Higgle: The B2B Sales Club Elevating Your Sales Game Through Effective Lead Scrutiny with Debbie Kaplan
Jun 24, 2024
34:10
Debbie Kaplan is the Managing Director and Chief Delivery Officer at Mosaic, an integrated marketing agency known for its focus on experiential commerce, retail, media, and brand design.
In this episode, we’ll talk about critical aspects of lead qualification in B2B sales with Debbie. We're discussing how to differentiate promising leads from less viable ones, along with the emotional intelligence required to make strategic decisions. We'll also look at the complicated process of procurement and agency selection, analyzing the impact on the success of pitches.
Topics covered during this episode include:
- How lead qualification is a large factor in the success of B2B sales efforts.
- Why understanding the quality of a brief is essential for pursuing sales opportunities.
- How internal relationships influence the decision to chase potential deals.
- Why differentiating genuine opportunities from price benchmarking exercises is crucial.
- How saying no to ill-fitting prospects is a strategic and brave sales move.
- Why emotional intelligence plays a key role in sales decisions.
- How procurement processes impact agency selection in marketing and advertising.
- Why challenging RFP briefs can indicate a genuine interest in an agency's proposal.
- How communication among agencies, procurement professionals, and brand directors is vital.
- Why knowing whose budget is on the line affects the procurement decision-making process.
- Why agencies may need to opt out of bidding to avoid unsustainable pricing.
- Why identifying pricing patterns in lost bids is difficult for agencies.
- Reverse auctions in agency pitches and why they create challenges.
- How reverse auctioning rate cards overlooks the actual deliverables and value provided by agencies.
- The evolving nature of agency differentiation and why it’s difficult to define.
Debbie Kaplan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-kaplan/