Hugh Macfarlane, Author at align.me

DemandCon: get qualified sales-lead on Sales Funnel

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Donna J Kent, SVP of Global Sales, Marketing and Services at Televerde, sees the top of the sales funnel as a key performance indicator. As a practitioner, Donna has some key insights into new-customer experience. So what techniques should you use to optimise your marketing-contact database and digital marketing approach? What kind of dialogue and telecommunications practices actually work? Donna’s presentation ‘Top of the Funnel’ is valuable because deals aren’t won or lost once the proposal is on the table, but way earlier – at the top of the READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Velocity|

Selling to Crazy-Busy People – DemandCon

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... Jill Konrath is the bestselling and award-winning author of SNAP Selling and a successful business strategist for companies like IBM, GE, Microsoft and more. With more than 75,000 people reading her newsletter and blog, Jill’s insights are clearly noteworthy for any business person. And her topic is all the more relevant because buyers are less willing to take risks than ever, more exposed to noisy tactics from desperate vendors than ever, and less willing to engage with sales until they are good and ready. Jill’s presentation will provide a useful READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Velocity|

DemandCon: From Lead Gen to Sales & Marketing plan

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... As a Principal Analyst at Forrester, Jeff Ernst seems to live within align.me’s world of business-to-business sales and b2b marketing. He too believes that aligning Sales and Marketing is part and parcel of an effective revenue growth strategy. At DemandCon in May, Jeff will present, ‘Level Setting – The State of Demand Generation.’ So, what can attendees expect to take away from Jeff’s presentation? Forrester Research is a highly-regarded research firm, and Jeff’s wisdom as an analyst promises to provide data-driven insights into what the best (and worst) businesses are READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Velocity|

Measure marketing on total cost per deal closed

New Belgian Funnel Coach Benny van Calster from Minds&More sent me a link to a Marketing Profs article today. In Sales and Marketing Best-Practices: Seven Heavenly Virtues Dan McDade paints a bleak picture of how poorly Marketing and Sales handle leads, and recommends 7 actionable steps to get on the same page. His final recommendation supports something I've been arguing for eons, and it prompted me to give a quick example in support of this simple but scary insight. Dan argues that in our enthusiasm to embrace Marketing ROI we have focused on the wrong ratios. See READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Velocity|

align.me Director, Brett Bonser, participates in ‘Ask the Experts’ webinar

December 20th, 2010, Melbourne, VIC, AU - align.me is pleased to announce Brett Bonser’s participation in the webinar, ‘Ask the Experts: Webinar Production, Promotion and Presentation’. A growing number of organisations around the world are embracing new and innovative web-based marketing tactics. Increasingly, one of the most popular and effective online tools is the webinar. ‘Ask the Experts: Webinar Production, Promotion and Presentation’ is the latest production by Citrix’s GoToWebinar. It is an informative online session exploring the benefits of webinars, whilst also offering an insight into their technical and creative construction. In our years of work READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

Nurture potential buyers before you engage

Steve Crepeau sent me a couple of funnel management articles this week. One simply posed a question (Do you know where your sales pipeline is?); but it's the other that I want to comment about In asking "Who changed the sales funnel", he suggests that the market has changed, and I agree. Customers do much more homework before engaging with sales people now, and this is a great opportunity for Marketing to make a big difference. Being on the list (positioned in category) is no longer enough. While you are positioning as a credible provider with valid READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales, Strategy|

Great planning will suffer in the era of speed dating

Great plans don't come from inspired enlightenment, but from following a great process. Whilst we believe we have built such a process for integrated sales and marketing planning, in a time-poor world the processes need to change. But to what? I've just completed a Funnel Camp for one client, and am mid-flight in building a plan for another online, and the differences are stark. Quick background: Funnel Camp is our 3-day lock-down where Sales, Marketing, Finance and Operations build their go-to-market plan together. Lots of work before and after, but the centre-piece is this 3-day series of READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Record buyer progression, not seller hope

Some sales methodologies ask sales people to characterise their sales calls as an 'advance' or a 'continuance' which creates loads of 'wriggle room' for the sales person. What we should actually be recording is the stage a buyer has reached, not whether the sales person thinks this is good or not. Your buyers progress through a series of definable stages, along the way to buying (from you or somebody else). Simplistically, they move through recognition of pain, clarity about need, understanding who the possible solution providers are, having clear options, making a choice, and buying. and somewhere READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|B2B marketing blog, Velocity|

Don’t start something you can’t sustain

We all recognise the power of loyalty programs, and enjoy the rewards of airlines, card providers, stores and other businesses who reward our loyalty. Be careful about starting one that you can't sustain though. This is a personal story, but perhaps salient to those of us who market for a living. Before starting align.me, I worked for the Australian arm of a large US company, and commuted from Melbourne to Sydney weekly. So I stayed in lots of hotels. I was delighted when the manager of my regular hotel presented me with a silver Tiffany key ring READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|B2B marketing blog|

Get Sales and Marketing to fix alignment, not the CEO

I recently joined in a debate on LinkedIn about who owns Sales and Marketing alignment. My answer: um, Sales and Marketing do. Many argued the CEO must. But I disagree. The question was posed by Dan McDade on LinkedIn, and in full, Dan asked: "When sales and marketing are not on the same page (market definition, criteria for leads, definition of success / metrics), who owns the fix?" The arguments that the CEO owns this fix are compelling: Marketing lacks the 'ticker' to take Sales on (they usually lose) Lack of alignment is caused by disagreement or READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|B2B marketing blog|

About Hugh Macfarlane