Strategy

Why marketers are now your best salespeople

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but the research we read from many marketing research firms such as Forrester, Gartner and IDC tells the same story over and over again. Today's buyer OWNS the buying cycle more now than ever before. Salespeople are losing control and being pushed further and further down the buying decision process. Of course it varies greatly with product complexity and market maturity, but Forrester's research confirms that today’s buyers might be anywhere from two-thirds to 90% of the way through their journey before they contact the vendor. Similarly, READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy, Tactics, Velocity|

How to assess the health of your Sales funnel

Have you been to the doctor lately, The Funnel doctor? Do you go to keep your funnel healthy? Or do you wait until your funnel is really sick before you see the doctor? Your funnel has some basic indicators of health. But, we often ignore those indicators. Today I am going to show you how to assess the health of your funnel and prioritise what to fix. Let’s start with what gets in the way of us seeing what to fix and knowing what to leave alone. Well, the first problem is random acts of marketing READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

Why the Cost of Inaction is so important in B2B Sales

Return on Investment (ROI) projections are often regarded as a critical element of B2B sales proposals, particular for high-value considered purchases. There’s no arguing that they have a role to play - but your sales people would be very unwise to rely on them. In fact, I’ve become convinced that over-reliance on ROI calculations is one of a number of key factors that are driving the high level of “decisions to do nothing after all” that so bedevil many long and complex sales cycles. Are you keen to find out why? 1. Most prospects distrust vendor-supplied ROI projections Most prospects have READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Strategy, Tactics|

Why business must shift budget from Sales to Marketing

The simple answer to this question is because the way your customers are buying is changing. But here is the explanation. Multiple respected research firms such as Forrester, Gartner, The Corporate Executive Board and IDC are finding that today's buyer is 'self serving', finding the information they need to help move along their buying cycle without any intervention from the vendor at all. Research has shown that B2B buyers are completing between 60 - 90% of their buying journey before contacting any vendors. They are downloading content, joining in discussions on social media, such as LinkedIn, watching READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy, Tactics, Velocity|

How much energy should you spend on branding?

Forget about the 4 Ps you learned about at University. It's simplistic and unhelpful. It's about 30 years old and it's a consumer concept anyway. Just erase it. I've got another very simple paradigm for you. You might say simplistic. I don't think it is but you be the judge. Marketers spend their effort on basically three things: Getting the market ready, getting the channel ready, and getting the two talking in B2B, in complex B2B, which is the world that you live in and I live in. Three things marketers do: We call the first READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

B2B salespeople must lead ‘toward’ not ‘with’ the solution

One of the key principles that should underpin your B2B marketer’s mindset is that your marketing messages – and your sales conversations – need to lead towards your solution rather than with your solution. The obvious conclusion is that both your marketing messages and your sales conversations need to “sell the problem before you sell your solution” - it’s a matter of leading the prospect through the critical sequence: Why change? - Why now? - Why us? Suppressing the itch to pitch Sales people (and marketers) often get this intellectually, but then stumble when putting it into READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Sales, Strategy|

How to choose the right pain point for your market

Most salespeople understand that we need to understand our customers' pain points. Marketing does too, but not enough. Marketing likes to be the bearer of good news. This makes Marketing nice, comfortable, happy, but unproductive. Your ability to meet a need and solve a problem will be tested, and testimonials and case studies will play a key role. But that's very late in the buyer's journey, and is largely in the hands of your salespeople. Marketing's job should be to find the right kind of buyers, work out which of them are sufficiently troubled to act, READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

5 Key Indicators of a High Performing B2B Marketing Strategy

Marketing. The colouring in department or an integral function in achieving your business and revenue goals? More than ever, marketing should have a permanent seat at the board room table. Is your marketing department contributing what they should to your business growth goals? Here are 5 key indicators of a high performance marketing team. The evolution of the buyer’s journey, whereby newly empowered buyers conduct their own research before talking to a sales person, means that marketing teams are taking on an expanded scope of responsibilities. This is a real challenge for many marketing teams that are used READ MORE ›

By Chris Fell|Strategy, Tactics|

How to build a strategy to defeat your competition

Your competitors want to eat your lunch so how do you stop them? Or better yet, how do you eat their lunch? Well let's start with ‘do you even have any competition?’ In the Chasm from Jeffrey Moore, we learned that in the very early stages of any kind of market, you just don't have any competition. You're the only one providing this innovative new solution, nobody else can. In that circumstance you just don't have any competition. So, the first question is do you have competition? The second question is who are your competitors? In READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

How to choose the best sales channel

So the Head of Sales says that she needs more salespeople and Head of Channels says you need more channels. Who's right and who's wrong? What I'm going to show you today is how to choose the absolute best channel for your chosen target market. You remember Geoffery Moore's Market Maturity Model, in which we learned you need to set your strategy according to what most of your buyers are ready for. Early market I want to talk more about sales channel. Imagine the very early part of the market. The market doesn't yet know how READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|