One of the areas which I’ve noticed is the downfall for many B2B Alliances is consistency and metrics.  This isn’t the answer to all the lead-generation problems.  What it does is provide:

  • contact — an update to date contact with information
  • context — typically the sales person will know something about the company or contact
  • connection — ideally, but not always, the sales person will have a connection with the company

Having these does not guarantee a qualified opportunities.  It still takes getting as many of these as possible.  But the alternative?

  • using outdated lists with bad contact information and no idea where the person is on the decision-process
  • limiting your scope of targets
  • relying on other lead generation activities which either generate nothing or are non-existent

But both sides need to work on it.  And one important component of that is to have metrics.

These don’t need to be complicated.  It basically breaks down into two primary numbers (from a manager’s perspective):

  • how many contacts have I received from an Ally?
  • how many contacts have I been giving to an Ally?

You could get more granular, but these are the two primary numbers.  Why?  Because as long as these two numbers are relatively equal and growing, you know you are getting transactions.  Something is happening between your reps and the reps of your allies.

But what if they are just gaming me?

Well, let’s talk more about that later, but one key element to successful implementation is to have easy, readily sharable, real-time metrics on activity that does NOT impose more bureaucracy on your field reps or you.

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