A little background information may be necessary before we dive into things.  First, InTouch is a business-to-business contact center.  Second, Carroll is its founder and CEO.  Third, and in the interest of journalistic disclosure, I’ll note that Carroll used to be a frequent WebProNews contributor.  I’ve never met the man, though, and so we’ll return to some more relevant points.

InTouch will suffer no layoffs, awkward name changes, or physical relocations as a result of the acquisition; indeed, it appears that the company won’t be affected in any negative way.  And whatever money InTouch received can presumably be considered a positive thing, but neither side has made that amount known.

Carroll has, however, written about the acquisition on his blog, and seems optimistic about the future.  “[A]ll of us at InTouch are excited about tapping into MarketingSherpa’s practical case studies and know how, and MarketingExperiments’ online laboratory to discover what really works,” he stated.  “Together, we can profoundly change the way people think about lead generation for the complex sale.”

Assuming Carroll’s “InTouch” with the market – sorry, at least one pun was necessary – MECLABS will definitely be a group worth watching.

The challenge that many organizations face is that their sales process is a black box.

No one except the sales team knows what is going on inside the black box until a proposal or sale happens.

Worse still, 80% of the leads that go into the sales black box are rarely seen again.

This makes it particularly challenging for marketers who are trying to measure their revenue contribution and lead generation ROI.

So what can be done about it?

Process mapping is a well-known technique for creating a common vision and shared language for improving business results.

I had the chance to interview Michael Webb, founder of Sales Performance Consultants and an expert on sales process improvement on his excellent book, Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way.

Michael gives some great input on how sales and marketing can use the six sigma process to create better sales and marketing results.

Show Agenda

• How is six sigma relevant to the sales and marketing process?
• How can sales and marketing apply a six sigma process and what are some problems the process can address?
• What are the barriers in helping to create the six sigma process?
• How do you encourage people in sales and marketing who have tried to create a process that hasn’t worked, to give it another shot and how can you help them create one that works?
• Provide examples of companies with complex sales that applied six sigma to the sales and marketing process.

Listen to podcast now (MP3 24 min 5.5 MB)

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

I’ve often talked about how marketers can reuse content for lead nurturing. If you currently are sending e-newsletters, here’s an idea for you consider.

Those who subscribe to this blog via my feedblitz e-mail notification are already familiar with the blogletter concept. You can apply this concept to your existing e-newsletter. Chad Hornfield writes on his Anything Goes Marketing blog, “How can you take your email newsletters to the next level to maximize their SEO effectiveness? Why combine it with your email newsletter with your blog of course!”

Link: Anything Goes Marketing: Where do Your Email Newsletters go? Email Heaven?.

Another useful post on the same subject by contributing writer (and Web designer) Sarah Lewis for Debbie Weil’s WordBiz Report on “How and Why to Combine an E-newsletter and a Blog.”

Sarah writes, “In short, e-newsletters aren’t as easy to create and update as blogs. That can make it harder to keep to a regular publishing schedule (ahem you might have noticed that Debbie’s publishing schedule has been a bit irregular of late). It makes sense, then, to take some of the easy-to-use technology that has made blogging so popular, and apply it to e-newsletters.”

Link: WordBiz Report: How and Why to Combine an E-newsletter and a Blog

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

I think this article does a nice job pointing out some of the most common pay-per-click mistakes and some easy fixes to help convert more clicks into web inquiries.

Just remember that most web inquiries are not sales ready leads so don’t simply throw them over the wall to your sales reps. Qualify them first.

MarketingProfs.com: Five Proven Ways to Waste Money With Pay-per-Click Advertising

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

The DMA report found that the phone and e-mail produced the highest response rates respectively-among direct marketing media channels in terms of generating leads. In fact, the phone has been number one during the past four years according to this report.

The report also found that e-mail continues to have a high response rate too. This is good news if you are using e-mail and the phone in combination (using e-mail along with the phone is critical in the lead nurturing process too).

BtoBonline:E-mail, telemarketing garner highest direct marketing response rates

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

In this month’s issue of Target Marketing, I wrote the cover article on “What’s a Lead?” There, I offer the most important steps that marketing and sales alike, need to take to end their “tug of war” to improve ROI.

The 5 steps of successful lead qualification are:

1. Define and Agree On What the Word “Lead” Means
2. Consolidate and Centralize Your Prospect Information
3. Pick up the Phone and Qualify Prospective Leads
4. Handing Off Leads to Sales
5. Closing the Loop

The first step in the process requires marketing and sales to come up with a definition for a lead together. This article also emphasizes the critical role that the (often overlooked) phone plays in the lead qualification process.

Read Target Marketing: What’s a Lead?

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

Mac writes, “When searching for leads for selling your products or services, you want to find those companies who have a problem for which you have the solution. How do you go about finding those companies and how do you find the level of contacts you need from within the companies?”

Mac’s seven tips to better target your lead generation:

1. Rank current customers and look for attributes
2. Consider lead generation questions
3. Determine likely prospects
4. Target lead generation by market
5. Target lead generation by geography
6. Research the media
7. Focus on b-to-b marketing vehicles

Multichannel Merchant: Targeting Your B2B Lead Generation

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

When inquiries are handed off without being methodically qualified, it doesn’t take the sales department long to start viewing all marketing-generated “leads” with skepticism. For this reason, most leads sent from marketing to the sales organization are lost, ignored, or discarded.

Are you currently sending your sales team qualified leads or merely inquiries? There is a difference. An inquiry is an interested party who has requested information and needs some level of assistance. But inquiries are not leads. A lead isn’t a lead until it’s been qualified.

I was happy to participate in a Lead Scoring & Management Roundtable organized by MarketingSherpa. They posed 10 of the toughest questions B-to-B marketers often ask them about qualifying and scoring leads.

MarketingSherpa: Lead Scoring & Management Roundtable Report

Related post: Disciplined Lead Qualification Improves Sales Performance

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

One of my most read and commented blog posts was, “Why don’t sales people update the CRM and what can be done about it?” This remains a hot topic for most companies.

This e-book tackles the sales team/CRM usage dilemma and ideas on how you can turn your CRM system into a resource your sales reps will use and regularly update. The key is the way the information is collected and utilized, how it’s dressed. This e-book addresses three major challenges: fizzled lead generation efforts, lack of actionable information and the inability to leverage existing sales/marketing knowledge.

Download Why Naked CRM Doesn’t Work

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.

Thought leadership gives you an edge to combat commoditization and attract more business.

RainToday recently released the results of a new, year-long research project called How To Become A Thought Leader. The report was written for service providers but I believe the core ideas also apply to most companies with a complex sale. Thanks goes to Britton Manasco for reminding via his blog post, “It Pays to Be a Thought Leader.”

As I wrote a while back in my post, “in defense of thought leadership,” there are just a few select thought leaders in every industry and field of study. So everyone can’t be one. But if you have the vision, desire and passion to do it, this report tells you how.

I was humbled to be interviewed, along with eight other business leaders, and contribute to this report, which includes:

100 Pages of expert analysis on how to become a thought leader in your field

95 Pages of stories and advice from thought leaders in professional services

20 learning checklists and questions for self-evaluation

Down-to-earth views of how passion, relevance and reach work together for you

Download my 14-page interview on thought leadership by RainToday (243k PDF)

Get the report at http://www.raintoday.com/thoughtleader.cfm

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Brian Carroll is the CEO of InTouch Inc. InTouch is a 50-person company focused on delivering effective lead generation solutions for “the complex sale.”

Brian authors the very interesting B2B Lead Generation Blog which focuses on B2B lead generation, sales leads, and marketing for the complex sale.