study here.

The post Keeping your business alive and relevant: Digital Disruption for Professional Services Marketing appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Why This Study is Needed

Buyers of technology and software services have a well-established reputation of being fickle on price. To a degree, they come by it honestly. Technology itself has allowed providers to enter the market en masse with feature-rich yet low-cost solutions. With so many firms looking like they do the same thing as the next guy on the block, competing on price shouldn’t be a surprise.

Add the current pandemic to the mix, and it almost feels like anyone’s guess when it comes to what it will take to win new business.

Fortunately, though, there is a path forward for providers of technology and software solutions for competing less on price and more on criteria such as expertise and innovation. The key is understanding what buyers think today, and what trends will impact how they learn and make decisions in the future.

About the Study

The original study was published in 2013 and provided the first comprehensive look at the differing perspectives of buyers and sellers throughout the entire professional services buyers’ journey.

A second version of the study was published in 2018. This study revealed a rapidly evolving landscape that presented new challenges and opportunities.

The pace and scope of change was so profound that we decided to follow-up with the current study just two years later in 2020. This study also saw the addition of industry specific versions of the report, such as this one.

The timing could not have been better. It allowed us to capture the first real indication of the emerging buyer concerns and preferences. 

Focused on Technology and Software Services

In this breakout report, we explore the challenges technology and software services clients are facing and the role they see their provider play. We also explore the new client journey from their first exploration of a business challenge to the final selection of the firm they choose to work with.

We then look at the client experience and how it does or doesn’t translate into an ongoing relationship and referrals. To put the findings in perspective we compare key T&S results to other professional services verticals such as Consulting, AEC, and Accounting & Financial services.

Sampled Both Buyers and Sellers

Using phone interviews and online surveys, we researched 191 buyers and 60 sellers of technology and software services. Because the buyers bought services from the sellers, we were able to study both sides of the relationship and how they see each other and identify disconnects that can derail a professional relationship.

Cross Industry Comparisons Included

In addition to reporting on the industry data, we also looked at the findings from other angles. This report examines the responses from Technology & Software Services firms and puts them in the context of three other major professional services groups:

Key Findings

The results of the study are organized around four questions that capture the most impactful steps in a Technology & Software buyer’s journey.

What Are the Buyers’ Business Challenges?

Most professionals believe they understand the challenges their potential clients face. And while this doesn’t hold true in most industries, the data validates that belief for technology and software services firms.

Unlike the other professional services industries, technology & software providers are well attuned to the issues their clients are facing—lending providers a potential edge when it comes to messaging the value of their services.

The key of course is to understanding the many different nuances of the buyers’ stated concerns so that your message stands above the noise of other providers saying they can solve the same problem you can solve.

How Do Clients Feel About Their Service Providers?

Most T&S buyers (56.6%) would gladly recommend their current provider to a friend or colleague. But fewer and fewer friends and colleagues are bothering to ask. It’s quicker and easier to do a web search or check on social media. Even more troubling is the erosion of client’s willingness to recommend, down by an alarming 23% in just two years – the highest across all industries sampled in the study.

There is another means of measuring how clients feel about their providers: relevance. Fortunately for T&S providers, 42% of buyers rate providers as “highly relevant” to their top organizational challenges – and this has improved 30% over the last 2 years.  This finding is significant since relevance impacts both willingness to recommend and client loyalty.

High-level relevance to the prospects’ key issues not only wins new clients, it also helps you keep them. Firms that are viewed as highly relevant to clients’ current issues are 80% more likely to be highly recommended by their existing clients. High relevancy ratings are also associated with a 30% higher likelihood of having highly loyal clients.

How Do Buyers Search for Service Providers?

When buyers of technology and software services need to find a solution to a problem they’re trying to solve, they are more likely to conduct a web search than any other strategy. This tendency underscores the critical role of both your website (where the solution can be displayed) and SEO (how your website gets found) in the buying process.

Similarly, webinars are now on a par with conferences and events as information sources.

LinkedIn is used by nearly 85% of buyers, making it the dominant social media platform.

How Do Buyers Evaluate Service Providers?

While T&S providers have long relied showcasing relevant past experience to help seal the deal, we are seeing the limits of this strategy. While still an important factor, its role in the final selection process has decreased by 30% over the last few years. Expertise on the other hand, rising by almost 50% as a top deciding factor, carries nearly the same weight as ability to deliver results and competitive pricing. Interestingly, innovation wasn’t even mentioned in previous studies as a top deciding factor – and it takes the #2 slot this year.

What Does This Mean for Your Firm?

The T&S industry joins the rest of professional services in that the industry as a whole is undergoing a period of significant and rapid change. While no one can know for sure how this change will play out, some conclusions seem clear.

The pressure is on when it comes to understanding specific buyer challenges. Sellers seem to be aligned at a high level on clients and their challenges. However, when pricing figures so prominently in the final selection as it does in the T&S industry, differentiated and relevant messaging becomes the non-negotiable when it comes to standing out above the noise.

Focus on the relevance of your services. Making your expertise visible is important, but don’t forget to make it relevant to the buyer’s challenges as well. Don’t assume that your potential client understands what they need or how you can help them, even if it seems obvious to you.

Part of your job is connecting the dots between the buyer’s challenge and your solution. And don’t forget to reinforce that relevance on a regular basis. If not, you can easily get taken for granted over time.

It’s time to get serious about digital. Consumers and clients have been migrating to digital communications channels for many years. We have seen digital approach and overtake traditional marketing and delivery channels. And with the widespread “remote work” experience that so many have shared, the time has come to act. Buyers are free to search for the specific expertise they need, independent of geographic location. Don’t get left behind waiting for things to “get back to normal”.

Changes in buyer behavior are reducing the impact of traditional approaches. Buyers are changing their behavior at a fast clip. Many traditional business development strategies no longer work as well as they used to. Buyers learn in ways that are fast and easy.  They search online rather that asking a friend for a referral. They are less loyal and more inclined to find a best fit solution, rather than fall back on existing relationships. Don’t make the assumption that what worked before will work again.

The post How to Win Business When You’re Not the Lowest Cost Provider appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

In short, today’s buyers have plenty to worry about. Conducting prospect research can help you alleviate their concerns.

When the stakes are high, it helps to learn as much as possible about a prospective client before you get on the phone with them. The more you know about a prospect’s business, industry and role, the greater your chances of building an emotional bridge with them—and the easier it will be for them to trust you.

Researching your prospects doesn’t have to be difficult, and it can be done at a variety of levels. In this post, we’ll explore your research options and recommend specific techniques and tools you can use to develop business more effectively. 

What Is Prospect Research and Why Is it so Important?

Prospect research is used to identify, evaluate and gain insight into individual prospects or market segments with the goal of developing new client relationships. It typically involves using multiple secondary research techniques to qualify, nurture and close new prospects. 

Conducting this kind of research offers seven key advantages: 

1. Saves time and effort: Because prospect research can qualify prospects up front, you can focus on the most promising opportunities. You’ll waste a lot less time with unqualified prospects.
2. Shows that you understand their issues: Research can also enhance your credibility during a prospect call or meeting. When a prospect realizes you already understand their challenges, they are more inclined to trust your expertise. 
3. Demonstrates familiarity with their industry: Most buyers are looking for past experience and are not eager to pay for your education. Research can arm you with relevant information on their industry and competitors.
4. Indicates that you’ve done your homework: When you’ve done even a basic level of research into a potential buyer, it signals that you cared enough about them to put in the extra effort. You’ll earn their respect.
5. Fills embarrassing gaps in your knowledge: When you know nothing about a prospect, it is easy to say something awkward or inappropriate. In some cases, you can’t recover from these gaffs. There is such a thing as a stupid question. It’s one you should already know the answer to.
6. Builds trust: When it becomes clear to a prospect that you can talk intelligently about their problem, understand their business and can solve their problems, they are far more likely to trust you. 
7. Helps you close business: Research equips you with the inside knowledge and trust it takes to tip the scale in your favor.

Who and When Should You Research?

Researching prospects may sound like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Generally, it happens on three levels, which we describe below. Even cursory research may include all three levels, but you’ll have to rely on your judgement to decide if you should focus more of your time on a particular area. Not all prospects are going to require the same amount of effort.

Level 1: Researching an Individual

Whether you are responding to a referral, an individual who has reached out through a web form, or any other situation in which you are about to speak to a new business prospect for the first time, consider doing some research on their background before you pick up the phone. The more informed you are up front, the smarter you will sound—and the more likely you are to impress the person on the other end. 

Is it worth doing this kind of research? And how much time should you invest in it? The answer to those two questions will depend on a number of factors, including how soon you need to make the call (or in-person visit), how busy you are and how promising the prospect appears to be. 

Most often, you’ll probably only have time for a quick-and-dirty background review (see If You Only Have a Few Minutes below). That’s perfectly fine. At least you won’t embarrass yourself. But when you have time—especially if the prospect appears to fit your ideal prospect profile—try digging a little deeper. (We’ll explain how a bit later in this article.) When prospects are nodding their heads as you speak and think to themselves “yeah, you really get us,” you have won most of the battle.

You may find yourself fighting the urge to “just wing it.” It’s all too easy to convince yourself that you don’t have the time to spend on this sort of investigation. Anytime you notice your mind wandering in this direction, think of the possible consequences. You see, it’s also all too easy to expose your ignorance, ask a foolish question or underwhelm a prospect who was expecting you to be better prepared. How much will a few minutes of research cost you? Not as much as the alternative. You can bet on it.

Level 2: Researching a Firm

In most B2B and professional services situations you will not only be interested in the individuals you will be engaging with, but also their firm. Both are very important to understanding context and setting yourself up for success.

Research can also be valuable when you are building or vetting a list of prospects. Usually this involves identifying potential candidates and determining whether they might make viable clients by comparing them against a list of qualifying criteria.

Typically, you begin with a list of companies that you want to target, but you often don’t know many relevant details, such as the firm size or names of the key players. Prospect research uncovers the details—names, titles, business functions, biographical information, financial information and more—that allow you to reach out and engage these businesses in a way that’s more relevant and personal. Whether you are compiling a list from scratch or culling an existing prospect list to identify the best targets, research is the tool you need to make well-informed decisions.

Level 3: Researching an Industry

If you plan to reach out to multiple prospects in an industry you know relatively little about, you will improve your chances of impressing them if you can demonstrate at least a basic understanding of their business challenges and environment. You’ll want to learn about industry trends, challenges and priorities, as well as what issues these businesses are wrestling with today. You may also want to determine how your firm is perceived in that industry, and how best to turn these prospects into clients.

How to Conduct Prospect Research

In most professional services and B2B situations, you’ll want to explore all three levels of research described above. For example, if you get a referral from an existing client, you’ll probably want to learn about the individual, their firm and their industry. Let’s look at the kind of information you should be seeking at each level.

Individual Level

• Name and role in the organization
• Years with this firm
• Prior positions and roles
• Educational history
• Work history and experience
• Areas of professional expertise
• Notable publications/presentations
• Notable awards or accomplishments
• Possible points of connection (e.g., went to the same school, you know some people in common)
• Role in current or potential opportunity (e.g., decision maker, end user, etc.)
• Reporting relationships (if you are meeting with multiple people in a prospect’s organization)

Firm Level

• Industry
• Product/service offerings
• Firm revenue
• Financial performance
• Number of employees
• Firm history
• Leadership and organizational units
• Legal issues
• Press coverage
• Issues facing the firm and its industry (see Industry Level below) 
• Roles related to your services
• People in the relevant roles (see Individual Level above)

Industry Level

• Industry size and anticipated growth
• Industry economics
• Number and type of firms in industry
• Key industry players
• Legal and regulatory issues facing the industry
• Marketplace issues facing the industry
• Your key competitors who are active in the industry
• Key competitors’ reputation in the industry
• Key competitors’ visibility in the industry
• Your firm’s reputation in the industry
• Your firm’s visibility in the industry
• Your firm’s competitive advantage or disadvantage

Top Prospect Research Tools

In many situations, prospect research should be efficient and relatively easy. We’re not talking statistical analysis and multivariate regressions. This is basic information gathering—done quickly and using a variety of light-weight tools. 

In other situations, more formal research may be in order. For example, your firm may be contemplating entering a new market or trying to decide which industries to specialize in. In these cases, it may make sense to invest in a professionally conducted industry level study. This will allow you to investigate some of the important, but hard-to-research questions such as your firm’s reputation and visibility or how you compare to key competitors.

Individual Level

• LinkedIn
• Bio on firm website
• Web search (e.g., Google, Bing)
• Other social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter)
• Internal records(e.g., CRM, marketing automation system)

Firm Level

• Firm website
• LinkedIn company page
• SEC filings (public companies)
• Analysts reports (public companies)
• Press releases
• Web search
• Customer review sites (e.g., G2Crowd, Better Business Bureau, Yelp)
• Trade publications
• Local/regional business publications
• Industry directory listings
• Employer review sites (e.g., Indeed, Glassdoor, Comparably)
• Proprietary databases (e.g., D&B Hoover, ZoomInfo/DiscoverOrg)
• Internal records (e.g., CRM, marketing automation system)

Industry Level

• Analysts reports
• Proprietary databases
• SEC filings (public companies)
• Trade publications
• Web searches
• Association websites
• Census data
• Original research studies

What Research Tools Should You Use?

There is no end of research tools out there. And if you are looking for specialized information (financial information, web metrics, etc.), you may seek out dedicated tools. But we’re not going to address those outliers in this article. Instead, let’s explore the (mostly free) tools used most often to conduct general research on professional services business prospects.

The Firm’s Website

A prospect’s firm website is the first place you should turn to learn about its business and people. Here are just some things you may be able to learn:

• What they do
• What industries they serve
• Who their clients are
• What they specialize in
• Who their leaders are and details about their backgrounds
• What they write and speak about
• How big they are (number of people, number of offices)
• What awards they’ve won
• Financial statements and annual reports (if they are a public company)

If the site has a blog, check it out. You might learn something about the issues that they care about. Does your contact at the company write blog posts? Read a few of them. Also take a look at their news section to see if anything of note has taken place recently. Look out for changes in leadership, new products or services, recent acquisitions, significant new clients or contracts—and the like.

LinkedIn

This is probably the best place to learn about an individual prospect. Here’s what you want to look for:

• What responsibilities they’ve had at their current job
• How long they’ve been at their employer, and how they have advanced in the company
• Past job experience. Are they likely to have bought services like yours before?
• Do they share any connections with you? Is there anyone you might want to mention during your meeting?
• What groups they belong to
• What are they writing about and sharing?
• Where did they go to school?

And don’t forget to check out the company’s LinkedIn page, too. It often presents the company in a slightly different way than their website.

Twitter

If you know your prospect’s Twitter handle, take a look at their page and see what they’ve been writing and sharing. Also see who they follow. Look for trends in their interests. Next, look at the company’s Twitter page to see how they talk about themselves and what they’ve been promoting.

Facebook

Look for any relevant interests or personal information that you might be able to use during your conversation. Just don’t be creepy. People don’t want to feel like they have been spied on. Think of Facebook as a place to get a general feel for the person, rather than a source of actionable information. If you happen to find something very relevant, be careful how you introduce it in your conversation.

CRM and Marketing Automation Systems

Your prospect may have a history of interactions with your firm, already. Check your internal marketing and customer relations platforms to see what records they contain on this prospect. They may have downloaded content or reached out before to one of your colleagues. That’s useful information as you go into a call.

Google

Search for both the individual prospect and their company and see what turns up. Look out for news stories, online reviews, partnerships, awards and any other potentially relevant personal and professional details. 

Glassdoor

While you always should approach employee reviews with caution, they can sometimes surface useful information about internal and external challenges, as well as structural changes that won’t appear in official company news.

Local and National Business Lists

Private companies are not required to release financial and other information to the public. But to appear in certain prestigious “top” lists, they often have to do so. Check out the Inc 5000, your local Business Journal’s top lists by industry, and other lists of fastest-growing or largest companies. Many trade associations also publish lists like these.

Financial Statements and Annual Reports

If your prospect works for a publicly traded company, be sure to look at recent financial statements and the company’s annual report. You can learn a lot about their financial performance, strategic direction and recent challenges.

If You Only Have a Few Minutes

Sometimes you don’t have time to do research the right way. And that’s perfectly okay. Doing some research—even if it’s quick—is almost always better than doing none. When time is of the essence, here’s what I would suggest you do:

First stop is the firm’s website. This can give you a quick overview of where the individual works. Check out the About section for an overview of the firm, special expertise and areas of focus. Take a look at their products and services pages, as well any pages that describe the industries they serve. Read your client contact’s bio page, as well those of any other people in the firm you expect to meet. You’ll learn about their role in the company and perhaps see what they’ve published. You may even pick up some useful tidbits about their personal and professional interests.

Next stop is LinkedIn. Here you can learn more about the individual’s background, including prior positions, education, mutual contacts, publications, speaking engagements and more. Then hop over to their LinkedIn company page. This may fill in details that the website omitted, such as the estimated number of employees. 

Last stop is Google. Here you can search on the firm and do a quick scan for any relevant press stories, reviews and publications. Look for significant legal or public image issues, as well as profiles and reviews relevant to your services. Also, do a search on your contact. You may find out about significant outside interests and hobbies.

 Done. Now have your meeting.

A Final Thought

Prospect research is one of the keys to successful business development for professional services firms. Even a few minutes of effort can avoid relationship-killing embarrassments and add to the insights you can offer. And if you have time to conduct more systematic research, you’ll uncover new opportunities and avoid costly missteps. These are investments that offer rich returns and reduce your risk.

The post Prospect Research for the Professional Services appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

So what gives?

Even though recent research shows that clients are more willing to be referral sources for their service providers, they’re actually making fewer referrals. The key takeaway is the increase in alternative sources for information.

Source: Inside the Buyer’s Brain — Second Edition (2018)

Prospects are using other methods to find service providers rather than asking a friend or a colleague for a referral. A recent study into the habits of professional services buyers showed that more than 70% leveraged digital techniques when evaluating their service providers.

The importance of a good old fashioned referral has not gone away. It’s just that digital marketing has outgrown traditional marketing in many important ways.

Download the LinkedIn Guide for Professional Services Executives

What does this have to do with LinkedIn?

Social media platforms, like LinkedIn, have revolutionized networking by providing online venues for building relationships and demonstrating relevant experience.

It just so happens to be that the number one criteria when a buyer is evaluating a professional service provider is understanding expertise through past performance (>35%). For a firm, and those representing the business, this experience can take the form of project examples, client testimonials, references and case studies, to name a few. Among a variety of features, LinkedIn provides a forum for all of these elements on a standard profile page and they need to be considered when developing yours.

If you aren’t yet maximizing social media, or are just taking your first steps into it, these types of data points may bring on a sense of nausea. After all, they reveal an inconvenient truth—if you want to grow your business, it’s time to get serious about social media marketing.

Make Your Move

So, how should you get started? Long-term you’ll discover that layering several social media platforms together as part of a complete digital strategy will give you the best results.

However, it’s best to begin with a solid foundation on the number one social media network for professional service firms—LinkedIn. With more than 575 million members world-wide, LinkedIn provides a platform for today’s workforce to provide thought provoking conversation on the latest ideas and trends, networking among a targeted list of peers and prospects, and best yet, a source for the new age of referral marketing.

After building a strong LinkedIn profile for each of your key business development team members, use the following three steps as a guide to take your game to the next level:

1) Win The Participation Trophy

You will meet people who have shared professional interests by joining in on the conversation. As a best practice, we recommend taking just 15 minutes out of your day to engage and participate in relevant LinkedIn News Feed and Groups discussions. Before choosing groups, decide who in your target audience you want to reach. Remember, in B2B sales there are usually multiple people who influence the buying decision.

You’ll want to find groups that appeal to each of the people who play a role in the decision-making process, broadening your reach. For example, if your firm helps both sales and marketing professionals, you may need to join both the ‘Sales Best Practices’ group and the ‘Content Strategy’ group.

To discover the groups in which your decision-makers and influencers participate, look at the profiles of clients and prospects, the types that you want more of. By scrolling down to the bottom and expanding on their Interests, you’ll find a list of groups to which they belong.

Check out these groups to determine which ones are the most active. Ask yourself, Is there actual conversation going on?

Or is this group just a receptacle for someone posting an offer to provide outsourced SEO for $199/month… every 15 minutes?

The more engagement that is present, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to find ones to which you can add value and show your thought leadership and meet new prospects.

You can get your feet wet in a group by answering questions or commenting on topics other group members have raised. Alternatively, to gain even greater visibility, you can initiate a discussion.

As noted, just like with live networking, leading a discussion with a sales pitch will put a quick end to conversations (and might even get you banned from a group). So, if you link to content to start a conversation, don’t be self-promotional. Instead, mix other blog posts, articles, and content in with content your firm produces. A good guideline is four pieces of content curated from other sources to one of your own.

By bringing up relevant topics and discussing the key issues your prospects and clients are grappling with, you can establish your expertise as a thought leader and best demonstrate that all important expertise.

2) Make The Next Steps Easy

There are several ways that LinkedIn can also drive traffic to your site without spending a dime. And we have seen that more traffic leads to more conversions, such as prospects downloading gated content and completing contact forms, which results in more new business opportunities. How does it work:

• First, visitors may be directed to your website from the group discussions. At Hinge, we’ve found that posts that stimulate conversations will drive a noticeable amount of traffic to our website, especially to the source of the content.
  
• Second, when a prospect completes a search for a provider who can help them to solve a problem, one of your company’s leaders may rise to the top of the search results. If his or her profile includes a link to your website in the ‘Contact Info’ section, as it should, the searcher is just one click away from your site.
  
• You can post your content in LinkedIn’s news feed and it will be shared with all of your connections who may read and click through to your website. Bonus points if you can get your colleagues to throw you a like or even help start the conversation! Remember- you’re all in this together.
  
• Lastly, if you’re willing to make an investment, you can take advantage of LinkedIn’s sponsored updates and pay-per-click ads that allow you to precisely target your audience. This works best when that target audience is known, particularly through research.

People who come to your website from LinkedIn do so with some familiarity with your firm and its leaders. Thus, when they arrive, they’re more likely to convert into a qualified lead.

3) Make New Friends (But Keep the Old)

If you’ve done your research and marketing legwork, you have outlined the qualities of your ideal client. Most likely, you’ll find these potential prospects on LinkedIn.

However, you’ll need to connect with them to start a direct conversation. The best way to do this is to find a connection that you have in common and ask him or her to introduce you virtually. Make this process as easy as possible for your contact by explaining the value you offer their connection and including brief email language for the introduction.

If you’re all in and want to take it to the next level, consider investing in LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator. This tool allows you to search more efficiently and zero in on the right prospects and decision-makers. Users can save lists of target accounts and leads as well as get notifications of potential new matches.

The service also comes with a hefty amount of InMails, direct messages that LinkedIn guarantees they’ll deliver.  And if you send easy-to-read InMails that promise a benefit to the reader, they may start a conversation that leads to a sale.

Download the LinkedIn Guide for Professional Services Executives

Using LinkedIn for business development is a powerful ally in the fight for business development. You can build relationships that are not limited by geography, become known as a visible expert or thought leader, and increase web traffic and conversions.

LinkedIn is the primary social network for professional services firms – it’s where your future clients are sharing relevant information and discussing industry trends. By participating in the conversation, sharing relevant content, and connecting directly with those who match your client profile, you can reach your target audience easily and efficiently.

A Closing Thought

We can all recognize the importance of referrals to bringing in new business. But it’s important to recognize that referrals don’t only come from clients and those who have experience of working with us. Non-client referrals are just as significant and come to us through venues such as speaking and networking events, and, through social media.

The research shows that 17% of non-client referrals happen through firms’ activity and subsequent visibility in social media channels. As a viable marketing strategy and pathway to new business, social media, and LinkedIn in particular, is well past being “something to consider.”

It’s a must for business development in professional services.

The post The New Age of Referral: Leveraging LinkedIn for Business Development appeared first on Hinge Marketing.

Hopefully, being at—and working from—home, your basic needs are being met. Personally, you have enough air, water, food, and sleep. You also feel safe and protected. But, what about your business? How healthy, safe, and protected is it?

The playing field has changed.

For many, a lot of current business has been put on hold. Opportunities in the pipeline have been cancelled or delayed. Clients are withholding payment or asking for new terms. Moreover, face-to-face meetings, trade shows/conferences, and special events have all been sidelined for the near future. Most have to find new ways to market, sell, package, price, and deliver their services and products.

There is still plenty of time on the clock, but you need to get a fresh read of the field. What had value six months ago may not have the same value today. Also, it is now a virtual world. If you are not using digital marketing techniques to the fullest, you need to adjust your strategy today. Be aware that trust and confidence are in short supply as run your new plays. Finally, every dollar is precious to your clients and prospects right now. Many will have tighter budget restrictions than they did even a few months ago.

The Hinge Research Institute realizes that the playing field has changed and has produced a new, actionable playbook with dozens of proven plays, coaching tips, and research facts to help those in B2B and professional services bring their “A-game” moving forward. It is entitled, “Getting Back In The Game.”

This article will highlight 11 of those game plays from the playbook for leadership, marketing, business development, sales, re-packaging/pricing, delivery, and technology.

Leadership

Play 1: Be bold and invest. According to McKinsey & Company, tinkering, instead of making big moves, leads to changes that are too small to match the external pace of disruption. And when it comes to staffing and programs, don’t just think about cutting back. McKinsey & Company found that firms that invest when valuations are low outperform those that do not.

Play 2: Lean into change. Evaluate potential change as predictable trends or unpredictable events. Plan for predictable trends. Be open for adapting to unpredictable events.

Marketing

Play 3: Make your top draft pick a digital marketing professional. We cannot emphasize how important digital marketing will be moving forward. Whether this person is on staff or outsourced, they should help your business with website design, social media, search engine marketing, email marketing, and more. These are areas that will generate more and more of your branding and leads.

Play 4: Conduct a blog audit. In sports, to win, you have to stay in peak condition. That goes for blogs as well. Use your analytics to see where engagement potential lies. Now is the time to adjust your calls to action and internal links. Maybe some posts are out of date and need to be freshened up. Other posts may have served their purpose and can be quietly put to rest. Just as team sports like basketball, hockey, and football rely on their strongest players to make the biggest impact. You, as coach, need to continually monitor your marketing program and take tired resources out of the game, assess their condition, make some changes, re-energize them, and get them back when they are ready.

Business development/Sales

Play 5: Develop a “trust multiplier” to help prospects build confidence in working with you. For example, at Hinge, we tell clients that if they co-brand a webinar with us, we can double or triple the normal number of registrations they receive. Many of them have set new webinar registration and attendance records by working with us. That type of trust multiplier is extremely compelling and helps a prospect move forward with their decision.

Play 6: Step back and do an honest assessment of your website. Is it compelling? Is it easy to navigate? Is it differentiated and memorable? Under the new normal, your website is the gateway to your firm. It is the place of first impressions. Keep in mind that folks will be accessing your website at their convenience—even when you may not be available. This can be a game changer. The decision to work with you may be influenced by your website. To learn more, download our Lead Generating Website Guide.

Re-packaging/Pricing

Play 7: Realize that time does not equal value. Understand your competitive environment and identify where you can create value by being faster, more efficient, or more reliable. Determine what your clients are willing to pay for this value. Also, appreciate that value communication is just as important as value delivery. You need to make sure that anyone selling a product or service clearly understands the value before you ask your prospect or client to accept the value.

Delivery

Play 8: Create a client-only portal. Fill it with digital content in every shape and form. Create a very special experience for your clients with this portal.

Play 9: Leverage your subject matter experts in video and online formats. Make sure that these subject matter experts get media and presentation training. If they are not polished or comfortable on the new video or digital channels, consider hiring an actor to present your content.

Technology

Play 10: Consider chatbots. This technology is a great marketing, business development, and client service enhancement for your website. Keep in mind that you are playing catch-up and each of your business development and sales staff can only speak to one prospect at a time.

Chatbots are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They can offer information to anyone around the world any time they show interest. Chatbots can answer most common questions and even schedule appointments for BD and sales folks.

Play 11: Take advantage of an email or marketing automation platform (MAP). This investment should be one of your top priorities, as you will need to scale and try to reach more people faster. Which system you choose will depend on what features you think you will need over the next three years. Email platforms tend to focus primarily on sending out the emails and tracking them. Marketing automation platforms can be integrated into a marketing technology stack to deliver sophisticated functionality such as lead scoring, lead nurturing, multi-touch attribution, personalization, predictive analytics, Account-Based Marketing, and more. Now more than ever, you need to establish a marketing and sales funnel or waterfall and be able to push out the right content at every stage of the funnel and every touchpoint. This engagement should be personalized and customized as much as possible to build trust and confidence in your expertise and products/services.

To learn more about the technology to use in these unprecedented times, please listen to the Hinge on-demand webinar, “Reboot: How to Rebuild Your Business Development Program for a Virtual World.”

To get more insights into these—and other plays—be sure to sign up for the live or on-demand Hinge webinar, “Getting Back in the Game: How Your Firm Can Win in ‘The New Normal.’”

In addition to listening to the “Getting Back in the Game” webinar, you can also download a free copy of the 40-page playbook, “Getting Back in the Game: A Playbook to Help Professional Services Firms Win Under ‘The New Normal.’” 

Please let us know what you think of the “Getting Back in the Game” playbook and webinar. Hopefully you will pick up a few plays that will help you get the win.

The post 11 Plays to Get Your Business Back After Covid-19 And The New Normal appeared first on Hinge Marketing.