For most vendors, partners are a handy addition to sales and marketing capacity or delivery capacity once their growth is on track, but this leaves significant money on the table. Your ecosystem can be the cause of, or at least a serious accelerant of, that growth. Partners support growth As major vendors mature in their growth planning, they will often seek partner-sold or partner-attached deals to represent 40, 50, 60, 70, even 80 percent of total revenues. Crossbeam's '2023 State of the Partner Ecosystem' report showed that partner-influenced and partner-sourced revenue are common key performance indicators (KPIs) READ MORE ›

Alright, let's have a chat about something I've noticed cropping up a lot in B2B marketing discussions - the terms 'persona' and 'segment' being used almost interchangeably. I get it; they both help us describe and understand potential clients. However, they serve quite different roles, and it's high time we put a pin in the confusion and clearly define what each one stands for. First, let's talk about segments. In the grand scheme of things, segments are our starting point. Picture them as big, overarching categories that group businesses based on common characteristics, like the industry they READ MORE ›

The centre of your go-to-market strategy is not your products or services, but the problem that you solve with these products or services. The problem choice informs messaging, of course, but also market selection, the shape of your sales channel, and even the products or services themselves. So you need to get it 'right'. How, though, can you make sure that your theoretically wonderful problem statement will stand up when exposed in the market? You need to 'road test' your language. Not the problem you are in the business of solving - that's a decision for your READ MORE ›

What changes about your sales and marketing funnel when the market is in turmoil? Here are some tips on how to size your market, funnel, and resources accurately - so no matter the change in market conditions, you'll be able to plan a sales and marketing strategy that will enable you to maintain the required number of leads (and conversions) to deliver on your revenue goals. First, confirm your market size Market sizing is often done with a degree of rigour. But far less rigour is applied to the task of sizing your sales funnel. The proposition READ MORE ›

This is a B2B branding case study. But let's start with a short discussion about a very personal desire. We all want to be famous. (Well, some of us do). It starts when we're young, easily impressed, and gently and often bouncing between reality and fantasy. As teenagers, many dream of being recognised for some specific accomplishment - perhaps being in a band, a movie, a sports achievement. And as adults, who doesn't enjoy being welcomed back to a favourite restaurant or shop? Maybe those few who are genuinely famous crave anonymity, but most of us mortals READ MORE ›

Every business wants to choose the best marketing tactics to position themselves and to create demand. As you’ll see in this article, there is no single set of ‘best’ tactics. But there is most certainly a best path to choosing the best tactics for your own business. Why choosing the best B2B marketing tactics is complex In choosing the best tactics for your B2B sales and marketing, we need to answer a handful of key questions, not the least of which being: What works and how do I decide? And does that change over time? What’s the scope of our tactical pursuit? Marketing, Sales, both? READ MORE ›

The buyer's journey is a framework for thinking about the stages that a buyer goes through in the complex purchase typical in B2B. It allows sellers to arrange their tactics to best help their buyers navigate each of those stages and to measure their effectiveness at creating advantage as they do. Summarised as awareness, consideration, and decision, it is often broken down into further stages. Growing businesses - whether start-up, small, medium or enterprise - want a sales and marketing engine that performs. At what though? Revenue is a measure but a flawed one for READ MORE ›