Should leads generated for big, enterprise deals be handled differently than smaller deals?

Hi Dan. Yes, work Enterprise leads differently from small company leads. The primary difference is the size of the buying team. Small companies – small teams or individuals; large companies – lots of people involved. You need to convince them all – well, most of them.

I like to think of enterprise leads like a detective would: what’s happening at this company that is causing the interest I am seeing? Once you figure out that you have an inquiry from a good-sized company, the first and, oddly, frequently most difficult step is to see what else we have in our marketing and sales data about the inquiring company. Parent-child relationships, varying company names and plain old bad typing mean that someone has to do a bit of manual investigation to see what the new lead means and who else we know there. Leads from smallcos, handle directly.

Enterprise leads, however, need better information earlier, and need a plan for approaching the enterprise. Of course, respond immediately to the inquiry. Low-level phone follow-up may also be able to find out who else is involved at the company. After a little digging, coordinate with sales to formulate an account-based plan for working the lead.

In an ideal world, try to determine who has to approve a sale in the enterprise and develop a strategy for making that happen. As a guess, though, some simple list development ought to be able to surface a number of probably-important contacts that can help us proceed. If you already have an account-based marketing campaign ready, run it against the inquiring company and the new contacts you have dug up there. See who else is responding. Telequalify them to fill in the blanks. Keep the sales team involved. Big fish take longer to reel in. I like to know that we have lots of contact with multiple people when we send in the first salesperson.