20
2014
What is Your Time Worth?
We all understand that time is money, right? Well, just how much money is it worth to you and your organization? I have been amazed with the number of recent surveys and reports that have come out with how much time is wasted in the area of people searching for things they need to do their job. Now I’m not talking about the amount of…
13
2014
Bad Leads or Bad Lead Follow-up
I don’t know about you, but I hear all the time how Marketing doesn’t produce good quality leads. I’ve even heard that Sales only follows up on about 15% of the leads that Marketing provides. Does that sound about right? OK, so our image to the left shows our old friends Sales and Marketing going at it again over this whole over worked argument about…
18
2014
Are you Helping or Hampering your Sales People?
If we look at the illustration presented here, you will notice that both rowers are rowing in the opposite direction. Since they both have their backs to each other, they can’t tell what the other rower is doing. All they know is that they both are rowing and thinking that they are helping to row the boat, but they don’t seem to be getting anywhere….
05
2014
The Blind Men, the Elephant, and Componentization of Content
I recently commented on a Sales Craft LinkedIn discussion in which Sharon Little with Appcelerator had the following discussion: Enablement and the Content Paradigm, and in her discussion she included an article that was written by Corey Sommers, VP of Business Development at WittyParrot. I was so impressed with what Corey wrote about that I contacted him and asked if I might use his article as…
04
2014
How a business suffers when sales and marketing aren’t on the same page
In today’s challenging and competitive economy, it is more important than ever that a company’s sales and marketing efforts are productive, effective and efficient. Unfortunately, millions of dollars in business opportunities are lost or squandered every single day when these two seemingly close-linked departments get it wrong. Here are a few examples: Business opportunities are lost when the Sales Department… Doesn’t have access to the…
12
2013
Sales Content Challenges #3
This is the third article in this series about Sales Content Challenges, and for this article I would like to revisit my good friend Michael Cannon of the Silver Bullet Group (http://www.silverbulletgroup.com) and offer some outtakes from his Blog posting of 9/25/2013 “What is the cost of ineffective customer communications?” In this article Michael states: “Proof that most of your customer communications (marketing content and…
28
2013
Sales Content Challenges #1
This is the first article in a series on the value and challenges of producing the type of sales content that motivates customers to buy, drives cross selling and provides sales people with the type of content they need to be more effective and productive. I want to thank my good friend, Stephen Diorio of Profitable Channels, for this summary that was taken from…
16
2013
Sales Enablement brings about Sales & Marketing Alignment
I just finished a great research brief “Sales Enablement: Fulfilling the Last Frontier of Marketing-Sales Alignment”, from Peter Ostrow and Trip Kucera of the Aberdeen Group. In it they make some excellent points around the value of having a Sales Enablement process to better align Marketing and Sales. The relationship between B2B marketing and sales teams is more than just about leads and lead management….
26
2013
Keeping your Sales & Marketing teams Accountable
Where does accountability lie within your organization and how do you go about holding people accountable for their performance, or lack thereof? I know a lot of organizations have annual reviews that are conducted by HR or an immediate supervisor of how an individual is performing. Depending on the organization these can be very helpful and detailed or just fluff. It all depends on who…
06
2013
Do You Have a Repeatable, Sustainable Profile for Success?
I was having a discussion with a good friend of mine recently and we were talking about how most organizations don’t have a repeatable, sustainable profile for how they achieve success. What we were referring to was the need for organizations to be able to have a clear understanding of how they are successful in winning business. For many organizations, they can give you an…