Talking is the best tool of a salesperson. The only way that you have face to face of convincing a person to buy a specific product or service is by convincing them that they need it. This includes highlighting the benefits that the product brings to their life to make it simpler.

It also means that to be a successful salesperson you need to have impeccable communication skills. However, this is not an inherent skill but one that has to be developed through practice. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind when you next deliver your sales pitch to your prospective client.

Be clear in diction and pronunciation. To convince your prospective client to do anything, you need to ensure that he or she can actually understand what you are saying. The words you use need to be familiar to the prospective client. You must also be clear in diction and have correct pronunciation of the words that you use. It is not a bad idea to try out your sales pitch on a colleague before you try it out on a prospective client. They will be able to tell you just what to tone down and may even remind you of points that you may like to add to the pitch.

Keep it up to date. No service or product stays the same. In this age of competition, all companies are constantly offering newer and better products to their customers. As a salesperson, you need to be well-aware of what these changes are, so that you can communicate them to prospective clients. The information that you give them must always be the latest, and so your sales pitch has to be updated regularly.

Give all relevant information. Nothing is as irritating as being given half the details. After all, would it kill you to mention all the record documentation that you need before your client can make a purchase? Or mention all the features that would be beneficial to the client when he buys the product? A good salesperson will know which details must be shared and which they must let the client ask after. That makes the process more interactive and the client more satisfied with the answers he gets. And a satisfied client is always going to come back for another purchase from the company.

Be prepared to handle questions. If you do your homework well, it should not be a problem for you to handle any extra questions that a client asks. By demonstrating how well you know your company and product, you build confidence of the customer in your product or service. However, every once in a while, you may get asked a question that stumps you. In this situation, honesty is the best policy. Let the client know that you are unaware of the answer and that you will find out from the concerned authority and get back to them. Then do that in the follow-up call that you give them.

Sarika Periwal represents KarmaCRM, an online CRM system that helps manage customer data.

When it comes to converting your leads into sales, lead management is a crucial and powerful tool. Most of your leads will not be ready to engage with a salesperson after their first conversion, but are potentially qualified and require further nurturing and development.

Lead management gives you the tools you need to filter out your less-qualified leads and provide them with educational content through targeted lead nurturing campaigns, which will bring them closer to being ready for that sales call.

However, this is only one of many functions of lead management, which can actually benefit your marketing and sales teams in different ways. Here are seven benefits of implementing really great lead management.

1. You can determine when your leads are sales-ready. Lead scoring, which is part of good lead management, allows you to gauge your leads’ potential interest in your product or service based on factors that are important to your business, such as job titles, what forms they’ve filled out, or other criteria that is important to you. You should work with your sales team and marketing analytics to decide upon the criteria that you will use to score your leads. As you continue executing your lead management strategies, you can collect information to help you further optimize your lead scoring schema. You can compare your leads’ scores against that of your ideal customer or your sales team’s top-quality leads to help you understand when your leads are ready to be handed over to your sales team.

2. You don’t lose your unqualified leads. About 50% of B2B sales leads are not ready to buy after their first conversion, according to a Gleanster survey. Instead of wasting your sales team’s valuable time or just tossing these leads out the window altogether, you should place them in lead nurturing campaigns. By using well-timed campaigns with matching content to their original interest, you can guide your leads along the path from unqualified to qualified or determine who is permanently unqualified. Sounds a lot better than losing out on half the ROI of your lead generation efforts, doesn’t it?

3. Your sales team can operate more efficiently. Lead intelligence tools allow you to provide your sales team with various important and highly useful pieces of information, such as the level of activity of a lead, which pages of your website they have visited, what marketing emails they have received, and more. Lead scoring is another helpful tool for allowing your salespeople to prioritize their calls based on which leads are the most sales-ready (or “warmest”). Thus, effective lead management allows your sales team to work more efficiently and convert more leads to customers in less time.

4. You can position yourself as a thought leader in the industry. The main idea behind lead nurturing is that you are providing content to your unqualified leads to educate them further about your field, your company, and/or your product or service. By sharing this information with leads to help them with their decisions, especially before they ask for it, you make it more likely that they will view you as an authority in your industry. It is also likely that they will share your content with others, thereby spreading the word about your company and your offers.

5. You can get a better understanding of your leads’ needs. Lead intelligence tools can help you determine your leads’ behavior patterns on a higher level. They’ll show you which offers your leads downloaded, in what order they downloaded them, which pages of your site they visited, how many times they visited each, and so on. The trends you find in this data can be used to inform your content strategy (e.g. 23% of our highest quality leads downloaded this ebook) as well as your lead nurturing campaigns (e.g. the email send for this webinar was most effective for leads who had downloaded that whitepaper).

6. You can establish trust by building relationships with your leads. By understanding your leads’ behavior and needs, and using this with closely targeted lead nurturing campaigns, you show your leads that you know what they are looking for—and you’re ready to help them. This not only educates them about the specific topic or product in which they are interested, but also builds more trust, thereby making them more likely to convert to customers.

7. You can better measure your marketing and sales ROI. Lead management gives you the tools to track and analyze your lead metrics throughout the entire sales cycle. Even after your leads have been handed off to your sales team, you can continue to refine, score, and evaluate as needed. You should be able to identify what works (and what doesn’t work) for your business and your lead management process, and optimize accordingly to yield the highest possible ROI.

Lead management isn’t always easy. The deep understanding of your leads and their needs is not something that anyone develops before diving into lead management. Creating and refining your strategy takes time, but you will end up with a seamless lead management process that will provide you with more qualified leads in less work for your sales organization.

Sarah Goliger is an inbound marketer at HubSpot, a marketing software company based in Cambridge, MA that makes inbound marketing and lead management software.

The “Think Different” campaign—and all that it entailed—helped rescue Apple. This same message, if accepted, will be what rescues B2B marketers today.  Here are some of the lines from the commercials:

“Here’s to the Crazy Ones … The ones who see things differently … You can quote them, disagree with them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing that you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They explore. They create. They inspire.”

These words (change, invent, imagine, explore, create, inspire) encapsulate the approach and attitude that needs to be adopted and embraced by today’s B2B marketer. Marketing receives so much negative press today. We read about the marketing skills gap, our lack of visibility at the C-level, our lack of lack of alignment with sales, our in ability to justify our budget, etc. Unfortunately, much of it is true. That’s because we keep doing the same thing over and over again.

I submit that the time has come to change, to change for the better, to think different. Here are 5 things marketers can do differently:

1.   Don’t Believe What They’re Saying

A good friend of mine played professional baseball for 12 years. He was a relief pitcher—specifically, a closer (the pitcher who comes in at the end of a game to secure a win). I asked him what kind of mindset was needed to be a closer.  He said, “You can’t let yourself get too high, or too low. And don’t read the press clippings after you blow one.”

Good advice for marketers. Too many marketers are “too low,” believing what everyone tells them: that marketing is a necessary evil, providing little value. But that doesn’t have to be true. So, as the commercial says, start to “Think Different.” Rather than accepting the characterization,  begin believing that being a B2B marketer is one of the most exciting and promising careers of today. Embrace what’s in front of you. Go for it. And if you fail (and at times, you will), so what? Just keep plugging. Success over time is the goal. When you achieve it, others’ perception will begin to change.

2.  Defy Tradition

During my tenure as a marketing director for McAfee, I made the decision to move to paperless collateral. This decision was not particularly well-received by some of our veteran field sales people. In their traditional way of thinking, I was overlooking the “need” to have something to hand to customers. They told me that we would lose sales, miss out on opportunities, and that this was a bad decision. I didn’t care. Why not? Because our analysis showed that we could redirect the huge printing budget and spend it in areas that would generate a better overall ROI. Before I announced the decision, I showed our Sales Management how the extra budget would be spent on demand generation and even showed them the forecasted increase of leads. They bought in immediately.

Many traditional marketing activities (tradeshows, collateral, telemarketing, etc.) are done simply because things have always been done that way. But as Mark Twain said, “Sacred cows make the best hamburger.” So, take some initiative and do some study and analysis on what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and the return you’re getting from it.  Tradition should not be a driving factor when it comes to marketing spend.  Revenue and ROI should be.

3.  Fight for the Right Change

“We already have an in-house teleservices team.”  This is what I heard two weeks into my new position with a software company. This comment was a response to my suggestion that outsourcing our teleservices would be more efficient, effective, and economical.

In the process of making my case, I had to have meetings with the head of sales, the head of marketing operations, and the president of our division. The head of the in-house teleservices team made sure he was present at all these meetings, so he could counter my arguments.

During one of these meetings, after quite an animated plea by him to keep things in-house, I said to him, “Dave, this isn’t personal. I believe we can do better. That’s what all of us in the company should strive to be doing  … better.”  The meeting resulted in a “bake-off”:  For 45 days I gave 50% of my teleservices work to my chosen outsourced vendor, and 50% to Dave’s team to see who would win. And  45 days later, we reviewed the results, and my outsourced vendor had 100% of my work.

Was I trying to discredit Dave? No. We simply needed “better,” and I wasn’t going to stop until I got it. As for Dave, he never spoke to me again, and he went out of his way trying to make our team look bad. But our case had been made, and our success was known throughout the company.

If there is something in your organization that needs changing, don’t stop driving for it.  Although people will fight back, if it’s the right change, it will make it worthwhile.

4.  Be Realistic

I was speaking to a client a few weeks ago about our approach to implementing the Lead Management Framework^SM.  Halfway through the discussion, he asked, “Will we be able to get this all completed within three months?”  I told him, “No, that timeframe is unrealistic.” He said, “I figured as much, but I had to ask.”

Anything worth doing takes time. Yet, many B2B marketers (and their management teams) have unrealistic expectations when it comes to turning things around.  Initiatives, such as lead management processes, buyer journey mapping, sales processes, and software deployments take time, people, and resources. The change that has to occur within marketing often requires modifying behavior and culture. Studies show that such change can often take two to three years.

So, develop a plan a plan with realistic timeframes. Include milestones that will allow you to highlight the small changes along the way, but realize that the ultimate change will occur over time.

5.  Lead

In his book, Balancing the Demand Equation, Adam Needles states, “Sales managers and general managers lead, and B2B marketers do not.” This is a bold statement, but is too often true.

Colin Powell has stated the following in terms of leadership:

“You don’t know what you can get away with until you try. You know the expression, ‘it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission.’ Well, it’s true.  Good leaders don’t wait for official blessing to try things out. They’re prudent, not reckless. But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations: If you ask enough people for permission, you’ll inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say ‘no.’  So the moral is, don’t ask.  Less-effective middle managers endorsed the sentiment, ‘If I haven’t explicitly been told yes, I can’t do it,’ whereas the good ones believed, ‘If I haven’t explicitly been told no, I can.’  There’s a world of difference between these two points of view.

It is time for marketing leaders to adopt this philosophy. Stop waiting to be told “yes” and go for it!

If B2B marketing is ever going to get out of the doldrums of being viewed as inefficient and unnecessary within the organization, they must change.  They must invent, imagine, explore, create and inspire. To put it simply, the must think different.

So, what’s the driving force behind all this change, the force that has marketers failing? It’s the buyer. Studies continue to confirm that, when it comes to making a buying decision, they have more access to technology, more interaction with their peers via social networks, less need for vendor-driven information, and less reliance on salespeople. Marketers are struggling with this new dynamic. Amid the morphing of the buyer and, subsequently, the B2B environment, marketers are failing to convince buyers to buy their products or services. Why? Because there remains one constant no matter how technology-driven or socially enabled we become. That one constant (and many fail to understand it) is that we market and sell to people.

As obvious as that seems, it is something that is lost in many of today’s marketing approaches. It’s as if we in the B2B space have failed to understand that behind the “B” in business to business are hosts of “Ps” (people).

A recent study by Televerde shows that even though some companies are making an attempt at nurturing the buyer, they are truly not connecting to the human element of B2B marketing.

• Over 60% of those surveyed stated incomplete data and poor data hygiene as their biggest marketing challenge when it came to data.
• Only 29% stated that more effective and relevant customer touches should be the highest priority for lead nurturing. (For that 29%, conversion rates ranked the highest. This indicates that  more effective and relevant touches lead to higher conversions.)
• 83% described their definition as providing educational and collateral (i.e., one-way communication).
• 57% make no distinction on how they nurture leads based on their buying stage. (All buyers are treated the same.)
• Of those that use nurturing, 54% do not use lead scoring. (Lack of lead scoring does not allow for one-on-one dialogue, but ensures that all buyers are treated the same.)

As seen above, many organizations are still not clueing into the fact that we are selling and marketing to people. People are the ones who make the buying decisions and vendor choices. Those people have thoughts and emotions that affect their buying decisions. We must remember that. To help move from a B2B mindset to a B2P mindset, here are a few quick tips.

Stop Trying to Sell

Randy Aronis of Ingenuity Sales Consulting has taught many that the first sales call should be focused on the building of rapport. In other words, start by getting to know your buyer. It seems crazy, but try it sometime. The first time I tried this was early in my career. I was selling into the largest IBM distributor in the world and had secured a call with one of the key decision-makers.

After the obligatory introductions and overview, we spent the next 25 minutes talking about golf, our favorite courses, etc. (Keep in mind the call was scheduled for 30 minutes.) We ended the call by scheduling a follow-up onsite that, of course, included a round of golf. Long story short: They were one of my best accounts for my remaining two years at the company. Why? My contact told me, “You guys were not the lowest cost nor did you have the largest staff, but I liked your company and knew I could call you directly if we were ever going to have a problem. I felt that you would personally address it.” Instead of selling, I built a relationship. Marketers would do well to begin thinking this way.

Put the Social Back in Social

The term “social media” is interesting to me. Yes, there is indeed a component that is social. Yet, social media also provides a false sense of relationship. Too many marketers are using this channel to provide one-way communication, doing nothing but sending out facts, figures, and business information. They forget to use social media to engage. What does that look like? Well, for starters, don’t be afraid to have some fun with social media. Comment on posts, answer questions in forums, and engage in online conversations. This will significantly enhance relationships with your buyers online and socially. Buyers want to know there are people behind the walls. So, listen and respond.

Act Like a Politician

OK, before you stop reading, don’t worry. By suggesting you act like a politician, I am not suggesting you give yourself a pay raise every year, slander your competition, or tell lies to divert attention from your mistakes. What I am suggesting is, like many politicians, seek to get personal with your buyers. This doesn’t necessarily mean a marketing/sales bus tour. However, it does mean adding face-to-face interactions to the mix. Marketers erroneously think that the face-to-face stuff is for sales to handle. Not so! Marketers need to stop hiding behind technology and to start meeting with buyers. This can be done by attending sales calls, conferences, and even one-on-one meetings. Nothing will replace a face-to-face interaction and connection. Sitting down across the table from your buyers (or playing a round of golf) will go a long way.

Be Slow to Speak

This goes hand in hand with the “Stop Trying to Sell” tip. My brother tells his kids all the time, “God gave you two ears and one mouth to remind you that listening is more important than speaking.” He may have something there.

By listening to your buyer and asking questions, you will gain (as will they) more from them than from all the things you so desperately want to tell them. You will also show them that you are genuinely interested in them and in meeting their needs. In the course of building a relationship, you’ll have plenty of time to talk about your product or service. So, be patient.

No matter how advanced technology becomes or how easy it gets to dole out information about our products and services, we’ll always be marketing and selling to people. That fact is something we cannot afford to forget.

Marketing and sales alignment—or in many cases, lack of alignment—seems to be an age-old challenge.One of my first eye-opening experiences in B2B lead generation occurred when I was working as a teleprospector supporting a Fortune 500 company.

I was tasked with uncovering and qualifying leads for the sales organization. In doing so, I would frequently gain input from sales regarding the leads, messaging, etc. My eye-opening moment occurred when I met with the marketing manager after the launch of the tele-campaign. She asked my opinion on future campaigns, effective messaging, targeting, etc. I was thrilled to be included in this discussion, but I wondered if she was also asking the sales team for their insight. After all, they’re the end-users of the leads derived from her campaigns.

To my shock, she had not—and in fact, she wasn’t quite sure who to approach within her own sales organization to gain feedback. How was it possible that these two departments, which are so clearly linked, had not communicated?

Flash forward nearly two decades, and this communication problem between marketing and sales departments persists. In fact, a recent survey of B2B marketers shows that relationships between marketing and sales are even deteriorating.   Furthermore, the survey data confirms a positive correlation between having a close marketing and sales alignment, and achieving satisfactory lead generation results.

Building a close relationship with the sales organization is something that marketers should invest time in. Here are three ways to help bridge the gap and improve communication, particularly relating to teleprospecting efforts:

1.  Jointly Define Success
As a marketing manager, your end users are your sales representatives. Before a lead generation initiative launches, it’s critical to meet with sales management to jointly determine the criteria for qualified leads. Once this definition is established, it should be clearly documented and communicated to your entire sales organization.

2.  Gain Sales Input During Campaign Development
Designate key sales members to participate in the pre-campaign due diligence process. There is extreme value in obtaining Sales’ input on such critical components as objection handling, competitive positioning, etc. There’s no replacing the knowledge gained from interviewing your “feet on the street.” By engaging your sales team at this stage, your program will be more successful and you’ll likely achieve a higher “buy-in” rate among your sales reps.

3.  Conduct Regular Feedback Sessions
Establish a regularly occurring conference call with members of your sales, marketing and teleprospecting teams to discuss leads, as well as any factors that may impact the lead parameters or approach. Set a specific agenda for each meeting, and communicate it in advance. Though this type of meeting can seem overwhelming for large organizations, you can make it manageable by designating regional sales managers on a rotating basis to participate. This keeps participation intimate while also achieving a wide range of feedback.

Close relationships are not forged without verbal interaction. Each of the above recommendations requires discussion and input, which cannot be accomplished through email and systems. At the very least, call one of your sales counterparts today and ask for their input. You’ll be amazed at the positive impact it will have on your lead generation efforts.

Kathy Rizzo is vice president of Sales and Marketing at TeleNet Marketing Solutions.

In an early effort to begin aligning with sales, I decided to eat lunch with the Western Region sales team and its vice president. When I sat down and introduced myself, the vice president shook my hand and greeted me with these words: “Welcome to the company.  I’ll be honest. Marketing has never made a difference for me and my team, and I don’t expect much to change.” 

With that I was put on notice. I had a very, very tough crowd!

Four years later, I attended my last sales meeting at that company. That same vice president stood up, told the story of the day we met, and then told the entire group that he was glad he was wrong.

How did this happen? How had we aligned my marketing team and with sales by the end of my tenure at that company? How was it that we were now working collaboratively? How did we find success when the beginning looked so daunting?

In short, we dropped the “and.”

Historically, marketing and sales have been kept separate, viewed as two separate departments. They are even measured on different goals. However, as the B2B buyer has changed dramatically, this separation of marketing and sales is proving less effective. In response, leading companies are dropping the “and” in sales and marketing. As one vice president I spoke with recently said, it is now “smarketing.”

In one of his latest blog posts Gerhard Gschwandtner of Selling Power Magazine says, “Organizations that want to win must find a way to get sales and marketing to speak with ONE voice. Ideally, sales and marketing leaders should be able to complete each other’s sentences.” The key words here are “win”, “must,” and “ONE.” It is no longer effective to have the two separated. After all, the objectives of both groups are engaging buyers, creating new customers, expanding current customers and ultimately creating more revenue. Why wouldn’t they be doing so together?

So how does a company make the jump and transform to a place where they lose the and? Here are a few quick tips:

1.  Common Goals and Measurements

As mentioned above the ultimate goal of any company is to create revenue and profit. This can be accomplished in a variety of means (new customer acquisition, upselling/cross-selling, retention through customer service, etc.). Your company will meet its revenue goals faster and more efficiently if marketing-sales both have their eye on the measuring revenue and on those things that impact revenue, such as:

• Contribution to pipeline
• Lead aging
• Pipeline velocity
• Conversion metrics

Marketers may say, “What about impressions, clicks and opens?” The answer is that those metrics are good for measuring initial campaign effectiveness, but ultimate success (how campaigns generate revenue) is the metric on which both groups should focus. 

2. Unified Compensation

I remember working in one enterprise company where part of my quarterly bonus was tied to the number of press releases we issued.  (For the record, I am not diminishing the power and use of PR; I’m a big believer in it). The problem was that I was receiving a bonus for a tactic in which we had no means for measuring its effectiveness. Sales needed more leads, yet my attention was diverted so I could get some PR out the door and increase my paycheck. (Yes, ultimately even marketers are coin-operated.)

The goal of marketing-sales is revenue. So, both should have some level of compensation based on their attainment of the revenue goal.

In contrast to the press release focus I had in the company I mentioned earlier, another company I worked for provided commissions to marketing for each sale made. I bet you, as marketers, can guess where our focus was. Yep, you guessed it: quality leads delivered to the sales team, improving time to sale and sales enablement. Our common goals were netted out in a unified compensation plan.

3. A Collaborative Process

I keep reading posts and articles about how marketers need to include sales in defining what a lead is and that they need to help sales understand the lead-management process.  It’s as if sales is the new dorky kid at school, and marketing’s parents have instructed them “be nice to the new kids.”

Marketing doesn’t need to explain anything to Sales.  Sales knows what they want and what they need.  Both groups need to ask, listen, and get to work on the respective tasks that will generate revenue. Marketing-Sales is a joint value proposition whereby both have to roll-up their sleeves and jump in together. Developing a lead-management process is not a marketing function. It’s a corporate-wide process developed by ONE group made up of those with a marketing background and those with a sales background.

Buyers don’t care about the internal politics or alignment issues between marketing and sales.  They care about buying from an organization that knows them, engages them in meaningful dialogue, and addresses their challenges.  The only way organizations will consistently achieve this is by dropping the “and” and becoming “one.”

While I’ve never met Segal, nor do I doubt his experience in the B2B marketplace, I fervently disagree with his statement.  To explain why, here are my four reasons why B2B marketing is still alive and kicking.

1. Sales Needs It

It was not long ago that Marketing was seen as merely a cost center to most organizations.  Marketing offered no intrinsic value beyond designing brochures, making sexy presentations, and ensuring brand compliance.  When cuts had to be made, Marketing was one of the first targets. After all, Marketing had no value (or if it did, it didn’t know how to prove it).

However, this is not the case anymore.  Marketers in the B2B world are providing and proving value more than ever before.  They are working alongside their sales counterparts in the development of demand-generation and lead-management strategies.  They are helping to propel deals through the sales pipeline through the development and execution of lead nurturing.  They are focusing on generating quality (versus quantity) leads.  They are providing metrics that show the value of their work and how marketing spend is directly generating revenue.  More and more, sales organizations are understanding and appreciating the value of their marketing teams. Together, both groups are working to meet revenue goals.

2.  The B2B Buyer

In his statement, Segal mentions the use of mobile technologies and people who are shifting continuously. He is absolutely correct.  The B2B buyer is changing, and that change now has them in control of the buying process. Sales used to be in control of disseminating information to the buyer.  Not so anymore. Today, the buyer (or more often, buyers) now control and manage the entire process and involve Sales much later in it.  Buyers have access to information like never before.  Peer-to-peer interaction, social networks, and online research have shifted the power to the buyer, thus making Marketing all the more important.  Why?  Because Marketing is better positioned to engage the buyer in a one-on-one dialogue, while doing so in a mass context.

Buyers today are not just looking for a vendor. They want the assurance of a business relationship.  They are looking to buy from partners who will provide value, understand their needs, and grow with them.  Building this relationship requires consistent, relevant, timely content centered on each buyer’s needs. Today, marketing is the entity driving this in B2B organizations.  So as the buyer continues to transform, marketing will be ever so vital to customer acquisition and retention.

3. The Focus on Revenue

One of the reasons Marketing has traditionally been a corporate doormat is its inability to show value in what it was delivering.  This is no longer the case. With the attention to metrics and the use of automation and BI technologies, Marketing is now able to show its impact on pipeline and revenue.  This shift in focus is putting Marketing on par with sales from a revenue goals perspective. It’s also bringing alignment to organizations.  While many marketing groups are still in the process of developing this approach, the awareness and understanding of revenue impact as the key barometer of success is certainly there.  This shift in focus has revived marketing groups and is allowing them to showcase their impact on their companies.

4.  Enabling Technologies

The marketing automation industry is a little more than a decade old. Yet the last three years have seen a significant increase in awareness where marketers are now looking to these technologies as keys to success.  While adoption rates are increasing slowly, marketers are beginning to understand that combined with the right people, process and content, marketing automation can enable them to meet the needs of their buyer and deliver the most quality leads to sales.  These technologies have truly been a game changer for B2B marketing organizations. When used correctly, they breathe new life into a marketing organization, giving them exponentially greater resources to drive revenue.

I have said it before and will continue to say it over and over again: “There is no better time to be a B2B marketer!”  Proclamations of its death—while provocative—are surely premature.  B2B marketing is just hitting its stride!

Educating customers about issues that can affect their perceptions of your customer service can greatly affect customer acquisition and retention. This is especially true with products or services that require some “insider” information to understand the full picture.

I just experienced this myself when purchasing a 2010 car for my daughter. Going to car dealerships right from the get-go is an apprehension many of us harbor. Maybe it’s unfair, but decades of slick, pushy sales techniques have contributed to this reputation.

Without recounting the entire tale, let’s just say that the deal would have fallen through had I not intervened between sales manager and hubby. And the outcome would have been a very negative brand experience on our family’s part. And why? Because the manager didn’t enlighten us regarding what is typical in our state or what to expect.

Unlike other places, a “new” car here is considered new until it has been titled, so it can frequently have mileage on it. In our case, about 210 miles. That’s what concerned hubby. His first instinct was that the dealer was trying to pull a fast one and sell us a used car. If he wasn’t forthcoming on this information, how could we trust the rest of what he told us? If the vehicle was used as a loaner to other customers or taken for test drives, which it was, then it seemed logical that it wasn’t a new car.

In addition, it is typical for some car dealers here to delay updating the manufacturer’s database with their sold inventory until the end of the month, even though salespeople are supposed to do this daily. It has something to do with competition between the dealers. Now, is this customer-oriented? No, of course not, especially if the salesperson is searching the computer system to locate the car you want from a competing dealership. Our perspective: How come the computer shows all this inventory and yet it’s taking two days to find a car with her specs? Sounds suspicious, doesn’t it?

Both these pieces of information were news for us. A lot of angst and suspicion could have been avoided had the salesperson advised us of these norms in advance—not after customer frustration. He could have said, “Just so you know, it’s very typical here for new cars to have a few miles on them. This is a widespread practice in our state.”

So, think of any pertinent information you can share with your customers and prospects that may affect their perceptions of your customer service and build trust with your brand. This doesn’t mean you should burden them with your organization’s internal issues and challenges. But if there are common practices or standards that you know, don’t assume your customers will know them, too.

Can you give a good example of this type of situation BEFORE and AFTER you enlightened your customers about something? Did it work?

The same kind of fear and skepticism shown by the heroine can be seen on the faces of B2B marketers today.  For years, B2B marketing was the proverbial forgotten stepchild. Marketers just needed to focus on getting campaigns out on time, and all was well.  Not so today. Suddenly, B2B marketers find themselves being “chased” by sales, finance, and other groups that are looking to them to generate leads, measure their impact on revenue, generate content, and help sales move deals through the pipeline at a faster pace.  In addition to those internal pressures, marketing automation (a technology about which many are still uneducated) is now at the forefront. These factors are causing confusion and “fear” for today’s marketer,  making it seem there’s no way out.

If you are feeling like this, don’t worry. Unlike the Fire Swamp, many have adapted to the new world of B2B marketing. I’d like to offer four tips to help you survive.

Tip #1:  Relax!

I’m not being flippant here. Just relax, take a step back, and consider enjoying the role you’re in.  I’ve said before that there is no better time to be in B2B marketing.  Yes, there is much that is expected of us. But with that expectation comes a great opportunity to shine.  So, enjoy the ride and accept challenge.

Tip #2:  Be Realistic

Years ago, in a previous role, I became the head of a marketing department at a technology company. Within weeks of starting, I began to receive calls from others in the organization asking why things were not moving at a faster pace. I took each of these opportunities to outline for my peers where the department had been, the dormancy of marketing in the organization, the vision for what we were going to accomplish, and the plan for how we were going to do so. Some of the items on our plan were easy, resulting in quick wins. Other items would take longer, and we made it clear that they would.  The bottom line is that we were realistic.  We knew what had to be done, and we also knew that not all of it could be done overnight. In fact, some of our initiatives took up to two years.  But all along, we were sure to show our incremental progress.

Understand that you will not change things overnight. Map out a realistic plan, work with others in the organization to execute the plan, and allow the necessary time to do it right.

Tip #3: Seek to Know That Which You Don’t Know

Several years ago, I had a plumbing issue in my home that was causing low water pressure. The first plumber I called told me the problem was the line running from the water main to our home, and it would cost $5,000 to replace. Wanting a second opinion, I called another plumber who informed me that because the home was built in the 1960s, I would need to replace all of my pipes.  We didn’t get to the “quote stage” because I hung up on him.  The third plumber I spoke to spent 20 minutes asking me a variety of questions about the house, if we’d had past problems, did we have any water filters, etc.  After the discovery process, he diagnosed the problem and gave me a relatively low-cost, do-it-yourself fix. And it worked!

The lesson here is take the time to diagnose.  Discover and identify the real problems that exist.  Too many times marketers begin fixing what are perceived issues when in reality they are focusing on symptoms and missing the problem all together. To get a good understanding of where you are in terms of marketing health, conduct an audit of your current state.  This audit should apply to your lead management process, your content library, demand generation strategy, resources and any other area that will impact the success of your marketing efforts. After you identify the real issues, prioritize what should be addressed and work that into your plan.  Once this is complete, the real work and fun begins!

Tip #4.  Make Friends With Sales

True success in marketing cannot be achieved if there is a gap between marketing and sales.   Make sure you are listening to, asking for input from, and collaborating with sales.  While they view the world differently, they have incredible insight into the needs and patterns of your buyers that will prove invaluable.

The world of the B2B marketer has surely changed. This change is a positive one and should be looked at as a tremendous opportunity for all marketers.  So, keep running. You will survive!

I think the real reason is that the misalignment between marketing and sales is not actually the real problem. It’s actually a symptom of deeper problems:

• Lack of process
• Aligning around the wrong things
• Mismanaged sales quota

Lack of Process

According to several recent studies, up to 80% of leads do not get the proper follow-up. So, not surprisingly, one of the biggest challenges facing marketers is delivering qualified leads.  But in most organizations, there are multiple definitions for “qualified leads,” depending on who you speak to. This inconsistency helps contribute to the misalignment.  This challenge faced by organizations is most often because marketing and sales do not share a set of common definitions for terms such as “lead,” “qualified,” “prospect,” etc.  Marketing and sales have not collaborated on defining a process framework that answers fundamental questions, such as “What is the definition of a ‘qualified lead’ for our company?”

Marketing and sales should work together to define a Lead Management Framework, including:

• data process
• lead planning process
• lead routing process
• lead qualification process
• lead nurturing process
• metrics process

Organizations that do so will benefit by having:

• A set of common definitions for managing leads
• SLAs and business rules for lead routing
• A lead scoring model that delivers quality leads to sales
• Lead nurturing communications for those not ready to buy
• A host of other benefits.

As one customer stated after developing their process,  “Marketing and sales used to pass in the halls and not even look at each other.  Now we pass and give high fives because we know we are a team.”

Aligning to the Wrong Thing

One of the obstacles that marketing and sales organizations face when looking to align is their own misunderstanding on what alignment should be based. They’re aligning around the wrong thing. For example, marketing may want sales to come their way and think about campaigns. Sales on the other hand, may ask marketing to start thinking about collateral support for helping to close deals. These examples are not alignment; they are just trying to get the other side to view the world their way. The truth is that the right thing around which marketing and sales teams should align are their buyers.

Today’s B2B buyer is looking to engage with their vendors and have a relevant 1-1 dialogue. They don’t care about the internal squabbles that may occur between marketing and sales teams. They want to feel attended to. So, marketing and sales need to collaborate on how to have the dialogue with the buyer.

There are three key areas on which this collaboration should focus. The first is identifying the ideal buyer profile.  Having this profile (or profiles—most companies will have multiple personas/profiles unique to each service or product offering) ensures that marketing and sales will be engaging with the same targeted buyer.

Secondly, it’s vital to create a map for each profile’s buying cycle. This is more than just time to sale. It’s a full understanding of the buying journey of each persona to whom your organization sells.  Understanding and defining the buyer’s journey will allow you to “walk in your customers’ shoes,” helping both marketing and sales to better understand what they need at each stage, and to engage them in meaningful dialogue.

The third area of focus, once you have identified the personas and mapped out the buyer journey, is to develop your offer and content maps. These maps are guides that will enable you to deliver the most relevant content to the buyer at every stage of the cycle. Communicating based on an offer/content map will improve the alignment with your buyer, enable 1-1 engagement and deliver a more qualified and educated prospect to sales.

Mismanaged Sales Quota

One of the biggest obstacles marketing and sales organizations face in trying to align is the issue of quota.

I remember a conversation I had with a sales VP at a company I used to work for where I ran one of the global marketing teams. It was about half-way through the quarter, and he was panicking because his team’s performance was not what he needed to attain quota. During the conversation he looked at me and said, “I know we agreed on a strategy at the beginning of the year, but right now I need revenue. I’m telling my team to ‘chase it and sign it’ or else I won’t be here to work the strategy for the second-half of the year.” What was I to say to that?  This guy and some members of his team were fighting for their jobs. At the very least, I appreciated his candor.

The quarterly quota pressure is felt in organizations every 90-days. But this pressure would be easy to alleviate if organizations would begin to align their sales compensation plans to the buying/sales cycle (see customer alignment above). In the scenario I mentioned above, we had statistics that showed that the average buying time was 180 days. Yet we were telling our sales folks they had to sell in 90 days.

This quota pressure was not only causing panic in my sales counterparts, but it kept us from alignment with them as well.  Sales had bypassed the agreed to strategy in exchange for demanding only hot leads.  With that pressure there was no talk of nurturing, dialogue, buyer journeys, etc. They wanted leads they could close today!

This issue is easy to resolve and it’s something most organizations should seek to address early in 2011. The simple fix is to align sales quota to the customer buying cycle. This could result in either lengthening or shortening the quota cycle: If you have a 30-day sales cycle, then adjust your quota accordingly; if it’s 180 days, do the same. By adjusting your sales compensation to reflect the buying patterns of your buyer, you will not only provide your sales people a less pressure-filled environment in which to sell, you will better align with marketing and more importantly your buyer and marketing will be able to develop a demand generation strategy based on the buying cycles.

As we begin a new year, let’s stop addressing the symptom of marketing and sales alignment and begin working on some of the fundamental problems that are causing the symptom. It would be great if at this time next year, we could write about success stories instead of repeating ourselves on how to solve the problem.

One lesson that often comes to mind is the day I was assigned to Ron, the head of maintenance for the factory. My job that day was to follow him and do whatever he needed done. In the first few hours he got a call on his radio that one of the assembly lines was down due to one of the machines breaking. When we arrived at the line there were about five people looking in, around and under the machine. Ron then opened a flap on the side of the machine, took out a flashlight and set of pliers and spent the next 45 seconds under the flap with only his legs visible. Once finished, he walked over, turned the machine back on, and all was back in working order. As we walked away, he looked at me and said, “Sometimes fixing things is all in knowing how it works.” This principle can be applied in many B2B organizations today and one that will be the focus of my blog posts.

As a new contributor to MarketingProfs, I will focus on marketing and sales process– in other words, how things work. Repeatedly, I see marketing and sales groups vastly improve their return on their marketing and sales investments by focusing on process improvements.

I am very excited to be a part of this community and look forward to providing insights and having great dialogue around the marketing and sales process in hopes that this will be an interactive forum for the MarketingProfs community.

The U.S. Humane Society asked McDonald’s to take 5% of its egg-laying hens out of cages that are smaller than a sheet of paper, according to a recent article. The Society has advocated a more humane approach to egg and chicken meat production for some time now.

McDonald’s Board of Directors acknowledged that its major competitors, such as Wendy’s, Burger King, Denny’s and Hardee’s, already do so. But it also declined the request citing this reason: Research is inconclusive as to whether cage-free eggs are really better.

At first blush, it might look like McDonald’s doesn’t care about this issue. But that isn’t so. Last year, the company joined the Coalition for Sustainable Egg Supply which will conduct more research on cage-free farming in the near future.

Interestingly, McDonald’s uses cage-free eggs in Europe already. No doubt due to political pressure there. With upcoming testing, the company will likely adopt the same policy in the United States in the future. It will all depend on new research into cage free and other options being explored by the Coalition. And it will likely depend on how costs can be managed.

A recent article took pains to present both sides of this controversial issue and did it very well. I think it’s worth looking at.

The upside of caged chickens (according to a Pew study):
• Cheaper, more efficient food production
• Prevents the spread of animal-borne diseases like salmonella
• Protects the animals from bad weather conditions
• Keeps the cost of the eggs and chicken meat lower

The downside:
• Animals kept in small, confined spaces suffer because their movements are very limited. It is thought many animals live in pain. (Note: Even cage-free birds are often deprived of fresh air and sunlight, often almost as confined as caged chickens because there are thousands of birds sharing a specific amount of space. The main difference: They can move around freely.
• Caged free eggs cost much more. The USDA reports that a dozen eggs from caged chickens average $1.11 at retail whereas a dozen cage-free eggs retail for $2.79; organic eggs cost even more.

Questions:
• Do you purchase cage-free eggs at the supermarket or are they too expensive? Would you buy them if you could afford to?
• Would you prefer that McDonald’s purchase most of its eggs from cage-free producers?
• If they don’t, would that send you to a competitor to purchase a fast breakfast instead?
• Would you be willing to pay more for McDonald’s breakfast foods made with more expensive eggs? If so, how much more would you be willing to pay?

I’d love to hear from you.

“In this economy, where most people are hesitant to buy, we still have to sell,” says Davis, who started doing seminars and coaching after he noticed a similarity between comedy and sales principles. “In both cases, the objective is to get a reaction from the audience.”

I asked Davis how these principles also could be applied to marketing and public relations. “Sales has an advantage in some ways because they can hear the person’s voice on the phone or read their body language in person. But if you understand how your audience thinks, you can anticipate how they will respond and set up your message just like a comedian would, complete with punch line or call to action. Copy should have rhythm and timing, and should be designed to get a reaction from the audience, just like a joke. Comedians design copy to make people laugh. Business copy should make people reach for the phone.”

Davis also advises us to try to make messages as entertaining as is practical. He says, “If it’s not entertaining, it’s just information.”

Very small.

Take a look at the smartphones on the market today. They’re pretty snazzy, eh? To be sure, they’re visually stunning and all sorts of cool. They’re also very small. After all, they’re designed for mobility. And what busy business professionals really need due to now managing larger amounts of information on smaller screens is for their content to be delivered in “bite-sized chunks” and optimized for mobile environments, whether the content is delivered in text, audio, or video formats.

Even when business professionals are off-site but still on the clock, they’re seeking information that will inform their work, improve their efficiency, and influence their purchasing decisions. And purchasing leads to sales … which is exactly what companies need. B2Bs, however, are notorious for producing content-heavy collateral. It’s not because they’re word happy, it’s because B2B offerings are complex and oftentimes require a large amount of explanation.

Think about it, B2B companies aren’t selling ninety-nine cent MP3s, but more along the lines of nine-million-dollar enterprise software systems. And while most B2C offerings don’t involve a great deal of scrutiny or a high level of buyer involvement (save for buying a house or a car), B2B offerings are subject to a tremendous degree of risk vs. reward assessment. Business audiences still very much need the content we produce, but on their mobile devices they now need content available in different lengths and various content formats.

It’s not that B2B marketers should stop creating longer-form content, it’s that they’ll also need to create content that shows more, tells less. The big action point here is that B2Bs need to constantly consider the small mobile-viewing experience by developing marketing and sales content that is optimized for hand-held screens.

How? Through such mobile-friendly approaches as:

• Mobile Websites. Developing mobile websites (or “mobisites”) that are slimmed-down versions of larger corporate websites. You’ll still promote your key messages and communicate your key offerings, but you’ll need to do so in a streamlined manner and stick to the bare essentials.
• Video Case Studies. Creating 2-minute video case studies (in addition to 2-page text documents available at your regular website), that are far easier for your executive audience to watch on their mobile devices when they’re on a layover between Denver and Detroit.
• Video Demos. Producing short demos that can be uploaded to video sites like YouTube, and easily embedded and accessed from your mobile website.
• Audio Podcasts. Recording short audio podcasts that encapsulate the key industry tips you already publish in your monthly email newsletters, as these can be listened to when executives are on the go.
• Shorter Content Bursts. Writing 100-word snapshots of your longer 10,000 word thought-leadership pieces that executives can read when they’re out in the field. Keep in mind that these bursts provide an incentive to “read the full version for even more insights!” when they’re back in the office and are afforded the luxury of 15-inch screens from which to view.
• SMS Alerts. Offering audiences the option of subscribing to 160-character SMS alerts of breaking developments in the industry, on the competition or the overall profession. You can always elaborate on and aggregate these in longer blog posts, too. But keeping them short keeps your target audience informed wherever they might be at the time the news breaks.

Remember, B2B marketers, your business audiences aren’t always at their desktop computers when they require your information, but that data still very much influences their purchases. In fact, they’re at their desks less and less. So, when you’re creating and promoting content, you now need to be forever mindful that someone, somewhere on the other side of your copy will be accessing it by way of a device that’s very small.

Your audiences will thank you. More to the point, your business buyers will be able to consume your content from the one device that is always on and never leaves their sides. And by giving prospective customers a pleasant mobile experience, you won’t be giving them a reason to visit competitive sites that are optimized to their viewing needs.

B2B Mobile Bonus: For a 10-Step Starter Guide On Integrating Mobile Into the B2B Marketing Mix, in both slideshow and PDF formats, go here.

It seems like more and more retail outlets are getting wise to the concept of marketing their own product insurance. And is this because they are thinking about you,  the customer? Doubt it. This additional revenue must add decent profit to the bottom line because many stores have incentive programs for their employees. The more insurance they sell, the more bonuses they make.

I can somewhat understand this concept when it comes to electronic, electric, and other goods with microchips or moving parts. It seems that appliances, computers, and other big ticket items just don’t last as long as they did in years past. But, my friends, get this. Have you ever heard of insurance on shoes?

When Sports Authority sold me a pair of New Balance tennis shoes in December of 2009, I declined to purchase the added insurance, which can run up to $16, depending on the cost of the shoes. That’s supposed to cover usual wear and tear for up to one year. Do they think I’m nuts?

Well, two months later, the shoelaces completely fell apart, so I went back to the store to ask for new laces. The manager took a look at my bill and reminded me that I hadn’t purchased the insurance and that the warranty was only good for 30 days without it. But … this time only, he’ll let me have a pair of new shoelaces (worth $2.49 in his store). Gee, what a pal. After exploring the Sports Authority website, I discovered that shoelaces are not even included in the warranty, so I’d be out of luck anyway. Besides, the floor sales rep handed me the wrong lace length after I showed him the shoes, so the replacement laces were useless.

But, the bigger picture here is … what happened to standing behind the products they sell? Has manufacturing gotten so bad that retailers need to add this insurance to protect themselves from the multitudes of returns? Shouldn’t retail buyers ensure that the products they buy match quality for price?  The guy in front of me at the store spent $155 on Nike runners and declined the insurance. If his shoes fall apart after 30 days, does that mean the store will tell him he’s out of luck for $155 shoes?

Why aren’t these retailers standing behind the products they sell and then dealing with their distributors or manufacturers after they look after their customers? If consumers continue to accept this practice and it becomes more commonplace, wouldn’t it make sense that more and more retailers will jump on the bandwagon?

So, what do you say? If you’ve paid for product insurance, do you think you got ripped off or was it worth it? If you didn’t, is it because you think it’s a rip-off or did you prefer to take your chances? Share, please!

Exit Realty is Growing: So what? What’s in it for me?

If your company is growing in some form or another, surely that makes you happy. However, how does boasting about your own growth help me? Why should that make me pick up the phone, or trust you above a dozen other outfits that are willing to post signs beating their own drum?

Speaking of picking up the phone, it might be a nice idea to have a phone number or website on your advertising, too. Just sayin’…

Then there’s the name. I realize that “exiting” is one aspect of moving, but perhaps a name that has more positive or aspirational connotations would be helpful? If there are two billboards side by side, one from Exit Realty and one from, say, Open Door Realty, guess which one is likely to receive a call?

I’m all for business growth, of course. And there’s a time, and a place, and a way to express one’s success. But if you’re about growing, focus on the customer. If you want to introduce yourself to me and entice my interest in a few seconds’ span, remove as many barriers as possible. You may be growing, but there’s something you ought to be knowing.

If I’m selling my house, it’s not about you!

Figuring out what the barriers are is the obvious first step. Do you know which structural and cultural barriers exist at your firm? Do you know how they’re causing significant marketing and business development disconnects? Here’s a shortcut to get you started:
Instant Feedback
In conjunction with The Integration Imperative, I created two short web-based tests that help firms anonymously assess their structural and cultural barriers. I’m challenging readers to take the assessments and give me their thoughts on the results. You can let me know as an anonymous comment, email me, or, if you want to share and you have a blog, you can blog about it and send me the link. If you’re amenable, I’ll link to your blog or website in a follow-up post here on the Daily Fix.
How will your firm benefit if you complete these tests? Professional firms are challenged by the complexity of their marketing and business development silos. It’s hard to know where to start in the quest for marketplace effectiveness! Our research revealed a number of distinct organizational barriers that exists in professional firms, regardless of sector, size, or marketplace lifecycle. Your answers in each test will help your firm identify the exact areas to address in building a more productive, integrated marketing and business development engine.
Take the Assessment Challenge
Click the links below to take the assessments. And hey, it’s fine if you decide don’t want to share your thoughts after you take the tests. But I hope you do!
Assess Your Firm’s Structural Barriers to Marketing and Business Development Integration
Assess Your Firm’s Cultural Barriers to Marketing and Business Development Integration

As a former sale person, I used to schedule “ride-along” time with my sales team just to get out on sales calls and hear how we position ourselves in front of the customer, how that message lands on the customer and more importantly what the customer is saying in reaction to how we are positioned.
Today I would argue that is still important (and few marketers actually do it) but with the tools we have at our disposal you don’t even need to get out of the office to talk with customer. In fact, I talk to customers EVERYDAY, even several times a day. How? With Twitter!
Every week my virtual social media team and I are listening to 1000-2500 mentions of our company plus a bunch of “conversations” we are tracking (see Forget Audience Segmentation …. Segment by Conversation!)
We are engaging with customers and solving their issues in record time providing excellent service to them around issues such as: customer support, product end of life, highly technical questions, finance and billing questions, and partner relations. In fact we even won our first engagement over Twitter–so watch out DellOutlet we are gaining on you fast!
Our goal as a social media marketing team is to engage in more conversations this week than we did last week and have better relations as every week goes by! With today’s tools there is no excuse for not engaging with customer in real time–what’s stopping you?

While not plagiarizing them outright …. I think I have adapted them to things I have blogged about before. I still feel there is only one metric that counts …. SALES. Ringing the cash register is the best if not the only way to prove marketing value (as I have told you in the past). And our lead nurturing platform has been immensely helpful in giving transparency into that process and showing that value.
But many of you have questioned my outright simplicity of just using one metric by saying to me …. don’t you measure Impressions? Or don’t you measure Cost per Click?
Well of course I do… but do I then email those stats to the CEO? No. But I do feel they have a place in your metrics so let me give you my 3 tiers of marketing metrics:
1) Reach metrics …. Web site impressions, page views, radio impressions etc–
2) Efficiency metrics …. Cost per click, time spent on the website, downloads of a paper or podcast etc.
3) Value …. Contribution to Pipeline, contribution to Bookings, ROI on overall bookings.
So there you have it and these tiers infer some priority to them …. reach being the least and value being the most.
I am also going to begin to look at reach metrics PAIRED with value metrics …. ex …. graph my weekly lead flow against my media budget looking for spikes or relative lift. This could be a good way to prove lift on a media budget for those budget discussions we all have.

If you ask Bill Binch, VP of Sales from demand generation software provider Marketo, he prefers pipeline and bookings to leads. Ironically, as much as lead nurturing and lead scoring can help generate pipeline and revenue, by framing the discussion around leads too many marketers ignore the equally valid perspective of their sales counterparts. This can lead to diminished success for many marketing-led efforts around lead management.
This is just one of the many disconnects between sales and marketing that we’ve been exploring in the series Sales is from Mars, Marketing is from Venus. This is my 3rd such podcast with Marketo in this area. First we started with a CEO’s perspective then we did a VP of Marketing perspective and now we have the VP of Sales perspective. Getting the Sales viewpoint is critical for marketers since lead management initiatives always require buy-in and support from Sales to be successful.
Special thanks to my friends at Marketo for allowing me to interview their VP of sales for this podcast. They use what they sell to create opportunities for themselves, so there is no better place to look for ideas on how to optimize your own demand generation efforts than by talking with the guys who sell and deliver that for a living. I always learn something I can incorporate into my lead nurturing platform every time I talk with them! I hope you learn something too–

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About Bill
Bill brings 16 years of best practice sales, leadership, and operations experience to his role leading all of Marketo’s sales and customer success activities. Prior to joining Marketo, Binch was VP and General Manager, Distribution, at AVOLENT, where he managed the team focused on the distribution market, small & medium businesses, and install base customers. Prior to AVOLENT, Binch developed his sales and operational experience at Oracle, PeopleSoft, and BEA Systems, where he built and managed direct, inside, and channel organizations and ran business units ranging from mid-market business customers to strategic accounts. Bill graduated from Arizona State University with a BS in Marketing.

This podcast is the first in a series we’ve set up along with B2B marketing software provider Marketo to examine the classic sales vs. marketing debate. To start things off, we’ve brought together Marketo’s chief executive officer and his VP of Marketing to discuss the differences in Sales and Marketing as seen from the perspective of a CEO whose company is focused on aligning sales and marketing to create a single revenue funnel, as well as what that looks like day to day from the marketing trenches.
Nothing could be scarier to a marketer than having to answer to the CEO. So I give a lot of credit to Jon Miller, who sat in the hot seat in front of his company’s top executive just for this podcast! Enjoy –

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About Phil Fernandez
President and CEO, Marketo
Phil is a 26-year Silicon Valley veteran and has the scars (and a couple of successful IPOs) to prove it. Prior to Marketo, he was President and COO of Epiphany, a public enterprise software company known for its visionary marketing products. Before this, Phil was COO and SVP of Products and Services at Red Brick Systems, a pioneering data warehouse vendor. Earlier, he held leadership positions at Metaphor Computer Systems, Stanford University Medical Center, and Masstor Systems. Phil holds a BA from Stanford University.
About Jon Miller
VP Marketing, Marketo
Jon has the unique challenge of leading Marketing for Marketo, a company whose mission is helping other B2B marketers drive revenue and improve accountability. Jon explores best practices in demand generation, lead management, and online marketing in his popular blog, Modern B2B Marketing, and is a frequent columnist and speaker at industry events. Before co-founding Marketo, Jon was a vice president at Epiphany, a CRM strategist at Exchange Partners, and a strategic consultant for Gemini Consulting. Jon graduated Magna Cum Laude in Physics from Harvard College and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The Wall Street Journal caught up with Ram and captured his thoughts on what he feels is a need for the “reinvention of sales.” I beg to differ. This is a brief point/counterpoint on Ram’s view of sales and the reality of the sales departments for the vast majority of MarketingProfs readers. At the end of the day, Ram’s view on sales takes some pretty low shots at the past couple of decades worth of advances in the sales realm.
Ram’s point: “I found many companies had focused on the back end of the business: operations, accounting, finance, overhead. But the sales force had been neglected. I got horrified.”
Counterpoint: Sales being neglected? Seriously. One only has to delve into the first chapter of Marketing Champions to realize that it’s marketing that’s often in need of some TLC and attention. Further, according to a survey and report from the Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by UK Trade & Investment on the corporate priorities for 2007 and beyond, sales (and marketing) were the areas that most were voted as the areas that CEOs could commit the most incremental resources to in 2007!
Ram’s point: “…salespeople should not sell the product any more. They should find out what the customer needs, which will be a combination of products and services and thought leadership.”
Counterpoint: As a small business owner over 15 years ago (I owned a bicycle shop in rural Wisconsin), all of the books that I read on sales (thanks Tom Hopkins!) told me that I needed to ask my customer questions and provide a unique solution to their problem. Don’t just sell them a bicycle, offer then a complete fitness solution to help meet their health goals. I was in high school then, and no one ever left my store with “just a bicycle”. We moved out of the era of “product as marketing” decades ago.
Ram’s point: “The old salesperson: gregarious personality, very sociable. Plays golf. Goes to ballgames. Quick to link with people. Highly motivated. Long hours. Very perceptive in reading other people. The more successful ones know how to close the deal. It’s still useful.
Going forward, the salesperson must build trust with the customers’ people that’s deeper than before and sustained over time. You cannot design a solution without information from the customer. And if the customer does not trust you, he or she will not give you information.”
Counterpoint: The three martini lunch went of style in the 80’s. By the time I got my first sales job selling capital goods in 1999, there were no ballgames, no golf and little socializing. Sales was (and is, even more so now) built on trust, partnerships, understanding each other’s business (it’s not just a one-way street!) and selling solutions not widgets.
I could go on, but let’s not. At the end of the day, and likely at the end of the book (I’ve not read it, but after this WSJ article, I can’t say that I intend to either) you’ll be right back in the sales department of the 1970’s. Other prominent sales authors like Neil Rackham have advanced the thinking on solution and relationship based sales that Charan’s account of the “broken” sales department is little more than a bad reminder of times gone by.
My real concern in all of this, however, is that Ram’s next target might be marketing. Let’s just hope that he teams up with a good co-author if he decides to set his sights on the “broken marketing process”!

The dirty little secret and the driving force behind our hate is that there is no right or best way to issue RFPs or to submit proposals. Oh, sure, there are formulas and templates, but they are no more successful in terms of letting and getting work then those of us who change the way we do our proposals every time we issue or submit one.
However, I suspect that if we put our heads together today, we can share ideas that will make our RFPs and proposals more successful. So, I’ll begin.
My proposal writing begins as soon as I decide to go after a certain client’s work. Here are the steps I take once that client is identified:
1. Background Research on the business, especially financials, press releases and media articles.
2. Through that research, identify an area where the business needs help that I can offer.
3. Look for a way to meet the decision maker (networking, referral, lead, or, if necessary, a direct mail campaign followed-up by telemarketing.
4. Get a meeting if that decision maker is interested in my services, and listen, listen, listen.
Now it’s your turn to do the heavy lifting. If you start the process differently, please share. More importantly, what does your proposal look like? What are the things that most often work? Share everything. We will be grateful for your willingness to share your best practices and your creative moves. Don’t be shy.

When I first started blogging nearly a year ago (my first anniversary is June 13), one of my goals was to use my site the same as I use all my outlets for writing–as a way to brand myself and my business. But to be successful, my branding efforts must lead to work. Newspaper and magazine articles, as well as TV and radio guest appearances and my books have always done that. I saw no reason why blogging shouldn’t be able to build my brand image, market my business philosophy and values, offer lot of free content for my readers, and lead to work. It has.
The point I want to make is that blogging does not need to be sold only as a way to have a conversation with your readers, customers and clients. While that is a good thing in and of itself, I don’t believe it is the right argument to make when we offer blogging (or any of the social media tools) to our business clients.
The primary purpose of a business is sales. And every marketing tool should support that purpose. I now have proof that blogging does, when done correctly and when our posts serve our reader’s wants and needs, the basic foundation of all marketing and branding efforts.
Here is my challenge to you: If you believe that blogging is an effective marketing tool, pretend that we are potential customers and clients and give us your best pitch. If you don’t believe that this medium can be an effective marketing tool, tell us why.

These communities create a marketplace of sharing in marketing, public relations, advertising, creative, technology, and client challenges, to name a few. And that is a great upside.
The sharing might also have a downside, if when we participate through comments, trackbacks and follow-up on our blogs or here at the Daily Fix, we don’t ask ourselves several questions and then answer them before we speak. It’s the old cliché: Put your mind in gear before running your mouth.
A recent post on CK’s Blog raised this issue in my mind. You can read the post yourself, but briefly CK was sharing a friend’s video, which is part of a marketing effort.
I was intrigued by the post and the discussion and wanted to participate. My practice before commenting usually includes reading the post, reviewing the video if it has one, and checking out the original site of the source for our discussion. Why? Because I want to think like the intended audience before commenting.
When we comment from our professional point of view, the comment might be valuable in terms of the creative… but it also might not be. Let’s face it: We’re in the thick of the forest and our long view is somewhat obscured by the trees. In most of our professions, our ultimate purpose isn’t to see out, it is to get customers to see in and then to come and join us.
We want them to see the value of our products and services (the forest) and to join us in the experience. We want them to purchase the goods and to have a great customer experience. But before we can create sticky messages (book club plug), we need to get into the minds and hearts of those customers. That is why I make every effort to think like a customer before I participate. (Sometimes I fail because my passion and personal beliefs take over, and then I find myself in trouble and having said something that is both right and wrong.)
What do you do to understand your audience before and during your marketing projects (or whatever professional projects you are involved in where the end result is selling a product or a service)? Or do you do anything to see through customers eyes and heart? Do you agree this is a first step? Do you approach this differently? Is this a first step or does it fall somewhere else in our priorities?
Share. Look Smart. Because you are smart or your wouldn’t be where you are right now: here at the Daily Fix.

At the end of the day, the smart business relies on cost analysis and results effectiveness of everything it does. This just in from “The Pew Internet & American Life Project” of people’s “evolving relationships to cyberspace.” Pew found that 73 percent of U.S. adults own a cell phone, 68 percent have a desktop computer, 30 percent possess a laptop, and 73 percent connect to the Internet.
Only 8 percent of U.S. adults are “deep users” of Web 2.0 features, using them to express themselves publicly. (Web 2.0 users are defined as people who take advantage of technology “to express themselves online and participate in the commons of cyberspace,” including maintaining a personal Web site, blogging, vlogging, remixing media or sharing new-media creations.)
This is the time for me to ask: Is there anyone reading this? Joking aside, that makes for a pretty small audience. Here is a summary of the data revealed by the survey:
- 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web and mobile applications
- Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters …. they use gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
- 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment
- 10% use information gadgets, but find it a hassle
- 49% of Americans only occasionally use modern gadgetry and many others bristle at electronic connectivity
What does this tell us marketers, consultants and business people, if anything? Is web 2.0 a marketing and sales tool worth adding to the mix? Do we make too much of Web 2.0 tools?

So, it was a bit unexpected to read a Wall Street Journal article by Vanessa O’Connell about what Saks Fifth Avenue is up to.
According to O’Connell’s piece, they have seen the light in identifying and tending to the differences in each market, from Park Avenue to Indianapolis and Portland, OR, etc. Saks’ chief executive, Steve Sandove, says they have been using a 9-box grid to chart the best mix of apparel and accessories for the core customer at each store.
It may be no surprise that the mix is different from New York to Indianapolis, in general, but this caught me making some wrong assumptions: Birmingham, AL customers skew younger than New York’s flagship store, but still seem willing to pay for the high-end designer names. It may also be of interest, for instance, that even closely situated Saks stores, like Greenwich and Stamford, Connecticut, attract a very different customer.
Of course, this makes it difficult to present a unified national brand personality, so the store is still working on how to create more localized advertising that fits with the long-established overall brand.
Though I did read recently that department store retailers are doing better these days than they have been, it still seems that consumers have been focusing a bit more on buying local and patronizing their closer community-based boutiques for their apparel needs. So, as much as stores like Saks can know and understand their core customers, and continue fine tuning their products for their very specific local markets, that may well keep them on the radar of today’s relevance-seeking woman.

Before spending a dime on anything, managers, executives and owners must ensure they spend money wisely; that investments in business development and growth offer potential return based on established margins and a targeted bottom line; and that the money works to achieve measurable goals.
Analysis of why some leaders fail to execute on the plan suggests they may not always be held entirely responsible. As long as shareholders and board members insist upon short-term results, only the most powerful and fearless executives will reap the long-term rewards and margins that strategic planning can deliver. Meanwhile, short-term thinking prevents American businesses, small and large alike, from becoming the best they can be, and in the long-term this short-term thinking short-changes everyone, including shareholders.
Need proof? In December 2005, Consumer Reports identified the 31 most reliable cars–29 of them were Japanese models. I do not believe for a moment that American engineers and workers are any less competent than their Japanese counterparts. That leaves leadership, innovation and planning as the culprits behind the failure of the American automotive industry.
I believe that if Ford and GM continue to miscalculate their customers’ needs, wants and desires and continue to fail to look toward society’s future needs, generations to come will look at these companies as examples of an automobile industry that once existed in the US, but no longer does.
Fortunately, America is still blessed with brave and bold business leaders attempting to pilot American businesses toward greatness. As James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras put it in Built to Last, “Maximizing shareholder wealth or profit maximization has not been the dominant driving force or primary objective through the history of the visionary companies.” Ironically, they add, the result is that “visionary companies attain extraordinary long-term performance–.” and that “visionary companies have done more than just generate long-term financial returns, they have woven themselves into the very fabric of society.”
Unfortunately, too often the attitude engendered by the Sales reward system and the job description leaves a sour taste in the customer’s mouth. It seldom does anything to build Brand, to build solid business relationships based on trust and credibility, or to share the company’s values, which lead to long-term relationships and customer loyalty and in turn greater revenues and margins. The system of grabbing money quickly translates into the best deal wins, lower revenues, lower margins, and little to no relationship-building or customer loyalty.
As mentioned earlier, you must never throw money at advertising, public relations or direct marketing without first understanding who specifically you are targeting; what those customers think and feel and need; what your value is to them; and what their value is to you. This requires analysis, intelligence and research before you invest money in any aspect of marketing.
Far too frequently, businesses think they need to advertise because everyone else does. And there are lots of advertising and marketing firms willing to spend a business’s dollars. The metaphor for that is a doctor who diagnoses himself based on his own experience rather than the science, and a surgeon happy to accept that diagnosis and perform the surgery, despite the fact no deep study of the symptoms was conducted.
I argue that advertising should be carefully and infrequently used. It is expensive and seldom returns profit equal to margins possible when money is invested elsewhere. But you won’t know where to invest your money if you don’t you have a thorough understanding of the “who,” if you don’t perform a deep analysis of your objectives, and if you don’t run your numbers before committing to tactics
In his new book, customer loyalty expert Fred Reichheld says turning loyal customers into word-of-mouth promoters is critical to your business growth. As examples, he cites Costco, which has grown to 45 million members despite spending little on advertising and marketing. Reichheld sees quality customer service, which results in high-quality relationships, as the primary mover. Starbucks employs the same philosophy to use as a foundation for growth.
Of course, Reichheld says, most companies would focus on building excellent customer relations if it did not cost anything–but building relationships is not free. Reichheld argues, failing to build excellent customer relations may result in short-term profits but in the long run those customers will spend far less with your business than a loyal customer. Furthermore, short-term relationships mean customers who are “shopping the deal” and who often are unwilling to pay for value, reducing your margins.
Furthermore, every employee, especially sales reps and the marketing staff, must thoroughly understand where the business is going, how it is going to get there, and what they must do to support the process. Compensation should be based on the results they achieve in making the business’s goals.
And, just as a reminder: Compensation packages for sales reps should not be based on their individual sales revenues, which encourages and rewards discounting. Instead, their goals should be based on margins and their compensation measured on how well they achieve their overall goals.