B2B Marketing Archives - Great B2B Marketing

March 14, 2017 by Christopher Ryan

How Digital Marketing Can Drive Your B2B Company Results

I suspect that two types of people will read this article. The first group consists of those who are fairly new to digital marketing. They need to understand how they can benefit and a few tips to get started. The second group consists of those who are participating in digital marketing, but need to improve their results. This may require a bit of tweaking or a major re-work of their strategy.

So, what can digital marketing do for you and why is it worth spending your precious time and budget? Assuming you do it right, digital marketing can:

Build your company credibility. In most B2B industries, prospects check out a company online before engaging, let alone buying. You have a chance to establish the online presence that either adds to, or subtracts from, the strength of your brand. And if things get off track, you can use reputation management techniques to help restore your brand value. One important point about an online presence: If you are going to go, go BIG. There is a lot of “me-too” out there and you need some compelling differentiation to cut through the clutter.
Generate leads and revenue at low cost. If you are going to compete with larger players, you need to play the digital marketing game as well as they do. This means capturing the email addresses of your prospects and customers, or getting them to follow you on Facebook, LinkedIn or one of the other interactive social media platforms.
Shorten the sales cycle. B2B companies that have complex and/or long sales cycles have found digital marketing to be enormously helpful in saving the time of their reps and improving sales conversion rates. For more on this topic, read my article about Six Ways to Shorten the Sales Cycle. More good news: The same techniques that shorten the sales cycle can give you the added benefit of lowering your customer acquisition cost (CaC).
Create awareness. You can’t win business from those that don’t know you exist. The cyber world is vast, amorphous, chaotic and constantly changing. You have to grab—and hold—your share of the attention to succeed. Many successful online companies started out as local firms with a very limited market reach. And many small- to mid-size companies have grabbed market share from larger competitors because of their aggressive and effective use of digital marketing.
Provide anywhere and anytime access. Just a few years ago, mobile access was something of an afterthought. You built your website for desktop and laptop viewers and then figured out how to make it mobile-friendly. However, we are now seeing prospects and customers utilizing mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) at the rate of 1/3 to 1/2 of total views in some industries. The key to making this work for you is to provide a website that is both mobile-responsive and full of the type of information necessary to move prospects closer to a buying decision.
Give you a great testing platform. Want to test a new message, product viability or landing page? Digital marketing techniques like SEO, pay-per-click or online advertising can quickly test your marketplace receptivity. The idea is to test quickly, abandon what doesn’t work and scale what does work.

The reality every B2B company faces is that consumer and business expectations are increasing. It is easier than ever for prospects to find your competitors if you don’t offer them a productive and pleasant online experience. For our clients, we complete something called a website and social media analysis to find out what digital marketing actions they need to take to surpass competitors. This type of analysis can be a good jumping off point to get you on the right path to digital marketing success.

March 7, 2017 by Christopher Ryan

7 Lessons Learned in 7 Years of Blogging

I started my blogging journey at Great B2B Marketing seven years ago this month. It’s been quite an adventure and like anything someone does for seven years (and over 250 posts), there are some useful lessons learned along the path.

Persistence is key. Blogging can be a pain to be sure, but it really does get easier over time. I often tell clients that are new to blogging that it might seem like pushing a boulder uphill in the short-term but a post that takes you three hours to draft today can be completed in 90 minutes once you’ve done it a dozen times.
Posting something is better than nothing. Voltaire’s quote, “The perfect is the enemy of the good” applies to blogging. You’re not Shakespeare and you’re not Hemingway. You (and I) are just business people with a unique message to share. This is not to say that you should throw quality standards out the window. Be clear, be clean and be helpful and every once in a while, one of your posts can go viral. But you need to put your content in play for it to be seen by anyone. In other words: No excuses – just do it!
Be bold, fresh and relevant. It is tempting to write about stuff that has been around for some time, but you will get way more attention if you find a fresh angle to a topic of current interest. And make sure you are adding real value, not just rehashing what the reader can learn at a dozen other websites.
Add a dose of personality. While you need to stay businesslike, readers want to know they are hearing from someone who is likeable and forthright. A bit of humor and irreverence is good but don’t overdo this to the point you turn off your audience. Most important: be yourself. Your unique voice is what people want to hear.
Remain consistent. Consistency is important in two ways. First, in terms of your content. You want to be known for one or a couple of topic areas (in my case, B2B marketing and lead-to-revenue), not for having an opinion about everything. Consistency area two is to set a workable blogging schedule and stick to it. Resist the urge to post a bunch of blogs in a short time period. I call this a flame-out – when a company posts 3-6 blogs in a span of a few weeks, and then stops posting. It looks unprofessional. Instead, set a reasonable schedule (even 1-2 times per month is okay to start) and stick to this relentlessly. You can pick up the pace as your comfort level increases.
Pay attention to the critical details. Writing the content is the hard part but there are a few things you can do to drive more attention, including:
1. Add a relevant image. Images are important for search purposes and to grab reader attention. Please be sure to license the image or get permission for its use.
2. Always add categories, tags and meta descriptions. This will make your post easier to find. Click here for a great article on how to craft effective meta descriptions. As an example, here is the meta description I used for this post: “Follow these seven lessons to ensure blogging success in terms of readership and impact”.
3. Cite your sources. You can certainly use a few words or sentences from someone else’s material without permission, but make sure you acknowledge the source.
4. Utilize an editor. I don’t care how good of a writer you are – you can probably benefit from a second pair of eyes for issues like typos, grammar and readability.
Borrow from smart people. You will be faced with situations when you can’t think of something to write about (join the club!). In this case, find someone else’s article that appeals to you and base your post on this person’s content. Of course, if you are copying entire sections of material, it is best to get permission. Authors love to have you re-purpose their writing and this is a great way to make a new business contact.

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January 10, 2017 by Christopher Ryan

Hard Facts About B2B Marketing and Sales

One of the most frustrating things about being a B2B marketing and/or sales professional is that there are circumstances and environmental factors totally outside your control. I’ve seen truly great people seemingly stuck in situations where they are set up for failure.

Medium.com had an interesting article from Larry Kim titled “11 Things You Can’t Change, So Quit Wasting Your Time Trying.” Kim stated that no matter the method you use (e.g., working harder, caring more), “The fact is, there are some things you just can’t change, no matter how hard you try.” I enjoyed the article because it reflects a hard truth I teach future entrepreneurs in my SBA and SCORE classes — to stay within their own zone of control.

This below graphic illustrates the zone of control. At the bottom is a list of a few of the things you have total personal control over. For example, you decide how hard you work and the skills you will develop to enhance your marketplace value. The middle section contains items you can influence but not necessarily control, like the overall messaging, your budget, and your boss. The outer circle consists of items you have little or no control over: The economy, technology, government, etc., are going where they are going and chances are, you have no opportunity to impact them. In other words, if the train is heading in a certain direction, you had best either hop on or watch it pass, instead of standing in front of it.

So, hard fact number one is that you should operate in your zones of control and influence. Here are some additional facts that B2B marketing and sales professionals must face:

1. It’s usually not personal. When the CEO criticizes the new website design, or the VP of sales complains about the lack (or quality) of leads, they have their own reasons that are usually not connected to personal animosity toward you. Disliking your performance on something is not the same as disliking you.

2. You can’t always win. There are scenarios where the odds are so stacked against you, you are unlikely to achieve success. For example:

a. A flawed business model that is not financially viable.

b. An un-coachable owner/CEO who would rather be right than successful (sadly, there are such individuals).

c. A product that is deeply flawed and/or not ready for the market.

d. A highly dysfunctional management team.

3. You should quit focusing on the ones that got away. All of us who have been in marketing or sales for any length of time understand that no matter how talented/clever we are, many prospects will say no to even our best offers. Best you reconcile yourself to this to avoid undue anxiety.

4. Life is not fair. If your mom or dad taught you this lesson early in your life, you should thank them. Attaching yourself emotionally to a certain outcome means that you will spend at least some of your time in a dark place.

5. Great strategy won’t produce results without cooperation. I’ve seen brilliant concepts that could produce significant revenue shot down because of the unreasonableness of one or more parties. Regardless of motivation of the stubborn party, when you are faced with this situation, it’s sometimes best to cut your losses and move to the next idea.

You no doubt have your own list of unpleasant facts. I hope you accept them, and do what you need to do to have a healthy and prosperous 2017.

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December 20, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

B2B Marketing Trends – What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

We just published our 2017 B2B Marketing and Lead-to-Revenue Trends Report, available for download here. At the close of each calendar year, I publish a trends report detailing what our team sees as the important topics in B2B marketing and L2R. This year, in addition to our personal analysis, we’ve included data from 1425 respondents who work in B2B marketing and sales, the majority (62%) of which are at the VP level or above. We’ve also cross-validated this information with data and opinions from noted industry analysts and thought leaders. We found remarkable similarity between survey responses, what industry leaders like Forrester, Gartner and Forbes are saying and our own experiences and data from client engagements. We are also grateful to our survey partner CustomerThink for helping us to get the word out to their large subscriber base.

So what are the big takeaways from this initiative? For one thing, a majority of companies report that they are not generating enough leads to meet their revenue targets. Probably no big surprise – I’ve worked at companies where lead flow was strong and yet, people were complaining about a “lack of leads”. What they mean is that they want their leads to be qualified and ready to purchase in the near future. This is the inevitable tension between lead quantity and lead quality. It’s fine to have plenty of lead flow, but not so fine if the vast majority of inbound inquiries are unqualified and will never buy what you are selling.

Another disconcerting result is that 62 percent of respondents report that their companies spend less than 10 percent of revenue on marketing (including personnel, technology and program expenses). There is no doubt that the strongest and most profitable companies drive growth through compelling and relentless marketing. If you truly believe (and I hope you do) that marketing has a big impact on revenue, you are doing your company a favor by helping them invest in an area that will have many positive benefits downstream.

Our survey also showed that companies will increase 2017 spending on two key areas that impact growth: marketing automation technology and content marketing. Some of us are already fully engaged in these practices and are now in optimization mode, but a surprising number of companies are still taking baby steps. Regardless, smart companies invest in what works and try to get there before the competition does.

Finally, what are your peers and competitors most interested in measuring in 2017? Given a long list of potential KPIs, our survey respondents say they are focusing on these three, in priority order:

Tracking sales performance (e.g. close rates) – 76.27 percent of respondents.
Qualified lead conversions – 64 percent of respondents.
Measuring website performance – 53 percent of respondents.

While it’s too late for you to take the survey, you can review the results by downloading the report. We designed the survey and report to provide you with actionable information and help you improve what you are doing in B2B marketing and sales. Most importantly, it is my hope and expectation that you will have a better 2017 than 2016.

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November 21, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

In B2B Marketing, the CFO May Be Your Most Important Customer

Many B2B marketing managers believe that their primary customer is the Sales VP, or perhaps the end-customer, or even the CEO. While these are very important constituencies, you shouldn’t forget the person who may have the most influence over your career – the CFO.

My last blog post talked about how to get your share of the 2017 marketing budget, using several different budget allocation methods. However, none of these methods will work unless the CFO has faith that whatever you are spending contributes to revenue. This is what I call the “marketing as investment” model, instead of the traditional “marketing as expense” model.

Here are some things you don’t want your CFO to say to the CEO about you or your department:

Those guys spend a lot of money but I have no idea what they are accomplishing.
Why should we give marketing more budget if they can’t show better results?
Why is the sales team always complaining about the marketing department?
We have to cut the budget – let’s start with marketing since they are such a large expense.
Every time I ask marketing what they are doing, I hear a bunch of gobbledygook!

To make sure this type of language is never used to describe you, let’s look at what CFOs are looking for from their marketing departments. As you can see, four out of the top-six goals relate directly to measuring the effectiveness of B2B marketing spend and activities as a driver of sales pipeline and revenue.

Note that the fourth goal listed is to achieve non-financial goals (i.e. brand awareness) but even here I would argue that the reason we spend time building the brand is to make it easier to achieve revenue. I’ve never met a CEO or CFO that would trade some of their revenue for a stronger brand (or for almost anything else). In the end, it comes down to the marketing department’s ability to increase awareness, generate leads and facilitate sales, all in the pursuit of more (profitable) revenue.

So how do you impress your CFO and ensure not only a favorable impression but more important, the necessary funds to accomplish your mission? Here are four strategies:

Understand your customer. Most CFOs have a set of challenges and objectives that are not the same as yours. See the world from their perspective and you are more likely to win the perception game.
Tightly align with sales. Creating a service level agreement (SLA) to outline the processes, expectations and deliverables of both departments – will go a long way towards satisfying both the CFO and CEO. Chances are, if the sales team is happy with marketing, the executive suite will likewise be happy.
Revenue…revenue…revenue. Whenever you can do so, shift the focus of the discussion from activities (expenses) to revenue (investment). Investments in revenue are much more palatable than increases in spending, so modify your language accordingly.
Measure what matters. As a B2B marketer, you no doubt understand the importance of capturing all types of performance metrics. But the ones that matter most to the CFO will all point to how what you do, and what you spend, contribute to revenue. That is why our lead-to-revenue (L2R) modeling process always starts with revenue targets and works backward to set goals for inquiries, awareness, website traffic, and so forth.

I’ve worked with a couple of CFOs that had such a fundamental misunderstanding that they never could see the value in what their marketing department did. Fortunately, these types are not common and if you follow the above advice, you will not only have a more satisfactory working life but also a much healthier marketing budget.

in B2B Marketing / Marketing Budget 3 comments

November 11, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

Secure Your Share of Rising B2B Marketing Budgets

The press release announcing Gartner’s 2016-2017 Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Spend Survey showed that marketing budgets rose for the third straight year. Marketing budgets increased to 12 percent of company revenue in 2016, up from 11 percent in 2015. Fifty-seven percent of marketing leaders surveyed expect their budgets will increase further in 2017. Only 14 percent of marketers say they are bracing for budget cuts, but this is up from 3 percent just two years ago.

At Fusion Marketing Partners, we deal with lots of B2B companies and our experience echoes the Gartner research. Here are some observations about why marketing spend is on the rise and why you may be in a great position to justify a larger spend as you craft your 2017 marketing budget:

1. Prospects and customers spend more of their time with marketing assets than sales assets. Studies range on the exact statistics, but most strongly point to the fact that prospects do a lot of their research online, prior to engaging with a sales rep. If you don’t have the right resources to guide them, you lose the prospect to the competitor.

2. Throwing more sales reps into the mix is not solving the revenue challenge. You need a complete lead-to-revenue strategy that covers everything from creating initial awareness to closing deals.

3. Marketing has accepted a wider range of responsibilities ranging from customer experience to revenue–generating systems. As Jake Sorofman, research vice president at Gartner stated, “Over the last several years, we’ve witnessed an expansion of the CMO mandate, from what was largely a promotional role to what is now often seen as the growth engine for the business. … In more than 30 percent of organizations, at least some aspects of sales, IT and customer experience now report into the CMO.”

4. Smart marketing managers have learned how to prioritize spending on productive and measurable activities that tie into revenue. This ‘lead-to-revenue investment model’ makes the budget process more efficient and predictable. Read more about the top 10 sales and marketing metrics.

I’m often asked to advise companies on how to establish the correct marketing budget. In addition to the percentage of revenue described above, there are several other methods:

• Competitive Parity: With this method, you figure out what competitors are spending and then budget enough funds to keep up with, or surpass, the partner. The problem is, it’s usually difficult to find out what they are spending and their circumstances may be so different that a head-to-head comparison is not helpful.

• Objective and Task: This is our go-to method. We set the objectives, identify the tasks necessary to achieve those objectives and then determine the budget necessary to complete those tasks.

• Lifetime Value (LtV): The LtV method works in scenarios where it is worth spending more to obtain a new customer because they produce so much revenue over the time they do business with you. This will often produce much higher spending scenarios than the more traditional and formulaic methods. For example, Salesforce.com spent $25.4 million to achieve its first $5.4 million in revenue.

• What You Can Afford: Sometimes, your marketing spend is limited by the amount of money you have left over after other expenses — or the amount the CEO or CFO gives you to accomplish the mission.

• Lead-to-Revenue (L2R) Budgeting: With L2R, we establish the revenue targets and work backwards to determine how many opportunities, qualified leads and inquiries are needed to meet the revenue target. L2R is a highly effective way to make sure you spend the right amount on lead generation, but it is not so helpful when it comes to budgeting for other expenses like personnel, PR, website, etc.

Regardless of the marketing budget methodology you use, it is important to start the process early enough in the planning cycle to ensure the right allocation. If you truly believe (and I hope you do) that marketing has a big impact on revenue, you are doing your company a favor by helping them invest in an area that will have many positive benefits downstream.

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October 28, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

Improve Your B2B Marketing in 30 Minutes or Less

You are overwhelmed, I am overwhelmed – the whole darned world is overwhelmed. It seems there is so much required of each of us that we can’t find the time to get those big projects finished. But the good news is – there are many smaller actions you can take – in 30 minutes or less – that can individually or collectively have a big impact on your performance and your company’s results. Here are 20 such items.

Obtain one (or more) customer testimonial(s).
Call up a sales rep and really understand what is going on in his/her world. Better yet, call two.
Write the introductory paragraph to the next great piece of sales collateral.
Come up with a new and compelling offer.
Call or email a strategic partner and get some joint marketing going.
Figure out a strategy to add video and/or audio to your website and sales materials.
Write a quick online customer survey to make sure you are on the right track.
Improve your landing page performance by 10% or more by upgrading the copy, images or offer (perhaps all three?).
Draft the outline for your next killer webinar.
Tweak the copy on your best email promotion – with a goal of boosting response by 10%.
Write the title and outline for your first or your next eBook.
Evaluate your brand message/value proposition for differentiation and freshness.
Figure out one way you can better support your company’s revenue goals.
Write a memo to get budget authority for your next lead generation campaign.
Come up with a theme for the next major social media outreach – perhaps one that will go viral.
Write the first paragraph of your next blog (or the whole blog if you are really fast).
Upgrade your metrics dashboard to best prove marketing’s contribution to revenue.
Jot down three action items that can improve your website – from both an awareness and conversion perspective.
Send a thank you note to a key customer, partner, vendor or colleague.
Stop and ponder your good fortune – if possible, find a way to pay-it-forward.

Not all of these action items will require 30 minutes. Some will take you a bit more, some a bit less. But the point is, good marketing is not just about having a great overall strategy – it’s also about the daily smaller blocks of time – and how you can make these moments count. As I talked about in an earlier blog post, Actions Trump Ideas in B2B Marketing and Sales, we marketers are paid to make stuff happen.

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Last Updated: September 1, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

Answers to Six Key B2B Marketing Questions

As I talk to clients, business owners and fellow B2B marketers, I hear the same questions and concerns on a fairly regular basis. Chances are, you currently face one of these questions. And although each question is surely worthy of its own blog post, I wanted to address what I’ve been hearing in digest form. (I will delve into these topics in greater detail in upcoming posts.)

Should we do push marketing or pull marketing? This depends: While I am a huge proponent of pull marketing and have used it to generate millions of dollars of revenue for our clients, it may not be the total panacea for what ails you. It’s likely that you may have awareness and lead generation requirements that can only be met with push marketing techniques. If so, by all means use the tactics that are necessary to meet your lead objectives. But with that said, you should start transitioning your marketing programs towards the pull model right away, and adjust the balance as conditions warrant. If you do this, you can protect your short-term mandate (deliver leads now) while building a much more effective and cost-efficient foundation for future success.
Should we gate our content or provide it for free? I’ve seen companies that won’t let you download so much as a data sheet without providing your name and email address. At the other end of the continuum are companies that don’t require you to register for anything. Usually, the answer is found between these extremes. My practice is to require more when you give more. If it’s a data sheet, let the prospect download it without registration. If it’s a more valuable asset like an in-depth video or whitepaper, ask for at least some minimal data.
How often should we communicate to our prospects? Again, the answers run a wide gamut, from those that communicate once per month to once per day (most fall in between). Of course, this depends on where the prospect is in your sales funnel. If they are active in the buying process (e.g. in the middle of a free trial), an email every other day may be in order. But if they are simply prospects in your opt-in (nurturing) database, a frequency of 2-3 times per month should be most effective. By effective, I mean that they will not forget you, will not unsubscribe from your list, and some reasonable number of them will respond to your offers.
Should we devote time and/or budget to social media? My quick answer to this is “Heck, yes!”…unless you lack something to say or the time to say it. Social media is a key component of most pull marketing strategies. But you need to take it seriously and commit to at least some consistency in blogging, posting, tweeting, updating, etc. I wrote one of my favorite blog posts on this subject over five years ago, titled Is Social Media a Marathon or a Sprint?
How often should I/we blog? The short answer is: as often as you have something to say. But if you can’t commit to once per month (3-4 times is better) it’s best not to blog at all. If you blog for any length of time, you will develop a quality/quantity rhythm. Not every post will be brilliant. If you are prone to waiting for the perfect topic at the perfect time, just remember what Voltaire said: “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” Voltaire was right — set a floor in terms of quality standard, write something and get it out there.
What marketing tactics are performing best? In the B2B marketing world, tactics shift depending on the product, offer, target audience and timing. Generally, we are having good success with pay-per-click, LinkedIn and email (if we can build a quality prospect list). We support these tactics with organic search optimization, content syndication and social media.

Facing unique dilemmas of your own? Feel free to start a discussion in the comments section or reach out if you want to explore in-depth.

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Last Updated: August 31, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

Market Research – 8 Strategies for Getting it Right, Quickly

I had a really good conversation with a business colleague who is launching his products into a new channel, with fresh messaging, pricing, etc. We talked about all the various ways of validating the concept before formally announcing it to the world. Like all entrepreneurs, he wanted to know that his chances for revenue and profit were high before making a larger commitment. Specifically, he wanted to know the following before launching into the new channel:

Potential size of the market
Best target segments
Details of the offering
Most appropriate keywords
Pricing options

My friend’s first instinct was to do traditional market research activities like focus groups and telephone/online surveys, supplemented by tools like SIC code analysis. However, my caution was that these types of tools — while instructive in the qualitative sense — are not that precise when it comes to answering the real question: Will people/companies spend money on a particular offer, and if so, how much? The key problem is that market research is based on the theoretical (e.g. would you buy this) and not the practical (sign the contract).

After being involved with hundreds of product launches in my career — some backed by heavy market research and others thrown into the market based on little more than gut instinct – I can find no correlation between the amount of time and money spent on pre-launch research and the degree of success enjoyed by the product.

According to Product.com, about 85 percent of new consumer product launches fail, and these are some of the most researched types of products on the planet. One other notable point from Product.com is that products often fail because managers become too ego-involved with pet products and overestimate their chance of success. Best to get the ego out of the process. However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as when analysis showed that the Sony Walkman was going to flop in the marketplace. However, Sony Chairman Akio Morita overruled his lieutenants and created a massive revenue stream. Steve Jobs was another founder who relied on his gut more than market research.

Even when you do a lot of research, you can still get it wrong: the market shifts, a competitor outflanks you, the economy crashes, etc. All this is not to say that you shouldn’t try to validate your idea before launch – of course you should. But please do this in a way that minimizes your costs (time and money) and maximizes your speed to market. Here are a few ideas on how to accomplish this:

Ask people who are already selling something similar. Your direct competitors will probably not talk to you, but those with complementary products or who are in non-competing geographies may give you great information.
Query people at community share sites like Quora.com or Reddit.com. These are open business forums where people answer questions and provide input on subjects of interest.
Crowdfund your idea. This is more of a long shot, but there have been notable success stories of companies launching (and pre-selling) products before they were ready for market.
Take advance orders. What a great way to validate your product – offer it for a discount for pre-ordering. This is definitely a confidence builder for both product manager and CFO.
Run test ads (e.g. pay-per-click). More companies than you realize actually run ads before the product is available. There are ways to do this without offending potential customers.
Talk with people who bought a competitive product or service. While you may not have a short-term sales opportunity with these people, their opinions are valid since they actually made a transaction.
Check out which books people are buying on Amazon that are related to your business area. This will give you a good idea of what the current hot buttons are and perhaps provide you with some messaging strategies.
Do online keyword analysis to determine what terms people search on to find a similar product or service. Look at your competitors’ — as well as your own — notions of the motivating benefits and/or pain points.

By the way, LinkedIn can be an extremely useful tool in target segment sizing as well as product validation and message testing. There is much more to say about this, so I will save it for a future blog post. In the meantime, contact me at info@FusionMarketingPartners.com if you have any questions.

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Last Updated: August 10, 2016 by Christopher Ryan

B2B Sales and Marketing Transformation

I just viewed a great online video that deserves its own blog post. The speaker is Barry Trailer, Chief Research Officer of CSO Insights (now a division of MHI Global) and the topic was the CSO 2016 Sales Best Practices Study Results. Barry and his colleague, Jim Dickie, have been following and reporting on the best practices and outcomes from sales organizations for over a decade. The information is always interesting and informative and as I will share below, it can help transform both the marketing and sales organizations.

As a B2B marketing professional, I make it a point to follow and understand what my clients (B2B sales organizations) are doing and thinking. This is important for you, as well. You may think of your customers as being the end users of your products or services, but in fact, if the sales team isn’t happy with you, life can be very unpleasant.

So what did Barry say that was so interesting? You can see for yourself, but here are four key takeaways that stood out for me:

1. 94% of world-class companies indicate that sales and marketing are aligned (vs. 34% of all respondents). To be sure, sales and marketing alignment is somewhat subjective; there are no hard and fast metrics that prove or disprove alignment. However, if you don’t have it, you know it, and it is definitely costing you revenue and productivity.

2. 84% of world-class companies have specific criteria as to what constitutes an acceptable prospect. This has been a recurring theme with CSO and Trailer. The lack of well-defined criteria causes many problems, including:

Lost opportunity as reps forgo qualified prospects because they spend so much time chasing unqualified prospects.
Missed quotas due to reps spending time on potential deals that are actually undoable.
Discouragement and burnout from what would otherwise be effective reps.
Failure to accurately forecast revenue, leading to all types of problems with the C-suite, partners, customers, analysts, etc. (especially for public companies).

Many marketing departments are great at the “quantity” aspects of their jobs. If the sales department says it needs X number of leads to make its number, marketing salutes and delivers X number of leads. However, if our colleagues who carry business cards with a “sales” title believe that what we are giving them is a bunch of non-qualified, uninterested and non-relevant tire kickers, it makes for an unproductive and tense relationship.

Granted, the sales folks may not know exactly what they want or may have unreasonable expectations – but it is better to be upfront and address the issue early than pretend it is going to work out downstream.

3. Life gets really good when you move up the value chain. When you can move the perception of how your clients see you from a vendor to that of a consultant, contributor or trusted advisor/partner, everything changes in your favor. The image below (sorry for the poor quality) shows the differences in how sales reps approach the account and what they bring to the table.

It requires a lot of mental energy and elbow grease to move up the value spectrum, but the rewards are great in terms of referrals, access, repeat business, trust and credibility. Equally important is what you will get less of: competition, sales cycle, price sensitivity and the importance of any particular feature.

Let’s use the last point as an example. If you are a trusted advisor/partner, contributor or consultant, it is great to not have the specter of your competitors coming out with a new feature that could cause your clients/customers to abandon you. Your higher-value relationship is a barrier that can prevent other companies from taking your revenue.

4. How you sell is more of a competitive differentiation than what you sell. You’ve probably heard this familiar refrain from salespeople and marketers alike: “Our product isn’t good enough to sell in this market,” or something like this. But the real problem may be that you are selling at the lower end of the value chain and being perceived as a commodity supplier, where sales cycles are long and price pressure is greatest. As Barry put in, the CSO definition of selling is “Establishing and elevating relationships over time.” Just remember the formula Elevated Relationships = More Revenue and More Profit.

In the spirit of not providing information without some practical application, let’s talk about what you and I should do as a result of these three takeaways:

Get aligned. If you want to be a world-class company, you need to do what 94% of them do: gain alignment between the marketing and sales organizations. For some relevant info on how to do this, read my article about marketing and sales alignment. Interestingly, this post was published four years ago and has an Olympic theme.
Get specific. While alignment is somewhat of a qualitative attribute (you know it when you experience it), you have to be very quantitative when it comes to establishing lead criteria. You need to create a service level agreement (SLA) that is specific about lead quantity + attributes.
Get close. By this, I mean that you should modify your marketing and selling processes to intentionally move up the value chain and get closer to your clients/customers. You may not be able to leapfrog levels – customers that now view you as a vendor may not instantly accept you as a contributor or partner – but you can begin the journey right now.

Any one of these three strategic actions can have a strong positive impact on your revenue and effectiveness. Combining all three can be transformational.

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