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However, if CRM were as simple a tool as its definition suggests, why is the range of products offered on the market so extensive? Are all CRMs the same?

Certainly not. Does the difference lie in the functional coverage or the software's user-friendliness? Perhaps... Beyond the benefit of integrating a CRM into your information system, it's important to understand the necessity of adapting the tool to your specific industry.

From one company to another, business processes differ, and it is not possible to shoehorn all companies into the same software... To be effective, a CRM must first correspond to your activity. A CRM must be adapted to your current but also future organization.

Our partner, the CRM solution provider KOBAN details this week the right questions to ask when choosing the right CRM for your business.

What is a CRM for?

CRM is primarily a tool, not a magic wand. If the effectiveness of such a tool still needs to be demonstrated today, it is more due to a failure to adopt it than to choosing the right tool for the organization. According to the latest study by Nomination*, the specific CRM developed internally comes in third place in terms of equipment for SMEs. And yet, the level of user dissatisfaction is high... Proof that, however well a CRM may be suited to an organization, it remains poorly perceived and therefore poorly used.

Most often resulting from an initiative by senior management, CRM equipment is part of the company's overall strategy. The standard CRM functionalities must then respond to a motivation to improve the management of commercial activity.

The goal is clear: to structure the activity. However, not all CRMs are created equal. From the simplest to the most complete, the functionalities range from managing a portfolio of deals to managing customer/prospect relationships, covering all billing, sales management, and marketing processes. At all user levels, from the marketing department to the sales force, including the manager, CRM boosts growth through increased efficiency in prospecting and acquiring new customers.

Since CRM primarily serves to manage commercial activity, the corresponding functionalities are standard: commercial process, sales pipeline, collaborative calendar, messaging, geolocation... all these are ways to improve the daily efficiency of the sales force.

In practice, commercial processes can differ from one sector of activity to another. For example, a real estate developer will not apply the same sales actions as an industrial company. This is because neither the clientele nor the products sold are identical, and the prospecting methods will also be different. A CRM, which gathers all the techniques used by the sales force to track and manage customers, will have various channels to interact with contacts. The concept of CRM has therefore gradually expanded to meet the more current needs of existing customers, integrating multi-channel communication, data collection, and analysis.

Choosing the right "type" of CRM

As we've seen, whether simple or complex, a CRM tool is first and foremost about functionalities. When choosing a CRM system, it's easy to list the functionalities required for an organization. Faced with a very wide range of options, it's important to choose the type of CRM before the CRM itself.

The evolution of uses implies multi-channel customer relationship management. However, CRM functionalities extended to digital channels, through the collection and analysis of data for scoring or profiling purposes, are not offered in standard CRMs but in so-called analytical CRMs. Analytical CRM is used to discover customer behavior patterns, to determine targets, potential for additional sales, customer lifetime value, etc. Similarly, by definition, CRM allows you to manage the customer relationship, not the prospect relationship. Prospect relationship management consists of defining a relational process for managing prospects inspired by customer relationship management practices, on the model of PRM (prospect relationship management). The actions are different due to an obvious difference between the customer and prospect status.

These are all functionalities for different uses and types of CRM. It's clear that the SAAS model has greatly contributed to democratizing CRM by making it more technically and financially accessible for businesses in all sectors. The downside is the quest for the most complete tool possible at the lowest cost. However, each sector has specific functional needs…

Why are certain CRMs suited to some sectors and not others?

Let's take two sectors of activity: hospitality and transport. At first glance, everything sets them apart, and if they were to equip themselves with a CRM, the choice would be different for each. But what are the differences between them? The clientele? The sales process? The product? The hotel business involves notions of reservation, personnel management, stocks... Transport, on the other hand, involves the management of times, costs, delivery... Specific functionalities for each activity but... ultimately, isn't this more a question of a "language" specific to the sector rather than functionalities of a CRM?

As a reminder, in the strict sense, CRM allows you to manage customer relationships. In a more extended version, that is, adding Marketing functionalities for example, we should then speak of a "Suite". To add reservation or cash register management, we will talk about "integration". Having a CRM that is 100% adapted to its organization means talking either about "specific" or "personalization." When a CRM is only adapted to a single organizational model intended for a sector of activity, then we speak of a "vertical". Can a standard CRM adapt to several sectors or several organizations? Yes, fortunately. Because it is not so much the management of the customer relationship that differs from one sector to another, but the commercial management.

Choosing the right CRM is above all choosing the CRM adapted to your sales processes, taking into account the type of customer (or contacts) to be managed. Commerce in a BtoB context does not imply the same organization as in a BtoC context. In a BtoB context, customer relationship management software allows you to centralize and then improve customer knowledge, and offer products and services tailored to their expectations. Sales management and channels are different for managing a customer base of individuals. Individuals will tend to use digital, mobile and more generally Internet channels for their purchases. The buying journey can be either direct, indirect or both. Most CRM software is not suitable for BtoC due to the difference in management between a marketing department and its prospect base (mainly loyalty), and a sales department more oriented towards customers.

A scalable and customizable CRM, really?

You have the right 'type' of CRM, adapted to your sector of activity; now you need to find the CRM adapted to your organization. The mistake would be to go in search of the tool that corresponds to 100%. Because this tool does not exist, or you will have to have it developed to measure, which represents a cost. The appropriate tool is the one that you can customize and that will evolve with your company.

Most customer relationship management software is customizable: fields, sales process, sales pipeline, etc., so that they are perfectly adapted to the specific needs of your company.

However, personalization doesn't stop at simply adding or modifying fields. Personalization must go further by offering relevant settings that take into account the company's overall "business" dimension. A practically "tailor-made" setting that will "make your data speak". Each company and each sector of activity does not use the same data. From one company to another, the need is different. If we take our examples of the hotel industry versus transport, they use different indicators: the occupancy rate for the hotel industry and the tonnage transported per kilometer for transport... So many specific indicators that do not imply the same CRM settings.

Similarly, CRM customization implies the ability to integrate into a complete information system. Because a CRM allows you to manage customer relationships with its own specific functionalities, by linking it to your production tool or accounting software, you are able to cover all of your business processes without data loss. For a CRM to be functional and effective, it needs to be constantly fed with fresh, quality data from your system or third-party applications, thus becoming a true decision-making tool.

When defining a CRM project, evaluating the functional scope through specifications is essential, but to choose the right CRM, it is essential to look further. Understanding the company's business is essential to be able to list all the needs that a CRM must meet. This step guarantees the perfect match between the software and the company's processes and organization.

A CRM is not just a data repository; it primarily allows you to analyze your activity to better manage it. A CRM is a tool that must be able to adapt to the current needs and future evolutions of a company. Choosing a scalable solution is therefore essential to support development in a new market or the redesign of a business process, for example. The stakes can be considerable for an organization if the company's strategy is not taken into account at the start of the project.

To learn more about CRMs and help you with your projects, find all of our methods and tools here:

*Study conducted in November 2017 by Nomination with 427 contacts in commercial, marketing, and general management roles. Companies from all sectors based in France (27% micro-enterprises, 32% SMEs, 22% intermediate-sized enterprises, 19% large companies)

More information on KOBAN, a Management, CRM and Marketing solution, by clicking on the following button:

Why?

Simply because behaviors have radically changed due to the digitalization of the economy. The internet has profoundly altered the relationships between sellers and buyers, and the latter no longer tolerate intrusive sales pressure...even if they still want information.

They will look for this information easily and independently online, at their own pace and convenience. What matters today is being visible when these potential leads are in the research phase. Thanks to the internet, marketing offers companies new tools and, above all, a new way of operating that allows them to position themselves as interesting rather than interested.

This is Inbound Marketing.

Why Adopt an Inbound Marketing Strategy?

From the sales representatives' point of view, it is now counterproductive to go looking for contacts or leads. It's a huge amount of time invested for a more than random result, regardless of the sales representative's skills and motivation, based primarily on volume, in other words, the number of outbound calls. It's a tiring, time-consuming activity with low added value that exhausts sales representatives! A sales representative should invest their time where they bring added value: converting leads into customers. Better than a long speech, here are 10 key figures to rethink your vision of traditional marketing:

1. 68% of online buyers like to spend time reading content published by a company that interests them. (The CMA)
2. 80% of decision-makers in the industry sector prefer to get information about a company through a blog article rather than an advertisement. (Content Marketing Institute)
3. 83% of online buyers find their suppliers on Google. (MarketingSherpa)
4. In the USA, 84% of BtoB CEOs use social networks to gather information about a company before making their purchasing decision, and 56% of buyers consult the blog of the company selling the products they are interested in. (Salesforlife)
5. 89% of B2B buyers do online research before contacting a company, with an average of 7 to 9 searches on Google. (Google)
6. 66% of BtoB marketing managers believe that content production is effective when this content is then distributed via various channels: social networks, blogs, public events...(Kapost)
7. Leads generated via Inbound Marketing cost 61% less on average than qualified leads generated by traditional techniques (outbound marketing). (HubSpot)
8. Leads that continue to be supported in a conversion funnel then spend 47% more than leads that have not been supported. (The Annuitas Group)
9. Properly structured and executed inbound marketing techniques are 10 times more effective in terms of lead conversion than outbound marketing techniques. (Gartner)
10. 34% of salespeople believe that prospecting is the most difficult task they have to perform. (Hubspot)

So why adopt an Inbound Marketing strategy? Because that's what customers want and it's the best ROI for you!

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing consists of organizing a reverse flow, that is, creating the conditions to generate inbound contacts, leads. In response to the trends described in the first part of this article, it is about attracting customers to you. It is an approach that allows you to create contact in a less aggressive way and especially at the right time with the right person, which will make your commercial strategy more effective.

In this approach, marketing has a more profound impact on the sales funnel. It's no longer limited to creating awareness and interest; it extends to intention and even evaluation, i.e., lead generation. It encourages prospects to take action, for example, through "call to action" buttons on a website.

We can clearly see that this marketing strategy opens up a wide range of actions that can also impact the internal organization of the company by bringing marketing and sales closer together.

A topic we will address several times, with a focus very soon on how to implement this strategy and the key points for being effective.

In the meantime, we invite you to follow the various articles that we will be offering on topics related to sales performance on this blog or via our newsletter (KESTIO Insights).

The webinar is an Inbound Marketing tool that has become essential today: through its audience and content, it generates numerous leads. Find out how in this webinar:

A boon for a company!

The idea is to be present on social media by sharing relevant content that sparks the interest of users as they search for information. This approach, driven by the company, does not mix personal and professional content, as we saw in the first post on the subject, "4 tips to increase sales with social selling." It is implemented and managed by marketing and is part of the perspective of generating inbound leads. To exist on social networks, there are three levels of actions that correspond to three levels of involvement:

– Reacting to other users' posts (likes, comments, shares, etc.); consumes few resources, generates few results, and maintains activity.

– Choosing curation, a practice that involves selecting, editing, and sharing the most relevant content on the internet for a given query or topic; consumes slightly more resources, provides visibility, but does not contribute to building an identity.

– Producing your own content: This consumes a lot of resources and requires a strategy, but it delivers significant results.

This third point deserves more attention. To succeed, there are indeed a few rules to follow:

1 > Be interesting

To attract attention and be perceived as a valuable resource providing useful content, it's better to talk about what interests the other person than about oneself, therefore addressing the topics on which the company is an expert from the point of view of the potential client. In other words, prefer "How office furniture improves productivity" to "We sell offices at the best value for money."

2 > Know your target

To effectively target your audience, you need to know them. We will discuss "personas" or "buyer personas." Ideally, marketing and sales departments should work together to describe these targets by addressing the following topics: Their profiles, their career paths, their responsibilities, their objectives, their challenges, their stresses, their constraints, the projects they are working on, their decision-making processes, their types of beliefs, their constraints, what is important to them... It is understood that we are describing here a typical profile that does not exist per se, a bit like the "average person" in statistics. However, by specifying these points, we will better visualize the target, the collaborators will have a shared representation, and we will become more audible thanks to adapted content.

We can do this work for each type of clientele.

3 > List the topics

It is then necessary to work on the editorial line, to find the points of convergence (form and substance) between the company's offer and the expectations of the targeted internet users. At this stage, it is interesting to organize a brainstorming session between employees, produce as many content themes as possible on post-it notes, with a very broad exploratory work, then make a synthesis by asking each person for the 10 most important ones. This shortlist becomes the backbone of the editorial line. An exercise to be repeated every 6 months, which must mix topical themes and cold subjects. From the chosen themes, all that remains is to come up with article topics and organize the production.

4 > Write the content

For writing, two solutions are possible.

Either the workload is shared among several writers, but not everyone is comfortable with writing. In this case, it is still necessary to designate an editorial manager to validate the articles and ensure a certain consistency.

Soit un rédacteur interne ou externe qui pourra se charger d’interviewer les experts pour produire ensuite le contenu. Cette solution a été retenue par Kestio. Il s’agit ensuite de varier les formats pour apporter de la diversité et intéresser encore plus largement sa cible avec des formats longs (articles…), des témoignages, des infographies…

This is how a company, a startup or even an SME, can initiate quality communication with its potential targets and then trigger commercial conversations.

Eventually, digital tools will allow us to verify the effectiveness of what is produced and ensure proper alignment between the output and the concerns of web users. We will be able to measure the impact and audience by looking at interactions with shares, comments, and then refine as needed.

To develop your company's communication tools, consider webinars! Webinars highlight attractive content and promote the company's activities. However, they require some rules: in this webinar, learn how to organize a webinar that generates more participants and leads.

Kestio Live est la première plateforme d’expertises qui fournit des outils pour accompagner les dirigeants des PME et des startups sur leurs enjeux commerciaux et marketing.

Il s’agit d’un moyen très pertinent pour les dirigeants d’acquérir toutes les informations pour structurer et moderniser le processus et mieux faire du business. La performance commerciale demande aujourd’hui une maîtrise parfaite de tous les ingrédients tout au long de la chaîne pour obtenir des résultats au niveau attendu et avec des coûts optimisés. En effet, les clients ont changé et sont de plus en plus réticents aux démarches commerciales traditionnelles.

Kestio regroupe toutes les expertises (anciens Directeurs commerciaux, Marketing, coachs, consultants CRM, Web, Digital) et la solution digitalisée pour venir en aide aux dirigeants des PME et accélérer leur croissance.

*BFM Business est la 1ère chaîne française d’information économique et financière en continu, avec des conseils pour vos finances par des personnalités de référence dans le domaine de l’économie, des interviews exclusives de patrons, de politiques et d’experts. Rendez-vous sur le canal 46 de la TV SFR et en replay sur bfmbusiness.com.

Discover KESTIO webinars, where we discuss

All topics related to sales performance with our experts:

Fabien Comtet, CEO

Dominique Seguin, CEO

Nicolas Boissard, Marketing Director

Le Social Selling c’est donc une vitrine digitale visible par son audience directe et indirecte.

Pour créer et développer ces liens, il faut une approche long terme, structurée, active, organisée et tournée vers la cible et ses enjeux.

Et respecter les étapes-clés.

4 étapes incontournables pour un Social Selling gagnant

1 : Soigner son profil

Le profil c’est la vitrine qui expose la valeur ajoutée que l’on propose. Il mêle du contenu personnel (mais d’un point de vue professionnel) avec celui de l’entreprise (un exemple ici :www.linkedin.com/in/dominiqueseguin ).

L’objectif est d’être crédible et attractif : il est nécessaire de soigner cette présentation et de faire attention à la photo, à la présentation des expériences, des motivations. Le ton doit être sincère, le contenu complet et pertinent, authentique, chaque information devant être utile, intéressante afin de donner envie d’entrer en contact. Sur la forme il faut partir des besoins du visiteur. Par exemple préférer « J’aide les commerciaux à transformer les leads » à « je forme aux techniques de ventes », ou encore « j’aide les dirigeants à analyser leurs chiffres et prendre des décisions » sera plus percutant que « je suis contrôleur de gestion ».

Le profil, c’est une vitrine statique qui doit donner envie d’entrer dans la boutique et qui est tournée bénéfices pour son audience !

2 : Développer ses contacts

Deuxième étape : connecter tout l’écosystème, de près ou de loin (ce qui se fera d’autant plus facilement que le profil est de qualité) et déployer à partir de ce point central un maximum de connexions, comme des ronds dans l’eau.

Il faut chercher partout dans son réseau, ses relations professionnelles, amicales, ses partenaires, ses fournisseurs, ses rencontres etc. Dans l’absolu il n’y a pas de limites, hormis celles imposées par les plateformes des réseaux sociaux.

Développer ses contacts réclame une logique de quantité : à partir du moment ou on dispose d’un point d’entrée, on connecte.

3 : Passer du statique au dynamique

Il s’agit d’être actif, d’animer son réseau en adoptant une stratégie de contenu que l’on va diffuser auprès de son audience, soit en autoproduction soit en curation (comme relayer une information vue sur le web). Interagir sera aussi important, c’est-à-dire commenter et partager des contenus de votre propre réseau.

Pour tout ça mieux vaut avoir sinon une ligne éditoriale du moins un axe cohérent, comme par exemple partager des éléments intéressants qui vont aider vos contacts à atteindre leurs propres objectifs, grâce à votre production.

Le Social Selling est un outil de communication qui permet d’être présent dans l’esprit de vos contacts et des contacts de vos contacts sans avoir besoin d’être présent ou de gérer un planning d’appels téléphoniques. Soyez inspirant autant qu’inspiré, développez votre présence en tant que personne plutôt qu’en tant que marque.

4 : Entrer dans une logique de conversation commerciale

On peut alors passer au « to trust », entrer dans une logique « one to one ».

Après avoir créé le « to like » et le « to know », les conditions sont réunies pour générer des conversations commerciales tout en restant totalement et sincèrement décentré sur son interlocuteur c’est-à-dire, comme on l’a vu, en restant en mode intéressant plutôt qu’intéressé.

Passer à la vitesse supérieure !

Le Social Selling est un outil puissant qui permet de communiquer du « one to many » au « one to one », autrement dit qui rapproche respectivement le marketing et le commercial.

Knowing how to reposition your company's activity can be vital in a difficult situation. Discover the different stages of this process in this webinar:

Autrement dit : un site internet doit être vu comme une machine à fabriquer du contact entrant.

Cependant, il arrive que cet objectif ne soit pas atteint. Parce que le profil des visiteurs n’est pas dans la cible. Parce que le site ne réussit pas à faire interagir les internautes. Parce que le contenu ne correspond pas aux attentes. Parce qu’il est trop statique. Parce qu’il ne fidélise pas… et si c’est le cas, il faut vite revoir sa copie : c’est du business qui s’évapore !

Avant toute chose, il est nécessaire de garder en tête deux principes clés de manière à comprendre comment le digital a inversé la manière de voir:

Demande VS Offre

Il faut bien comprendre que les médias digitaux sont d’abord des supports qui répondent à la demande, là où les médias classiques (télé, radio, presse,…) mais également les actions commerciales et de communication sortantes restent des supports d’offre.

« J’ai besoin d’un nouvel outil CRM, je cherche sur le web la meilleure solution » : internet va répondre à ma demande.

« -Je reçois un appel entrant ou un e-mail me proposant un outil CRM, je vais éventuellement l’étudier si j’ai du temps alors que ce n’est pas ma demande initiale » : je suis soumis à une offre.

Entre ces deux approches, on voit bien que le process est inversé et qu’il est primordial aujourd’hui d’être suffisamment attractif pour être identifié dans le premier exemple. En conséquence, deux prérequis sont incontournables pour exister sur Internet : d’abord être vu par ceux qui cherchent mon produit ou mon service, ensuite être suffisamment attractif pour qu’ils choisissent mon offre.

Content Vs Design

Aujourd’hui, si la qualité graphique et le design méritent un minimum d’attention, reste qu’ils ne sont pas des éléments différenciants. D’abord parce que les standards disponibles sur le marché permettent largement de développer des sites navigables, ensuite parce que les internautes ne viennent plus admirer des réalisations techniques : ils cherchent du vrai contenu ! Aussi, une fois le minimum requis atteint, mieux vaut se concentrer sur le contenu et l’animation du site pour développer son attractivité et en faire un outil efficace.

L’attractivité : De quoi parle-t-on ?

Il existe deux notions importantes pour un site : la fréquentation et la conversion. La fréquentation est un indicateur quantitatif qui mesure le volume de visiteurs. La conversion est plutôt un indicateur qualitatif qui indique le nombre d’actions effectuées par un internaute sur le site.

On mesure le quantitatif et le qualitatif grâce aux indicateurs de navigation du site qui permettent d’identifier les contenus les plus pertinents, à la fois dans leur fond et leur forme. Pour le référencement, un test facile consiste à vérifier les résultats sur certains mots-clés.

Un site avec un gros trafic mais peu de conversions sera réputé inefficace : son éditeur n’en retirera aucun retour, très peu de leads. En revanche un site avec peu de trafic mais beaucoup de conversions ne permettra pas de développer un gros chiffre par manque de visiteurs.

L’attractivité utile à la stratégie commerciale, celle qui permet de générer des leads entrant pour les équipes commerciales se trouve donc à la croisée de ces deux indicateurs, et il y a quatre étapes pour y parvenir !

4 étapes pour une stratégie d’attractivité gagnante

1. Définir la cible, décrire les personas

Quand on ne sait pas qui on cherche, on a peu de chance de le trouver ! Aussi, pour espérer avoir un site efficace, faut-il avant tout qualifier sa cible, décrire les profils-type des clients (on utilise souvent le terme de « persona »). En précisant les personas, on répond à la question de leurs besoins, de leurs attentes, de leurs demandes. On décrit le cœur de cible en passant en revue tout ce qui peut être caractéristique : l’âge, le sexe, la CSP, la localisation, les centres d’intérêts…Une des clés réside donc dans l’adéquation entre la cible et le mix fond/forme du site.

2. Utiliser le parcours d’achat client

Le parcours d’achat d’un client se découpe en 4 grandes phases :

- La prise de conscience
- La considération
- L’achat
- L’usage

Il est nécessaire de définir précisément le contenu et les canaux utilisés pour chaque interaction. En effet, l’objectif diffère à chacune des étapes et pour être efficace, il faut s’adapter. Pour la prise de conscience par exemple une information courte mais impactante en homepage ou landing page marquera l’esprit du futur client !

3. Créer du contenu

L’attractivité d’un site est directement liée à la qualité du contenu qui est proposé. Ainsi, l’inbound marketing consiste à diffuser une production éditoriale de qualité, ciblée et régulière, avec une valeur ajoutée perçue par l’internaute. Cette valeur fidélise et contribue à la génération de leads. Bien évidemment, cette stratégie réclame des ressources, en temps et en compétences rédactionnelles.

4. Diffuser le contenu

Une fois le contenu rédigé, les personas et la phase du parcours d’achat défini, la dernière étape consiste à diffuser le web content. Loin d’être anodine, cette étape est importante car même de qualité, un contenu souffrant d’une mauvaise diffusion verra sa portée et son impact considérablement réduits. Aussi, pour chaque contenu à diffuser, il est nécessaire de bien définir :

le meilleur canal pour atteindre le persona au moment recherché du cycle d’achat.
les canaux secondaires permettant d’augmenter la visibilité du contenu (par exemple les réseaux sociaux)

5. Associer marketing et commercial

Pour mieux visualiser les enjeux, on peut imaginer le site web comme un stand dans un salon professionnel. Si on veut rentabiliser l’investissement du stand, il doit être bien placé (référencement), pertinent (avec une offre cohérente et lisible par les visiteurs), attractif (avec un design qui attire), intéressant (avec de l’information pertinente pour les visiteurs) avec des animateurs, des commerciaux qui rendent le stand dynamique (animation du site). Les possibilités offertes par le digital sont tellement larges et complexes que de nombreux métiers se sont développés autour d’internet. Et dans une certaine mesure on ne peut plus tout faire soi-même.

La 1ère étape pour assurer le succès de cette démarche est d’avoir une organisation commerciale intégrant pleinement les évolutions et spécificités du digital. Est-ce le cas pour vous ?

Is optimization your watchword? Then discover in this webinar how to maximize the performance of your sales representatives by saving them 50% of their time:

The effectiveness of traditional methods for gathering information and securing appointments has decreased threefold in under a decade. In the 2000s, a day of calls would yield a minimum of two to three appointments.

Today, it's clear that most salespeople who make cold calls barely get one positive response!

Why? Because the internet has profoundly changed behavior! With search engines, prospects themselves carry out their initial information search and have access to almost all available offers. They no longer need salespeople to get information.

However, the challenges of sales management for the company remain the same: how to obtain enough contacts with prospects? How to maintain reasonable sales costs to continue to develop profitably?

To answer these questions, a new approach has been developed: with "lead generation".

Literally, « lead » means « track ». It is a term initially used in CRM software and which, in practice, now refers to a sales lead. Lead generation is all the actions taken to identify potential customers.

Your market today consists of hundreds or thousands of buyers who, from the moment they have identified their problems and needs, will begin searching for information using the most practical and cost-effective tool: the internet. All these Internet users, as long as they have not clicked on your site, are unknown and invisible to you. You know that they exist, that at some point they will have a need that you can meet, but for now you do not know them! The challenge is therefore to get in front of their radar during their research phase and turn them from anonymous visitors into active visitors on your site. For this, two prerequisites are necessary:

first, be well referenced and well identified so that, whatever the user's search methods, they end up on your site (see our article on the attractiveness of websites on this subject),

Next, offer attractive content in order to increase opportunities to obtain information from the visitor and encourage them to interact.

To generate leads, you should focus on high-quality and targeted content that positions you as a key "Consulting" player in your sector and geographical area. By doing so, you increase the chances of multiple visits, as users will associate you with their "favorites." You will generate leads that are in various stages of progression. First, there's the "unknown lead," which is limited to a location or even an IP address, but lacks sufficient qualifications to be useful. The second is the "identified lead," where we know, for example, their email address or phone number. The third is the "qualified lead," who has increased their activity: a higher number of pages visited, several articles read, multiple visits, and has provided usable information. At this stage, if this lead is passed on to a salesperson, it can become a prospect.

To encourage visitors to take action, you must create triggers so that they leave their contact information or even express their needs. White papers, webinars, video conferences, online questionnaires to conduct a free audit... there are many solutions that must be defined according to your market and the specific needs of your clientele. After several visits, reassured by the quality of the content and the match between the offer and their needs, the user will become an active visitor.

Generating a lead means converting a contact from an unknown to a qualified status.

The problem for companies today revolves around the management of three strategic phases.

It is clear in this new approach that the preliminary work to capture contacts mobilizes significant resources (technical mastery, available time, monitoring, information sharing, etc.).

Lead generation doesn't stop at qualifying a prospect. There are three key phases to this sales strategy that companies must master.

The "lead acquisition", which consists of qualifying the lead through scenarios, specific targeted actions, and which we have described above.
Lead nurturing involves creating and developing a strong connection by engaging the lead, prompting reactions, offering content, and inviting them to offline events. The key is to find the right balance, avoiding being too pushy or not engaging enough. The connection should be a dynamic but not overly strained thread.
Lead conversion is the critical moment when the salesperson comes into play. This is a delicate stage because it involves direct interaction and requires the right sales skills, the right attitude, and the right distance to avoid mistakes.

Management and monitoring

Of course, all these steps happen simultaneously. At any given moment, a company has leads, prospects, and customers, a whole volume of contacts at different stages of progress, with a lot of data to manage. All of this creates a complex and constantly moving environment that requires new skills and a different approach, a new perspective.

KESTIO Live, with its pragmatic and tailored approach, helps SMEs structure a customized Lead Generation strategy and be effective in three key phases. First, we help define buyer personas, then develop the most effective interaction scenarios, and finally, assist in managing the entire process with regular contact that emphasizes long-term monitoring and performance.

Adopt a tool tailored to your business and expectations: choose the right CRM. To better understand its usefulness and choose a suitable CRM, watch this webinar:

" It's not enough to be talented to be a salesperson »

EarthCube is a startup created in 2016. It develops satellite monitoring services for factories, pipelines and other industrial sites, both for malicious acts and natural accidents.

The Toulouse-based company has a staff of 15 employees, including 3 sales representatives.

It has just concluded a fundraising of 3 million euros to support the commercial development of its solutions for automating and improving the processing and analysis of satellite images.

Arnaud Guerin, un des deux fondateurs et CEO de la startup, contacte Kestio Live sur recommandation afin d’optimiser toute la démarche commerciale.

Kestio : Comment avez-vous démarré la collaboration avec Kestio ?

Arnaud Guérin: In our sector, with a technical and innovative offer, the sales process is very complex, with upstream and downstream phases that require excellent preparation. We quickly understood that we needed to review our sales management and that our sales process needed to be organized and structured to meet the demands of our market. But also, we had neither the skills nor the internal resources to carry out this project successfully. To be immediately effective and not « learn on the job », we therefore chose to seek external expertise. Furthermore, we also wanted specific training on certain very specific steps such as information gathering, mapping key players, etc.

Kestio : Quelle était votre problématique du point de vue développement commercial ?

Arnaud Guérin : Pour la mise en route et construire un premier socle commun de connaissances nous avons travaillé via des cessions de 2 à 3 heures en présentiel, resserrées dans le temps, avec l’ensemble de l’équipe commerciale. Nous avons notamment abordé le sujet du customer discovery et adopté la Méthode de l’Echiquier, particulièrement adaptée aux process de ventes complexes et qui permet notamment d’améliorer le taux de transformation en portant les efforts là où existe le potentiel. Pour nous, l’apport a été fondamental : nous n’avions pas de culture de la vente à proprement parler et nous nous sommes rendu compte qu’il ne suffisait pas d’être talentueux pour exercer ce métier mais qu’au contraire il s’appuyait sur de vraies compétences techniques, sur de la méthode. Kestio Live nous a apporté théorie et pratique, mais c’est aussi le suivi régulier qui permet l’ancrage de la stratégie commerciale, le changement des habitudes.

Kestio : Par rapport à vos objectifs initiaux la formule répond-elle à vos attentes ?

Arnaud Guérin : Kestio permet de rester dans le cadre, de ne pas perdre le fil. Le principe de rendez-vous téléphoniques ou en visio-conférence fait que les sujets abordés sont toujours actifs, et ainsi la progression est constante. Contrairement à ce qui peut se passer dans le cas des formations en salle qui mobilisent de grandes plages horaires et où les sujets abordés se diluent rapidement dans le quotidien sitôt revenu au bureau, nous constatons que la dynamique d’apprentissage reste opérationnelle. Et la formule est très souple : le créneau est utilisé par un des trois commerciaux selon les besoins, voire par deux.

Kestio : Plus sûrement que des gros blocs de formation ?

Arnaud Guérin : Oui, et nous allons maintenir cette tension positive pour notre performance commerciale. Progressivement nous devenons plus autonomes mais à force de descendre dans le pipe nous découvrons aussi de nouvelles problématiques. Et notre actualité joue aussi sur les thèmes abordés. Des questions comme « comment se préparer pour un salon ? » ou « comment répondre à un client qui demande un mois gratuit ? » émergent régulièrement et nous les abordons directement avec Kestio. On se retrouve au fil du temps avec une boîte à outils qui nous permet de gagner en productivité. Un de nos enjeux aujourd’hui est de disposer d’une plate-forme commune afin que chacun puisse se mettre à jour au fur et à mesure de son arrivée dans l’entreprise.

Thank you for your testimonial!

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We are convinced that he masters not one, not two, but (almost) all the tricks of the trade and that, with a hide tanned by years of meetings and negotiations of all kinds, he carries a guarantee of success and commercial performance, a passport to exceeding objectives!

What if things weren't that simple? Is the senior sales representative always really performing well? What are their weaknesses? What balance of power does it bring? In short...how do you manage a senior sales representative?

Not necessarily competent, sometimes exhausted, often more resistant to change, the senior salesperson is above all a specific profile that should be approached with care to make them a real asset.

A senior employee isn't necessarily effective!

In sports, just because you have 10 years of experience doesn't mean you become a Zidane or a Michael Jordan. Conversely, you can be young and very successful. It's exactly the same in sales professions: "senior" does not necessarily rhyme with "competence" and "autonomy."

A sales manager recently shared an anecdote about a 45-year-old salesperson with 20 years of experience, who was quite successful. The salesperson was transferred, at their request, to another region, and there, disaster struck: they couldn't achieve anything anymore. No more prospects, no more appointments, no more sales. Despite their knowledge and experience, the person was completely stuck!

The mistake is believing that a senior employee knows everything and hiding behind this certainty ("beware of belief traps") without seeing the reality of the situation. You have to take the time to assess their skills, identify what's missing, and see how the person works. They may not necessarily know how to organize themselves, find their prospects, manage their time, or adopt new tools. A senior employee always has areas for improvement, but may sometimes have less desire to fill them, perhaps less motivation, which should further encourage the manager to be attentive.

Worse, a senior salesperson will often find it difficult to share their struggles. Where a junior is in the learning phase and shows enthusiasm, the senior will quickly feel illegitimate, challenged, and their self-esteem will be weakened. In the case of our reassigned salesperson, for more than 6 months they hid behind reassuring words, claiming to be discovering a new market. But that wasn't the problem...

From pure management

With a senior employee, you're often in a situation of pure management. To revisit the story of our transformed salesperson, after a period of careful observation and consistently poor results, the manager focuses on finding a solution. He analyzes factual elements, remains assertive, treats the salesperson as an equal, and offers a mirror effect. After a period of discussion, he understands: the methods in the new region are different. The senior employee was used to having appointments made for them, whereas in their new position, they have to do it themselves. They have to hunt for leads, but they don't know how! Conscious and unconscious barriers related to their senior status prevent them from expressing their difficulties. They felt they didn't deserve their salary, felt like they were disappointing, and didn't dare ask for help. Negative spiral.

In this example, the manager was able to support their sales representative with empathy. Once the diagnosis was made and motivation confirmed, all that remained was to propose a corrective plan, provide perspective, and provide support!

Motivation is a particularly important point in the management of senior sales representatives. Sales remain one of the most difficult professions. Motivation is attacked daily by refusals, you have to start from scratch with each prospect, without any certainty. A senior, with his years of experience, can end up becoming demotivated. Therefore, the manager must be able to identify the problems of his sales representative and, more than with another, pay attention and know his way of working. He must determine what makes people tick: remuneration, recognition, challenge...

However, be aware that one common bias when dealing with a senior person is to lose objectivity, be impressed, be afraid, and ultimately not be clear in the exchange. This can lead to miscommunication and create an engagement problem.

The senior salesperson, a champion of immobility?

The senior, with their career behind them, will potentially have more reservations about being challenged. They will tend to rely on certainties, on their habits, and will find it more difficult to make the effort to fill their gaps (which they will find it difficult to recognize). It can even become a kind of posture over time: 'I've always done it this way, I'm too old to change!'

A senior employee can more easily compensate for a weakness with their strengths compared to a junior employee. These strengths are often genuine assets to capitalize on but are rarely sufficient in the face of the current evolution of sales approaches. As for the areas for improvement, the manager must work with their employee to bring them up to the minimum required level.

We are also going to have generational problems. Social selling, for example, can become a contentious issue when a young person is comfortable with it and a senior person is lost.

Leverage experience.

Of course, managers should not neglect a high-performing senior salesperson. In this situation, the instinct is to stop monitoring them, reassured by their figures, and therefore invest time in juniors or salespeople who are struggling more: this is a mistake. In the long run, this can be perceived by the salesperson as a lack of recognition, leading to a loss of motivation. It is essential to remain attentive and precise, and to leverage their performance to share it within the team.

In a mentoring approach, you can rely on senior staff to support and reassure. KESTIO is currently working for a CEO who manages a team of 5 sales representatives, one of whom generates 50% of the revenue. He wants to appoint him as manager, which places an obligation on the sales representative to succeed, both in relation to the others and to himself, but also for the CEO who would lose his best salesperson if he did not succeed in this evolution!

In this case, KESTIO supports the salesperson to develop their skills as a manager.

KESTIO, with its short and pragmatic approach, distributed over time, facilitates this management in small increments to maintain the right balance within the team between generations. KESTIO provides regular action in the right place.

The senior is also a bit of the memory. Their ability to bring anecdotes, stories, to create links and a common and shared knowledge will strengthen the team. It is up to the manager to activate this dimension.

To stay competitive and maximize your chances of converting leads into future customers, it is important to optimize the performance of your commercial assets. Find out how by watching this webinar:

However, Inbound Marketing isn't just about content creation: an effective strategy requires implementing rigorous tools and processes to attract people seeking information on your areas of expertise, demonstrate your expert status, and, above all, encourage them to take action (contact form, booking, order).

Here are the key points and major steps to follow to develop a lead generation strategy around content production:

1. Define specific targets for your content

The first step before embarking on content production, and even before defining which topics you want to address, is to define your target audiences. Simple? Not always. You know your customers through your CRM software and databases, but a content strategy may not target the same type of people. You should take this opportunity to rethink your targets, or, if you keep the same ones, to refine them.

Inbound Marketing can help you reach a different clientele. You can deliberately choose to address certain functions within the company or certain sectors of activity neglected on offline channels. Define your priorities. In light of the identified target profiles, you must then imagine adapted content and make it coincide with the interests of these targets. The questions you need to ask at this stage are: what subjects interest your targets? How will you "keep" them on the site? What are their preferred communication tools? On which social networks are they present?

2. Equip yourself with a publication schedule and an editorial charter.

You've outlined your target audience and identified the key topics to present to them. Now, you need to define an editorial charter and publication schedule:

- Who is the expert on which subject? Who can (should) speak on a topic? Define your experts and their fields of action, and how they will transmit their knowledge. Will they write the content themselves? Will they be written by an external web editor, an agency, or by a single person internally?
- What tone will you adopt? What order will the topics follow? What will your publishing pace be? You need a battle plan with a 'tunnel' vision of your publications. The more precise your vision of the weeks ahead, the smoother the creation process will be.

Please note that defining a publication schedule and an editorial charter does not mean setting a strategy in stone and never revisiting it. Keep in mind that current events, an unforeseen event, or a major event in your sector can impact your content. Thus, a very precise vision beyond three months is not necessary.

3. Optimize your SEO

Of course, producing quality content on your favorite topics will positively contribute to your natural referencing. But that's not enough! Behind websites with good search engine optimization lies extensive technical optimization: the choice of a server, a domain name, the prioritization of content, or the writing of meta tags... A search engine optimization audit of your site can help you optimize these technical elements. It is necessary to monitor the evolution of your search engine optimization regularly, as the ranking algorithms are constantly changing.

This technical optimization of your site is essential to ensure the success of your Inbound Marketing strategy in the long term. There's no point in producing quality content that no one will find. Moreover, in the absence of visibility, your desire to produce content will wane due to lack of results.

4. Bring your content to life with a communication process

Once content is published on your website, its digital life begins. Then define your communication process around this content: how to promote it? Which channel will be the most effective to reach the targets defined previously? Mailing, newsletter, sharing on social networks?

Should an article be revealed in full or in parts? Should certain platforms be used for teasing? It is essential to consider this process of relaying articles, as it largely determines the success of your Inbound Marketing strategy.

5. Be interesting... but above all, « engaging »!

If you think a topic isn't captivating enough or won't hold the readers' attention, change your approach and try to find a relevant angle. Article titles and illustrations are the primary drivers of reader engagement.

Also, always keep some information up your sleeve. Provide useful material without giving everything away. Address specific and limited topics that meet your target audience's concerns in a logical progression. Always allow them the opportunity to learn more, either by subscribing to your newsletter or your company page on social media, or by participating in a webinar... Or even by contacting you directly by email or phone. In short, make sure you create a relationship with your readers and generate interactions with them so that they enter your "funnel": only then will your (quality) content become real lead generators!

The webinar is an inbound communication tool that has become essential today: through its audience and content, it generates numerous leads. Find out how in this webinar: