Challenge
My current employer CSI Leasing, an independent IT financing company, has seen many sales professionals have great success and others not so much. IT leasing is a challenging business for business development because these B2B deals typically have long sales cycles and navigating through multiple decision makers is not easy requiring a great deal of persistence. Often, new sales representatives lean heavy on the marketing department to get a quick win. A new sales representative in Canada was hired and onboarded shortly following the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the world being put on pause had affected IT supply, as well as the number of face-to-face meetings. In addition to these challenges, the sales representative came from a background that was a niche within CSI with his goal to bring new business to the company in this segment.
Objective
Reaching out to marketing, the representative wanted to supplement his own development efforts while achieving a scale that only marketing activities would allow.
Solution
Developing a working relationship with the representative throughout the standard onboarding process, I was reached out to help with marketing efforts. Together we developed an omni-channel marketing campaign. This included the creation of a landing page, LinkedIn ads, organic LinkedIn posts and a magazine placement in a local tech magazine. Following the representative’s visit to a local cybersecurity summit, a follow up email campaign was created and sent. This account-based marketing approach was tailored toward prospects in the VFX industry with a known hub to be in Vancouver.
Media and VFX campaign creative
Results
The combined effort between marketing and sales was a great success. Working together with sales on a niche that has had a limited presence within the company was a great opportunity to learn what goes on in the field and a reminder that marketing needs feedback from sales to understand prospects. With a total marketing spend between $4,000 – $5,000, the sales professional booked his first client within his first six months booking $400,000+ in new business. This was an incredible ROI and among the fastest I witnessed a new sales professional book such a large account.
Gregory W. Hullaby 