Marylou Tyler
Focused on top-of-funnel lead generation for 30 years, I’ve created models, systems and processes for starting conversations with people we don’t know with one goal in mind – create opportunities for revenue growth.
Call it account-based sales development, lead generation, sales enablement, demand generation, cold calling, outreach, outbound – my passion has centered around systematizing the process of reaching out to people we don’t know, engaging them in meaningful conversations, and swiftly & respectfully marching them down the active pipeline towards a qualified opportunity.
That’s where I am today…
Here’s where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing over the last 30 years (Visual of my credentials is located here)…
I am trained as a software engineer (Computer Science – Santa Barbara 1981).
I started my career developing operating systems software for a think tank in Los Angeles. I liked speaking with clients, interpreting what they wanted and passing requests along to the development teams. Because I could “talk and translate needs”, I moved from development into product marketing.
I upgraded my skills and started supporting sales teams in disruptive technology. I worked with firms mostly located south of San Francisco, CA. Analog to digital phone systems – voice, data and 1MB Ethernet over twisted pair wire. Fun stuff. Unfortunately, salespeople struggled in selling disruptive technologies; management fired them all and bumped engineers into sales.
Sales was tough. New market, new technology, nobody understood what we did. After a time of banging my head against a wall, I started applying my process background to sales. It worked. I developed an outbound content management system & managed my leads and contacts via a database.
Fast forward a couple of years, and I started my own company specializing in outbound lead generation process (leadgen 1.0). I developed direct-response client-server technology for healthcare and financial services using direct-mail, phone & faxes for our content. The software allowed clients to track conversion rates at every step in the sales process. Clients I serviced included the likes of UPS, NY Telephone, BCTel, Healthnet, FHP, MasterCard, Pacific Bell, Apple (Mexico), Deloitte, Bose and 1-800-Orkin.
Continuing to add to my outbound sales process expertise, I developed call queueing software for a 250-seat outbound lead generation call center that I co-owned (and sold). For those of you who’ve worked with me and are learning the concept of queues, that technology is re-purposed from predictive dialer systems used for outbound lead generation. We generated appointments for companies like Pacificare, SCAN Health Plan, Pacific Bell, NY Telephone, Prudential Insurance, AAA and Ameritech.
Bob Kelly (see below) is someone I’ve worked for since my early 30’s. He’s an expert in the human side of sales (salespeople, motivation & influence techniguqes, comp plans, methodology, positioning, etc.).
In 2009, Bob hired me to develop LeadGen 2.0 for HyperQuality, a services company located in Seattle. In researching tools, I found Aaron Ross of Pebblestorm and began to learn the outbound process he developed for Salesforce.com.
We co-produced a book called Predictable Revenue and started working with clients. I soon realized that the process was incomplete. It was missing the entire side of direct response. Clients who hadn’t figured out that content, whether for inbound or outbound, drives behavior and therefore movement down the pipeline, were struggling to create anything predictable. The conveyor belt was in, but the specialized tools (that is, content) was missing or meaningless.
After Aaron & I parted ways, I continued to integrate my years of knowledge in building lead generation systems into the evolved concepts of lead generation 2.0 process I used with clients. I overlayed this new process with lean concepts of continuous improvement. My Predictable Revenue clients elected to jump with me – and I added new ones – and tried out my new stuff:
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Talend” content=”‘Strategic Pipeline offers a great mix of tactical recommendations within a strategic methodology for predictable pipeline generation.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Logitech” content=”‘Marylou is truly an expert in helping organizations build their B2B pipeline. The process, training , measurement and feedback system that she teaches enabled our organization to develop an outbound prospecting team which generated over 250 qualified opportunities with a value of $5.5M in a period of 6 months. I would highly recommend contacting her if you are interested in a breakthrough prospecting process for your business.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Outreach.io” content=”‘I believe Marylou has found the path that, if you are willing to travel, leads lead you to a true understanding of sales productivity.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Jay Abraham – The Abraham Group” content=”‘Marylou is one of the finest and brightest minds I know when it comes to upping the game, making outbound prospecting far more productive, predictable and profitable. Her latest thinking is not only worthwhile reading, it’s a MUST if your business goal is increased revenue performance.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Kolmisoft” content=”‘In about one month we have increased our email response rate from average 2-3% to 6-7%. We also have increased the number of meaningful conversations per day. We finally started getting leads that were passed to AE for further qualification.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”VoxGen” content=”‘In the world we have all known to be so unpredictable Marylou combines great wisdom and knowledge to help solve the pipeline development challenge we all face daily, this book will unlock the door to consistent and predictable pipeline growth like never before.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Yieldmo” content=”‘I am so busy thanks to you. With your help I am consistently having 2X to 3X the number of conversations than in the past.'”]
[thesis_block type=”alert” header=”Prialto” content=”‘We got 10.5% response rate on emails this last week! It takes time but definitely works.'”]
I asked Bob to join me in further perfecting and fine-tuning the framework we started at HyperQuality. We began immediately working on the “magic formula” for outbound lead generation process. Our clients continually push us to excel beyond our comfort zone – always.
Our work has culminated in yet another best-seller – Predictable Prospecting – published by McGraw-Hill in 2016. The system in Predictable Prospecting is endorsed by Professor Neil Rackham (SPIN Selling), Aaron Ross (From Impossible to Inevitable), Trish Bertuzzi (Sales Development Playbook), Mark Roberge (Sales Acceleration Formula) and others.
It’s been awesome working with Bob again. The result of our combined 60 years of sales and process background is that you benefit from all the trial-and-error, wins, losses, heartaches and delights of working with hundreds of clients on outbound sales process.
Want to get started? Contact us and we will get back to you shortly to see if we’re a good fit for one another.
Bob Kelly
Bob Kelly has been leading world class sales and marketing organizations for more than 30 years. Over Bob’s career, he has always thought that there was an absolute requirement that marketing, lead generation and sales be a seamless continuum. A growth focused company needs to have everyone in the organization “selling” the vision and using the same words to describe the company strategy and mission. This critical concept is even more important for newer companies that are just beginning to bring their message to the market.
Beginning as Sales Director of a worldwide sales group at Intel Corporation, Bob’s career evolved as SVP of Sales and Marketing at Digital Sound, a venture capital backed start up that lead to an IPO after six years of rapid revenue growth. (To view the visual of Bob’s career milestones, click here).
Next as EVP of Sales and Marketing at International Telesystems Corporation, he built a team including Marylou Tyler that grew the company by 100% in three years leading to a merger that resulted in EIS International.
Moving to a Strategic Business Development role, Bob architected channel development and M&A for three years.
In 1997, Bob became CEO of CenterForce Technologies Corporation building from three employees to an industry leader in outbound calling optimization technologies. In 2004, CenterForce was acquired by Davox Corp which after several more acquisitions became Aspect Software. At Aspect, Bob continued to lead sales, marketing and product management for the Workforce Optimization segment of the business. In three years, this business segment grew from $67 million to $100M in annual sales.
In 2010, Bob moved on to HyperQuality Corp to lead marketing and sales at this industry leader in call center quality management outsourced services. Bob called on Marylou Tyler to put in place a new approach to lead generation which resulted in 200% increase in the sales pipeline in 60 days. Over the next 18 months, HyperQuality revenue grew 20% under Bob’s leadership and ClearMetrix was launched as the industry’s first Software as a Service call center quality management analytics solution.
Now, working again with Marylou Tyler at Strategic Pipeline, Bob’s focus will be on helping our clients achieve rapid and consistent growth by incorporating the right messaging, positioning and competitive differentiation into the Strategic Pipeline process.