Big league pitcher Lefty Gomez is more famous for saying, “I’d rather be lucky than good”, than for the quality of his pitching. Unfortunately, many marketing and sales professionals have this same attitude. More than once, I have succumbed to the wish for more luck when in truth, it was something else I needed. A […]
The relationship between marketing and sales is so crucial to a company’s success yet it is often less than ideal. In my company, we get to work with a fair number of CMOs and CSOs and while they are usually great at their individual jobs, they need to work together well to drive the revenue […]
CEOs have likely already conferred with their leadership teams about how they will deliver sales- and marketing-fueled growth for this year and beyond. Yet while no successful leader submerges him or herself in the nuts and bolts, you must have a dashboard, even an informal one, for guiding your team, asking the right questions and […]
One of my favorite bloggers, Paul Castain, posted an excellent article titled The Patience/Urgency Conundrum in Sales on his Sales Playbook website. Using the “courtship” metaphor, Paul explains that sales relationships, just like romantic relationships, have a natural timing, and that it can sometimes be counterproductive to disrupt that timing by forcing the issue during […]
If you ask a dozen marketers and sales people for their definition of a qualified lead, you might hear answers ranging from “anyone that’s breathing” to “someone ready to buy today.” Obviously, there is a wide gulf between these two extremes, especially if the definitions come from people working at the same company. This issue […]