The Funnelholic

Economy be damned, I’m in the Holiday spirit. I thought I would share my Christmas list for b2b sales and marketing around the world.

Here is what I hope b2b marketers find in their stocking:

1. A lead-nurturing system and process: The marketer’s Nintendo. Next year you gotta nurture, you’re SOL next year if you don’t . You can have Santa stuff an Eloqua or Marketo in your stocking or you can outsource it.  Either way, gotta do it.  If you already have it and are using it, Christmas came early.
2. An aggressive marketing plan: Santa doesn’t give you this, the CMO and Exec Board does. Hiding will lead to failure. Yes, you have to market smarter next year, but that doesn’t mean not market at all. Pipeline doesn’t come out of the blue, it comes from you. I have seen two types of organizations:  1) those that want to cut budget and hide (you’re dead) and 2) those who know that next year more than ever, the organization needs them to serve pipeline for Christmas dinner. Note to self: Be number 2.
3. Budget: See above, but Santa needs to give you some dollar bills.
4. Your job: Not to be flip on something so negative, but let’s call it like it is. I don’t want to lose your job, lord knows lots of people are.
5. Happy sales guys: Envision the sales team singing Christmas carols at your front door. Next year will be hell for sales team, so here’s to hoping you can help enough so they’ll recommend you for the “nice” list over the “naughty.”
6. Pipeline: Well, isn’t that why we are all here?
7. Closed Business: See above – we gotta keep the lights on folks.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

Tip of the day for marketers: Do “ride-alongs” with sales as you consider your marketing plans. I have spent the last two weeks heavily involved with our sales team, and I learned a ton. Getting feedback is helpful but watching the every-day pain a salesperson endures is eye-opening. If you really want to add value as a marketer, you have to  identify the “have-to-have’s” for your customers, the sales team. The best way to do it, is to see for yourself.

Follow the entire from lead to close.  Here is what I recommend:

1. Watch and listen to lead conversion conversations and day-to-day lead follow-up “agony”: If you have a lead development team, sit with the good ones and watch them go through their paces. Listen to conversations, watch how they figure out who to call, watch what their screen looks like when they do call, watch them handle objections, listen to prospect reactions, and so on. It’s humbling – and so helpful it hurts. If you don’t have lead dev, sit with one of your sales reps as he or  she goes through their day.
2. Sit in on a couple value prop presentations: If you can watch this face-to-face, you can see the prospects’ reactions. Go again with only your best reps and see how they’ve probably altered your message and preso based on what they feel works or doesn’t.  You can see what’s really effective on the street and what they care about.
3. Sit in on executive meetings: The decision maker/executive messaging is so critical to sales getting the deal done. Watching and listening to this interaction is beyond instructive. Even the questions they ask alone will tell you a lot about how to message and what sales tools are essential to success.
4. Talk to some customers: You can use a market research firm for this to get bigger feedback numbers, but you should at minimum talk to a couple yourself. Find out why they bought, what their impressions were of competitors, and so on.
5. Talk to some sales you lost: Sales guys never give these up, but this could possibly be the most helpful of all. Why did we lose the deal? Followed by, what can I do in marketing to make it better.

The ride-along will help you do your job better and, as a result, help you provide real value to the company’s bottom line.  So eat some nails with the sales team and your marketing plans will get applause not boos.

One of the young guys I work with asked me the other day how I come up with blog posts.  The truth is, they typically come to me throughout the day regardless of whether I am working with clients or at home watching television.  An idea will pop in my head, and I realize I can blog about that.  Conversely, when these epiphanies don’t pop in my head, I am completely screwed.

Here is what you need to know, I am wholly focused on helping marketers improve what they do in general and put the strategies and processes in place to make it through the economic storm that is in full swing.  The other thing you need to know, is that I want to be irreverent and fun in the process.  So, I was sitting there watching “Good Fellas” this weekend (for the 20th time), and a couple lines stuck out to me as bloggable.  I decided that I should take a whack at some Martin Scorcese lines in my next blog post.  Now, here we are.

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“Sales is from Mars and Marketing is from Venus” has been used on a number of occasions when describing the gap between sales and marketing.  The marketing automation, lead generation, and lead nurturing industry and their gurus have spent the past two years talking about “sales alignment” and how we can bridge the gap between the two sides.  Obviously I am one of those people.  I have sat in both seats and have felt both side’s pain.  And I do believe marketers have made big strides. There is so much information (including from me) on how we can fix this divide that I truly believe we are in a better place than we have been in the past.

On the other hand, there is one thing you can’t solve: the fact that you can align all you want, but sales is still born and raised on Venus, and marketing is born and raised on Mars.  You are different people and your relationship will always have its ups and downs (and in some cases, all downs).  So I decided to have some fun and help everyone understand each other’s differences:

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