03
2013What do CEO’s really want from their Sales & Marketing teams?
Let’s face it, the bottom line for every CEO is increasing business, meeting their revenue goals and being more profitable! If their Sales and Marketing teams can meet those demands, then most CEO’s are happy with that. They really don’t care if their Sales and Marketing teams are aligned, because if they are on target, then they simply assume that they are aligned. Again, they…
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…
07
2013
Success is 90% Preparation, 10% Perspiration
We’ve all heard the adage “Success is 90% preparation and only 10% perspiration”. The great scientist Louis Pasteur once said, “Chance favors the prepared mind”. This is an area that I believe needs to be addressed more effectively by sales people and the organizations they work for today. So, let me start by asking: Are your sales people as prepared and effective as they need…
01
2013Do you really know what’s working and what isn’t in your sales, marketing and product areas?
I had a very interesting and enlightening conversation today with a consultant who works for the company that developed my website. She asked me to tell her who my target audience was and who I was trying to reach. I explained to her that my target audiences were medium to large-sized organizations that were struggling with poor sales and marketing alignment, effectiveness and productivity. She…
24
2013
Is your company message on target?
This week’s blog post was influenced by a couple of different resources and both came from two different LinkedIn discussions. The first came from a link that Michael Cannon provided from some research that his Silver Bullet Group did called “Customer Communication Effectiveness Index” (www.silverbulletgroup.com/research). The second came from a link in a discussion that I currently have running in the Sales / Marketing Executives…
18
2013
How Important is Sales Enablement to Your Organization?
What exactly is Sales Enablement anyway? Well, there are two really good definitions that I like to quote. The first definition is provided by the Forrester Group: “Sales Enablement is a strategic, ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life…