Ed Marsh Announces Sales Lead Management Audit Service
Ipswich, MA
January 2, 2024
US companies spend more than $24B each year on trade show displays1, yet few attend shows with specific, defined goals, or track lead follow-up and return on the trade show investment. That contrasts sharply with the way companies decide and track other business investments.
Ed Marsh's new Sales Lead Management Audit helps companies understand their lead investments' business development and finance implications.
As the fall trade show season fades in memory and companies adjust their forecasts and budgets for the coming year, they need data to make informed decisions. What is the cost/lead for each show and lead source? The cost/discovery meeting? Per qualified opportunity? Even the marketing $/$1K revenue dollar for each lead source? Are trade show leads the best investment? How do they compare to inbound lead generation?
Further, for that data to be meaningful, they must be comfortable that all leads are followed up completely and similarly. That means there must be an optimized process with accountability, a tested and refined sales cadence, and training on the tactics and methodology.
Yet many companies don't have empirical data on the cost and return of their marketing investments and trade show participation. Often, as many as 70% of leads are not followed up on as management assumes they are.
"Companies carefully weigh most business and investment decisions and rely on data to guide their choices," says Ed Marsh, founder of Consilium. "Yet marketing lead generation choices are often made on gut feeling. My sales lead management audit will help them bring consistent process and rigorous analysis to their marketing, to empower them to optimize lead investments and make informed decisions."
The lead follow-up audit is designed to deliver critical information and insights, including:
- gaps in collaboration between sales and marketing
- sales math calculation of the number of qualified leads required to deliver predictable revenue
- process improvement opportunities in marketing and sales
- KPIs to track and the systems/data required to track them
- best practice gaps in the lead follow-up process
- opportunities to improve lead conversion rates
- empirical data to compare the cost/return for various marketing activities and lead sources
- how systems engineering can improve the demand generation process
- gaps in process, accountability, coaching, and training that impede the lead to revenue process
Ed brings years of working in digital and traditional marketing and industrial sales, as well as expertise in complex, long sales-cycle capital equipment and B2B industrial sales, to the audit. That expertise and his Overall Revenue Effectiveness™ Framework help him to quickly understand a company's lead management process and identify opportunities for reengineering processes and implementing systems to drive improvement.
Normally completed in less than one month, the efficient audit is modestly priced to make it easy for companies to take this first step to understand how bringing the toolkit and mindset of operational excellence to marketing and sales can yield enormous improvements in efficiency and revenue outcomes.
Marsh continues, "Improving the effectiveness of marketing budget allocation is critical for every business. Doing so takes accurate data. My audit delivers that data. It's also an eye-opening process for senior execs to understand the dissonance between the disciplined way they run production and operations and the more casual and ad hoc execution of marketing and sales."
Companies interested in engaging Ed to conduct a lead management audit can learn more here. It's fast, easy and modestly priced to get started and harvest extensive, valuable insights to improve revenue growth and allocate marketing dollars efficiently.
About Consilium Global Business Advisors: Consilium assists American manufacturers in applying process excellence to their business development. In other words, we help lean, well-managed companies with rock-solid bottom lines effectively and consistently grow their top lines to match. We work primarily with mid-size industrial manufacturing and capital equipment companies, guiding them through a journey toward Overall Revenue Effectiveness™.
