Hugh Macfarlane, Author at align.me

3 ways to optimise your sales and marketing process

If you want your sales and marketing process to be awesome, don't build it alone. I've got 3 great tips on how to improve and optimise your sales and marketing process. https://www.youtube.com/embed/NI5G9-16Mn4 3 Effective ways to optimise your sales and marketing process Use free resources; Use your friends; and Hire a professional. Kind of obvious, right? Let me offer you a few rapid-fire tips on the best way to get the most out of each of those 3 resource types. #1 Effective ways to optimise your sales and marketing process Use free resources Read READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How busy should your sales people be? [video]

How busy should your salespeople be? How many meetings should they have every week? More than they're doing at the moment, and less than you think. Let me explain why. https://www.youtube.com/embed/saucAqP7lcQ What are you overlooking in your calculations? Factor #1 Firstly, I would like to highlight why the number of meetings your sales people should be doing is less than you think. Below is the basic math for this calculation, taking into consideration what is often overlooked. You may live in a different country, whereby your holidays and jurisdictions are different, but the same READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Evergreen, Sales|

What’s the role of artificial intelligence in planning? [video]

I recently found a great new service on Product Hunt. My new PA is an artificial intelligence (AI) application – Amy - and she's insanely clever. Let me show you how to save hours on scheduling using this service, and then I’ll ask you a question about how AI should be applied to planning. I would love to hear your feedback. https://www.youtube.com/embed/GZ55qScQpfI Below is the test email exchange between my new AI personal assistant (Amy) and myself, as well as a couple of my internal colleagues (Nick and Brett), to set up a meeting that is READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Why simplification is hard [video]

I’ve always liked the idea that to get from simplistic to simple you have to wade through complex. In other words, simplification is not about dumbing something down, but rather it is about paring it back. To achieve this, you firstly need all the glorious detail to be able to hunt and find the bare essence. There's more to this, as we’ve found in one of our experiments. Let me show you a lesson we learnt about simplification from our customers. This may help you to simplify your own business. I’ll also share 6 steps to simplification READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Tactics|

The magic of recurring revenue [video]

How would you like to increase your revenue every year without increasing your sales quotas? Steady - I'm not selling some networking marketing method, or even a product. I just want to show you something obvious that you can do in your own business without paying anybody, or signing up for some crazy system. This is business 101. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hz2PK_lxS4w The answer is simple and probably obvious. To grow revenues without increasing sales you need recurring revenue, which comes from selling recurring products/services. Below, I will make a very quick case for recurring revenue. This will be READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How often should you update your sales and marketing plan? [video]

How often should you review your sales and marketing plan? Whenever it changes, right? I want to give you 39 reasons why that's 100% the wrong answer. https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-9OHGdm0jQ Collaborators working on high-growth plans modify their plans 39% more often than those with slower growth plans. Today, I will show you this data, with some quick analysis, as well as what you can do to take advantage of this. Conclusions from data Make your plan a ‘play book’. Get enough collaborators on board. Frankly, 2 – 3 with added access is a working minimum, but consider READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

More sales people needed for growth than you think [video]

You probably know that sales people are needed to support your growth – but we found that high growth businesses are approximately 50% under allocated (50% fewer sales people than needed in their plans). They're kidding themselves! When you get this wrong, it can really hurt. Let me show you how to calculate the number of sales people needed for growth within your business. https://www.youtube.com/embed/gyLMDEiUl1g Conclusions from the data After stack-ranking all of the customer plans in our database (approx. 2,000 currently) from those planning higher growth to those planning a more modest growth, we've READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales|

Why you don’t need more segments [video]

How finely should you segment? Asked in another way, how many segments should you have for your plan? We're always told of the value of segmenting, and that we should compartmentalize our activities. Yet, the data doesn't actually support this theory. Let me show you why. https://www.youtube.com/embed/NpEdvGIrlJA After looking at a couple of thousand plans in the database, I found that the data was unambiguous. The net conclusion is that you need more plans, not more segments per plan. Let me show you the data, and what this means for us when we’re thinking about planning READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Generate B2B leads in 6 steps [video]

How do you generate B2B leads? I looked at 2,000 plans that we have in the database for Go-To-Market. I looked at 500 Go-To-Market projects that were done over the last nearly 20 years, and every single one of them is really different, and yet the pattern is super-clear. There are just 6 steps. Let me share them with you now. https://www.youtube.com/embed/gChxzK3V3gI Firstly, B2B is different than B2C, and I just do not know what works in consumer marketing, but I do know what works to generate more B2B leads, and there are just 6 steps. Get READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Mature markets – fight your way into the corner [video]

You are in a mature market and everyone’s margins have eroded but yours are worse. Your margins have eroded even more than your competitors. So what do you do? Your back is up against the rope! Do you fight your way out of the corner? The answer is no. Rather, find a new corner to fight your way into with a mature market strategy. https://www.youtube.com/embed/qKTZyPdKgh4 In a mature market, the margins start to thin out. Why? This is because your product or service is pretty much the same as everybody else's. Subsequently, price is the easiest READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

About Hugh Macfarlane