The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

by Mark Roberge

In this example, 50,000 sales leads are analyzed. Some of those leads were called only once (I wasn't pleased to see this). Some of them were called 12 times. Obviously, if you call a lead more frequently, you are more likely to get someone on the phone. However, it costs you more organizational time to do so. Therefore, what is the right balance between calling more frequently and managing the time invested per lead? The y-axis attempts to answer this question. The y-axis plots the profitability of calling a lead the number of times denoted on the x-axis. Whichever call attempt volume yields the highest profitability is the ideal per-lead call volume we are looking for. In this example, Figure 12.2 illustrates that the optimal number of times to call a small business lead is five. For mid-market leads, the optimal number of call attempts is eight. For enterprise companies, the optimal number of call attempts is twelve.

When we at HubSpot set up our first team dedicated to sourcing leads and making proactive calls into the market, we made these same mistakes. After a number of frustrating cycles with purchased lists and data source subscriptions, this team ultimately resorted to simple searches in Google. These salespeople conducted Google searches for phrases that they presumed would yield a list of “good-fit” companies for the HubSpot service. The process effectively yielded qualified companies on which to call. However, the time investment needed to source these companies was unsustainable. Here is how the process worked: Conduct a Google search for a phrase that yields qualified companies for the HubSpot service. Click through to the first company that looks interesting. Scan the website to verify whether the company appears to be qualified for the HubSpot service. If the company appears qualified, search for the company in our CRM to see if the company is already “owned” by another salesperson. If the company is not already owned by another salesperson, conduct research online to find the key executives who would be involved in the purchase decision. Conduct additional research to find the industry, revenue, territory, and contact information for the company and its executive contacts. Type all of this information into the CRM. Ten clicks. Ten minutes. One lead sourced. That is a lot of admin work. There had to be a better way. There had to be a way for technology to accelerate this ...