Dales Denham, SVP Advertising Specialty Institute
Promotional products industry - any thing with your logo on it, $17 Billion industry, he doesn't sell it, sells to trade - magazines, etc., lots of small businesses
ESP - Electronic Source & Photo user interface - charged 5X more than competitor, S/W was not as good as competitor @ $495, had to react.
- Consolidated data & software responsibilities
- 700,000 items released in first few weeks of year
- Hired seasonal data entry staff rather than outsourcing, other items outsourced (e.g., cropping out backgrounds to provide consistent and professional look - repeatable work, outsourced, saved money)
- Segmented suppliers based on spending levels, 6 levels, top levels got input in 10 days, etc., most visible to clients, so it was mutually beneficial
- Highest spend suppliers ranked by relevance, etc. but default sort has ones who spend most money with them come up first. May lose ad revenues on DB, but they'll buy ads elsewhere, happier customers.
- Amazing how little we had measured, then did lots, then chose what was worth doing
- Removed data after two years unless they respond to letter asking for verification or removal
- Only 40 percent bother to look at their data in ESP, most don't want to do the work. All they have to do is tell them that it's wrong and they'll fix it. Lots of competitors rely only on suppliers, provides ASI a competitive advantage. Also gets normalized in process.
- Also fixed software quality problems, better design. Listened to customers, sometimes they didn't agree with strategies, needed it to balance input. Also LOUD users who were not necessarily profitable, were running show in 1990s, but now turned around, now listen to MAJORITY of users.
- Also keep popular functionality sometimes, even though it may "break" design rules
- Highlight data strengths via good design - e.g., timeliness of data, etc.
- Invest in design (picture of 1-year old playing with computer) - don't settle for "good enough" before out the door.
- Stay away from technology for technology's sake
- Results - most data problems solved in year, 50 percent costs reduced in first year, addl in second year, happier custs, employees, from 6,000 users and custs to 19,500 users. Focus on best data first, sell difficult accts with quality when others fail, listen to clients with BALANCE, spend lots on great design.

Kelly Gay, CEO KnowledgeStorm

Raise of hands: lots of lead generators in audience. Lots of marketing professionals also.

KS is a lead generation vehicle, have same issues internally with their own sales efforts, apply lessons to clients.

- Google huge partner, loves Google, but lots of custs
- The lead gap - 79 percent of all leads not followed up on by sales
- of remaining 21 percent, 70 percent are discarded!
- Leaves 6.3 percent are worked to a viable conclusion
- Causes - poor target market definition, lack of consensus on what is a lead, lack of integration, every lead is handles the same way regardless of readiness to by, lack of training and measurement on conversion of leads
- Buyers - study of users, "Which resources do you go first?"
36 percent Internet directories, etc.
- Purchasing behavior - on site for acuisition, info, replacing solutions, competitive research, 18 percent all four
- Buyer purchasing behavior - Multiple people are typically involved in a decision to purchase software hardware or IT services, only 7 percent one person.
- Buyer purchasing behavior - the purchase of IT solutions takes time for each step, discover the need problem, mean 2 weeks average 17 weeks.
- "Give me the good leads." Sales people are not nurturers.
- What do you think we hard from Marketing/Sales?
- Salespeople: "I did not call 50 to 80 percent of the leads because I could tell they were not any good."
- Before changes to lead process: little process, little data on effort, functional goals not necessarily tied to company goals, little consistency of messaging to custs (did project to see what the results)
- Changes to lead process - She let people she cared and paid attention to details, performance metrics enforced on process, weekly review meetings, missed one meeting, in one week went down, moved effort to small group of salespeople who could handle the process, tracked in SalesLogix. Bottom line: 10 contacts work, no more, no less. Accept feedback on lead quality. Initated pre-sales team to pre-screen, direct leads to right resource, filter out duds, sent to "nurturing campaign." CMP big partner. Bimonthly meetings process-oriented important.
- Very dynamic process, never done, build progress on progress. Always grey, never black and white.
- Practical next steps: assess your lead gen and management
- After changes, 34 percent of business comes from their own lead generation and follow-up, 2 reps out, 3 in, self-healing - other reps take care of existing accts and strategic accts. Lends itself to internet-based sale, turned process into white paper for customers.


Charles Meyst - CEO Business Partnering International
AgencyFinder.com, new business development service designed for virtually any ad agency, PR firm for marketing services, "e-Harmony.com of our industry."
Data driven screening with highly personalized assistance.

Pushes agencies to register and correct, update or just visit occasionally.

- New agency model; traditional model free lsitings, paid circ and distribution, new model paid listings w/free internet access and use. [COMMENT: Interesting parallel to Open Access in scientific publishing]
- Fair amount at stake for agencies, avg gross income $75-150K
- Agency pays one-time registration (certification), only $2,500
- $3k annual fee, proven modest, for opportunity to be found.
- Needed to make sure that they knew who was providing them the leads, wouldn't let searchers know ID of agencies until and unless AF.com was in middle.
- Home page [COMMENT: dated design, but effective enough, good navigation]
[REFLECTION: Amazing how quickly the core skills of the database publishing community have become online skills. A seasoned veteran talking about the nitty details of online design, noting stats on click-through, etc. The tide has turned big-time.]
- Much of what expensive consultants provide available for free online
- Process - {COMMENT - Unreadable illustration] After candidates filtered by client search, they are looking to 25-30 candidates, AF.com issues invitations, they don't screen calls, just arrange intros, 2-3 agencies wind up making presentations, one wins.
- PERSONAL TOUCH [COMMENT: Content as experience.] send confirming emails, coach agencies, favor no contenders, then step aside, then acquire feedback, they provide info on who made cuts. Needs legal docs, disclaimer, cannot warrant info. Contenders need not be fee-paid.

Tim Walsh President and CEO epipeline

- 14,000 government reasearch contracts, Federal, State, Local, large IT contracts, "re-competed" outsourced to Northrup, etc.
- Military bases, etc., outsourced to contractors, Halliburtons, etc. for Katrina. $2 TRILLION spent over next 15 years.
- Federal govt, posted on fedbizops.com, generally need to go to 2-300 sites.
- How to acquire information? Govt releases contracts, finite resources, had a process for measurement and 29 rules that related to contract. Dates, what phase contract is in, etc., to put in system that allows them to automate system that provides reports to researchers. They prioritize reports.
- Key metrics: fed business announcements, status of contract, value of the opportunity, nubmer of contractors who are tracking the opportunity.
- Procurement cycle - Pre-RFP, proposal, Source Selection, Award. Most info in proposal phase - from 1yr of RFP issue to release. Reclassify as a recompete because it will come up again in 5 years. Some companies such as Raytheon take 5-year look, need to make sure that cycle is tracked and metrics and reports generated.
- 26 rules, Time phase, Time to RFP release date - 50 percent Contract value, in $, 25 percent, tracked by # of contractors, 25 percent. e.g., if contract is further out, lower value. Creates time cycles to understand intensity. Sometimes new info, new criteria. Helps to create process with quality metrics.
- What is the time frame? Static or occasional change? Realtime?
- What is the value of the data? Driven by customer? When they need it, they need it...$$$
- Does the data expire?
- Data acquisition, process and cost
- Data relevance, context of the work, to other data. Starting to connect data, provide related data in displays, they click it once and get all related answers.
- Quantify the process, then go out and manage it

Q&A...

? Get quality to site, how do you drive traffic to build leads?
KS - 50 percent people spend time on this, art to it, lots of Google work, all content has value, titles, summaries, abstracts, people are looking for the easy way out, optimization of content will pull in right people.
? To dale - more detail on random audits
Dale - seasonal workers, hundreds of catalogs, instead of everything going through quality control, sampling, look at client results on site vs. catalog, if find problems more sampling, then investigate editors. Everone gets audited at least once.
? How much does KS charge for a lead?
KS - varies, not all traffic is created equal, takes a lot of traffic to drive lead. Varies from $25-80 a lead depending on traffic category.