Are lead generation companies worth it? The answer is relatively simple: yes (when used in the right way). That is very important to understand. If lead generation is being outsourced to an agency, it is not just down to them, it also takes a huge amount of collaboration from you as the client, so here are a few things we at Carbon Global have learnt over the last 18 months.

1 Collaboration is key

Ongoing communication is at the heart of every great relationship. And ironically, is something that we have found communications companies are not very good at. We now encourage constant exchange through different channels.

2 The only way to judge is the result at the end

The ROI is incredibly important because, at the end of the day, a good b2b lead generation agency is not just trying to get the client some meetings for meetings’ sake. Instead, we want our clients to go on and win work from those meetings.

3 Insights are helpful but can also act like quicksand

Part of any business development or lead generation activity is about research and gathering insights but it’s also incredibly important to help navigate this process. Only you know the sectors that you want to work in, don’t leave it to guesswork. Collaborate with them, that way you both take responsibility and are aiming for the work that is going to grow the company in the right way. Remember, BD agencies can be great at gathering data but in reality, data can only get you so far, start having those meetings, start exploring what your potential clients really need and see how you fit into that in reality.

4 Build that trust

You need to feel comfortable with your outsourced agency because they are the ones reaching out on your behalf. Work alongside them so you can really know if they are worth it or not. That’s how you’ll start to see the outcomes first hand rather than asking them to tally up how many calls they’ve made, which is often not a true reflection of the work that’s actually been done.

5 It’s okay to be grey

Not everything in life is black and white, usually, things are different shades of grey, and lead generation is no different. You might not see results after a certain amount of time but equally, you might win a project from your first meeting. Patience is a virtue but do not let anyone abuse your patience. You should see everything moving in the right direction, and that’s forwards, not stagnating or moving backwards. This is a clear sign that a lead generation company is worth the money you’re investing in. Then it’s up to you to turn those meetings into work.

Henry Regan

Managing Partner

Carbon Global

 

 

1) Make sure you have a solid operational foundation.

People often go gung-ho into reaching out to lots of different prospects and they lose sight of what is actually important, which is taking a single prospect right the way from sourcing them to becoming a client. To do this, you need to have the right operational infrastructure, which is absolutely vital, whether that’s a CRM or starting out with a spreadsheet. It is important that you separate your lead generation away from the sales cycle because they are two separate things. Lead Generation cannot be seen as part of the sales cycle until you have secured a meeting with a prospect.

2) Find your USP (without any B2B jargon)

In every single kick-off meeting we have to ask the client what their USP is and usually, a lot of jargon is thrown about. You typically have a minute on a first call to hook a prospect in and they might have never heard of you before so you really need to get out how you differentiate yourselves from the rest of your competitors. Why is your solution the correct fit for the challenge of the prospect? This is key as it is the first impression prospects have of the company and typically they are very good at putting companies in boxes. It is about getting it right the first time so when that opportunity does arise, you are at the top of the pack.

3) Do your research: what are the challenges facing the industry and what solution do you have to solve them?

Research, research, research. Research is key to any targeted campaign and I cannot stress enough how important it is for Lead Generation, Business Development, B2B Sales, you name it. Remember that the prospects you are sourcing in your outbound outreach will hopefully become your clients, so it’s important to make sure that they are correctly targeted and aligned with the company’s strategy and direction. Ultimately, you are only going to be able to engage those clients if you have done your research, it is as simple as that.

4) Pre-prepare the answers for follow up questions

There should be no doubt in your mind that once you have pitched someone on the phone that they are gonna ask a series of follow-up questions that you either need to answer straight away or have very good explanations for. The key to this is to not try to answer questions that you don’t know the answers to. It sounds simple but it happens a lot, so have your answers ready. The way to do this is to have a wargaming session with other team members to establish what pushbacks you can expect to receive. This is a really important process when embarking on your lead generation. It’s about understanding the other side of the table before you start to try and engage prospects from your side. This way you’ll be fully prepared and establish yourself as a knowledgeable and reliable company from the word go. 

5) Get an actionable next step on the call to win work

Once you have had a pitch meeting, you will not be at the top of their priority pile. It is your responsibility to make sure that you get the deal signed. To get there, you need a series of actionable next steps, and the only way to do that is to organise it yourself. The best way of doing this is to make sure that you reserve the last couple of minutes of every meeting to organise another time to speak. Alongside this set out the agreed next actions from both sides, when this will be completed by, and then you can come together again having done the groundwork and build upon this momentum. If you don’t pencil this time in, it is much harder to arrange later on.

 

Henry Regan

Managing Partner

Carbon Global

 

This week, I sat (virtually) with our co-Managing Partner and Director of Operations, Sam Lawrence. After 9 months in the job, I asked Sam for tips to avoid feeling overwhelmed by our ever growing to-do list. As the company grows, the Operations team must ensure that it has all the right processes and strategies in place to support the Commercial team, and that also includes its wellbeing. Here, Sam shares an honest view on his coping mechanisms and lessons learned from launching our business development agency, Carbon Global, with Henry Regan 4 years ago.

 

Elodie: How do you best manage your time to avoid feeling overwhelmed? How has it been in the past and how have you improved your time management? 

Sam: That is the golden question. I think that’s definitely something that I have struggled with in the past while building the company and being in charge of the B2B Lead Generation operations from day one. It’s actually interesting to see how it has evolved. When we first started out, we had to build everything from the ground up and had to try to figure out our systems and processes, and most of all, it was about making sure that Henry and myself followed them. It was much easier to manage our own time. When the company expanded, we started winning work and bringing in outside people, so it pulled up all sorts of challenges as it was no longer about what solely worked for us two. In terms of time management, it definitely became more challenging as we had more employees and more B2B clients.

Today, with our growing team, we inevitably have employees who are checking in, asking questions, seeking approval, and needing guidance which means that those things eat up your time as well as the day-to-day job. That was definitely something that I found tricky. Hiring you (Elodie) was a massive step forward in terms of releasing some of the weight off my shoulders to carry on driving the company forward whilst also having someone there who I knew I could trust and rely on to get all of the work done that needed to be done. 

A few months ago, I very much felt that all the responsibility was on my shoulders and it meant that I wasn’t very in control of my time management. When stuff needed to be done, it didn’t matter what time of day it was, it needed to be done, and as a result, it sort of ate up my life. So my main tips would be to hire people that you trust and learn to delegate. I would say that delegation is still something I’m struggling with but is a key task that I’m trying to get better at, and hiring people that you trust to get the job done is very much the key to that.

Elodie: How do you deal with all the different channels of communication? At Carbon Global, we’ve got different ones so how do you prioritise or work without being disrupted by notifications here and there?

Sam: This was something that Henry and I changed about six months ago because it was becoming relentless, even if one of us would have a day off, we would be bombarded by notifications, emails and I felt like we were always on it because it was our company, our baby. We always wanted, and felt like we needed, to have our finger on the pulse to grow our business even on our days off as we thought that we were best placed to answer particular questions. It really started to take a toll on our ability to run the company, and also our mental health. So, we decided to install a rule that all of the channels could and should be muted when we weren’t working. It is hard to let go but both Henry and I mutually shut each other down when we don’t obey our rule. For operations, it was never in any way a reflection on you or the admin team not being able to handle things, but always a reflection on me not being able to release control.

I think the question about channels and how to best prioritise them is an interesting one because there are so many ways of interacting these days. Today, I’m accessible via email, LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Slack, and Teams. Occasionally, it becomes a little bit overwhelming as there are so many channels and they all have their different purposes. At Carbon Global, we have to slot into and adapt to our clients’ way of working because even though we are outsourced, we like to become an integral part of their team. That is key for us, to be fully involved in their B2B business development action plan. One of our main mantras is that the client always comes first, our lead generation activities are there to help them build their company and so nothing can be allowed to slip through the net. The client is always prioritised when notifications pop up and that, I think, is the key to our success, always being there for the client.

Amongst the team, we usually communicate via Whatsapp. It’s important that we are respectful of our employees’ time and that we don’t communicate outside of office hours, wherever possible, for their mental well-being and ours. We also enjoy sending a few gifs in the morning and welcoming everybody back to work and wishing people well for the weekend. It’s fun to do and it reminds us that we’re all people outside of work.

Elodie: Also, I think that one of the challenges with working from home is that we send texts to other team members without knowing if they’re busy. So sometimes someone will be wondering why we’re not responding to a text but that might be because we are in a client meeting or have an urgent task to complete. That’s something that we don’t know when we are not sitting in the same office. 

Sam: I think that’s a very good point. We need to find a way that will allow people to understand why they’re not getting an immediate response and that will encourage them to seek help elsewhere if they need an immediate response. 

Elodie: What do you believe are the signals alerting you of burnout?

Sam: I think there are so many stages of signals that let you know those things. There are the early signs that tell you to delegate more and there are the later signs warning that you need to relinquish control a bit more. There are even later signs when you start losing control over your mental health. I think I ignored pretty much all of them for about the first three and a half years of the company because I was so intent on doing the best job and building the best B2B business development and lead generation company. I think more than anything about serving the clients to the best of my ability because people put their trust in us to work hard by hitting targets and achieving results. And that feeling does not go away, this game, it’s not like after the third year you can just lay back and relax, it’s consistent.

So we had to find a solution for the long term because it got to the point where I was walking through a park on a day off and just had a cry next to a lake because I couldn’t think about anything else but work, it was just completely consuming me and I couldn’t cope with it anymore. So that was for me probably the final warning sign that I couldn’t avoid. That inability to switch off, mixed with lockdown became a stressful mix. 

I think trying to listen to those early warning signs is important, struggling to finish on time every day is already a sign that there’s too much work for you to achieve, and therefore it needs to be spread out. Also, when you are starting to let the quality of your work slip which, fingers crossed, hopefully, I didn’t do. But if people are noticing slips in your work, again that is probably a sign that there’s too much to do in such a short time. So listen to those early signs rather than leaving it to the point where you’re having a breakdown in a park in public!

One other thing to add on that, with Henry, we’ve started trying to block off time where we say to the whole team that either myself or he is unavailable for a day. That allows us to have a whole day to just do the jobs that need to be done without having to deal with the things that always come up during the day. It’s about putting trust in the other to handle everything that day. For the operations side of things, this gives me a whole day where I can just be in the headspace to tick all these things off of my to-do list without any other distractions and I think that’s important.

Elodie: The Commercial team and Operations team have different priorities. How do you reconcile both or what do you think the Commercial team is not aware of about operations? 

Sam: That’s interesting. I think the Commercial and Operations teams definitely have the same goal but different priorities which sometimes makes them feel like they are working in different ways. Henry and I have worked really hard to make sure that they align and are heading in the right direction. In operations, our job is to ensure the smooth running of the company and the lead generation strategy to ensure that the Commercial team has everything it needs to get the meetings and win the work for our clients. So we have to optimise our systems and processes to make that easier and better in the long run. This has a direct impact on better servicing our clients and for them to continue with our services and recommend us. So ultimately, we all work towards the same goal which is driving more business into the company and to grow it.

I know there have definitely been times when my to-do list does not look long in appearance but the reality of it is that within those tasks there are huge amounts of technical detail that needs to be ironed out before the task can be completed properly. I think also one of the other things is that operations tasks take a long time, compared to some of the commercial tasks which can be really quickly ticked off, like making a call or sending an email. Whereas overhauling an operations system can take weeks or months so you need full amounts of time to dedicate to it. When you’re being pulled in other directions, it always gets pushed to the bottom of the list because it’s not something that can be achieved and finalised quickly. Our tasks take a little bit more time and I think that’s something that our Commercial team is getting to grips with and understanding. 

Elodie: Last question, what is your favorite activity to unwind and avoid burnout?

 Sam: I had a lovely walk the other day listening to some music, which I haven’t done for so long. I just went for a walk and listened to music and it was reviving as it allowed my brain to think creatively for the first time in a long time. I think that’s really important to get some headspace where you’re thinking creatively again because that’s when the best decisions are made. When I really need to just switch off, I love watching movies because that sort of commands your attention, and you get transported somewhere else for two hours. I find it very difficult to think about anything else when I’m watching a film. 

 

Speaking openly about feelings and points of view with Sam was very insightful. Having this conversation for the purposes of the blog has even led us to decide to look into adapting and improving our internal communication. Ultimately, any measures taken to improve everyone’s wellbeing at work will have a positive impact on our clients and the company’s ambitions to grow. Exciting!

 

Elodie Smith

Strategic Operations Manager

Carbon Global

With

 Sam Lawrence

Managing Partner

Carbon Global

 

 

The health sector is worth nearly $10 trillion, so how is that money really benefiting patients? Pharmaceutical companies continually need to prove these benefits to the wider world and it all boils down to one thing: communication. Therefore knowing the importance of how medicines are communicated through the global markets to their customers is key and that is where healthcare communication agencies come into play. But how do you as a communications agency communicate your benefit? 

Understanding your leads landscape

Firstly, we need to understand not only the prospects that we are talking to but also the HCPs, patients, and the pharmaceutical companies as a whole that are part of the wider process.  You would hope that after many years of collaborating on a Healthcare process designed to help people that it would be a smooth, well-oiled machine, however in reality many aspects of the process are siloed and devoid of well-thought-out communication. This is even more true of pharmaceutical companies themselves. It’s easy for a healthcare communications agency to think that once you’re ‘in’ with a company like Boehringer Ingelheim, sitting pretty on the PSL, that you’re going to be working with the whole company, unfortunately, in reality, this isn’t true. The teams sit away from each other with completely different remits, so it may be that you’ll be working with one team within Diabetes but the Obesity teams won’t have a clue who you are. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, this can be because they believe your agency is good and they want to keep you for themselves. All this means is that you have to do the lead generation work yourself as they won’t be referring you on.

Speaking the prospect’s language

As I said one too many times, people buy from people. In our experience speaking with the Head of Oncology at Bayer is no different to the Head of Design at Mars. It’s not reciting their job back to them (after all they’re the ones with a PhD!), it’s about understanding their challenges and what is keeping them up at night. That’s the true job of lead generation, not to bore them with your extensive list of services on the first call, you can do that later in the room when you meet them if need be. Instead, Lead generation, as well as Business Development, is about finding out those challenges, on a global, regional, business, and individual level so that when you walk into the room you are best equipped for the situation. The way to do this is by asking a series of questions to get them to open up. As I’ve said in my previous blog, they will not open up unless you are honestly trying to have a conversation with them, again, by not trying to sell anything. It’s about understanding their situation, yes, but more importantly, empathising with their need and getting them to understand that you have a solution to their problem that’s worth exploring. In reality they need you, as much as you need them, but unfortunately for you, there are another fifty agencies waiting ‘on hold’ and it’s your job on that cold call to prove why you are the best fit for the job and this usually comes down to a few fundamental things:

• Interaction
• Expertise
• Empathy 
• Emotional intelligence

All human factors, not the services that you provide. If you’re an agency that has done some work in a particular therapy area for a company and you’re on the PSL, then the usual response we get is that they want to speak to the team member that you have worked with. The relationships you build as you grow as an agency are vital for long-term growth. If you haven’t worked there before then your personality is the only in-road into turning a b2b lead into work.

New Business Leads

Starting from scratch with new leads is a hard thing to do. It’s important to have a strategy in place before you start list building otherwise you’ll be firing in a dark room. Where do you have the experience? First, learn to quickly locate where the low-hanging fruit is, don’t move out of your comfort zone too early, then after this fruitful ground is covered you can do some experimentation. That’s how we all grow. Start somewhere where you feel you are strong as an agency because there are plenty of people who do have the relevant experience competing for the same project.

During the initial call to a Brand Director or Head of Finance, there’s no point saying that you win 90% of the work that you pitch for because these people don’t know you from Adam. They want you to be as concise as possible and to understand their needs, so they can think, ‘if this person really does what they say I could work with them’. Once you agree to a meeting, it’s about mining as much information as possible so you can do the preparatory work to make sure you put your best foot forward.

Digital Transformation

“Deploying new digital tools and services has the potential to increase consumer satisfaction, improve medication adherence, and help consumers track and monitor their health.” – Deloitte

We’ve seen quite a few buzz words being bandied around but one aspect to remember is the common ground, everything you do is ‘patient centric’. So use that on the first phone call, let them know that you have a common goal: to improve patient’s lives through the right engagement. Since digital has come to the forefront this has played a vital role in getting brands directly and instantly into doctors’ surgeries, patients’ homes, and ensuring that patients understand the medication that they are using is right for them. People are so used to apps now, why not use one to track their chronic liver function or chart their diabetes levels or schedule a conference using VR and AR while sitting at home. The scope of possibilities is outstanding, not to mention the potential of AI coming in and being able to improve patients’ lives in real-time. Everyone’s on a learning curve so it’s about using your expertise to guide them through their issues. This can be done on the first call, it just takes some time to learn how to keep it part of the conversation.

Do not underestimate the power of letting the prospect speak on that first call. That is what is ultimately valuable to you, not what you say to them. Let them take the discussion into the areas where they are struggling but don’t let them go off-piste. If it all works out once you have mined that information, go back and prepare specifically for that. Even after that first phone call, I can guarantee you’ll already be somewhere at the top of the pack.

Henry Regan

Managing Partner

Carbon Global

Quality leads are at the core of any lead generation agency’s success. Not only do they guarantee client satisfaction, they are also at the very start of the sales funnel, preempting the potential of winning new work.

LinkedIn as Business Development strategy

Launched in the early 2000s and with nearly 800 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest network of professionals. Mainly, LinkedIn is a snapshot of a professional’s work and educational experience. Today, with the rise of social media, it has evolved and become more than a digital CV with users sharing personal opinions and emotional success stories. For this reason, it is now an unmissable tool for business development and lead generation agencies. 

First things first, LinkedIn is free. There is a Premium option available but the basic account very much does the job to search for new leads. As a cost-free source of data, LinkedIn is great to dig for leads in-house rather than buying lists from third parties that are often costly and not always reliable. Here, at Carbon Global, LinkedIn has been an efficient way to help our clients generate new B2B sales. So where should you start?

Understanding your target audience is of utmost importance in order to search on the social network effectively and precisely. Are you targeting a particular company? A job title or a key discipline? A specific geography? By creating the persona that you wish to target, LinkedIn will pull out the relevant contacts that you can then turn into warm leads, whether that is directly through LinkedIn messaging or calling via the company’s switchboard.

 

How to find new B2B leads

Perhaps searching on LinkedIn can sometimes feel redundant but, from our experience, it is very much worthwhile. Do note that LinkedIn search results are not set in stone since, as we know, employee turnover and recruitment can change every few months. That being said, the perfect lead could pop up later at another prospective business that you want to target, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on rather than throwing it in the cold leads pile.

Most of the time, professionals will detail their responsibilities in their job description section. This has been crucial to pin down our target prospect. Indeed, a Marketing Director can have a platitude of responsibilities and, in most large companies, you will find that this job title can regroup distinguishable and specific core capabilities, such as digital, e-commerce, and strategy. So, drill into profiles, especially since we know that people buy from people. You might find a nugget of information or mutual interests that can be used to break the ice when speaking with this new business lead.

Another piece of advice. Create daily or weekly job alerts on LinkedIn to find out when companies are hiring in your area of interest. Whether you are targeting a particular company or a specific job title, this can become useful information to grasp if a company is expanding or if your services can fill the shoes of a new recruit. Recently, at Carbon Global, job alerts have been a great lead generation process to help start a conversation, showing a potential contact that we are afloat of the company developments whilst instilling in us the knowledge that there is already a need for our client’s services. 

 

Use emotions to grow your business

LinkedIn is very different from other social networks. It is very much still for business, but that doesn’t mean that your personality should be completely severed from your profile. Distinguishing yourself from the competition is key and LinkedIn offers a cutting edge advantage by showcasing your interests as well as the network of connections you surround yourself with. Thanks to your profile, your personality becomes part of your pitch, part of your sales toolkit and ultimately part of the reason prospects will want to work with you. As ever, remember that people buy from people and emotional connections can make a crucial difference to winning work.

 

Elodie Smith

Strategic Operations Manager

Carbon Global

These last few months have been a really important period for Carbon Global because it’s been a rollercoaster. Through it all, there’s been this idea of self-improvement. It all boils down to the fact that we need to understand what our weaknesses are, not only ours, but our clients’ weaknesses too. 

 

Since the pandemic began, being ‘outsourced’ has moved away from being a dirty word. It’s now about understanding how we can help each other by working together. That has meant bringing your outsourced lead generation and business development teams to strategy meetings is now a weekly practice. We’ve had a think about our client’s successes and we worked out that they were mainly because we had been sewing up the rips. It seems to us that it’s time to focus on our weaknesses as that feels like the best way to strengthen our process. If a boxer is at the gym, they don’t focus on the strongest aspects of their game, they prepare for a fight by focusing on their weaknesses. By strengthening these aspects of their technique they become stronger and less likely to face defeat. So why don’t we do this in business? We always put our best foot (services) forward but we don’t want anyone to focus on our weaknesses but if we did in the end we would, in fact, build a stronger machine that is capable of beating any competitor.

Without a doubt, B2B collaborations and partnerships should focus on this other side of the game. A session of constructive criticism within a group usually brings up ideas and concepts that you may never have found alone. It’s about being vulnerable in front of your clients and them doing the same in return, which quickly creates mutual trust. That was something crucial in our drama school training, the ensemble is always going to be more powerful than the individual because you hold each other up. Ultimately, you focus in on the same goal and a collective drive to achieve the results as a team, rather than as individuals. When that happens then the sales cycle becomes quicker and more efficient.

The collective weakness

We talk about collaboration a lot, so we’ve put that into practice. We’ve implemented a 6-monthly ‘weaknesses workshop’ with our clients. In this meeting, we analyse where support is needed from the other party to make sure that our collective offering is the best it can be. This works by working closely together to understand where opportunities usually fall through the cracks. That means both the client and ourselves pulling each other up and strategising to collectively help wherever we think that weakness is. We create a culture that moves away from blaming each other for the other’s weaknesses and mistakes but seeing it as a collective weakness. If you can use one of your strengths to fill the void, you create a rounded impenetrable machine that runs effectively. It’s a stand-up culture meaning that anyone can stand up and be heard. They may have a skill-set that you don’t. This in reality is quite hard to do with clients because they want to feel like they’re in control and they’re paying you to do a job. However, the good ones actually release some of that control over to us and let us push back. It’s almost like a personal trainer, even though it’s their body, we have the expertise to know how to hone and sculpt it.

Looking to the future

We have instated weekly 15-minute meetings with all of our companies every Friday morning to great success. It’s not a retrospective look at the week but more about what we’ve learned and how we move forwards. Having these micro meetings is an incredible way of focusing on the communication between both parties to implement our collective strategy. It’s up to them to win the work for us. After all, they are only going to retain our services if they win work. As a collective it’s important that we support each other, because ultimately, we have all got the same common goal; to increase revenue, increase output, hit KPIs, and try and win more business. 

Henry Regan

Managing Partner

Carbon Global

—

As with all business decisions, we often weigh the pros and cons before investing in a new product, service or employee. Today, we share with you 5 good reasons to outsource your lead generation to ultimately unburden your business from the challenges that arise at the beginning of the sales cycle. Taking a leaf from Henry’s book, here are the ‘5 ways a lead generation agency can unburden your management team’ which will hopefully pique your curiosity to read on:

 

1. An expert approach to the start of your sales cycle
2. A flexible and bespoke service
3. A good alternative to a new sales representative
4. A tailored structure to help take care of your leads
5. A constant pipeline for your Business Development Director

 

1. An expert approach to the start of your sales cycle:  

Outsourcing the first stages of your sales process means that you are putting the execution into expert hands who have the experience, knowledge, and structure to do so. The lead generation agency has the capability to drive more results as it has been through a trial and error approach to understand how to best approach leads, what makes them tick, and ultimately, how to hook them in. At Carbon Global, as we talk and exchange with the industry, we gain insights and knowledge that become an invaluable string to our client’s bow when going in to pitch to a b2b prospect. Once the meeting has been scheduled, the lead is already warmed up, it’s your time to shine. 

 

2. A flexible and bespoke service:  

Selling yourself is not the easiest of tasks. Even though you might have the best understanding of the business, perhaps cold selling of your service or product is not your forte. What’s more, generating new leads often ends up being de-prioritised to focus on your current clients. This is when a Business Development agency comes in, to unburden the management team and bring in a business solution. To do so at Carbon Global, during the onboarding process, we immerse ourselves into the company, in order to really understand its ins and outs and its long/short term ambitions. As a result, while also forming a strong relationship, we adapt to the management team’s new targets, challenges, and company direction, as would an employee. This is the exact purpose of our client weekly calls, to gather feedback from meetings and updates on the company’s ever-growing wishlist.

 

3. A good alternative to a new sales representative

You might be deciding whether to onboard an agency when assessing the need to hire a new employee for the sales or business development teams. For SMEs, hiring a new employee gives rise to unavoidable costs, such as pension, paid holidays, etc. Therefore, in many situations, outsourcing the early stages of the sales process can end up being less costly than a new full-time employee. The nature of the relationship is also different. It’s not a manager-employee relationship. We understand Lead Generation and we strive to use our expertise to push our clients into the unknown. Pushing clients can sometimes be scary for them but we push hard to get them to a place where they have made a considered decision, hopefully, the right one and then we go on and execute that strategy. This collaborative approach helps lay the foundation for the whole sales cycle.

 

4. A tailored structure to help take care of your leads:

As previously mentioned, the consideration of hiring a Lead Agency can come from your lack of time to strategise leads. Fortunately, in addition to being experts at executing the sales cycle, a Business Development agency also has the tools and resources to ensure that a warm lead stays warm and that a first meeting turns into a second meeting. At Carbon Global, it has been a reiterative process to ensure that no lead goes through the fishing net and that our business solution is on-point. Recently, while discussing it with current b2b clients, it has been clear that pursuing warm leads and setting second meetings has been pushed down the priority list during busy times. So, to take the headache away, we have set targets and timelines to ensure that the support and clarity of the progress is there for the client and for the sales cycle to run smoothly.  

 

5. A constant pipeline for your Business Development Director:  

As your company grows, so does the management team with the need for the support of a Business Development Director in addition to a lead agency. As we witness our clients growing and hiring more employees, it becomes evident that the Managing Director can no longer take on all the workload and has to delegate to its Directors who can pitch their service to a prospect we have brought in. The Business Development Director’s main focus should be pitching and seeking opportunities. So, at Carbon Global, we aim to work collaboratively with them and make sure that we deliver adequate lead generation and the upstream work that will make their life easier, more productive, and most importantly, more profitable.

 

By Elodie Smith

Strategic Operations Manager

Carbon Global

 

I’m like you, I hate it when I see the title of an article as ‘Liverpool football club to spend £150 million on these 5 targets for next season’, but then they make you read the whole article (alongside 249 different adverts) to finally get to the answer you were initially interested in. Therefore, I’ll start at the end.

Here’s 5 ways to speak to your potential B2B leads:

1. Don’t sell to them on a first call.
2. People buy from people.
3. Speak to them like a human being.
4. Truly Listen.
5. Be prepared to Improvise.

Now if you’re still with me then I’ll explain a little about how we, at our Business Development and Lead Generation agency, Carbon Global, go about doing this successfully.

1. Don’t sell to them on a first call – 

B2B Lead generation is part of the sales process but it is not, let me repeat, it is not, selling. Far from it.  We are literally selling a cup of tea or a coffee. A conversation. A chance to learn. That’s it. So if you go into a conversation sounding like you’re about to sell them your products or services, without actually anything to sell, then they will put down the phone on you within the first ten seconds. Yes, in the past it may have been a tried and tested sales approach but in today’s climate we are all extremely over being ‘sold’ to. That’s not the way to make a good first impression at all and, as we know, first impressions count for everything. Why? Because…

2. People buy from people –

No matter what your business is selling, you are hoping to create lasting relationships with your clients. The same is true in reverse. Your prospects want to know that if they give you a piece of work that you, firstly, are capable of handling it, but secondly, that you will be professional and easy to collaborate with along the way. Each of these people wants to make their job easier and there is nothing worse than being stuck with an uncooperative agency partner. They want to like you, don’t forget that. This relationship begins from your very first interaction and there is nothing more reassuring than speaking to someone who is able to hold an honest, straightforward and ultimately collaborative conversation. Even better if you have something in common. Small talk is not wasted in this environment. Which brings us to my next point.

3. Speak to them like a human being –

I’ve been called so many times by people who sound like a robot. Why? Because they have their script in hand and they’re terrified to veer away from it. If I let them get past the first ten seconds, I like to throw in a curveball (my specialty) to see how they react and then sit back and enjoy as the wheels come off. We all have a job to do and there is nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t give every prospect the respect they deserve, treating them all like individual human beings with different interests, needs, quirks and tolerances, then you will not be treated with time and patience in return. It goes back to the first impressions, if you can speak to someone on their level, whether that’s the Head of Design at Mars or the Head of Oncology at Bayer then you’re already doing better than the 99%. These prospects are ultimately people just like you, speak to them like it. And whatever you do, don’t just speak at them, because then you’re just inviting a curveball, ready and waiting to throw you off. Therefore…

4.  Truly Listen –

Honestly, it’s both the easiest and hardest thing in the world to do. Sam and I spent most of our drama school training ‘listening’. The late great Alan Rickman said “All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening” – and that holds true for business partnerships as well. If you listen to your client and understand what they really want, then the chances of success will skyrocket. Collaboration is key. They have their ideas and ultimately they are the ones navigating the ship. So understand where they are going. This is incredibly important even on a first call. If you’re listening to their challenges, push them, probe into why this challenge has arisen, who has been trying to solve it, how have they been trying to solve it, what they think the solution is. Again, if you’re listening, you’ll adapt, you’ll think on the spot and you’ll show them immediately what you’re capable of. So…

5. Be prepared to improvise –

You’ve engaged in the conversation, you’re in. They have opened up because you’re not trying to sell to them, you’re trying to solve their problem. You’re part of the team. All the steps up to this point have worked. The only problem is as soon as someone opens up it makes them feel vulnerable, so in return they’ll start asking questions of you. The key is to answer honestly and if you can’t answer a question, again be honest, tell them that you’ll go away, find out and come back with an informed answer. People appreciate that. Why? Because you’re not a salesman. You’re a human. You’ve not treated them as a number and you’ve  been vulnerable together to solve a problem. What more could they ask for. Communication at its best and hopefully by the end of the sales cycle, a new client.

 

 by Henry Regan

Managing Partner

Carbon Global

 

Operations Overhaul within Lead Gen

When your job role, in operations, is to ensure that the right resources and processes are implemented across a company, it calls for a well-thought-out internal organisation. Luckily, this new way of working has introduced internal strategies that companies will benefit from in the long term.

As lockdowns kept being extended, so did the need to find a stable internal organisation. With a whole team working from home, the option of walking to a colleague’s desk to ask for an update or to see if she/he is busy is not possible. Therefore, it has truly been a reiterative process to adapt and suit the team’s challenges and needs, not forgetting about its wellbeing. 

One of the best coping mechanisms has been the initiation of a daily catch-up via Zoom, with the team, to share last night’s recipe or film and to discuss our work progress. Working remotely is not as simple as sending a team home with a laptop and a to-do list. This set time to gather together and to raise questions has been crucial, not only to encourage team bonding but also to avoid the inundation of messages on the many group channels which can, at times, be overwhelming. On that note, the creation of individual channels per account has been very useful to have a common focus within the team.

As is the case in most companies, a business development and lead generation agency’s ambition is to successfully exceed our b2b client’s expectations. To achieve this, the Strategic Operations Manager must have a full overview of the business’ activities (and a long to-do list!) in order to make sure the team agrees on the short and long-term goals as well as the procedure to fulfill these. 

Here, at Carbon Global, we have a scheduled ‘Monday Morning Speed Dating’ during which I virtually sit with the different Account Managers to relay client feedback on our previous Lead Generation and to strategise the best tools and activities that will meet the client’s needs and preferences. These internal meetings have also been a useful time to agree on my accountability for a task and to go over personal to-do lists to ensure the workload is feasible and realistic. 

Interestingly, remote working has also enhanced the need to improve business relationships by showing clients our commitment to full transparency in terms of progression and activities. For this reason, we have recently launched a new and clearer working platform that we share and use as a live reporting dashboard. To offer a quick glance into our most up-to-date interactions, we have included a ‘Tracker’ tab in which we highlight the evolution of our lead generation efforts as well as a ‘Timeline’ tab to lay out our plan of action to keep warm leads on the radar. This new channel of communication with our agency clients has been tested and approved with some of the more recently onboarded clients, all that is left now is to transfer each of the established accounts onto their new dashboard!

The new systems that the pandemic has prompted will have a long-lasting and positive effect on Carbon Global’s internal organisation.

 

By Elodie Smith

Strategic Operations Manager

Carbon Global