Rnordman

Sales is an extraordinarily difficult job. It requires a level of mental toughness that many cannot even fathom. Because it such a challenging role, salespeople deserve the best sales resources and tools to help them succeed. Yet, they don’t get them. In fact, today’s sales resources are sorely lacking.

Consider the centerpiece of any sales resource kit: the sales playbook. The sales playbook is a tale as old as time, and that’s exactly the problem. This time-honored tool is now dusty and dated. Yet it continues to be the main resource for many organizations. Let’s look at why this is, why it’s problematic, and learn about the powerful new sales resource that can transform the traditional playbook: data.

Two Problems with Traditional Sales Playbooks

1. They are anecdotal. Why is the traditional sales playbook ineffective? The main reason is that it is often based on anecdotes and myths from one person’s experience. Once upon a time, someone tried a certain template or a phrase in their email. They got a reply. They told others, and soon everyone started using it. And just like that, a new template got added to the playbook. Surely if everyone’s doing it, it must be good, right? Not necessarily.
2. They are non-transferrable. Let’s say, by some twist of fate, a play in a playbook really did work in your sales executive’s last organization. Time and time again, the same email was sent to your prospects in the pharmaceutical industry,  and it always got replies. So, of course, the same email will work in manufacturing, right? Wrong. Even successful plays are usually non-transferrable to other industries, so you end up starting from scratch once again.

Why Sales Playbooks Persist

Although the evidence against sales playbooks is compelling, it is also understandable why sales playbooks are so entrenched as the bedrock of many sales organizations. Sales executives have been relying on sales playbooks for decades, and we can see why.

For one thing, sales executives get judged on quarterly performance. This differentiates them from many other executive roles. One bad quarter, and they can be out the door. This harsh environment makes testing and experimenting with their playbook feel like a luxury most sales executives can’t afford–literally. Sure, it would be nice to try something new, but what if it doesn’t work? Many modern business organizations do not have the tolerance and the patience to let an experiment play out, or interest in sacrificing short-term gains for long-term gains, no matter how valuable those gains might be.

So really, it is a broken system that is to blame. We still need to ditch the traditional sales playbook in favor of a more effective approach, but we need to do so in a way that is realistic and doable for a modern sales organization.

Scientific and Realistic: A/B Testing is The Powerful Weapon That Every Modern Sales Playbook Needs

The good news? That approach is here. It’s called A/B testing, and it allows organizations to test performance of key sales communications in a low-risk, high-impact way that does not endanger their executive’s day jobs.

Why it works: it’s scientific and realistic.

A/B testing is scientific. Rather than relying on a single person’s experience, A/B testing analyzes a large sample of data (often hundreds or thousands of emails) to see which template really performed the best. This scientific approach creates a surefire, repeatable template for success, which in turn results in the Holy Grail for sales executives: predictable revenue.

A/B testing is fast. A/B testing can be executed quickly and you can get results in a short time. This method is swift and powerful, so a sales executive can draw definitive conclusions in no time and still be able to implement them in time to make the quarter’s number-or exceed them.

RELATED: How I Built a High-Performing Data Driven Sales Team [And How You Can Too]

Just Checking in one of the Most Popular Sales Playbook Tropes

As a data scientist, it is consistently exciting to witness the power of A/B testing. I have seen conventional wisdom debunked time and time again. Here is just one recent example. One of the most well known “best practices” in sales is to never contact prospects to “just check in”. For example, one article makes fun of the colleagues who use this expression, and sales managers even putt signs in the office to remind everyone to never use this phrase.

Every sales manager and executive we asked about it at Outreach said the same thing – never do it! It turned out, however, that there was one – just one – email template at Outreach that opened with “just checking in”. No one knew who created it, and everyone was shocked when the template had a 13% reply rate – an unexpectedly high number!

Intrigued, we then ran an A/B test to see if emails with “just checking in” were more successful than we thought. We selected our templates – all bumper e-mails, ie follow-ups on an initial cold e-mail, and simply added the phrase “just checking in” in the beginning, right after “Hi {{Name}}”. We ran the test for 4 weeks, accumulating over 2,000 emails in each group. What we found is that for each one of the templates the result was the same: the variant with ‘just checking in” consistently produced a higher reply rate, a statistically significant average increase of ~86% across the templates!

What is the takeaway from this story? Is it that we should all go and start adding “just checking in” to all our templates? Absolutely not! It is quite possible that in your scenario “just checking in” does not work. For example, another experiment we ran where we put “just checking in” into the subject line of our templates did not show any gains. The real lesson is to not trust “best practices” blindly.

Hey Data Geek; what about my 20 Years of Experience?

I know what you’re thinking: so my twenty years of experience counts for nothing? My decades of experience amount to just personal myths and anecdotes? Not at all. The tribal knowledge and best practices you’ve gleaned in your decades of business are an excellent starting point. The way to incorporate best practices is to use them as a hypothesis and conduct an A/B test to prove it out.

Once data validates that yes, just as you thought, prospects respond better to mentions of vanilla ice cream than chocolate (fake example: of course, chocolate is better), then you will know you are really on the right track. Either your idea will be validated (a great feeling) or you’ll learn something new that helps you sell better–either way, it’s a win/win.

In conclusion, no modern sales playbook is complete without a documented A/B testing process. By implementing this scientific, realistic weapon, you add a critical ingredient for a truly modern sales playbook, one that harnesses the power of data to create predictable revenue every time. Even I don’t need data to know that’s a game-changer.

The post Why You Should Throw Your Sales Playbook in the Trash (And What to Use Instead) appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Repairs for cars with advanced technologies could cost thousands more than for other cars

Every time I meet sales enablement and sales executives, I ask, “What are the critical skills you are focusing on training and developing your people on?

The answers are varied, but generally fall into very specific, and classic selling skills: Qualifying, questioning, listening, prospecting, objection handling, closing, call planning, deal planning, account planning, time/territory management, establishing rapport, communications styles, and so on.

These skills are important, in fact they are table stakes for all professional sales people.

But they are yesterday’s skills and insufficient in working with tomorrow’s buyers.

Going back to those conversations with sales executives, I usually follow that initial question with, “What are you doing to train your people in curiosity, what about critical thinking and problem solving? Have you considered project management, consensus building, facilitation, change management, systems thinking? And then there is the perennial, business acumen. It’s been on my list for decades, but I don’t see many organizations addressing this, despite tremendous resources being available.

By now, about 70% of the people are looking at me cross-eyed, inevitably thinking, “Those aren’t selling skills, what’s this guy talking about?

Hmmm, it’s interesting, those aren’t selling skills, but there are more than selling skills that are critical to being a high performing sales person. Why are so many limiting their thinking to selling skills and not looking at the skills critical to sales success?

About 25% respond, “We’re struggling with things like value creation, communication, delivery. Or they may site specific programs like Insight or Challenger Selling.”

These are important and can be game changing. The problem is, without a foundation curiosity, critical thinking, consensus building, problem solving, and so forth, it’s really difficult to apply these approaches effectively.

Then there’s the 5%. These are the organizations with consistent high performance. These are the people looking at where the buyers are going–or where they need to be going. These are the organizations that recognize customers struggle to buy, so they can create great value in helping the customers navigate their own problem solving/buying processes.

It’s no wonder that we see a widening gap in sales performance. Year after year, the percent of people making plan declines. Year after year, the chasm between buyers and sellers increases.

A large part of this is we are focusing on yesterday’s skills, but not developing the capabilities to create great value for tomorrow’s buyers.

If you are a sales enablement professional, or a sales executive, perhaps you need to rethink your priorities. If you are a sales professional, committed to your own professional development, recognize that all the skills you need to be successful in selling are not selling skills. Look beyond these and start learning the skills critical to your success.

For as much focus marketers put into the “customer journey,” very few consumers ever consider themselves actually engaged in one. While brands dutifully attempt to monitor their activity across marketing channels and tactics, consumers merely want to purchase products and services that meet their needs and enjoy a buying experience that is relevant, convenient, and friction free.

In this world where specific channels and tactics matter far less than the overall consumer experience, identity resolution has emerged as a way to create competitive advantage. Identity resolution is the discipline of recognizing individuals across channels and devices, and associating them with information used for marketing and advertising. It’s the foundation that fuels a people-based marketing and measurement strategy. By knowing who they are interacting with, marketers can tailor their activities in a way that drives both the behaviors and business outcomes they care about most.

While identity resolution can help drive the bottom line, it also offers several other tangible benefits to the marketing organization.

Deduplication

More than one-third (33 percent) of Americans live in a household with three or more smartphones, and nearly one-in-five households (18 percent) contain 10 or more devices. More than 79 percent of those consumers switch devices mid-activity, and nearly four out of five pre-research their buys online before making a purchase in-store.

This multi-device, cross-channel journey makes identity management a requirement for marketing success. If marketers can’t map individuals across their various devices or bridge the gap between digital and physical worlds, it’s impossible to optimize their efforts to drive different online and offline success criteria or effectively manage the total consumer experience.

Identity resolution combines a consumer’s cookie ID, device ID, and offline ID into a single anonymous identifier, so marketers can de-duplicate unique users and monitor the entire consumer journey from end-to-end. With this insight, marketers can target their customers and prospects on their preferred channels or device, at every stage of their journey.

Audience Understanding

De-duplicating consumers across channels and devices provides critical insights that marketers can use to improve the consumer experience. But making every touchpoint count requires more than just knowing where consumers are—it also means understanding their interests, needs, and preferences.

By linking anonymous, unique IDs with demographic, intent, interest, and other audience attribute data, marketers can create robust consumer profiles and audience segments that can be used to facilitate more precise targeting and deliver more relevant, personalized content, and offers.

Improved Performance

To optimize marketing effectiveness, marketers need to know how their marketing and media is driving engagement, leads, conversions, sales and other desired results. Identity resolution, paired with multi-touch attribution, gives marketers unmatched insight into the creative messages and experiences that resonate with different audiences. Marketers can use this insight to uniquely tailor their tactics for each target audience, and optimize their spend within and across channels to maximize business results.

The Bottom Line

As consumer expectations have risen, marketers have had to adapt to ensure the most effective messages reach the right people at the right time. Identity resolution delivers the holistic view of each consumer that marketers need to create personalized, relevant campaigns. Combined with multi-touch attribution, marketers can yield actionable intelligence into the strategies and tactics that influence a specific audience, so they can optimize budgets, experiences, and business results.

Originally published here.

The ultimate goal of personalization as it relates to marketing has always been to individualize selling at scale. That is, we should be able to use technology to have one-to-one conversations with the entire possible market for our products.

In email, we have always been able to personalize content to some extent. But it is no longer enough to insert your prospect’s name into a mass message. That used to pass for personalization. Now it looks like a cheap gimmick. Nobody really thinks Barack Obama took the time to write me an email, even though it begins with “Zach,”.

(Also, just because it carries his signature and includes his name in the “From” field, doesn’t mean that Barack Obama had anything to do with that email. But that’s for a different post.)

The new rules of email personalization are more complex. In part, this is because the technology has advanced to the point that advanced personalization is now possible. And in part, this is also because smart marketers have led the way and shown what personalization at scale can look like.

In marketers’ never-ending quest to improve conversion rates, it behooves us to better understand the expectations, the possibilities, and the potential impact of this new and improved approach to personalization.

Personalized Content

Personalizing content means writing for individuals rather than trying to craft a one-size-fits-all message that you send to your entire email list. It means tailoring a specific message that you expect to resonate with each subscriber or customer, based on what you already know about them.

Let’s look at an example. Say you have a customer on your mailing list, Susan, who regularly shops with your ecommerce store. Based on the data you have collected, you know that Susan is a working mother of young children who does most of her shopping at the office. And in the past, she has responded to messaging around products and services designed to help simplify customers’ lives.

You might tailor messaging to Susan that you know will resonate with her as a busy professional with demands on her time in and out of the home. This type of messaging might not be right for the rest of your mailing list, but for Susan it is more likely to lead to a sale.

Whether you use different headlines, subject lines, imagery, or full body content, almost every email marketing platform today allows you to build customized content; essentially create different versions of your email based on any number of attributes in your customer database.

Personalized Offers

We are past the days of sending the same mass discount email to everyone on your customer list. We know, because the data tells us, that different offers work to generate sales from different types of customers.

That’s where personalized offers come into play. The aforementioned Susan isn’t a discount shopper. She is willing to pay up for products that truly impact her life. But maybe another customer on your mailing list, Marc, is more of a value hunter. He is looking for bargains, and is willing to wait to get a good deal.

If your goal is to generate the as many sales as you can (and it should be) than there is no reason to send the same offers to both Susan and Marc. Instead, you can customize which products and services they receive emails about, and which promotions are made available to them.

Personalized Timing

One of the biggest questions I used to get asked is, “when is the best time to send my emails?” In fact, it still is one of the more common inquiries I get.

But the answer has changed over time. And now, the answer is simple. Send the email to each person when they are most likely to open it and take action.

This is data you have if you’ve emailed these people before. A tool called Send Time Optimization comes standard with many email marketing platforms. It will send your email to each subscriber at a different time, based on when they have opened and clicked on your emails (and others) in the past.

Even without this feature, you can segment your list in any number of ways for better timing – based on time of day or day of week demonstrated in past purchase behavior, by geographic location and time zone, etc.

You no longer have to guess when your subscribers are most likely to respond to an email. You know.

Brian Sullivan, VP of Enterprise Selling, and Mike Montague, VP of Online Learning discuss the challenges of selling into large organizations and how to overcome them in this Facebook Live session.

First in a three-part series on how Canada’s heavy regulatory burden is choking competitiveness.

Ask Jean-Francois Boursier about running a business under Canadian regulations and he will likely tell you a tale of two paint shops.

ADF Group Inc., where Boursier is chief financial officer, needed to build identical painting facilities on either side of the border: one at its steel fabricating plant in Terrebonne, Que., and the other in Great Falls, Mont.

The approval process for the Montana project kicked off in 2016 and it was authorized a year later. The Quebec shop was a different story.

“Between the time we started and the time we ended up with our final environmental permit was about two years,” Boursier said. “These are twin paint shops — the two of them, identical, built at roughly the same time. I’d say we paid between a half-million and a million dollars more in Quebec on a $9-million investment. That’s not counting the frustration.”

• Ontario now has the worst regulatory burden of all. Here’s how to fix that
• U.S. capital spending write-offs — not tax cuts — creating ‘unequal playing field’: Morneau
• Oil executives complain about Canada’s competitiveness gap as crude discounts widen

Much of the recent debate about Canada’s competitiveness has focused on whether Ottawa should chase U.S. corporate tax reductions by slashing its own rates. But Boursier’s tale illustrates a less often considered, but growing concern about their respective regulatory frameworks — the mass of government rules that protect the public when they’re working well, but unnecessarily hinder business development, supply chains and operations when they’re not.

“Canadian businesses have a very legitimate issue on tax competitiveness, but we don’t just compete on taxation right? We also compete via regulation,” said Craig Alexander, Deloitte Canada’s chief economist. “And in Canada, we have significant areas where regulation is impeding competitiveness.”

Fixing those regulations is a longstanding problem that some say assumed greater urgency after U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a package of measures he touted as “the most far-reaching regulatory reform in history.”

One of Trump’s first actions as president was to establish a “one in, two out” policy, ordering agencies to cut two regulations for every new one introduced, and to offset the cost of that new regulation. The U.S. also created reform task forces in all federal departments charged with evaluating existing rules and making recommendations regarding their repeal, replacement or modification.

The resulting cuts have saved US$23 billion in costs, according to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

Yet many of Trump’s regulatory rollbacks — particularly those that weaken protections for wildlife, air quality and groundwater supplies — have raised grave concerns about the long-term impact on the public.

“If Trump’s regulations are harmful to the public interest, it might not be the case that you want to match them, because they aren’t necessarily where Canada wants to go,” said Alexander, who points to the 2008 financial crisis as a “great example” of where weak U.S. regulations contributed to a major economic catastrophe.

“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things we should be trying to do, because when you take all the different sources and put them together, you get a picture that says Canada is facing a real challenge on regulatory competitiveness,” he said.

Indeed, Canada this week fell four spots to No. 22 on the World Bank’s latest Ease of Doing Business Index, which measures the impact of regulations in 190 economies in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

Dig a little deeper and the drag becomes clear: Canada compares well in terms of access to credit and the ease of starting a business, but its performance takes a steep decline to No. 63 in terms of “dealing with construction permits” and No. 50 in “trading across borders.”

Similar concerns surface in the World Economic Forum’s 2018 global competitiveness index. Despite an overall 12th place ranking on favourable views of Canada’s labour market and macroeconomic stability, the country plunges to No. 53 when it comes to the “burden of government regulation,” down from No. 38 the year before.

One of the key challenges in reshaping Canada’s regulatory regime stems from the way rule-making powers have been distributed between federal and provincial governments.

Unlike the U.S., where more power is held at the federal level, Canada’s status as a federation means regulatory control is spread between Ottawa and the provinces. That dynamic makes Canada’s key regulatory challenges — including the removal of inter-provincial trade barriers — and the remedies required to fix them particularly tricky, analysts say.

Decades of provincial rule-making have created a “tyranny of small variances” in regulations that affect trucking standards, food packaging and labelling, trade in beer and wine, and securities regulation, according to a May report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

For trucking companies, Canada’s cross-country patchwork of rules governing permissible weights, speed limitations and driver hours complicates operations and denies companies a level playing field, said David Carruth, chief executive of Milton, Ont.-based One for Freight and incoming chair of the Ontario Trucking Association.

For example, rules regarding the number of hours a driver can stay on the road without stopping to rest differ between Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, he said. Furthermore, Ontario and Quebec require licensed trucks to have “mandatory speed limiters” — devices that restrict speeds to 105 km/hr — while other provinces do not.

“Mandatory speed limiters are safer, better for fuel consumption, better for carbon emissions,” Carruth said. “But we’re competing with carriers in other parts of the country and in the U.S. who don’t have speed limiters on their trucks. There’s a lot of good rules there, but we need a national standard.”

Scrapping or streamlining such differences could be a game changer for the economy since internal trade accounts for almost a fifth — or $370 billion — of Canada’s annual GDP.

Removing barriers could boost annual output up to two-tenths of a percentage point, according to Bank of Canada estimates — about as much as is expected to result from the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

A “harmonize or justify approach,” in which provinces must explain why their standards need to be different, is one way to “hold feet to the fire” and address issues of regulatory duplication and overlap, said Grant Bishop, associate director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute.

“Harmonization between our provinces on regulatory standards is the real way to unleash Canadian competitiveness, with the federal government ideally playing a supportive, but assertive role to bring that competition together,” he said.

Governments and businesses broadly agree on the need to ease the regulatory burden, particularly at a time when rising trade barriers are creating new challenges for businesses.

The federal government announced a “one for one” regulatory rule in 2015 — in which one rule must be removed for every new one introduced — and will hold a first ministers meeting in late November or early December that will focus on easing internal trade barriers.

Federal, provincial and municipal governments also ratified the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) last year in an attempt to resolve inter-provincial differences, though analysts and business groups say progress has been slow.

“Without strong top-down leadership pressure, we remain skeptical that officials and regulators will on their own through this agreement achieve significant action,” said Ryan Greer, lead analyst on regulatory issues at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

“It’ll take a lot of pressure from the provinces and the prime minister to take advantage of this new tool and show the business community that things will be different this time. We think it’s positive it’s happening, but what matters is what comes after.”

Getting Canada’s regulatory house in order would add a degree of clarity for domestic businesses as well as for international investors, who are already grappling with foreign investment rules that have been a “great point of uncertainty for competitors entering the Canadian marketplace,” Bishop said.

For instance, Canada imposes unusually strict ownership restrictions on sectors such as telecommunications and banking compared to international standards, according to an OECD survey. The Investment Canada Act is also unusual among countries in that it requires foreign investors to show a “net benefit” to the country when buying a domestic company.

Various incidents this year — including the decision to halt the purchase of Aecon Group Inc. by a Chinese state-owned entity and the upheaval surrounding the Trans Mountain pipeline — have led to calls for more transparency on foreign direct investment rules and the government’s duty to consult Indigenous peoples.

“Instead of having companies prove a net benefit, I’d like to have a world where government has to show net harm to the economy,” Alexander said, noting that clear policies on investments by state-owned enterprises are also required. “If we could clear up that, we might actually make it more attractive for companies to look at Canada and say, ‘Boy, that’s a place I’d like to invest.’”

Organizations such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce point to international examples for inspiration on how to turn things around.

For example, Denmark’s Business Forum for Better Regulation — a group of industry, labour and professional organizations assembled in 2012 — is charged with suggesting rule changes that the government must either accept or give reasons for refusing.

By 2016, the Danish government had adopted 308 recommendations, either fully or partially, for savings of $168 million, according to an OECD report.

Others say reforming regulations begins with the fundamental task of improving the collection of data necessary to identify cases of regulatory overlap and duplication.

Introduced in 2014, the federal government’s Administrative Burden Baseline (ABB) requires governments to establish a count of the number of regulations imposed on business.

But the number of regulations is only part of the picture for Canadian businesses. The ABB does not provide information on the intensity of those burdens or how they correlate to rules issued at other levels of government, analysts say.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t reduce it,” Greer said. “There’s no magic bullet, of course, but any political effort to reduce regulatory burden has to start with a measure of what’s actually there. Otherwise, that cumulative burden just builds up.”

Financial Post

• Email: npowell@nationalpost.com | Twitter: naomi_powell

In marketing, there are widely regarded experts who advocate for the same methods, ad infinitum. Why question what’s widely known? Famous Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur, Peter Thiel, begs a very significant question, “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

It’s difficult to swim up the intellectual stream, hypothetically speaking, and challenge the status quo. We found a question up for debate when calculating customer lifetime value, the estimate of how long a single customer will remain a loyal patron.

Many people default to calculating customer lifetime value with gross revenues, not profit. This may seem like a trivial difference when considering the calculation of customer lifetime value is a projection and not based in fact. We argue that profit margins should be considered when estimating CLV, but first, what other factors contribute to customer lifetime value?

How to Calculate Customer Lifetime Value

CLV = Average Value of Sale × Number of Transactions × Retention Time Period

Typically expressed as total revenue, it can be argued that this equation needs another component — profit margin.

CLV = Average Value of Sale × Number of Transactions × Retention Time Period × Profit Margin

Why Express Customer Lifetime Value as Profit?

There are many factors that contribute to a company’s bottom line. The revenue obviously represents the top line figure which is then subsequently strained by the costs of doing business. Unfortunately, no cost structure is ever safe from the effects of macroeconomics.

Prices of raw materials, utilities, and labor are all subject to change. Why then would you calculate the lifetime value of customers without taking profit margin into consideration?

This also represents the actual financial gain that can be expected from a customer in the long term. Customer lifetime value can also signal how viable current spending on customer acquisition is. If, for example, the cost to acquire a customer was $100 and you calculated CLV as $200, in terms of revenue, you might feel secure in your business model.

Recalculating CLV after reading this article you discover your profit margin cut this number down to only $80. So, you’ve been spending $100 to acquire a customer, but only estimate you will make back $80 over the life of the average customer. This is the sign of a business model doomed to fail.

In the visual below, we recommend expressing customer lifetime value in terms of real earnings and includes tips to increase your customer lifetime value.

CEO’s today must integrate sales into their culture if they want a healthy organization. In fact, they must lead, inspire, train, coach every employee about their critical role if they don’t want their company left for dead.

Rate your organization to see how it stacks up. You have a scary sales culture if:

1. Sales is a “dirty” word for most employees

If any member of your team cringes when asked if they are in sales, you have a problem.

2. Sales and Marketing are at odds with each other

Let’s be clear: Sales success depends upon marketing success. Power comes in working together to map the buying process and the role each department plays. Understanding the difference between a Marketing Qualified Lead and a Sales Qualified Lead will help define appropriate actions around each. Focus on the result – a closed deal.

3. Accounting, Operations and Product Development complain about the sales team

It’s easy to get upset at your sales reps, but they only get paid when they sell, and your company only makes money when they sell, so what is your team doing to support sales and remove internal roadblocks?

4. Only salespeople go to networking events

If everyone in your company thinks that networking is the sole responsibility of the sales team, your company is missing huge opportunities. The culture must shift so that everyone in the company is part of the sales team. Each employee must be able to articulate what you sell, your value proposition, and how to hand a lead over to sales.

5. Your company is focused on selling instead of buying

Are you focused on quotas, close dates and making sure you hit your numbers instead of why people want to buy from you, and what makes that process easier for them? If you are, you are slowing down your sales process. Turn the focus to the customer.  Understand what they want, how they want to buy and how you can help them.

6. You hire salespeople who can “Sell Ice in the Arctic”

If they don’t need ice in the Arctic, you shouldn’t be selling it there. Focus your efforts on customers who want what you sell. Focus on solving problems and building life-long relationships. The more you focus on finding the customers that want what you need the faster the sales process will be, the more repeat business you will get and the more referrals you will get.

7. If there is a problem, customers always call sales first

If your customers call sales first when they have a problem, it is because they don’t have relationships with the people in your company who should be helping them. Sales reps develop trusting relationships during the sales process, the rest of the team needs to find a way to establish credibility. If you want happy customers who buy more and refer new customers, your team needs to take responsibility for building relationships.

8. You cut prices to bring in sales early

When sales leaders get worried about hitting numbers, they cut prices. Often, that will make year-end numbers look good, but will cut into overall profits. Setting the precedence for year-end price-cuts makes a sales rep’s job that much harder next year. Instead, start paying attention to the top of the funnel. Make sure you have enough leads moving through that you won’t have to push deals to close early.

9. Sales managers blame sales reps for not hitting their goals

If there are only one or two sales reps, not hitting goal, there is a mismatch between your employee you hired and the job you need them to do. If most or all of your sales reps aren’t hitting their goals, there is something very wrong with your sales culture. Look at leadership and figure out how they can help support the sales team.

10. Employees complain about customers

Chances are you have customers who aren’t ideal, but that doesn’t mean your employees get to complain! Instead, it’s a sign of a deeper problem rooted in selling to the wrong customers. (Pssst; contact me about a better-targeted sales strategy.) If you can’t fix the relationship, sever it respectfully and stop the war of “us” vs. “them.”

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What else makes a scary sales culture? I’d love to hear your thoughts, leave a comment below.

The post Want a World-Class Organization? Scare Away These Top 10 Signs that Your Culture is Terrified of Sales appeared first on Alice Heiman, LLC.

In July 2018, I had a chance to speak in Rancho Palo Verdes at the NBJ Summit. I think I would move to the area given the opportunity. It’s a wonderful oasis in between the [INSERT ADJECTIVE/S HERE] of Southern California and the serenity of a beachside community.

Before walking off stage, I noticed a graphic recording by The Sketch Effect off to my left. I missed it during my presentation, but was more than curious about what was captured following the event. Then, like all of us, I got busy. I forgot all about it until I found a rare moment when I could dig through past emails. And, there it was! It was interesting after all this time, to revisit the conversation, what I hoped to communicate and what the artist captured.

I was impressed and I wanted to share their work with you here.

It almost looks like a board game you can play right now, representing the journey we must all take in understanding and engaging a new generation of customers and employees.

There’s a new normal. There’s a new market based on this new normal. I refer to these customers as Generation-C (connected). It’s not based on age, it’s rooted in a connected lifestyle.

Digital Darwinism represents the evolution of society and technology. Generation-C represents the rising market in an era of digital Darwinism. Their behaviors, expectations and values introduce a “new” normal. Their center of reference is evolved and it operates away from the norms of everyday businesses. It (they) also represents the core of human-centered design in all of our work to stay relevant, deliver value and discover ways to innovate.

This is a time where a new mindset, value proposition, service models and products are before us. It’s an opportunity to not only improve what exists, how we work  and what we can do better, but also learn, unlearn and introduce new value for a new generation of customers (and employees).

The magic happens when we step outside of our comfort zone. But there’s less magic to it when you take a look behind the curtain. It’s really a matter of perspective and thinking and acting differently. To unleash this magic starts with setting aside legacy perspectives and our fortified beliefs based on past experiences. To innovate, to introduce new value, to see what we didn’t or couldn’t see before, takes looking at the world through a lens of possibility.

I always say that if you’re waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you’re on the wrong side of innovation. That’s the thing about the future…it’s unwritten. No matter how many books and reports exist visualizing new possibilities, someone has to lead the way. Someone has to have a vision and passion to challenge conventions and take new risks. Someone has to take the steps in new directions.

Why can’t that be you?

I’m curious to hear what you see in this image and how your journey is playing out. We’re in this together.

_____

Brian Solis

Brian Solis is principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, the digital analyst group at Prophet, Brian is world renowned keynote speaker and 7x best-selling author. His latest book, X: Where Business Meets Design, explores the future of brand and customer engagement through experience design.

Please, invite him to speak at your event or bring him in to inspire colleagues and fellow executives/boards.

Connect with Brian!

Twitter: @briansolis
Facebook: TheBrianSolis
LinkedIn: BrianSolis
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The post The Magic of Creativity and Innovation Happens Outside of Your Comfort Zone appeared first on Brian Solis.

Summary: You may have heard of persona-based emails, but are you using the technique for all it’s worth? Make sure you know your audience members and send them the type of content that will keep them coming back.

At least 69 percent of businesses invest significant time and money into email marketing, according to a recent survey by business news website The Manifest. But without an engaging, persona-based approach, many of them might just be spinning their wheels on lead generation. Crafting and targeting emails to personas boosts click-through and conversion rates more than 10 percent and drives 18 times more revenue than broadcast-style emails. In short, it’s important that marketers stay on target.

The need to create personalized marketing messages isn’t new; it grew as a natural extension of the dot-com boom. The more time people spent online, the more crucial it was for advertisers to directly serve ads relevant to them. Before the boom, buyer personas were defined as researched and modeled representations of who buyers are, including their goals and how those goals drive their buying decisions. In other words, what do they want?

After more consumers started buying everything online, that definition evolved and expanded to include how they think and react and how their behavior influences those buying decisions. In other words, why do they want what they want?

Before long, there were enough users with internet access that innovators started focusing on user demographics and spinning them into personas. Naturally, marketers began customizing their regularly scheduled programming according to their users’ habits. But unlike the advertising channels that came before it, the internet was a much better platform for having direct conversations with buyers.

Internet marketers didn’t have to wait for commercials to speak to their buyers — they had their “addresses.” Instead of sending paper materials destined for the trashcan, marketers had a direct channel to buyers who could instantly respond if they liked an ad enough.

Even in the internet sphere, fundamental marketing rules always apply: The better your message, the more engaged your audience. Fundamental sales rules apply, too: The more context you provide about the problems your product solves, the more likely your audience will buy it.

Making Persona-Based Marketing Feel Fresh

In some ways, it feels like persona-based emails are still relatively new. Prospect data is becoming ubiquitous, and as it does, organizations get smarter about personalizing their messages for lead generation.

In other ways, the approach has already started to go stale. So many organizations use simple customizations these days that it’s become less of a differentiator. Consumers get it: You know how to put their first names in an email subject line.

Now, buyers recognize these simple tactics and run. But innovative marketers are starting to refine persona-based tactics with the help of machine learning and AI. Using natural language processing and generation, they can create more engaging and personalized email subject lines than most humans can.

But it isn’t the technology that sets them apart so much as how companies focus it — by creating engaging content, intelligently consolidating and creatively using prospect data (the more granular, the better), and leveraging data science to measure campaign performance.

Instead of guessing what made the last campaign work or fail, sticking to these factors makes personalized messaging a completely data-driven cycle. Constantly testing, iterating, refining, and learning means the next campaign always performs better than the last.

RELATED:  How to Personalize Your Outbound Approach According to Your Market and Persona

Maximizing Buyer Personas to Grow the Conversation

To successfully speak to your buyers’ personas, the most important first step is to segment your audience using highly limited variables. Even if your buyers all have similar problems, they don’t share the same needs and preferences. Segmenting your buyers allows you to speak in a context that reaches each one more personally.

For example, your email to a veteran IT director with 30 years of experience in the manufacturing field shouldn’t sound the same as the one you send to an up-and-coming software developer. Avoid defaulting to a vague list of bullet points. Instead, speak to each prospect as though he or she were sitting in front of you. Start by using these strategies:

1. Invest in great content.

The volume of email content exported by marketers increased 18 percent between 2016 and 2017, raising the total emails to 30 billion in 2017 alone. Consumers receive more emails than ever before, so to attract positive customer attention, you must create top-notch email content. Therefore:

• DO: Hire a skilled writer. It might seem expensive on the front end, but content is the backbone of your persona-based campaign. Therefore, great content pays dividends. Find skilled writing talent who can combine several writing strategies and can appeal to several personas. It can be tough to master one, much less several, so what seems like a high initial cost is actually one of your most important investments.

• DON’T: Get too personal in emails. Personalize the content with more than just the buyer’s name — but don’t get too personal, or the email might seem creepy. You won’t get the kind of attention you want if the consumer suspects you’re spying on her. To wit, 15 percent of online customers find too much personalization in marketers’ emails annoying. Be authentic and intentional, but use personal details sparingly.

2. Get to know your audience.

To influence your customers’ buying decisions, you have to first understand how they make those decisions. To engage them, you have to first understand their fears, desires, goals, and motivators, and then you must make them feel valued. Therefore:

• DO: Research personas thoroughly. Invest as much in qualitative research on buyer personas as you do in content generation. Qualitative research into the opinions and behaviors of buyers helped 82 percent of companies exceed their revenue goals in 2016. Nearly 70 percent of companies that came up short neglected such research, according to Cintell’s 2016 B2B benchmark study.

• DON’T: Overdo it. Knowing your buyers personally is essential to creating in-depth, personalized messages, but don’t overpersonalize the message in obvious ways. As I mentioned, buyers know that you know their first names, so using it four times in one email won’t make them feel any more valued. Get creative in how you use data, and use it intentionally.

3. Use data to your advantage.

Today’s marketplace runs on data, and much of it can help your business succeed if used properly. By A/B testing and analyzing data on your past email marketing campaigns, you can empower yourself to constantly improve. Therefore:

• DO: Always measure and test your results. Tracking results seems like a no-brainer, but it’s actually common for organizations to measure everything and then fail to test benchmarks against each other. In fact, in Litmus’ 2018 State of Email poll, marketers named a lack of data integration and low visibility into email performance among their biggest challenges. Your audience is changing, and you should, too — but only when open and reply rates show that something is worth scaling or eliminating.

• DON’T: Take on too much at once. Always be testing and measuring, but don’t try to focus on 10 variables at once. You’ll benefit more by mastering one variable at a time. Start with the subject line, then the preview text, then the call to action, and so on until you get the hang of it. Once you perfect these, each variable will work together to create a message much greater than the sum of its parts.

While the concept of persona-based marketing isn’t exactly new, the technology, media, and entire landscape of consumerism is constantly evolving. As they change, adopting these lead generation strategies and avoiding the pitfalls will help you maintain conversations and relationships with your customers. Simply engaging in email marketing isn’t enough; to reach email’s full potential, you have to take a persona-based approach.

The post Persona-Based Email Marketing Is on the Rise: Here’s How to Stay Ahead of the Curve appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Performance marketing brings brands, networks, and affiliates together to drive more traffic and conversions for brand campaigns. While many brands and performance agencies enjoy successful and mutually beneficial relationships, affiliate fraud has left the industry with a black eye.

Many say that the bad old days of shady affiliate marketing is waning, but it takes more than talk to instill confidence in your partners. In order to rebuild trust with brands and other partners, we must not only acknowledge the issues we face, but actively work to detect, fight, and prevent affiliate fraud.

Here we will go over what affiliate fraud is, what it isn’t, and how to spot the five most common types of affiliate fraud. Want to learn how to stop affiliate fraud also? Download The Affiliate Fraud Prevention Playbook to see how you can fight and prevent affiliate fraud to build trust with your partners, create successful pay-per-call programs, and be a part of creating a new era of confidence in performance marketing.

What is Affiliate Fraud?

As you know, pay-per-call is an advertising model where an advertiser pays an affiliate commission for calls driven that meet specific conditions. These conditions can include caller region, time of call, and total talk time, as well as methods used like paid search and directory listings.

Affiliate fraud occurs when an affiliate or publisher purposely drives fake leads that violate any part of the contract in order to receive payment unjustly. This includes mimicking the advertiser’s required conditions in exchange for payment or violating the allowable methods to drive traffic.

Don’t Confuse Invalid Leads With Fraud

Not every lead that an affiliate generates is going to a good fit to become a customer. While getting 100 percent perfect leads would be awesome, you’ll always get some invalid leads with the good ones. The important thing here is to differentiate between fraudulent leads and invalid leads. Affiliates cannot be held accountable for a reasonable number of invalid leads, and since they’re not malicious, the affiliate is entitled to payment.

Five Common Types of Affiliate Fraud

Typical affiliate fraud methods come in four different but equally unsavory flavors. Let’s take a look at each type.

Unauthorized Sources

Advertisers define the acceptable media channels through which an affiliate can drive traffic. These sources may include but are not limited to: Email, paid search (keyword bidding), display, social, print ads, radio, and warm transfers.

Any lead driven outside of the approved media channel is considered a fraudulent lead. While the lead may be technically legitimate, the buyer may not want leads from social, for example, and would be under no obligation to pay for them. As an example, some brands prohibit affiliates from brand name keyword bidding as it interferes with their own campaigns, so even if an affiliate drives a quality lead through that source, they should not be paid out and the call is considered fraudulent.

Stolen Credit Card

Stolen credit card numbers are a classic but persistent method of defrauding performance marketing customers. With a pile of stolen credit card numbers, a shady affiliate can impersonate consumers to buy the product or service from the advertiser in order to receive a commission from the sale driven.

When the real consumer disputes the charge, the credit card company reverts payment from the advertiser, but the bad affiliate keeps their payment. This type of fraud is most prevalent in cost-per-acquisition (CPA) campaigns that require payment from the consumer before the affiliate receives a commission. It can be difficult to spot right away as it takes most advertisers 30 days to receive a dispute. By then, the affiliate will probably be in the wind.

Account Selling

Agreements between advertisers and affiliates are between specific organizations. If an affiliate has a good reputation, quality relationships, and solid commissions, another affiliate may want to impersonate them by buying their online accounts. There are online marketplaces that facilitate the sale of pre-activated affiliate accounts to a specific advertiser or network.

Since advertisers set up agreements with specific affiliates, buying an account to impersonate the established affiliate is a breach of conditions.

Mystery Shopper

Also known as incentive traffic, bad affiliates will impersonate or hire others to impersonate interested buyers in order to meet the advertiser’s requirements and receive a commission. These callers sound interested, provide information, and stay on calls for believable durations.

Mystery shoppers are some of the worst offenders on performance campaigns and can be very difficult to catch.

Many of the “mystery shoppers” are hired through Craigslist ads, emails, and recruiting sites, and the people making the calls are completely unaware that they are part of a scam, so they take what they are doing seriously. Some are actually paid by the affiliate, but most figure out that they made a bad move when the check for their “mystery shopping” duties never arrives.

Preventing and Fighting Affiliate Fraud

Given the history of fraud in performance marketing and the suspicions that brands may have about the industry, it’s tempting to put your head in the sand and quietly fight the baddies. In order to rebuild the reputation of the industry and instill trust in your partners past, present, and future, it’s time to face the beast head on and show that you’re doing everything in your power to fight it.

Download The Affiliate Fraud Prevention Playbook to learn how to prevent and fight affiliate fraud and how you can use your fraud fighting superpowers to build better relationships with brands and affiliates.

The following is a guest post by Anand Thaker, CEO of IntelliPhi and my collaborator on the marketing technology landscape for the past two years.

Scott and I are always on the lookout for inspirational ways for the community to leverage the massive martech landscape to share new insights, recommendations, and commentary.

I’m a strong believer in talent, relationships, data, and growth investment. Through a collaboration with Nudge.ai, I’ve developed an interesting perspective on martech through that lens. We produced a series of rankings that showcase martech companies with the strongest networks.

But first, a little bit of context on relationships and trust.

Why Relationships and Trust Matter

If you look across the sales org, the evidence strongly suggests that trust is now the key determinant of success. 84% of B2B decision makers start their purchase with a referral – an obvious starting point of trust.

Salesforce has shown that high-performing sales teams are re-organizing accordingly. High performance sales teams are 2.8x more likely than underperforming teams to say their sales organizations have become much more focused on personalizing customer interactions over the past 12–18 months — in order to build trust and earn referrals.

At the same time, 79% of business buyers say it’s absolutely critical or very important to interact with a salesperson who is a trusted advisor — not just a sales rep — who adds value to their business.

Business should take note and take action because building trust and strong relationships often requires collaboration across teams more than any other approach. In a relationship-focussed market, the ability for organizations to use their networks to connect and develop trust becomes a key, strategic asset. And as more organizations practice cross-collaboration, the interdependence of teams — particularly sales and marketing — becomes critical.

It’s the growing importance of trusted relationships in sales and marketing that sparked my interest to investigate the strength of companies’ networks, in this case, within martech.

Process for Ranking Relationship Network Strengths

The idea came from a successful investment thesis that I’ve been using for the last decade: brands with stronger communities and deeper connectivity deliver the best valuations.

Many research studies demonstrate that the companies with the broadest networks improve access to talent, sales, capital, and investment returns. So far, this type of analysis has led to better investment ROI, improved tech selection, and overall better customer service for clients, investors, and professionals.

We began with the general list from our latest list of the Martech 5,000. We then imported select categories into Nudge.ai and let the algorithms fly!

We call the output “Most Connected Martech.”

Being “most connected” is more than simply having someone in your Rolodex. Relationship strength builds over time with each interaction — and likewise, it decays if a relationship is left alone for a long time. Great networkers know this instinctively, and actively work to start new relationships, build passing acquaintances into strong relationships, and maintain old relationships.

The Most Connected analysis reflects the value of networks and looks at the number, strength, and distribution of relationships that people in a company hold. We then ranked the companies with the strongest connections to the outside world. Relationships are calculated using anonymized, aggregate data from Nudge.ai.

Nudge.ai’s relationship intelligence calculates the number of relationships considered in the context of both “active” and “strong” relationships. Active relationships relationships require some level of back and forth, and strong relationships are those with a regular amount of dialogue. Strength is measured by calculating frequency, duration, and consistency of back and forth through communications including email, phone, meetings, and other CRM-tracked activities.

Relationships where parties lose touch are accounted for using a relationship decay algorithm. And it also considers whether a company only has a well-networked sales team versus having strong relationships across their organization to the outside world.

So, onto the lists. After a bit of polishing, here are the results (click to see them)…

• BI & Data Science
• CDP
• ABM
• Bots & Live Chat
• Content Marketing
• CRM
• Customer Experience
• Display & Programmatic Advertising
• Marketing Automation
• Mobile Marketing
• Personalization and Optimization
• Sales Enablement
• Advocacy, Loyalty, and Referrals
• Social Media Marketing & Monitoring

Insights from the Results

As expected, we see larger, older, and public companies bubble to the top. Upon interviewing some of these enterprise firms, the overall challenge has been to collectively harness the ecosystem for warm introductions. It has been instead a flurry of broadcast Slack and email messages cluttering the communication board.

Interestingly, in the newer smaller categories within the landscape, such as ABM, CDP, or the emerging conversational chat/bots, it’s anyone’s game. Also, for VC-driven startups, there are greater valuations for stronger networks.

Last, and unexpectedly, when we list the most connected people who are top of mind, we think they can carry the weight of the network for the company. However, if they are alone in their visibility, we see their scope and breadth does not contribute enough to their brands. For companies at the top of the list, their network is deep with well-connected leaders and collective breadth across several industries.

Put simply, one visible person cannot successfully hold the brand. Also, those valued well-networked people in the company represent a tremendous risk in equity, valuation and pipeline opportunity.

Conclusion

Companies finding success are investing in their networks. Particularly in the crowded field of marketing technology, we’ll continue to see consolidation based on the companies that have the broadest networks. They’ll raise the most capital, attract the best talent, and build the most relationships to drive sales.

We’re excited to present this analysis today, and hope it is useful for you.

Thanks Anand and the team at Nudge.ai.

The post We analyzed 5,000+ martech companies by network strength: here’s what we found appeared first on Chief Marketing Technologist.

The quantity-to-quality shift permeates today’s B2B marketing landscape. Demand generation organizations are no longer measured by the volume of leads generated. According to the marketing leaders interviewed for the DemandGen Report’s 2018 Benchmark Survey, 63% of marketing teams are evaluated based on lower-funnel metrics like MQLs, SALs and pipeline influenced.

Consequently, 73% of marketing organizations state that focus on lead quality over quantity is their number one goal in the year ahead.

This means that our demand generation and content marketing strategies must also evolve to deliver on these new goals. It’s no longer about cranking out as many top-of-the-funnel assets as possible to attract new contacts. We have to balance this with building more full-funnel assets that are designed to engage highly targeted audiences at later stages in the buyer’s journey and provide prospects with helpful information that they need to make a decision.

Mastering Content Marketing Strategies to Drive Demand Generation

How do you elevate the quality and relevance of your demand generation content to better appeal to your ideal B2B customers?

1. Know Your Personas

Customer knowledge must be at the core of content creation. To deliver value to your prospects, you must understand their challenges, needs and goals.

While many demand generation marketers know this, too few actually put it into action. According to the Buyer Persona Institute, less than half of B2B marketing organizations currently use buyer persona profiles.

Establishing formal customer profiles can lead to a measurable lift in B2B marketing results. According to Aberdeen Research, marketers who use buyer personas and align content marketing with the buyer’s journey achieve 73% higher conversions than their peers.

Demand marketing is the process of creating a demand or desire for a certain product or service, and actively affecting the progression of that desire. A solid understanding of your target customer is vital to capturing prospect interest and guiding them through the journey to make purchase.

Capturing Customer Insights

To attain the necessary firmographic and demographic insights, marketers need to compile data from a range of data sources:

Google Analytics: Search terms, activity patterns and demographic insights can reveal a lot about who is currently engaging with your content.

Marketing Automation Platform and Customer Relationship Management Software: Behavioral insights, list segmentation and other qualitative sources from your existing MarTech can provide details on who your customers are, how they engage with content online and what their customer journey looks like.

Social Listening Tools: Software for social listening can reveal 360-degree insights into personas both in and outside the workplace.

Surveys and Interviews: Engaging with sales and customer success to conduct in-depth customer interviews can yield new understanding of customer priorities and perceptions. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers what content was most helpful to them when they were assessing your product or services, and what content would have helped them make a decision faster.

If you want to translate these insights into actionable customer profiles by account and/or persona type, we recommend A Useful Template to Develop (or Improve) Your B2B Buyer Personas.

2. Build Trust and Credibility

Your content should, above all else, help prospects to solve their problems. It shouldn’t sell directly, but it should lead prospects to your solution. The goal should be to establish a reputation as a credible advisor and gain the trust of your prospects.

B2B buyers hear a lot of sales pitches, and they’re wary of content that sounds like a hard sell. The most recent results of the Edelman Trust Barometer reveal that consumers are experiencing an “unprecedented crisis of trust” in both brands and content. According to the same research report, nearly 7 out of 10 consumers worry about actively worry about “fake news and false information.”

The solution is to refrain from talking about your products, and focus on building trust and credibility instead. According to Peter Isaacson, CMO of Demandbase, in the Top 40 Demand Marketing Game Changers eBook:

“Almost all B2B sales now are consultative. So make sure you’re telling prospects and customers information they need to know, how the market is evolving, what their competitors are doing, or best practices for their industry.”

3. Be Helpful

Helpful content is still one of the best ways to attract the right audiences. However, just like focusing on the quality over quantity when it comes to your leads, it’s important to apply the same thinking to your content.

51% of B2B decision-makers admit they’re overwhelmed by the amount of content available online, according to the DemandGen Report’s 2018 Content Preferences Survey Report. When researchers asked B2B decision-makers how demand generation marketers could improve their content offerings, buyers responded with the following preferences:

• Make content easier to access, such as fewer form fields (99%)
• Package related content, such as by vertical or industry (97%)
• Use more data and research to support content (75%)
• Add more insight from industry thought leaders/analysts (62%)
• Make it easier to share (40%)

4. Understand and Accommodate Role-Based Differences

The pain points and concerns of one decision-maker can be quite different from another. Many disciplines beyond B2B marketing are evolving just as rapidly, including technology, professional services, financial services, commerce and more. The day-to-day responsibilities and priorities of leaders in the same role can vary significantly between organizations, particularly when you cross over industries. This can have a dramatic impact on the pain points and concerns of the individual.

Customer knowledge is key to not only attracting the right audiences but keeping them engaged throughout the entire funnel. By understanding how factors such as firm size, industry and other variations impact your buyer personas, you can speak more specifically to the individual and ultimately increase engagement.

6. Find a Balance Between Finished and Perfect

Done is better than perfect, but done still needs to be pretty damn good.

Creating quality content is time-consuming, and marketers can easily get caught in a trap of perfectionist tendencies. When you fall behind on your publishing schedule, it can create a trickle-down effect that makes it difficult to reach the rest of your goals.

If you get so caught up in perfecting your work that it slows you down, or if you’re worried that content quality is a barrier to attracting audiences and keeping leads engaged, the solution may be in more-defined content marketing processes. Establishing a system of checks and balances before your blogs and eBooks go live, will help to increase content quality and give you peace of mind that only content that’s good enough will get out the door.

Improving Your Demand Generation Content Marketing

In a landscape that’s increasingly crowded with content, demand generation marketers face stiff competition. There’s an emerging need in many marketing organizations for better-targeted content with the potential to attract the right audiences.

Customer knowledge is at the core of effective demand generation and content marketing strategies. With qualitative and quantitative insight into the ideal customer, B2B marketing organizations can focus on addressing pain points, educating the marketing, knowing the competition and better helping prospects navigate the customer journey.

For more helpful demand marketing advice, grab a copy of the 155 Tips & Tactics from Demand Marketing’s Game Changers. This complimentary eBook will arm you with actionable ideas that you can use to up-level your marketing strategy.

One of the biggest challenges within any organization is figuring out how to get sales and marketing on the same page and both profit centers working well together to drive higher results. If you’re in a situation where the two teams seem to be at odds with each other, don’t worry. This can be a common problem. The brands that are doing great things and growing their companies understand the importance of these two teams, both individually and as a unit that works well together. If you’ve ever heard sales say their leads aren’t up to par or if you’ve heard marketing tell you that sales isn’t doing their job and closing deals, this article is for you!

Foundational Elements

Before a successful collaboration between sales and marketing can begin, marketing must get the ball rolling by attracting leads. Sometimes, a sales team will be skeptical of the idea of inbound marketing and doubt that it can be a game changer for them. If marketing can lead the way and get this initiative kicked off, it’s more likely that you’ll have the attention of your sales team. From there, it won’t just be about getting any and all leads to come in. When you start generating inbound leads, it’s possible that your net will be too wide and the leads won’t be qualified. Marketing and sales should collaborate to determine what is and isn’t an MQL and SQL-and direct your strategy around the leads you want to engage with.

 

Once you have leads coming in and both departments are communicating, you’ll want to have some tools in place for storing information. Many companies will fail in this area because they don’t understand the importance of organized data storage and they don’t dedicate the time to do it right. What do you know about your leads? Is there a high-quality CRM in place where sales and marketing can share information about leads? Is the information on the leads and how they progress through the sales process easy to update and read? Are you using any marketing automation tools, such as HubSpot, to be more efficient with your marketing? Last but not least, how do these leads fall into your ideal client persona? This is another area where many companies fail to realize the importance of this foundational element. If you haven’t sat down with sales and marketing and everyone isn’t on the same page about who your ideal customer is, you will most likely never have these two teams in your organization working together like a well-oiled machine. By taking the time to identify who is a good client and who is not and how they make their purchasing decisions, you can identify opportunities to create content that will spark their interests, and when a lead is handed off to sales, it will be much easier for them to land the lead as your next great client!

Supporting Each Other

It’s common for the sales team to put themselves in a position where they feel other teams are there to support them, especially when it comes to marketing. As common as this is, making sure that both your sales team and your marketing team look and feel like equals will help you be successful with this initiative. Without marketing, sales would be working way harder and would have to drum up every opportunity they could and essentially cold sell 24/7. Without sales, the marketing team would just be doing a great job of telling your story and there would be no one in place to help potential customers navigate through the buyer’s journey. Both teams are important to the ultimate goal of any company that wants to generate revenue, well-fitting repeat customers, and ultimately, profits.

With that said, there are a lot of opportunities for not only the marketing team to support the sales team, but also for the sales team to support the marketing team. Let’s look at a few of the ways the two teams can work together:

Meetings

Having a meeting at least once a month in which the management team and both sales and marketing are involved can go a long way. The end goal is for the two teams to work well together, and having everyone high up in the organization on the same page is very important. In those meetings, marketing can communicate what they are doing to generate leads for the sales team and talk about how they are fine-tuning their efforts. The sales team can also provide “in the trenches” feedback of how things are going with the leads that marketing has provided and offer information that can help the marketing team as they refine their efforts. What you want to avoid in these meetings is a scenario where sales could push back without being constructive as to why they feel the leads that are coming in are not optimal. The more positive and constructive you keep these meetings, the better for all involved.

Website

One of the most powerful tools in a salesperson’s arsenal is a strong digital footprint. If the company has a great website, sales can show it to prospects and establish credibility early on. This is imperative in 2018. As you aim to help your marketing and sales team be successful in their collaboration, make sure you’ve invested time and energy into a strong website that will be the foundation of your inbound efforts.

Content

Once you have a strong website in place, you can start to create the fun things that will work for you 24/7. Case studies, e-books, testimonials, reviews, infographics, videos, side-by-side comparisons, and more can all be incredibly valuable tools as your marketing team looks to not just attract leads but attract the right kind of leads. These materials will also be great tools for your sales team to use during the sales process to help their potential clients. As Dan Tyre famously wrote back in 2017 in “Always Be Closing Is Dead, How To Always Be Helping”, a salesperson that provides useful and helpful content throughout the process will typically win more than a pushy “buy from me now” salesperson will.

A Strong Reputation

Because the buyer process has changed over the years, people will be forming a relationship with your brand well before they ever speak with a salesperson. It is important to make sure the information they find about you is high quality, accurate, and does a good job of telling a story about you, your people, and what you do to solve a particular problem.

Because people engage with your brand online before they speak with anyone at your company, thought leadership is a great way to make your brand stand out from your competitors. Most companies will tap into their management team to create helpful, useful thought leadership content. Don’t forget to include your sales team and your marketing team in this process, because many times they can be a great resource and can create great content that will propel your brand as a thought leader.

Finally, don’t be afraid to toot your own horn a little bit from time to time. No one likes the company that won’t shut up about the awards they’ve won, but if you have some that you are proud of and there is a good story behind them, sharing those with potential customers can be a good thing. It can also be good for your sales team to be able to reference it if potential customers are deciding between you or the other guys. Don’t be afraid to put some effort into the story around your awards. Just mentioning them typically won’t get anyone too excited. Creating a nice one-sheet that highlights some of them or doing a case study that tells the story behind the award and what you did to win it could jump off the page for someone that is thinking about working with your company.

Takeaways

When this all comes together, you will find your organization embracing marketing. Gone are the days of sales saying marketing isn’t providing enough leads and marketing saying the sales team isn’t closing the leads they are generating.

Both teams should be involved in productive, collaborative meetings. Keeping these teams in silos is a bad idea! Make sure you have a strong digital footprint that your sales team can lean on. It’s 2018, people! You must have a strong website for people to interact with, regardless of your company size, market, or industry. Content can come from several people within your organization including people on the sales team. No need to reserve that for senior-level employees. Spread the love around a little bit—especially to the people that are in the trenches with your potential customers each and every day.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on November 1, 2018. 

When we talk about product-led growth (PLG), it’s important to understand how we got here. The way people buy software today is completely different from what it was even a decade ago.

Back in the the 1980s, software was sold on the golf course. Field sales was the norm and Oracle reigned supreme. In the early 2000s, Salesforce and a host of others disrupted that model with outbound sales over the phone, which promised a similarly high close rate at one-third the cost and one-third the amount of time. Fast-forward a few years, and the late 2000s saw the rise of marketing-led sales, driven by content marketing, social selling, and automation.

The next frontier of go-to-market is product-led growth. Companies with a PLG strategy—think Slack, Expensify, Atlassian, and Dropbox—rely on product features and usage as their primary drivers of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion. It’s through this strategy that companies are able to grow faster and with less cash. They forgo spending large sums on traditional marketing and sales activities. Instead, they rely on the products themselves to supply a pipeline of satisfied users to convert to paying customers.

Product-led growth is often synonymous with viral, freemium, and bottoms-up sales. But it’s much more than that. Any company—even those selling to large Enterprises or operating in niche vertical markets—can adopt PLG principles to improve user experiences and increase go-to-market efficiency.

We’ve assembled this guide to provide a single center of truth for the most informative and innovative PLG resources. Included is a holistic breakdown of what PLG means and how every department in a SaaS company should be adapted to embrace product-led growth. There are inside stories of operating practices among companies that have been PLG from the start, as well as companies that pivoted to embrace a PLG strategy later on. The content is  from OpenView as well as PLG thought leaders around the world—including HubSpot, Intercom, Aptrinsic, InVision, Appcues, and many more.

This is a living guide and will be updated as we find new resources. Did we miss any of your favorites? Let us know on LinkedIn.

Table of Contents

• PLG overview and best practices
• Acquisition strategies and product virality
• Conversion and monetization strategies
• Podcast episodes and videos
• Stories of successful PLG companies
• Stories of pivoting towards a more PLG approach
• Metrics and benchmarks

PLG overview and best practices

What is Product-Led Growth? How to Build a Software Company in the End User Era
What exactly is product-led growth? Think about how your company adopted Slack. It’s a very different process from the way software used to be bought and sold. End users want business software to feel like the software they use at home, and they have the budget to buy it for themselves. Product-led growth is your go-to-market strategy for the end user era. Here, Blake Bartlett of OpenView discusses PLG in more detail.

The 3 Pillars of PLG
The three pillars of product led growth—designing for the end user, delivering value before capturing value, and investing in the product with go-to-market intent—are what make PLG businesses so commercially successful. OpenView Partner Mackey Craven compiled wisdom from some of the most exceptional CEOs and executives in the industry—including Calendly’s Tope Awotona, Airtable’s Liat Bycel, JumpCloud’s Rajat Bhargava, and lots more.

Who Actually Owns ‘Growth’ at a PLG Company?
This is a question we get all the time. Is it the Product Team, the Growth Team, or the Marketing Team? Hint: It’s all three. OpenView’s Kyle Poyar defines what these teams should ideally look like in a growing business, what skills to look for when hiring, and the main areas of collaboration.

A New Way To Tell if a Company Is Truly Product-Led
Product-led impostors are among us—most companies have only dipped their toe into the PLG waters rather than diving head first. Figuring out whether a business is truly committed to a product-led growth strategy starts with looking beyond their website or pricing page.

Your Product Sells Itself. Now Hire Sales.
The best PLG companies empower their sales teams to improve the product so that it does an even better job of selling itself. So go hire sales!

Your Product Is Your Go-To-Market Strategy
Product is now the centerpiece of go-to-market, and OpenView Founder Scott Maxwell walks us through the timeline that brought us to this stage. From “aha” moments, to freemium versus free trial, to driving virality, expect to learn about how you can best educate your product team on PLG priorities.

The Product-Led Growth Market Map
Ever wondered about who has successfully adopted product-led growth? Or are you looking for a PLG role model in your industry? Check out our market map, representing the best PLG companies across four SaaS categories: Developer and Product Tools, Back Office and Operations, Customer Engagement, and Productivity and Collaboration.

Acquisition strategies and product virality

How Calendly Harnesses PLG and Virality for Growth
Calendly is one of the greatest examples of a product with a viral loop. Oji Udezue, VP of Product and Design at Calendly, gives us all the details about their powerful strategy—and he also reminds us that at the end of the day, it all comes down to solving your customers’ problems.

5 Examples of SaaS Products With Viral Loops
Think about the first time someone sent you a Zoom link. Odds are that once the meeting ended, you wound up registering for an account so you could start setting up your own meetings. The people you invited to those meetings were then exposed to Zoom—and then, like you, they signed up and started to set up their own meetings. Zoom is just one example in this post by Victor Eduoh—he takes a closer look at Slack, Mailchimp, Calendly, and Momentive (formerly SurveyMonkey).

Peek Inside Slack’s Multi-Million Dollar SaaS Growth Strategy
Slack gets 100,000,000 website visitors every month. That’s more than Salesforce, HubSpot, Intercom, Zendesk, Mailchimp, Shopify, and every other software company in the world. But that’s not what it’s all about. Slack is a role model for what it takes to build a software product loved by both small businesses and Fortune 100 companies alike. Chris Von Wilpert, CEO and Founder of Rocketship Agency, breaks down their secret to growth.

Typeform: How to Scale a Global SaaS Platform
Attaining virality is only the first step. The next step is to amplify it. That’s where Typeform’s strategy of Product Growth comes in. This strategy involves aligning marketers and developers in order to make product changes that increase top-of-funnel and optimize conversion. Read on to learn advanced techniques for scaling your SaaS platform to the global stage.

Mixmax’s CEO on How to Achieve Viral Growth
Learn about Mixmax’s journey to a near-zero CAC. Olof Mathé, CEO and Founder of Mixmax, attributes this accomplishment to taking advantage of five different types of virality. The email enrichment service founded in 2014 is a prime role model for PLG companies looking to make virality the centerpiece of their growth strategy and reduce CAC to all-time lows.

5 Research-Backed Methods of Achieving Product Virality (and 6 Stories of Companies That Did It)
HubSpot’s Sophia Bernazzani breaks down virality into an executable mathematic equation. Solve for the variables, adapt your business, and watch your product grow on its own. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Bernazzani defines the different types of virality and how to go about creating them. This article also includes six great examples of companies leveraging virality to its fullest.

How to Build Your Product for Viral Growth: Lessons from Datadog and ZipRecruiter
Companies like Slack, Expensify, ZipRecruiter and Datadog are radically changing the approach of growth, by focusing first and foremost on delivering a great product. Users don’t want to have to sit through hours of product onboarding or training videos to get started. Kyle Poyar, Senior Director of Market Strategy at OpenView, explains how to guide users to complete key functions they need in the context of what they want to do.

Conversion and monetization strategies

Freemium vs. Free Trial: How to Know Which One to Pick for Your SaaS Startup
Should you start with a free trial to generate urgency for the prospect, or just go freemium? The answer, of course, is that it depends. In this post, learn about the impact of outreach to free accounts, the difference between a freemium funnel and a free trial funnel, and how to make the right choice.

Your Guide to Product Qualified Leads (PQLs)

Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) are users who signal their buying intent based on product usage rather than traditional marketing or sales qualification. Unfortunately, only one in four SaaS companies seem to be making use of this strategy. This post helps you identify when a user becomes a PQL and offers tips on how to nurture those leads into happy, paying customers of your product. 

Why You Should Sell To Users, Not Buyers: A Product-Led Approach to Marketing
As you adopt a product-led GTM, your focus should be to incorporate real-time, in-product customer behavioral data to create meaningful engagement across multiple channels and devices. This article, by Ashley Minogue of OpenView, discusses how to unravel the data to glean insightful conclusions.

The Three Rules of Freemium
It may be a tempting proposition, but freemium isn’t the right strategy for every PLG company. Here, Christoph Janz of Point Nine gives a framework for evaluating whether freemium would be right for your business.

Podcast episodes and videos

Twilio’s Leandra Fishman on Enterprise vs. Product-Led Sales
Sales models are not one-size-fits-all. There are key differences between traditional enterprise sales, high-volume inside sales, and product-led sales. In her 30 years of experience, Leandra Fishman has led teams in all of these environments. On this episode of OV BUILD, we look at these different models and how to apply best practices of the past to a modern product-led sales model.

HubSpot’s Kieran Flanagan on the Secret to Success in Product-Led Growth
OV BUILD host Blake Bartlett speaks with Kieran about the importance of Ops roles in a product-led model, the shift occurring in B2B marketing, and how cross-functional teams are the org design secret to success in PLG. Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or our streaming site.

How Datadog Generates Over Half a Billion in Revenue with Their Product-led Go-to-Market Strategy
Datadog is known for being the essential monitoring platform for cloud applications. Alex Rosemblat, Datadog’s VP of Marketing, unpacks how to decide which leads get human attention, what team owns success metrics in a PLG model, and the best way to cross-promote your product. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or our streaming site.

PLG 123 with OpenView’s Blake Bartlett
If you aren’t following Blake on LinkedIn, you’re missing his daily video updates on all things product-led growth—like this one about Loom’s recent news.

GitLab’s Hila Qu on What B2B Companies Can Learn About Growth from B2C 

There are three levels of “Aha!” that need to be activated in a B2B growth funnel: the user-level Aha, the team-level Aha, and the organizational level Aha. Getting all three is critical for establishing a sustainable growth strategy. 

What VCs Really Look for in a PLG Company

Bookmark this post for your next funding round. Ed Sim, founder of boldstart ventures, chats with OpenView’s own Blake Bartlett about what he looks for in a product-led company, the red flags he’s seen over the years, and his predictions for the future of PLG companies.

Stories of successful PLG companies

How to Bottle Community Lightning Like Datadog
Nobody can convince someone to join a community. They have to want to. Datadog understands this, and it’s why they have one of the strongest developer communities out there. Chris Gillespie goes into why so many user communities fail and what lessons we can take away from Datadog’s wild success.

Inside Cypress’s Playbook for Launching Usage-Based Pricing
Kyle Poyar spoke with Mohammed Coovadia, VP of Customer Success and Sales, about what sparked the transition, how Cypress explored different pricing options, and what led them to a final decision. If you’re considering a switch to usage-based pricing, don’t miss the tips at the end of the post.

How Logz.io Took Self-Service from 0 to 50% of New Customers
What started out as an adaptive move to help Logz.io align with buyer behavior turned out to be a powerful way for them to open up the market and take advantage of incremental opportunities.

An Inside Look at Snyk’s Product-Led Growth Strategy
Francesca Krihely, Senior Director, Developer Experience and Growth at Snyk, told us about how her company uses a freemium model to find new points of entry into enterprise organizations.

How Guru Layers Human Touchpoints Onto a Strong Self-Service Model
Guru has done an exceptional job of bridging the gap between what a product can offer end users at any time and any place, while also enabling a human touch and a tailored experience where and when it’s desired. OpenView’s Sam Richard talked to Guru’s Rob Falcone to dig into the details.

Stories of pivoting towards a more PLG approach

‘Measure Everything’—Pendo’s Todd Olson on Becoming a Product-Led Organization
Todd stopped by the OV BUILD podcast to talk to us about what exactly “product led” means, how a product-led strategy extends way beyond acquisition, and how the less-is-more concept can make a big difference.

HubSpot: Product Is the Future of Growth
Once HubSpot added freemium as part of its go-to market strategy, product qualified leads became a key source for both touchless sales and leads for the sales team. The PQL dashboard showed them the performance of each PQL point within their freemium products, showing how many times people interacted with them, how many upgrades they generated and the average selling price for each one. Kieran Flanagan, VP of Growth at HubSpot, dives into how these changes impacted the company for the better.

The PLG Pivot at MongoDB
MongoDB ranks among the most prominent PLG companies, but it wasn’t always that way. For the most part, MongoDB had adopted a traditional marketing strategy. Here, Laura Borghesi talks through the three key requirements for getting an established company behind a product-led strategy.

My Product isn’t Designed for PLG: How Can My Business Become Product-Led?

If you’re intrigued by this title, chances are you’re already bought into the fact that product-led growth is a more sustainable growth model. But can you effectively reverse engineer an existing product to be more product-led? This article makes that prospect entirely possible.

Metrics and benchmarks

The 2021 Product Benchmarks Report

As the product itself becomes your biggest growth engine, the SaaS metrics playbook as we know it has evolved too. Our 2021 report reveals the best way to build a growth-driven product, the right sales and marketing approach for PLG, and which leaders and innovators to look to for inspiration. 

2021 Financial and Operating Benchmarks Report

This year’s report delves into the haves and have-nots of B2B. The secret to becoming a have? Unsurprisingly, the report reveals that your highest potential growth engine is still product-led growth. People, PLG: it’s a powerful combination. 

5 Major Takeaways From the 2020 Financial and Operating Benchmarks Report
If you’d rather listen than read, this episode of the OV BUILD podcast features OpenView’s Kyle Poyar and Sean Fanning, the authors of the report. Tune in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on our website.

Is It Time To Ditch the Old SaaS Metrics?
We’ve grown accustomed to the traditional set of SaaS metrics as just part of how to operate a SaaS business. But here’s the thing: the traditional SaaS metrics playbook can be extremely misleading when it comes to managing a PLG or consumption-based SaaS company.

How to Get Started with Product-Led Startup Metrics
The Docket team explains why every startup needs a measurement mindset from the very beginning.

If you’re building a B2B SaaS company and you’d like to talk strategy or fundraising, we want to hear from you. Please reach out to hello@ov.vc.

The post The Ultimate Product-Led Growth Resources Guide appeared first on OpenView.

Picture this: You launch a new product after you’ve spent countless hours, weeks, months, or even years determining what sets it apart from the competition and building a brand identity.

Sadly, it falls flat because you don’t have a positioning statement to guide your sales reps, marketers, and service and support teams to prove your value to your target audience.

Whether this has happened to you or not, I’m here to help. In this post, I’ll explain what a positioning statement is, outline exactly how to write a positioning statement (with advice from experts), and go over some real-life positioning statement examples to inspire you.

Table of Contents

• What is a positioning statement?
• What is the purpose of a positioning statement?
• Positioning Statement vs Mission Statement
• Value Proposition vs. Positioning Statement
• The Core Elements of Strategic Market Positioning
• How to Write a Positioning Statement
• Positioning Statement Examples

A positioning statement is an internal tools that help marketers appeal to their buyer personas in a relevant way. They're a must-have for any positioning strategy because they create a clear vision for your brand.

Having a clear and concise positioning statement is important because it gives potential consumers the ability to understand your business at first glance. Buyers want to know how your product and purpose differentiate you from the rest of the market, without buying the product first.

Here’s what Mike Sadowski, Founder and CEO of Brand24, told me when I asked him about positioning statements: “I once asked myself, ‘What is the real purpose of a positioning statement?’ My answer: to communicate to people for whom I create my brand that it's tailored perfectly for them, addressing all levels of their needs...I view the positioning statement as a message that convinces people that our brand and product are precisely what they desire.”

What is the purpose of a positioning statement?

The purpose of a positioning statement is to convey a brand's value proposition to its ideal customers. It also frames the brand's identity, goals, and distinguishing features within the context of the buyer’s experience.

To craft your positioning statement, you'll need to get clear on a few key facets of your business:

• Who you serve
• What value you offer
• How you position your offer
• Why you're in business
• What makes you different from the competition

Next, I'll talk about how a positioning statement differs from some other common guiding principles in a business marketing strategy.

(If you’re curious about what the "how" looks like, here it is.)

Unlike a mission statement, your positioning statement isn't public-facing. You don’t want to give away any competitive intelligence to your competitors, so it’s used as a source of truth to guide other processes, like the messaging for your marketing campaigns or the talking points salespeople use during 1:1 conversations.

At its core, your business’s positioning statement summarizes the value that your brand, products, and services bring to the target market.

A positioning statement is broader and it’s created after you've developed your business' value proposition. It also identifies the primary customer benefits — why someone needs your product or service.

Now that you understand the differences among some common business and marketing elements, here are the core elements of strategic marketing positioning that you'll need to know.

The Core Elements of Strategic Market Positioning

As I mentioned earlier, crafting your positioning statement starts with a good understanding of your company. This includes defining the following core elements:

• Target market
• Market category
• Customer pains
• Brand promise
• Brand identity and values

Target Audience

Your target audience is the "who" aspect of your positioning. Simply defined, it's the group of consumers you're targeting with your product or services.

They say that "the riches are in the niches." To me this means that, even if anyone can use your product or service, you should still be targeting specific buyers to maintain integrity and differentiation within your brand.

In my opinion, the best and most foolproof way to define a solid target audience is to create a buyer persona (a representation of your ideal customer).

Product Positioning

Product positioning should lead with the product's benefits rather than its features. A smart way to do this is to imagine your customer’s life before and after using your solution. Then, tell the story of what happens to them when they make that decision. That’s the benefit you’ll include in your product positioning.

Market Category

A market includes buyers and sellers. A category defines a specific segment of that market. Market categories can be as broad as "grocery store" and as niche as "vegetarian health food store." Market categories usually start out broad and get more niche as the businesses occupying that market expand their product and service offerings to the consumers in the market.

Whether your market category is developed or you're part of an emerging or niche market, I recommend defining who all potential buyers are, where they search for goods and services, and who has their attention. You'll want to define what your competition offers and how you can position your brand apart from those competitors.

Customer Pains

Customer pains are the problems or issues your target audience is experiencing that could be solved with products or services available in your market category. Your product or service should aim to address customer pains and offer a solution.

Brand Promise

Your brand promise is ultimately what the target audience or buyer persona stands to gain from using your product or service. It's what success looks like to them if their pain or problem is resolved.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is the personality of your business and includes both visible factors (such as logo design) and invisible ones (such as values or voice). Brand identity is one aspect of strategic market positioning that will set you apart from competitors and help you gain recognition from your target audience.

Values

Values guide how your business makes decisions within the context of your brand. They create the culture of your organization and leave a favorable impression on your target audience. They are the intangible methods with which you execute your mission and vision.

Featured Resource: 50 Examples of Company Values

Once you have a solid understanding of these core elements, you can begin crafting the positioning statement.

My Pro Tip: I recommend developing your business’ value proposition before writing your positioning statement. When you know the unique value you bring, it’s much easier to craft a statement that speaks directly to your target audience and describes how your product or service is the best solution for their pain points.

When writing and evaluating your positioning statement, keep the following tips in mind:

1. Create a vision board.

Positioning statements are written documents. Since they don’t include images, video, or other visuals, it can be challenging to communicate what your business is, who it serves, and why that matters in just a few sentences.

To bypass the initial blank page syndrome, create a vision board instead. A Columbia University study found that visual characteristics can trigger emotional responses, which can help you understand your target audience and what speaks to them.

To leverage this response, look for images that represent your customer in the environment where they need your product or service the most. Notice the emotions in the images, who is around your ideal customer in the image, and what they’re doing in the image to solve the problem.

Image Source

Creating a vision board that represents your target audience when they need your product the most can help make your positioning statement come to life.

2. Make it brief.

You have a short time to capture attention, so a brief positioning statement is much more likely to be read than a longer one.

Your brand’s positioning statement should be concise and to the point. Aim for no more than three to five sentences, if possible.

The wordier that your statement gets, the less factual it becomes. It then risks becoming more aspirational instead of what your business is, with more elements that are more inflated than grounded in truth.

Pro Tip: Fluff and unnecessary details are your worst enemy when it comes to being brief. Stay focused on the value your product or service provides, and get rid of anything else that distracts from that.

Heather Johnson, MedTech Marketing Consultant and President at OutWord Bound Communications, shared her advice with me, and it’s a great exercise for keeping it brief: “Keep asking “so what” until you get to the root of those answers. For example, a small business wants to acquire and retain more customers without spending tons of time fiddling with technology; your XYZ platform makes it happen by…”

3. Make it unique and memorable.

This statement should be unique to your company and the problems you aim to solve. When crafting your positioning statement, be sure to emphasize the distinctive qualities of your brand.

Buyers should be able to see the special value that your business can offer or solve for. Many markets are already saturated with products or services that are similar to your offering, so your statement should be able to capture their attention against the noise.

Pro Tip: I think Shelley Grieshop, Creative Writer at Totally Promotional, tip about exploiting personal history is a great way to make your positioning statement unique and memorable.

She said, “Select one thing your company does or offers that is uniquely related to your personal history and demographics. Exploit that tidbit in your marketing strategy and all communications to show your individuality and establish brand recognition. The bottom line: Your story is your value.”

4. Remain true to your business’s core values.

The positioning statement isn’t the time to get fancy and pitch a new angle for the business. Your brand’s positioning statement should accurately reflect the core values of your business.

Clear core values in your positioning statement also send messages to your internal team. They help new employees with better alignment. Besides letting consumers know your stances, core values help existing team members stay on the right track and continue to deliver on your brand’s promises.

Pro Tip: Clarity and authenticity are William Hogsett’s, CEO of Seota Digital Marketing, best practices for high-quality positioning statements. He says authenticity builds trust and credibility, so your positioning statement should be authentic and reflect your brand’s core values and strengths.

He said: “Incorporate elements of your brand’s story, mission, and personality into the statement to create a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience on an emotional level.”

5. Include what the brand delivers to consumers.

Your brand offering is a vital part of your positioning statement. It’s the main reason that customers are seeking you out, so when crafting your own, you need to cover these two bases:

• Who does your company serve?
• How does your company serve this group?

Succinctly state who your customer is and how you will help them in your positioning statement.

Pro Tip: Sai Sathish, B2B Marketing Leader and Founder at ConsaInsights, told me that considering your audience’s perspective is crucial. He says it’s easy to get carried away with what you think the best thing is about your brand when it should really be about what the best thing is for your audience.

He said: “I have had many instances where I thought my positioning statement was the most revolutionary one and would impress people in one go, but they failed miserably. So don’t brainstorm on how to highlight your company’s great aspects — simply back-calculate. Understand what they would like to hear and find that about your company and present it to them.”

6. Differentiate your business from the competition.

An effective positioning statement should articulate what differentiates a brand from its competition. Highlight your company’s unique qualities and how those qualities help serve your customers. You can even consider a niche marketing strategy.

Does your brand have cause-related campaigns? Differentiate your brand by highlighting your goals to give back.

Does your brand serve a previously underrepresented target audience? Let them know clearly and proudly that you fill that gap. If you’re not sure how to separate your product offer from your competitors, these competitive analysis templates can help you out.

There are so many different ways to stand out against the crowd, you just have to survey your competitors and see how you do it better.

Pro Tip: Bhavik Sarkhedi, CMO of Write Right, says that “[When creating a positioning statement] It’s crucial to articulate not only what your brand offers, but also how it differs from the competition.”

He adds, “Ask yourself: What can we offer that no one else can? Why should the customer choose us over others? This focused approach ensures that your brand’s message is clear and compelling, making it easier for customers to see the value in choosing your brand.”

7. Keep it simple.

In almost any circumstance, your team should be able to align key business decisions with your brand’s positioning statement because its simple and easy-to-understand nature.

The more complicated your statement becomes, the less convincing or engaging it will be. Make sure your business’ value and offering is unmistakable and buyers will understand and seek to learn more about it in their buyer’s journey.

8. Consult a colleague.

Just because positioning statements aren’t public-facing doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be easy to understand. Investors, new hires, and external agencies who work closely with your businesses will need to use this document, too.

After spending several hours perfecting every word, you might think what you’ve written is wonderful (and I’m not saying it isn’t) when it’s actually filled with jargon, acronyms, and features that aren’t clear to someone outside your company.

When you’re in your final stages, reach out to a colleague. Someone not directly involved with the writing process can give you a fresh and objective perspective to help identify any issues you’ve overlooked. A third party might even have an easier time placing themselves in your audience’s shoes.

My Pro Tip: You want helpful and actionable feedback, so I recommend telling your colleagues exactly what you’re looking for. For example, you could ask them to read for:

• Clarity - Does your positioning statement clearly communicate value?
• Consistency - Does your positioning statement align with your known brand image and values?
• Relevance - Is your positioning statement relevant to your target audience’s pain points?
• Impact - Does your positioning statement leave the reader interested in learning more?

You can use the template above to form a positioning statement for your startup or small business. Add the details of your target market, company, and the main points that make your product or service stand out from competitors. You can also download 10 more position statement templates for free below.

Download Now: 10 Free Positioning Statement Prompts

Each business is unique, and it's alright if your statement doesn't fit the template exactly, but I suggest including the main points below:

• A description of the target market.
• A description of the target market needs.
• How your business will meet their needs.
• What differentiates your product or service from the competition.
• Why consumers in your target market should believe your brand's claims.

You might need a little more inspiration before taking pen to paper and creating your own positioning statement. Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing.

Positioning Statement Examples

I mentioned above that your positioning statement is a crucial part of your business and a guiding source of truth. So, for the most part, it’s away from the public eye and you’ll rarely find a business’ exact positioning statement floating around on the internet.

Because of that, I’ve used our positioning statement template to craft a few example statements for recognizable brands using the information we know about them.

Below are examples of positioning statements of well-known brands to give you a feel for how to create one for your business.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot Positioning Statement:

"Since 2006, HubSpot has been on a mission to make the world more inbound. Today, over 100,000 customers in more than 120 countries use HubSpot's award-winning software, services, and support to transform the way they attract, engage, and delight customers. Composed of HubSpot's CRM, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, and Operations Hub, HubSpot gives companies the tools they need to grow better."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

It starts with a clearly defined mission and track record to capture the attention of prospects. Then, HubSpot’s positioning statement notes its trustworthiness and variety of products to better service businesses looking to grow and scale for the future.

• Connects with the target audience by showing global businesses its breadth of scalable solutions.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by showcasing that these products are made to scale.
• Highlights core values by emphasizing its focus on customer success and innovation.
• Offers a clear and focused message by leaning into its value proposition and services.

2. Coca-Cola

Image Source

Coca-Cola Positioning Statement:

"For quality beverage seekers, Coca-Cola offers a wide range of the most refreshing options. Each creates a great experience for customers when they enjoy a Coca-Cola brand drink. Unlike other beverage options, Coca-Cola products inspire happiness and make a positive difference in customers' lives, and the brand is intensely focused on the needs of consumers and customers."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

While its product offering is beverages, Coca-Cola leads its positioning statement with the positive experience it wants to offer. It appeals to emotions and tells us consumers that we’re buying from a company that wants to better our lives — even with something as simple as a cold drink. It:

• Connects with the target audience by focusing on beverage consumers looking for quality and satisfaction.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by focusing on positive impact and using phrases like "inspire happiness" and "make a positive difference."
• Highlights core values with a focus on quality products and customer experience.
• Offers a clear and focused message that is easy to understand and highlights benefits without feeling salesy.

3. White Dog Distilling

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White Dog Distilling Positioning Statement:

"Founded in 2016 by the husband/wife team of Carlo and Alecia Catucci, White Dog Distilling stands for passion, spirit, and the journey from grain to glass. Bolstered by Carlo's background in physics and Alecia's culinary and product development experience, they set forth with one goal in mind: to produce high-quality distilled spirits that could appeal to both novice spirit drinkers and longtime aficionados alike."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

White Dog leads its positioning statement with the quality it delivers to customers. Offering locally sourced and sustainable ingredients attracts customers looking for good value versus price, with delicious taste. I think the statement also makes the brand accessible to those who aren’t well-versed in spirits.

• Connects with the target audience by using the founders' story to connect with both novice and expert customers.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by focusing on quality, craft, and innovation.
• Highlights core values by showing how and why it's committed to using quality materials and processes.
• Offers a clear and focused message by using the value proposition as the center, then highlighting how the founders create that value.

4. Alaska Airlines

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Alaska Airlines Positioning Statement:

"We are creating an airline people love. Each day, we're guided by our core values of own safety, do the right thing, be kindhearted, deliver performance, and be remarkable at work and in our communities. Alaska Airlines also fosters a diverse and inclusive culture and is an Equal Opportunity Employer."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

Alaska Airlines leads its positioning statement with love and heart. It introduces prospects to the brand feeling as though they’re more than typical transactions. Instead, it focuses on each customer as a unique individual who's worth delivering great service and inclusive experiences to.

• Connects with the target audience with values that emphasize community, diversity, and inclusivity.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by putting customers and their experience in the spotlight.
• Highlights core values that matter to customers, like safety, ethics, kindness, and reliability.
• Offers a clear and focused message by reinforcing its brand identity instead of creating a new set of benchmarks or expectations in the positioning statement.

5. Organic Bath Co.

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Organic Bath Co. Positioning Statement:

"If you're seeking clean and healthy ingredients in your body care routine, Organic Bath Co. offers a line of organic and natural skincare products that you can feel good about using. Trust in Organic Bath Co. for clean uncomplicated ingredients that will leave you feeling rejuvenated and cared for."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

I found that Organic Bath Co.’s positioning statement successfully conveys its focus on quality ingredients, health, and the value of rest. Prospects could be looking for a soap brand that not only has organic and safe ingredients, but also encourages its customers to indulge themselves in the relaxing experience of using its product line.

• Connects with the target audience by finding a priority (clean, natural ingredients) and showing how the product meets that need.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by emphasizing the feeling it gives customers as well as how the brand makes its products.
• Highlights core values by focusing not only on company values, but the core values its target audience feels are most important.
• Offers a clear and focused message by starting with what its audience is looking for, then sharing how the product meets those needs.

6. Amazon

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Amazon Positioning Statement:

"For consumers who want to purchase a wide range of products online with quick delivery, Amazon is a one-stop online shopping site. Amazon sets itself apart from other online retailers with its customer obsession, passion for innovation, and commitment to operational excellence."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

I like that Amazon cuts straight to the chase with its positioning statement. It clearly outlines that its store is a quick way for its customers to find everything they need, to better help the customer achieve their goals.

• Connects with the target audience by speaking to the needs of busy customers who prioritize convenience.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by emphasizing its commitment to customers, experience, and operational excellence.
• Highlights core values by selecting the most relevant brand values and weaving them into the positioning statement.
• Offers a clear and focused message by summarizing the value proposition of the platform.

7. IMPACT

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IMPACT's Positioning Statement:

"Empower your business to thrive with IMPACT. Our They Ask, You Answer approach and consulting services in content marketing, video sales, website strategy, design, and more help you take ownership of your digital sales and marketing. Find out how you can achieve remarkable results and become a trusted voice in your industry with IMPACT."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

I think IMPACT’s positioning statement expertly explains how it goes against the grain to better serve its customers in the market, by eliminating the cycle of dependency. This approach is unique and will attract many prospects to want to learn more about its solutions.

• Connects with the target audience by speaking directly to business owners and marketers who are seeking a solution to marketing dependencies.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by clearly outlining what it does and how it accomplishes goals with clients.
• Highlights core values like empowerment, innovation, and trust with a quick explanation of the process and desired outcomes.
• Offers a clear and focused message by packing the most useful terms and ideas into one powerful paragraph.

8. Bandwagon Fan Club

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Bandwagon Fan Club Positioning Statement:

"Experience the future of fandom with Bandwagon Fan Club. Our Proof of Experience™ blockchain technology connects sports and entertainment lovers directly with their favorite artists, teams, and entertainers. Choose Bandwagon Fan Club to create, own, and preserve history with cutting-edge technology."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

When a product is tough to understand, doubt can creep in and possibly turn customers away. I can see how that could happen with Bandwagon Fan Club since it uses newer technology, but I was impressed by its direct and clear positioning statement. It explains exactly how its technology connects fans directly to their favorite performers and teams and narrows in on the end value.

• Connects with the target audience by centering on the people who will want this product — sports and entertainment super fans.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way with exclusive technology mentions.
• Highlights core values by emphasizing its customer focus and innovation.
• Offers a clear and focused message — that fans can use this technology to own a unique piece of event history.

9. Gro Intelligence

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Gro Intelligence Positioning Statement:

"Develop a holistic data-driven understanding of your impact as a business in the agriculture or climate science industries with Gro Intelligence. We offer live data, machine learning, and domain expertise to provide honest answers where ecology meets economy."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

This positioning statement starts with the problem it solves — helping businesses see their impact with data. Then, it explains the technology it uses to show that impact, which builds trust with those potential customers. I like that it:

• Connects with the target audience by targeting businesses in the agriculture and climate sciences industries.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by naming the technologies it uses to collect data insights.
• Highlights core values with terms like honest, holistic, economy, and ecology. This word choice quickly communicates what is most important to this brand.
• Offers a clear and focused message by focusing on product benefits and how the brand delivers those benefits.

10. Nike

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Nike Positioning Statement:

"For athletes in need of high-quality, fashionable athletic wear, Nike offers customers top-performing sports apparel and shoes made of the highest quality materials. Its products are the most advanced in the athletic apparel industry because of Nike's commitment to innovation and investment in the latest technologies."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

Nike’s positioning statement does an excellent job of speaking to its target audience by clearly outlining its range of products to better serve athletes. I also like that it uses inclusive language to define what an athlete is, letting hobbyists and professionals alike know that they can derive value from its product line.

• Connects with the target audience by identifying who uses these products and what they need.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way through emphasis on innovation and technology in athletic gear production.
• Highlights core values by combining how this brand differentiates itself with a diverse range of customer needs.
• Offers a clear and focused message that is straightforward and covers the most important qualities of its products.

11. Thrive Market

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Thrive Market Positioning Statement:

"Thrive Market is an online, membership-based market making the highest-quality, healthy, and sustainable products available for every budget, lifestyle, and geography."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

Short and to the point, Thrive Market lets prospects know exactly what it has to offer in a single sentence. Prospects won’t have to guess what type of product they can find from it, and they also know that their line must be extremely versatile, too.

• Connects with the target audience by leading with health and sustainability.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by highlighting the membership aspect of its offer.
• Highlights core values by emphasizing quality, health, budget, lifestyle, and location.
• Offers a clear and focused message with a single-sentence positioning statement that is both well-defined and easy to understand.

12. Gig Wage

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Gig Wage Positioning Statement:

"Gig Wage uses proprietary technology for payroll services and compliance to offer control and flexibility to contractor-dependent businesses. This platform is specifically for the 1099 economy to manage, pay, and support happy independent workers."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

This statement narrows its focus to a collection of employers that need a solution for 1099 workers. Then, it covers what it offers to solve a set of common problems for that audience.

• Connects with the target audience by talking about the needs of both employees and independent contractors.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by emphasizing proprietary technology and how that tech can help.
• Highlights core values with a focus on a desired outcome — happy independent workers.
• Offers a clear and focused message. Some positioning statements need to include industry-specific terms that not everyone is familiar with. But this statement pairs those terms with simple language that makes it easy for anyone to read.

13. Mural

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Mural Positioning Statement:

"For organizations who need visual collaboration at scale, Mural helps you bring imagination to work from anywhere with agile and design thinking methodologies, sales and consulting, and research and design, all in one platform. Join a growing network of global enterprises, consultancies, schools, and nonprofits using Mural to innovate."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

Leading with the primary value your business offers is a smart strategy. This positioning statement quickly lets consumers know you can use this product to visually collaborate from a range of locations. It also offers proof that you can trust this product because it's used by a diverse network of businesses.

• Connects with the target audience by making the need for visual collaboration a priority, then sharing what kinds of companies are already using this tool.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by highlighting specific ways businesses and individual users can get value from this product.
• Highlights core values with terms like innovate, collaboration, and imagination. This emphasizes those values for this brand and for companies who want to make those core values a priority.
• Offers a clear and focused message by focusing the first sentence on what the product is and how to use it, then using the second sentence to show who is already using the product.

14. Apple

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Apple Positioning Statement:

"For individuals who want the best personal computer or mobile device, Apple leads the technology industry with the most innovative products. Apple emphasizes technological research and advancement and takes an innovative approach to business best practices — it considers the impact our products and processes have on its customers and the planet."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

This positioning statement for Apple appeals to people of all different backgrounds. It inspires them to expect quality products made with intent to innovate in a way that helps people and the environment. I think it's also a great example of how to gain a prospects' trust by emphasizing industry authority.

• Connects with the target audience by aligning itself with people who want "the best." It also emphasizes the brand's leadership in the industry.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way with emphasis on innovative approaches to research and technological advancement.
• Highlights core values by mentioning the customer and environmental impact its products and processes have.
• Offers a clear and focused message that quickly communicates the most important aspects of the brand and products.

15. McDonald's

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McDonald's Positioning Statement:

"McDonald's is a leader in the fast-food industry, with quick, friendly service and consistency across thousands of convenient locations. McDonald's' dedication to improving operations and customer satisfaction sets it apart from other fast-food restaurants."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

McDonald’s doesn’t narrow its target audience, but instead panders to individuals of all sorts looking for a fast and satisfying service. It also leads with its position as an industry leader to gain prospect trust.

• Connects with the target audience by highlighting the qualities a person might seek in a fast food restaurant. This strategy is effective because it appeals to a broad audience in a specific situation.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by mentioning how its operations and customer satisfaction goals differ from a set of competitors. It doesn't compare itself to every restaurant, only fast-food spots.
• Highlights core values by leading the positioning statement with speed, service, convenience, and consistency.
• Offers a clear and focused message in just two simple sentences, this statement shares what is most important to this brand in a compelling way.

16. Beautycounter

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Beautycounter Positioning Statement:

"One by one, we are leading a movement to a future where all beauty is clean beauty. We are powered by people, and our collective mission is to get safer products into the hands of everyone. Formulate, advocate, and educate—that’s our motto for creating products that truly perform while holding ourselves to unparalleled standards of safety. Why? It’s really this simple: beauty should be good for you."

Why I Like This Positioning Statement:

Unlike other beauty brands that strive to fix or perfect customers’ complexions without much focus on ingredients, Beautycounter takes the unique stance that beauty should be good for more than your looks. I think its unique focus on cleaner, safer ingredients will attract customers looking to maintain their complexions instead of a temporary fix.

• Connects with the target audience by advocating for cleaner, safer products on behalf of beauty lovers.
• Sells its product(s) in a unique way by communicating higher-than-average safety standards.
• Highlights core values like education and safety, and supporting people looking for clean beauty products.
• Offers a clear and focused message by outlining a clear and easy-to-understand goal, then sharing how it plans to meet that goal.

Craft a Positioning Statement for Your Business

Competition online makes crafting a great positioning statement more important than ever, but I see this as a unique opportunity to make your business stand out, boast your unique value, and connect with your audience.

If you leverage the tips and insights from the experts I spoke to, you can create a positioning statement that paints a clear roadmap for business growth.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Total US digital ad revenue reached an all-time high of $88 billion last year, eclipsing television. As competition continues to heat up on digital ad platforms, franchise marketers are allocating more spend than ever to drive leads. In our Secret to Franchise Marketing ROI: Inbound Calls eBook, we covered how franchise marketers and multi-location brands can generate more inbound sales calls.

But in order to maximize ROI, franchise operations need to be fully equipped and prepared to handle these incoming calls. Below are 5 common ways franchise sales and operations teams are using AI-powered conversation analytics to correct inefficiencies and increase their conversion rates. These best practices can also be applied to the sales and operations teams of multi-location brands.

1. Measure How Many Quality Leads Each Franchise Location Receives

By measuring the volume of quality sales leads at the franchisee level, you can determine the appropriate staffing at each location, so you have enough sales coverage to field them. It’s crucial to quickly respond to customers, since over half of US adults will abandon a purchase if they don’t receive quick answers to their questions.

In the sample AI-based report below, the size of each circle on the map corresponds to the number of calls that location received. The darkness of the circle corresponds to the lead score. So, in this example, the Chicago and Colorado locations are receiving the most calls. However, Chicago is receiving more high-quality leads than Colorado.

[Sample Report: view how locations handle inbound calls]

2. Understand True Location Performance by Measuring Sales Conversion Rates

In order to compare your franchisee performance across locations, you can use AI-powered conversation analytics to understand how many inbound calls are actually qualified sales leads. Since customer support calls and unqualified callers don’t offer an opportunity for revenue generation for most businesses, they should not be counted in your metrics. Instead, you should calculate your sales conversion rate based on the number of qualified leads that come in to your franchisee locations.

To illustrate, let’s say your Chicago and Cleveland locations are calculating their conversion rates based on the following number of inbound calls received:

—Chicago: received 200 calls (qualified + unqualified) last month and closed 10 deals

—Cleveland: received 100 calls (qualified + unqualified) last month and closed 25 deals

You’d probably assume your Chicago sales agents are performing poorly. They’re closing deals on 5% of inbound calls while, on the other hand, the Cleveland location is closing deals on 25% of inbound calls.

However, these are not your locations’ true conversion rates — not all these inbound calls are qualified sales leads. By having AI analyze conversations at each location, score the calls, and incorporate that data in your report, you can instead view how many qualified leads are truly coming in:

—Chicago: received 20 qualified calls last month and closed 10 deals

—Cleveland: received 75 qualified calls last month and closed 25 deals

Now, after using AI to adjust for the number of unqualified leads or support calls, you can understand your locations’ real conversion rates. Chicago converts 50% of qualified callers, while Cleveland converts 33%. Chicago is the true top performer.

The report below uses AI to understand how many calls to each franchise location are qualified leads, and it calculates conversion rates based on that number. In this example, the Cleveland location has the highest sales conversion rate.

[Sample Report: view sales conversion rates by location, based on qualified calls]

3. Understand When the Best Sales Leads Are Coming in to Better Manage Location Staffing

75% of callers believe it takes too long to reach a live agent. To optimize the caller experience and convert customers, you should ensure you have enough agents fielding calls at your locations — especially when your best leads are coming in.

Franchisors are using AI to score their best calls and determine when their highest-quality sales calls come in — by hour and day of the week. They use this data to better staff their locations, ensuring customers with the highest revenue potential receive quick and efficient service.

The sample report below shows the percentage of calls coming in during each hour of the work week. In addition, its heat map tracks the quality of the calls — the darker the blue, the higher the lead score.

[Sample Report: view what days/times the best opportunities come in over the phone]

4. Get Ahead of Operational Issues by Tracking How Many Calls Go Unanswered or to Voicemail

A recent DT University study found that 1 in 5 calls from paid search goes to voicemail. Driving calls with your digital ads is only half the battle — your marketing ROI also depends on having agents in place who are prepared close sales. By understanding how many calls are going unanswered or to voicemail in each city — and at what times — you can better staff your locations so that agents are able to sell to leads while they’re hot. This way, your marketing team won’t waste media spend driving unanswered calls.

The sample AI report below is a heatmap of the times the franchise is missing calls. The darker the red, the more calls are missed during that time slot.

[Sample Report: view a heatmap of when calls go unanswered during the week]

5. Receive Customer-Level Intelligence on Callers

Franchise sales managers are using AI to ensure they are notified of every high-quality phone lead that didn’t initially convert. To gain more intelligence on why the callers didn’t convert, they can drill into the transcripts and recordings to see if the agent followed the right script and leveraged the right offers. Then, they can personally reach out to the lead and turn the sale around. This approach helps ensure franchisors don’t lose revenue from mishandled calls.

Hot unconverted leads and current customer experience issues can be delivered directly to franchisors’ inboxes via automated emails, like the one below.

[Sample Email Alert: get hot phone leads and CX issues sent directly to your inbox]

In addition to identifying high-quality phone leads that didn’t convert, franchise marketers are using AI to detect customer experience issues. To understand the customer’s issue, customer success managers can dig into the transcripts and recordings. They can then reach out to the dissatisfied customer, ensure their issue is corrected, and provide a discount or special offer. Not only does this lower franchisors’ churn rates, but it also prevents damage to their brand reputation. Disgruntled customers will often air their issues on social media and reviews sites, which is problematic since 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Looking for more tips to optimize your franchise marketing? Check out our eBook, The Secret to Franchise Marketing ROI: Inbound Calls.

Leads are the high-fructose corn syrup of the B2B marketing and sales world. Just like sugar is a low-quality source of energy, leads are a low-quality source of pipeline.

3 Reasons Why Leads Are Bad for You

If your organization is like most, you’re constantly fighting an uphill battle to get more leads. HubSpot found that 61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. No matter how many leads you have today, sales will demand more tomorrow. Here are three reasons why relying on leads is horrible for your funnel.

1. Leads Will Never Buy From You

99% of the leads you create will never become customers, according to Forrester Research. Another study by Gleanster Research, found that only 25% of leads are legitimate in the first place. The ugly truth you have to face is that the majority of leads you create come from people and companies that either have no intention of buying your solution or don’t have the means to buy your solution.

2. Leads Are Generated Too Late in the Sales Process

By the time you generate a lead that’s actually interested in your solution, their company has already gone through most of the research process. Unsurprisingly, Sales Benchmark Index found that 65% of the buying process is now done before the buyer engages with to sales. And Gartner predicts that by 2020, that number will rise to 80%.

If you wait until leads come to you, you’ve lost the opportunity to influence the buying committee. It’s similar to receiving a request for proposal (RFP). When you receive an RFP, it typically means a competitor has already been working with the account and helped the buyer put the RFP together.

When you get a lead, there is a good chance that a competitor has already influenced the buying process.

3. Sales Doesn’t Really Want Leads

Whether they’re right or wrong for doing so, sales doesn’t consistently follow up on leads. Only 27% of leads will be qualified by sales, according to a study from MarketingSherpa.

The low-quality nature of inbound leads pits marketing and sales against each other. Sales is always complaining that the leads are bad, and marketing is complaining that sales isn’t following up on their leads. This cycle causes lead-to-opportunity conversion rates to decline, which results in marketing having to generate a greater number of leads. This then reduces the quality even further, creating a neverending cycle of pointing fingers and chasing more and more leads.

Stop Being Dependent on Leads

Want to stop consuming endless amounts of leads? Then start targeting accounts together, as one revenue team. When marketing and sales work together to target and engage best-fit accounts, activate personalized outreach, and measure the same KPIs, magic happens. Sales creates more opportunities, deal sizes get bigger, and sales cycles get shorter. We call this the TEAM framework.

• Target the best-fit accounts most likely to buy.
• Engage the entire buying committee with multi-touch marketing programs.
• Activate sales with actionable insights.
• Measure success with account-based metrics.

If leads are the sugar of B2B marketing and sales, then accounts are the kale and quinoa superfood smoothie. Working with sales to target your best-fit accounts focuses your resources and efforts on the accounts most likely to buy, gets you in front of buyers before your competitors do, and ensures sales is working in lockstep to take action on the accounts marketing is engaging.

Check out the TOPO Account-Based Funnel Report to learn how organizations are creating 7X more sales opportunities and shortening sales cycles by over 40% using an account-based strategy!

Sales email personalization. It’s a frequently discussed topic. There is no question personalizing communications to buyers is important. However, there are questions surrounding the practical application of personalization by salespeople.

We decided to find answers to our questions and share the findings to help other sales teams make the most out of their email personalization efforts. Together with Nova.ai, we answered these fundamental questions about personalization in sales emails.

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Sales Email Personalization Questions Answered

• What constitutes personalization?
• Is there a balance between effort and reward?
• What are the best topics for personalization?
• Where should you personalize within an email?
• How does your sales organization optimize personalization efforts?

Spoiler alert: Today’s buyers want – and expect – to feel understood. They want sales professionals to treat them as a partner, not a transaction. Going the extra mile with just 20 percent personalization can be the first step in building the right relationship for mutual success.

You read that right – just 20 percent is all you need! As one might expect, when very little time is spent personalizing an email, conversions are low. When the message isn’t targeted, you are at risk of burning leads; however, there is a point of diminishing returns. If sales reps are spending inordinate amounts of time personalizing emails, the effort required exceeds the reward. You want to find the sweet spot where effort and reward are in harmony.

Once you’ve found that balance, focus on execution. Obvious topics for personalization include company-level events or news. Those may not be the most lucrative choices though. Data shows that more person-specific personalizations yield the best results. Social media has enabled us to access more in-depth knowledge about people with whom we aren’t close.

For instance, did you know that mentioning the baseball team a prospect is a fan of yields a 1.72x higher response rate and a 3.84x higher appointment rate? This new research includes several examples of highly successful person-specific personalizations.

Bottom Line?

Whatever you do, keep the end goal in mind. Your sales team should always seek to provide prospects with a more authentic, human experience… and to inspire a response. It’s a win for everyone.

The post Sales Email Personalization Research {New eBook} appeared first on SalesLoft.

What makes Demand Generation perpetual?

I’ve been thinking about this while considering an update of my last post on this topic. One key component (other than a decreased reliance on tactical, campaign-based activities to drive demand) is its adaptability. A company needs to be able to anticipate a buyer’s needs, and then adapt as their needs change. Static “drip” nurtures can’t do that, as they do not allow for change in the engagement path they have built for their customers. The buyer’s journey is no longer linear, so your marketing programs need to be able to change with the customer’s needs.

Developing a “perpetual” demand generation program is no small undertaking. If your end-goal is to build an automated, perpetual engine that serves up relevant content based on a specific role or persona and their place in the buyer’s journey, you’ll need a well-designed strategy with inputs from stakeholders across your organization. Below are a few highlights around key areas for you and your team to consider during the planning and development of an “always-on” perpetual demand generation program that is fed by multiple channels, and engages with people across multiple personas and buying stages.

Lead Management Strategy

In tandem with content that serves the buyer at every step, lead management works behind the scenes to place leads in the proper “bucket” and dictates how leads are handed off to sales. A lead management strategy is the mechanism that maps out the stages a lead passes through from the point where it’s simply a name in your database to a closed/won customer. This “buyer dialogue logic” quantifies the end-goal of your demand generation program, provides a structure to which the content in your program should be mapped, and contains logic for handling leads at every stage of their journey. In Marketo, the platform I have the most experience in, this is your Revenue Cycle Modeler. Before you build, you’ll want to nail down your lead stage definitions – what attributes should a person have in order to move in (or out) of a particular stage?

Data Capture

Data impacts so many different components of Demand Generation. From lead scoring to attribution to segmentation on the one side, and sales effectiveness on the back end. What metrics will be leveraged to gauge success and what is the data needed to produce these KPI reports? When you are in the planning phase for your demand generation program, you and your team should be coming up with answers to questions such as: where is the data being stored – is it on the Person record itself, or are you leveraging Marketo program statuses or Salesforce campaign objects (or a combination of these)? Are you date-stamping when key activities take place to understand a buyer’s critical path? Are you collecting lead source information across all dimensions you’d like to report on? (i.e. channels, content offers, partners, etc. – ideally this information should be contained in separate fields). Is your data clean? Are members of your sales team trained on how to correctly associate contacts with opportunities, thus ensuring lead-to-revenue tracking? The data strategy must be an overarching, consistent approach that’s used across all engagement channels.

User-Facing Assets

How your content is presented is almost as important as the content itself, as content consumption preferences vary from persona to persona, and even person to person. What many marketers don’t realize is that preferences are even impacted by where someone is in their Buyer’s Journey. Emails, landing pages, content, design, templates.

Source: DemandGen Report – 2018 Content Preferences Survey Report

Conceptually, these components are the easiest for everyone on your team to realize the importance of because they are what everyone sees (as opposed to the operational infrastructure taking place behind the scenes) but they often stop short with a single template or layout thinking the job is done. However, there must be an overall strategy for how these assets tie together, and how they map to different personas and buying stages. Content should be developed to map to existing buyer personas and lead management stages, and not the other way around.

Outbound Nurture Program Architecture

Nurtures that are static, one-way roads through the funnel don’t match with how companies buy. How are your automated outbound nurturing efforts technically structured in Marketo? Before you begin building your nurture program, it’s a good idea to whiteboard out all the paths a lead could take. A good always-on, automated nurture program should have logic built in to allow leads to move to different parts of the program as they move to a different stage in the lead funnel, or as information on their buyer profile changes. Some key questions to keep in mind include: Are there different tracks for different buyer personas? If so, what are the qualifications for someone being placed in Track A verses Track B? What actions should automatically flag someone for advancement to a later stage in the nurture program? At what point does a person stop being nurtured? What happens to people who are non-responsive? Is there a mechanism in place for a lead to request immediate contact with sales?

Testing Strategy

Before you go live with any component of a demand generation program, you’ll want to make sure that all program architecture, as well as user-facing assets, have been fully tested. Test emails should be sent to designated members of your team, who double-check for any broken links, formatting issues, etc. Additionally, you’ll want to ensure that everything functions correctly within the automation and programming and that all possible paths a person could take have been fully tested. A great way to do this is by creating a spreadsheet that lists out all possible scenarios that could happen to a person, and the desired outcomes. Create some test records and go through this spreadsheet line by line, marking off the passes and fails. Testing is tedious, but the more complex your architecture is, the more important it becomes.

Communication

Program and nurture change requests from your team are often made without an understanding of the complexity of the programs you have built, and the impact that even seemingly small changes may have on multiple logic steps down the line. You should communicate with others on your team to gather requirements and set expectations, baselines, and timeframes. Because so much of the logic that gets built to support a demand generation program takes place “behind the scenes” within the Marketo and CRM platforms, it can be difficult for those on the team who do not live in those systems every day to conceptualize the technical intricacies that may be required. If you are the designated marketing technologist on your team, you’ll want to make sure that each person understands what information and sign-offs you need from them (and when you need it) to successfully implement the demand generation program. Additionally, an internal communication notifying appropriate parties (such as the sales or customer support teams) when various components will launch is a good practice. Once everything is live, as a team it will be important to look at the strategic and tactical inferences that can be made from the reporting and determine how pieces of the program may be optimized moving forward.

• Eighty-six percent of millennials said they treat themselves at least once a month, according to Fidelity Investments' 2018 Millennial Money Study.
• This doesn't mean millennials are bad with money or spend recklessly; contrary to their reputation, millennials make saving a priority.
• Millennials are balancing their current spending on "treats" with financially preparing for the future.

Millennials' money habits may not be as bad as their reputation suggests. 

Known as the generation to "live in the now" and "live their best life," many millennials have a "treat yourself" mentality, according to Fidelity Investments' 2018 Millennial Money Study. In the survey, millennials were asked how often they "treat" themselves (defined as a purchase made to bring joy) — 86% said they treat themselves at least once a month, setting them back $110 a month on average.

But a "treat yourself" moment doesn't always equate to spending money recklessly.

"There are a lot of assumptions that millennials only live in the moment, but our research debunks that — they are balancing their current health and happiness with their financial futures," Brooke Forbes, senior vice president of digital planning and advice at Fidelity, said in the news release.

More than a quarter of millennials said that after a rough week, the thing that would bring them the most joy is some form of entertainment, such as going to the movies, happy hour, dinner, or a concert, according to the Fidelity report. This isn't surprising considering millennials tend to value experiences over ownership of things.

But seeing what their friends post on social media — whether it's sun-drenched photos from a recent vacation or drool-worthy dinner pics — is envy-inducing for some millennials. According to the survey, 63% of millennials said social media has a negative influence on their financial well-being.

Read more: 7 of the biggest financial problems millennials face that their parents didn't

Still, Forbes said, "Millennials deserve some credit: Many display strong financial habits, despite the magnified temptations they face daily thanks to social media."

Half of those surveyed by Fidelity said they're balancing spending now equally with saving for the future — and even more said saving for the future is as gratifying as treating themselves today.

Business Insider previously reported that millennials save more money than the national average, and Bank of America's Better Money Habits Millennial report revealed that more than half of millennials are saving — in fact, one in six have six figures tucked away. On top of that, nearly 75% stick to their budget.

Millennials even report being more dedicated to saving than older generations. Northwestern Mutual's Planning & Progress Study 2018 found that they were more likely than other generations to say they're "highly disciplined" or "disciplined" financial planners.

Specifically, more than half considered saving enough money for a milestone — marriage, college, or buying a house — their top financial priority.

DON'T MISS: A 100-year-old retired airline pilot with $5 million in the bank used a timeless tip to build his fortune

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NOW WATCH: 4 lottery winners who lost it all

If you run a small business, you probably have become accustomed to working hard….really hard. Seven-days-a-week hard, with nary a day off. Admirable, but also dangerous, because you risk burnout, health problems, and grumbling employees. It’s up to you to create a healthier work-life balance, so here are five tips to get you started:

Shorten your workweek:

Nowadays, many business owners feel guilty if they work less than 10 hours a day, including weekends. This is sure to exhaust your mind and hamper your creativity. If you want to increase your productivity, shorten your workweek. Put in no more than 40 per week and try to not work on weekends. Remember, sitting at your desk for long hours doesn’t equate to productivity. Work the hours you actually need to and relax the rest of the time.

Use technology:

We live in the high-tech era, so let technology do some of the heavy lifting for you. Automate your workday with a suite of apps that collect, process and distribute information. AI apps can automatically generate your Twitter tweets, schedule your appointments and alert you to important news. Update your old apps – email campaigns are much more sophisticated than they were five years ago, so use a modern app to manage your email marketing.

Enter the cloud:

Are your data and apps still residing on a hard disk on your computer? That’s a shame because migrating to the cloud opens up all sorts of possibilities that can make you more productive and save you time. Look at apps like accounting, CRM, design, and development. They need to share data to operate most efficiently. By putting your databases on the cloud, you can take advantage of scalable software that is constantly updated and doesn’t take up valuable real estate on your computer.

Take a vacation:

If you feel you are indispensable all the time, you’ll never get any time off. You deserve a vacation, and two weeks of sun and fun will do wonders for helping you get through the remaining 50. Pick your least busy time of year, and either close up shop or assign tasks to employees you can trust. Maybe two weeks is out of reach right now, but try to get at least three or four days in a block, and build from there.

Stop fretting about money:

Many small businesses have variable cash flows that sometimes leaves them cash-starved. This constant worry will drain all the joy out of being a business owner. The solution is to create a relationship with a trustworthy business lender, like IOU Financial. You can borrow and pay back quickly on convenient terms, with never a pre-payment penalty. Daily or weekly payments mean no large monthly lump-sum repayments to worry about. And with loans up to $300,000, we can give you peace of mind for just about any circumstance.

You started your own business to make money, be your own boss and do things the way you want. But wasn’t the ultimate goal to achieve a happy life? Don’t wait until it’s too late – add some joy to your life right now. Adopt our five tips, plus ones you come across in other articles. If you work with a team, what better way to demonstrate the value you place on work-life balance than to practice it yourself? Protect yourself from burnout now, and you’re more likely to happily remain in business over the long run.

London is the epicentre of the British affordable housing crisis, and while there are over 500 high-rises under construction in the capital, consuming nearly every available lot, virtually every one of these towers is designed to serve the high-end luxury market (despite plummeting prices in this category), whose anonymous offshore buyers often never occupy or rent out the flats they buy, merely holding them to flip them later.

Nearly half of London's offshore-owned highest-end housing stock is vacant, and the more valuable a property is, the less likely it is that anyone lives there.

This figure rises to more than one-third of buyers, or 36 per cent, if we look at the “prime” market areas of central London over the same period. Here, vacancy was measured by looking at homes with little or no “transactional data”, relating to finance, retail or other forms of administration, such as tax records and bills.

On this measure, we find that half of residences in new builds in general are empty, as are 19 per cent of dwellings across London’s inner boroughs. The likelihood that a home is empty rises alongside its market value: 39 per cent of homes worth £1m to £5m are underused, and 64 per cent of homes worth more than £5m. Of the homes owned by foreign investors, 42 per cent are empty.

The more expensive a property in London, the more likely it is to be empty [Rowland Atkinson/Citymetric]

(via Reddit)

By Brian Selby, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales Operations, Tableau Software

How often is your sales team making important decisions based on gut feel? Are you sure that deal will close this quarter and was it optimally priced? Are your sales resources allocated properly to drive growth?

In my experience, when sales organizations make major decisions and plans based on gut feelings, there are costly consequences. One company missed its fourth-quarter forecast by a significant amount and had to reset all quotas for the next year, delaying quota distribution by several weeks. Another sales team relied too heavily on experience and judgment to make pricing decisions for large deals and left millions of dollars on the table. One company failed to leverage its data on relative productivity of sales reps across geographies and inefficiently allocated scarce sales resources to the right growth opportunities.

In a world where data is everywhere, too many companies fail to take advantage of the power of data and analytics to fuel sales performance improvement.

Why does this happen in so many companies? Historically, sales has been labeled an art. Selling revolves around people, and with that comes emotion, beliefs, opinion, and the careful management of relationships with customers, partners, and others within the sales organization. Accessing data, and figuring out what to do with it, has been a difficult endeavor. However, with more modern business intelligence platforms emerging, and easier access to sales performance data, the application of science to selling has become a key differentiator in managing the sales organization. Companies that embrace data and analytics as the foundation for sales planning and performance management will achieve breakthrough improvement in sales productivity.

What could this look like? I’ve seen several use cases where advanced analytics have been applied to sales:

• Improved pricing and discounting: Many sales reps and leaders are time-constrained and haven’t been trained to effectively apply data analytics to pricing decisions. Oftentimes, it’s faster and easier to just offer the same pricing to customers or use the floor of the discount matrix to speed up the customer buying process. Typically, sales reps don’t know that other reps in their organization have achieved higher prices for the same deals with similar customers. This is an area where data and analytics can yield several points of margin improvement. With an advanced analytics platform mining all historical sales data, sales leaders can see where they are pursuing suboptimal pricing and challenge sales teams to reconsider their deal structures.

• Better forecasting accuracy: Sales leader judgment can be an important ingredient in forecasting deals, but human judgment often fares far worse than analytical models in assessing the likely outcome of deals and sales teams. The data does not lie. By leveraging data points on opportunities (e.g., the customer’s historic buying behavior, sales rep performance, product type, and sales stage), a predictive model can actually deliver a more accurate forecast than traditional “roll-up” processes can. Using these types of analytical models can also save countless hours in management meetings trying to analyze human judgment and adding “manager overrides” to lower-level forecasts.

• Reduced customer churn: Armed with a comprehensive profile of customer behaviors (e.g., support incidents, attendance at training classes, and website engagement), sales reps and/or customer success managers can more accurately identify at-risk customers and take preventative actions to prevent churn. Marketing outreach can also be tailored to target at-risk customers and increase overall engagement.

Establishing data and analytics as a foundation within the sales organization isn’t easy. Getting there requires leadership to invest time and resources into acquiring the right data, systems, and people to build these new capabilities. In my experience, it’s vital to build the right Sales Operations function with the charter and resources necessary to prepare and analyze data, synthesize the analysis into effective action plans, and drive change management across sales. These leading Sales Operations teams bring deep insight into performance improvement opportunities and become trusted advisors to leaders throughout the company. All of this is built on a solid foundation of data, from governance to preparation to analytics and reporting.

One Brand's Success in the "Science" of Selling

Enabling the “Science of Selling”

Building a new capability to harness the power of analytics in sales begins with clean, prepared, and well-managed data. This data must come from a widely-adopted CRM system and should be analyzed by a robust, modern analytics platform. And as mentioned above, the right analytically-minded Sales Operations staff need to be in place to understand the data, glean insights from analysis, and recommend effective actions for sales leaders to take to improve performance.

1) Start with clean data
Enterprises already know the pain of disparate data sources, siloed departments, and legacy software—a broken infrastructure that hinders performance, growth, and development. Scaling advanced analytics enterprise-wide means having consistent definitions and sales practices. This also requires activating staff who will ask the right questions of data, perform analytics, and discern what must happen next.

2) Enable sellers with the right solutions
Globally, how is your CRM system being used? Is your account and opportunity hierarchy defined and structured the same way across teams—does “closed won” mean the same thing to your commercial sales team as it does to your enterprise team, to your teams in the UK and Australia, for example? Setting definitions and hierarchies within your CRM is a best practice that leads to cleaner data. Embrace an analytics platform with the capability to connect to your CRM and other data sources, which has intuitive data-prep tools and optimizes advanced analytics to provide a single source of truth. Then you can take advantage of modern business intelligence capabilities and scale quickly.

3) Hire inquisitive, driven, tech-savvy talent
Beyond standardization of data analytic definitions and processes, you need the right talent in place to set your organization up for success. Your sales operations staff are trusted advisors to the business and should have a seat at the table to support sales planning and resource optimization. For a true ROI in Sales Operations, they should not be relegated to back-office reporting but instead should have the organizational support and technology resources to apply advanced analytics. The right people, empowered with the right analytics platform, and backed by the right data, drives sale performance improvement.

To leverage data analytics to prosper as a modern sales organization and bring more science to your selling, visit the Tableau Sales Analytics Solutions page. This one-stop resource for all things data and sales, will support new and better possibilities for your sales operations.

I got on a call with an SDR recently who was nothing short of lovely. He asked great questions, talked about my goals, what I was looking for, what I wanted to see in their technology, etc. He listened well, was authentic, and was helpful from start to finish.

Then I asked to see the technology.

Which is when he told me it wasn’t his job and that he’d have to get me scheduled with an Account Executive because he wasn’t allowed to show me. I actually had no idea he was an SDR… talk about killing the momentum!

Fast forward to the next call. The first thing the Account Executive asks me:

“So… tell me about your business and why we are talking.”

Really? Did you all not talk behind the scenes? The LAST thing I want to do is to have the same conversation again…

… and more importantly, I shouldn’t have to! I gracefully ended the call after a painful demo that didn’t touch on any of the key points we discussed during the first call and immediately went to their top competitor.

Folks, the market has shifted. Buyers are more in the driver’s seat of the sales process than they ever have been:

You MUST make sure that your buyer’s experience at each touchpoint is seamless and pain-free. It’s a HUGE part of how they decide if your product/service/widget is worth buying.

Here’s how to avoid situations like I experienced and ensure your sales process truly is seamless.

How to create a seamless buyer experience

As much as I hate to say it, the biggest problem I see with sales processes these days is twofold:

1. They’re built around the seller instead of the buyer
2. They’re built with a one-size-fits-all mentality

Case in point, a client of mine told me one day that they use the SDR model simply because “that’s the SaaS sales model.”

That client actually uses the SDR model exceptionally well (and is seeing massive growth). So I’m not knocking the approach in this case.

But the mindset is what I still can’t wrap my head around. Buyers don’t give one rip about what your process is like… they just want their problems solved. You need to structure your process in whatever way will help them do that, not how everyone else does it.

The B2B sales process is becoming less and less linear each year because the way buyers buy is changing. An SDR model might not be the right fit even if you’re in SaaS! In fact, a report by McKinsey showed that businesses who modified their sales process to more closely match the way their customers buy saw a 20% increase in new leads and 10% increase in new customers. No matter what model you decide to use, here are a few things you need to work incredibly hard at to ensure your sales process isn’t getting in the way of the sale.

Cleanup your handoffs

The intersection between an SDR and an AE needs to be flawless (and not an internal power struggle). This is the thing I see go most wrong these days and the thing that will drive the greatest results on your win rates when you change it up.

Here’s a courtesy of SalesHacker that illustrates where this often goes wrong:

 

There needs to be a genuine partnership between an SDR and an AE and not just a lukewarm hand-off. Most halfway savvy prospects can feel a gap in the communication and this makes for a terrible experience.

A couple things to think about to make sure the handoff is clean:

• • • Eliminate friction for your buyers. There is a reason companies like Drift are dominating. Their mantra is to get into real-time conversations with prospects sooner and more effectively, reducing the struggle to get answers.
    • Leverage your technology to create a paper trail of meaningful details. Ensure anyone that looks at the prospect has the history and ability to step right in if needed without creating redundancy.
    • Make sure your AE’s and SDR’s are discussing what was covered. Things like pains, goals, what to expect, key points to cover going into it, etc. Too often the wrong things are discussed and important details slip through the cracks.
    • Have the SDR tee up the second call. I prefer for the SDR to hop on the second call and just set the stage for the AE. This is the ultimate way to create a smooth transition.
    • Create an effective comp plan. As I say often to my clients, incentivize the behavior and results you want to see and penalize bad behavior that has your buyers suffering. Make sure it reflects the reality of the situation (see the image above)!

Above all else – put yourself in your buyers’ shoes.

How would you feel if you were them going through your process? Let that guide you!

Simplify your technology

A study from last year indicates that nearly two-thirds (64.8%) of your reps’ time, on average, is spent on non revenue-generating activities. That means they’re only spending 35.2% of their time actually selling. The rest is spent getting bogged down in the minutiae.

A big part of this (in my experience) is because sales leaders actually provide too many pieces of technology to use. The excess ends up just getting in the way and gets their teams stuck in admin details.

This will show in your sales process with customers – like how the SDR in my experience above “wasn’t allowed” to do the demo.

Not to mention it wastes valuable dollars that you could be reinvesting into making your team shine in other ways.

Don’t bog your team down with unnecessary technology – audit what you have today, pinpoint gaps, and figure out what you need to enable your team while satisfying your buyer. Scrap the rest.

Pay attention to the right metrics

I find that a lot of teams don’t know which details actually move deals forward (or shut them down for that matter). They end up stuck in the dark as a result.

I’m talking about things like:

• • • Lead data
    • Response time
    • Conversions
    • Sales funnel barriers
    • Loss reasons (why they don’t convert)
    • Seasonality trends
    • All things revenue from every aspect (new business, upsells, churn, etc)
    • Percentage of team achieving quota
    • Length of sales cycle
    • Average deal size (per customer segment)
    • Key Results Areas + Key Performance Indicators

Accurate understanding and reporting on these items will help you keep your team focused on the right things – the ones that will help them be prepared for conversations with buyers and anticipate their needs on calls.

Additionally, it will help you create comp plans that truly incentivize your reps the right way… something that is crucial to driving continuous growth for your company and your people.

Create a feedback loop from the front lines

The key to creating a seamless experience for your customers is to take a continuous improvement approach. Always look for ways to make the process and systems better and make sure they’re not getting in the way of the sale!

The best place to get the information you need to do that is right from their mouths.

That’s why the best sales leaders I know are always out on the floor with their team having conversations about what they’re seeing, hearing, and experiencing each day with buyers in addition to spending time with buyers directly themselves.

There’s no replacement for a true post-mortem to get raw, unfiltered feedback straight from your customers!

That’s where tools like Chorus.ai and Gong.io can make a huge difference throughout the buying process since they help you record and analyze calls.

One other very important thing to add here… the best sales leaders don’t just apply this information to their process. They also find ways to get that information up the chain to the people who can do something with it if need be.

Things like:

• • • Common product requests
    • Process changes
    • Messaging
    • When a buyer responds versus is turned off or tuned out
    • Timing

The truth is, salespeople can only sell a product the market wants. So you’ve got to make sure the information that they uncover in the field makes its way to the rest of the organization to act on too.

Final thoughts

The key takeaway here is very simple: the Golden Rule. Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes by listening to their real unfiltered feedback and acting on it. This will help you break down where the barriers to purchase in your process are and show you how to improve.

But a sub point I want to make here is, not all sales processes are created equal… nor should they be. Your product-market fit is unique and your sales process should interface that perfectly, not just “how other successful companies are doing it.”

The post If Your Sales Process Looks Like This, You’re Blowing Deals appeared first on OpenView Labs.

There are various ways you can attempt to engage prospects through email marketing. Some of the most common tactics include compelling offer emails. The challenge with traditional marketing emails is that they often appear as pushy and end up in your prospect’s trash can.

Occasionally, however, the opportunity arises to market to leads that may fit your customer persona but have little awareness of your brand. While it may be tempting to reach out to them with what you consider to be an irresistible offer, there are other, more effective options which will help guide your prospect down the marketing and sales funnel .

The SOAP Sequence

The SOAP sequence is a series of email messages used to “butter up” new prospects, leads, and email subscribers. While these sequences can be as long as you want, research reveals sequences with five emails to be the most ideal. SOAP sequence emails focus on building a relationship with your new prospect, creating trust as well as an interest with your brand and/or product.

We’re all pretty familiar with Soap Operas. The drama-filled episodes keep you hanging on until the end, then it leaves you with a cliffhanger, forcing you to watch next week’s episode. Then, the cycle just repeats itself.

Similarly to the way a Soap Opera works, the SOAP Sequence interests readers by continuously hooking them in. In this case, your brand or company acts as the main character. By the end of the sequence, your new leads will be ready and waiting for what you have to offer them.

Here’s a breakdown of the five emails in the sequence:

Email 1: Set the Stage

The first email is your welcome email. It allows you to introduce yourself or your brand. This is your first opportunity to form some sort of connection with your prospect. You want to intrigue them and get them interested in learning more. One way to do so is by presenting a secret. Here’s an example:

“I’ve been in the marketing business for nearly two decades. But, only in the last five years have I seen significant business growth. I’m signing new clients daily. Want to know how I do it? I’ve got a BIG secret and it works wonders. Watch out for my next email and I’ll share my secret with you.”

Here, we’ve set the stage by presenting them with the idea of a successful industry secret. But, they have to tune into the next email to find out more.

Email 2: High Drama

Now that your prospect is hooked, you can offer them more information to keep them interested. At this point, they want to know this mysterious yet valuable secret to your marketing business. This is where the selling process begins, sending your prospect straight down that funnel.

Here’s where it’s a good idea to start with a backstory. Give your prospect some rising action! In the case of the marketing business owner from above, the next email could cover an economic downturn that hurt their business, forcing the owner into a dire need to turn it around and bring it back to life.

As you promised, don’t forget to tell your readers your “secret.” Start that selling process by adding a final paragraph mentioning your product or service. Here’s an example:

“Before I conclude, it is time to share the secret you’ve been waiting for. Take a look at my website and see how I’ve managed to grow my marketing business and add more clients than any other marketing firm in the state of Florida.”

Email 3: The Epiphany

At this point in the sequence, your users are hooked and want to learn more. They’ve been introduced to you and your product. More importantly, they like you and feel a connection.

They want to know how you overcame your problem and figured out how to succeed. You can use the Epiphany email to explain. Here’s how:

“My epiphany was that I needed software that…”

Now, your reader can start to see the value of your product.

Email 4: The Hidden Benefits

Now that your reader has an understanding for what your product or service is, it’s value, and how it works, you need to help them understand how it works for them. Visualize yourself using the product and use this to help formulate your email.

This is a good opportunity for you to hone in on your buyer persona. List all the ways your product or service can benefit your leads. Make them realize that they need it! Add some links for them to contact you and make a purchase.

Email 5: The Call to Action

This is the last email of the sequence, but it is most certainly not the last email they will be receiving from you. By now, readers are familiar with your product or service and feel a connection with you and your brand. Here’s where you can add a compelling offer with a sense of urgency, inciting them down the funnel more quickly. See this example:

“Sign up by 8 p.m. for our informative webinar. Attendance is limited!”

Feel free to conclude the sequence by asking for the sale.

Now that you have a good understanding of this highly effective email marketing technique, give it a try! Create a story that people will fall in love with so people can start to fall in love with your brand too. Use this method to quickly funnel your leads into conversions!

SMA has put together FREE list of email templates of all emails in the sequence. Click the link below to get your copy!