More than 14 million Americans work in sales positions. When their success rates falter, they often blame the strength of the leads sent to them by the company’s marketing department. Marketing (also in trouble for weak performance) blames Sales. Much finger-pointing ensues.

There may be no better display of this love-hate departmental relationship than the nearly 30-year-old film version of David Mamet’s play “Glengarry Glen Ross” and Alec Baldwin’s NSFW “Always be Closing” speech. In it, he profanely chastises a sales team for poor performance. Actor Jack Lemmon as a beleaguered salesman responds defensively: “The leads are weak!”

“The leads aren’t weak; you’re weak!” Baldwin’s character retorts.

The Hollywood scenario came up recently at DemandJump, a nationally lauded marketing firm that uses proprietary and ever-evolving algorithms, artificial intelligence and search engine tools to drive sales leads for its customers as well as itself.

DemandJump is having a great year. It is Indiana’s highest ranking company on Inc.’s annual ranking of the fastest-growing companies in the country. It’s one the Indiana Chamber’s Best Places to Work; and it’s one of The Tech Tribune’s best 10 startups in Indianapolis.   

But even DemandJump can fall victim to an Alec Baldwin moment.

A few months ago, Drew Detzeler, the company’s Director of Marketing and Analytics, pointed out to a Sales colleague that with multiple campaigns all producing leads, the revenue being generated was below expectation. A classic Baldwin-esque scene unfolded.

“The leads are weak!” 
“No, you’re weak!”

But back at his desk, Drew hooked up a just-finalized Customer Relations Management (CRM) integration to see if it could shed some light.

Seeing the results, he cringed. “Oh, man. The leads really are weak,” he said.

Until the moment the new CRM Integration was connected to DemandJump’s Hubspot account, they had been spending equally on two campaigns driving leads—only one was driving any sales pipeline. Detzler admits that he might still be spending on that low performing campaign today if not for the insights gleaned from the CRM integration. With those insights, the budget was immediately shifted and the leads were no longer weak.

The company is now showcasing the tool to customers and adapting it to use with other CRM platforms to help them increase sales, Detzler said.

“Essentially, this tool gives us new visibility into what content, organic terms, and campaigns lead to revenue for our B2B customers,” he said. “Now, we can almost immediately shift efforts to do more of what works and stop what doesn’t. And that means our leads will never be weak again. At least not for long.”

Business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing analysis is easier than its B2B counterpart because it’s easier to “see” the online step customers take in response to campaigns. They either click or ignore content that promotes buying a particular product; click to purchase, abandon in virtual shopping carts or buy the product. With B2B sales, there’s often no shopping cart. It’s typically a long process that starts with a lead but can involve multiple emails, phone calls or in-person conversations, and software may not track through to the final resolution.

The US B2B marketplace is estimated at $1.1 trillion — twice the size of the US B2C marketplace.

“Indianapolis is already known nationally as a Martech town,” says Christoper Day, DemandJump CEO. “This new approach is the latest proof point that Indy is still disrupting the sector.”