Consult Goldberg: Advanced Business Consulting

The Company

A software company with a single product, generally perceived as the third runner in a three-vendor segment.

The Problem

Sales were not sufficient to keep the company viable, and although the salespeople made a lot of sales calls, too often they found that the prospect had to wait for the next fiscal year's budget or that they did not intend to buy a system. Where they did find viable prospects, they were dealing with an average sales cycle time of more than 18 months.

The Solution

The obvious solution was to direct the sales force to better qualified prospects, and the obvious way to get those was through a properly directed advertising/public relations campaign. A series of unstructured interviews were conducted with executives who had bought either the client's system or a competitor's to determine important buying criteria. The findings were turned into a series of aggressive print ads. To make sure that the salespeople spent their time on the right prospects, a four-level inquiry qualification program was implemented.

The Result

The advertising campaign garnered more than 2,000 inquiries in about six months, and the inquiry qualification program showed that approximately 10% of those met the criteria for a "Hot" prospect (budgeted, in the search process, deadline date). Not only were sales increased dramatically, but - because the salespeople were dealing with prospects ready to buy - the sales cycle time was cut by 50%. The second-level or "Warm" prospects were provided information and followed until they achieved "Hot" status.

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