I have been doing considerable thinking about the current state of B2B sales and marketing and what is possible given new levels of social interaction, widespread publishing (blogs, Twitter, etc.), and connectedness.  One thing I continue to come back to deals with "demand signaling."  I have seen this referred to as a "personal RFP" or "broadcast shopping" as I have done more reading on the the topic but see very little being done to capture or consider it in any company's day to day operations.  I even wrote a post a while ago about how "we" are the missing piece of social selling.

B2B lead generation is all about getting contact information of prospective buyers that signal some kind of intent then dropping them into a process of nurture and follow up with an eye on converting them to a paying customer at some point.  The problem with this approach is that the "intent" is usually related to downloading a whitepaper, attending a webinar, or merely visiting a website – all of which demonstrate some type of interest but only in rare situations someone ready to make a purchase (see "leads are weak" clip from Glengarry GlenRoss).  People that want to buy from you contact you directly.

So why are millions of dollars, countless hours, and a significant chunk of a marketing team's energy devoted to putting up huge numbers of "leads" that salespeople often struggle with to move through the sales process because they weren't really qualified in the first place?  Good question.

Here's a two step framework to begin to put this into practice for all of us that sell (we all sell something):

Qualify yourself in (or out) – just do a little bit of research before you send that next email and see if the person on the other end is really in need of your product or service.  The bar is not high here and I am continually amazed at how most people will not even do a simple web search on me or my company before sending a pitch. That is one of the key values of a product like Gist.  It does this for you, just use it! At a minimum, visit the company's home page and read the most recent news.

Qualify me in (or out) – Am I asking for what you sell?  Did I blog about it, tweet about it, etc.?  These are really easy indicators to see for anyone who has a public social profile and will make the timing and appeal of your pitch so much better. 

I even decided to set up a Facebook Page to rally around this topic and share examples of doing this poorly.  Check out the "I Am Not A Sales Lead" page, post your stories, and help me spread the word!