Post on 18-Apr-2017
MOBILITY, LIFE AND WORK RECREATED
C H A P T E R O N E
C H A P T E R O N E :
B Y D A V E B R O C K
I’m looking at my calendar for the past few weeks.
Over 24K air miles across 2 continents, over 25
segments, 14 hotels, and countless conference rooms.
Meetings in Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Denver,
New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego, London,
Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Philadelphia, Palo Alto,
San Francisco, Phoenix, Tucson—I think I forgot a few
cities and just lose count.
Mobility, Life andWork Recreated
C H A P T E R O N E
MOBILITY, LIFE AND WORK RECREATED
Embed dozens of meetings, 4 keynote presentations,
3 workshops, dozens of phone calls, hundreds/thousands
of emails, hundreds of text messages, and half a dozen web
conferences. Overlay this with telephone calls all over
North America, Europe, Asia, India, and a few to Mexico,
Brazil and South Africa.
All in a “month’s work.”
Ask any business executive or professional to look at
their schedules for the past month, many of their stories
will be similar to mine. But even if it isn’t, let’s look at how
work has changed. It used to be work was done in our
“offices.” In many cases our offices no longer physically
exist—many sales people “carry” their offices with them.
From room to room, in their car, from customer to customer.
They work from various locations and at home. Having information,
data, tools, and support, wherever the person is, becomes
critical to their performance.
Let’s look further. In writing this article, I collaborated with
people in Singapore, Basel, Seattle, London, Denver, Boise,
and Mountain View. Within minutes to hours, I got responses
from people in those locations, all with insight that helped me
in writing this article.
Think about other changes each of us has encountered.
Concepts like the “virtual office,” “hotelling,” all seem very old.
Talk to executives in the telephone operating companies, the
number of mobile numbers being issued is outstripping landlines.
The concept of the “office phone number” has disappeared.
In virtually every country in the world, the primary form of telephonic contact is to the person’s mobile—wherever that person might be. With some, texting has overtaken telephonic communications.
C H A P T E R O N E
MOBILITY, LIFE AND WORK RECREATED
Words like, texting, tweeting, conferencing, telepresence,
time shifting, globalization, time compression, networking,
social selling, collaboration, Skyping, voice messaging, video
messaging, Facetime, YouTube, mobility, and others pepper
our conversations—almost unconsciously.
Our work and our personal lives have changed.
The boundaries between work and office no longer exist—
physically or in time. Everything has co-mingled and
become inseparable, 7x24.
Technology has changed our lives and the way we work
and will continue to do so. Mobility is no longer really about
technology—but it’s about how we work or should be
working. As sales people and business professionals our
work has changed dramatically and what we need to
maximize our productivity and impact has changed forever.
C H A P T E R O N E
MOBILITY, LIFE AND WORK RECREATED
Knowledge and insight has become king— it’s become the di!erentiator for sales people.
Our products and services become table stakes, but the
greatest differentiator in sales success becomes the way we
engage our customers in their buying process. Bringing our
customers fresh insights, ideas, and identifying opportunities
for them to improve their businesses and operations become
keys to differentiation and success.
If knowledge and insight are king, then time and
responsiveness are the queen. Customers are looking for
answers—and they want them yesterday. Answering customer
questions, being able to provide data, and accurate responses
quickly are critical in delivering the right impact—both because
of the pace of business, but also because our customers,
like us, are being pulled many directions. Sales people want
to capture the moment, responding and moving forward as
quickly as possible.
The new world of work puts new demands on the sales person
and new demands on organisations in helping sales people
improve their effectiveness and their ability to engage
customers. Key issues include collaboration—being able to
access expert resources, wherever they are at whatever time.
These experts may be in our companies, our partners, or in our
communities. They may be across the globe. Accessing this
expertise, leveraging their collective knowledge and experience
becomes critical in responding to our customers.
Knowledge and insight also require data and analytics—
going further, being able to identify opportunities and respond
in real time, leveraging the power of big data—about the
customer and about their customers
enables us to engage our customers
with facts about their operations,
about their performance and about
that of their customers and competitors.
C H A P T E R O N E
MOBILITY, LIFE AND WORK RECREATED
We and our customers live in a world of “now.” Gone
are the days of “Let me research this and get back to you.”
Providing information and insight in real time is critical. Being
in a customer meeting, being able to reach out—through your
tablet, phone, computer or whatever device, getting answers
could be the difference between winning and losing.
As sales professionals we don’t know where we will be or
how we will engage our customers. But we need to engage
them wherever they or we are, whenever they want. This means
access is critical. Providing the information sales people need,
when they need it, where they need it, in the format they
need it, on the device they happen to be using is critical to
sales performance and enhancing the customer experience.
But this extends beyond sales, directly into the customer.
Imagine extending this knowledge and these insights directly
into their meetings and operations. Imagine them being able
to get knowledge, data, insight, and answers—when they
need it, where they need it, in the format they want,
on whatever device they happen to be using.
Mobility is about the new world of work. Yes, technology
enables us to continually redefine work. We cannot begin
to guess what new devices we will be using in 5-10 years,
but we know the way we work will be different.
We have to provide access differently—any time, anywhere,
any format, on any device. We have to provide insight, support,
knowledge and data to support our people and our customers,
wherever they are, whatever they are doing. Mobility is not
about a device, it’s about how we live our lives and conduct
our business.
Are you prepared to support your people and your customers where they work and live?
C H A P T E R O N E
MOBILITY, LIFE AND WORK RECREATED
P R O C E E D T O :
How Agile Oranisationsare Improving
the Sales Experience
C H A P T E R T W O
HOW AGILE ORGANIZATIONS ARE IMPROVING THE SALES EXPERIENCE
C H A P T E R T W O
C H A P T E R T W O :
How Agile Organisations areImproving the Sales Experience
B Y B O B A P O L L O
Why do companies buy from your organisation? Is it because of the power of your brand, or the features
and capabilities of your products, or your unbeatable
value for money? According to the latest end-user
research by the Sales Executive Council, and despite
what some traditional marketers might think, none of
these factors are anything like as important as the
quality of the sales experience. It’s not what you sell,
but how you sell that counts.
C H A P T E R T W O
HOW AGILE ORGANIZATIONS ARE IMPROVING THE SALES EXPERIENCE
B2B sales cycles often seem to involve an ever-increasing
number of stakeholders with different issues, concerns and
motivations. A single standard corporate sales pitch isn’t
going to help you persuade each of them “why change?”,
“why now?” and “why us?”. And if you fail to adapt to their
individual priorities, whilst at the same time building
organisation-wide consensus around these key questions,
the most likely outcome is that your prospect will simply
decide to do nothing.
It’s no wonder that many sales organisations are
reporting lengthening sales cycles, wild fluctuations in
sales forecast accuracy and a growing number of apparently
well-qualified sales opportunities fading away into a decision
to simply stick with the status quo. But there is a growing
number of agile sales organisations that have been able to
deliver a consistently outstanding sales experience.
What can we learn from them?
Agile sales organisations tend to be much smarter about
which opportunities they choose to pursue. When they
think about their ideal customers, they go far beyond basic
demographics to understand the structural, behavioural,
environmental and situational factors that so often influence
their chances of success. They do their research before the
first sales call is ever made, and they deliberately structure the
initial sales conversation so that they uncover these key factors.
Their conversations with prospects follow are carefully crafted
sequence, starting by sharing insights that are intended to
bring a fresh perspective and cause the prospect to think
differently. Then they introduce issues that are likely to be
important to the prospect and help them explore the impact
on the prospect’s organisation—and then carefully differentiate
their approach from the other options available to the prospect.
C H A P T E R T W O
HOW AGILE ORGANIZATIONS ARE IMPROVING THE SALES EXPERIENCE
Have you noticed something?
They avoid pitching their solution until they have satisfied
themselves that the prospect sees a real need to change—
and focus on why they are different before they present
their capabilities and prove how they help customers achieve
superior results. Every sales tool, every piece of marketing
collateral, has a carefully designed role to play in supporting
the prospect’s buying decision process.
Most important of all, they equip their sales people to make
smart decisions about what to say and how to say it most
effectively when they are in conversation with the prospect
—and that’s why taking an intelligent approach to mobilising
their sales force can prove so effective. Let’s be clear:
throwing technology at the problem and simply issuing all
your sales people with iPads is likely to achieve next to
nothing. But if—like this growing number of truly agile sales
organisations—you actually equip your sales people to be
more effective by providing them the information they need
to optimise every sales experience, then the intelligent use
of technology can propel them to a whole new level.
In an agile world, sales people can tap into social media to conduct last-minute research into the latest issues a!ecting their prospect.
They can prepare for the discussion by reviewing structured
conversation planners. They can call up sales-stage and
situation-specific sales tools on the spot to help facilitate the
conversation. And in any “dead time” before the next call,
they can catch up with any administration—including updating
their CRM in close-to-real time.
C H A P T E R T W O
HOW AGILE ORGANIZATIONS ARE IMPROVING THE SALES EXPERIENCE
But it’s not just about making sales people more
productive. These initiatives are dramatically improving
the customer sales experience. Instead of having to sit
through a canned, one-size-fits-all corporate presentation,
the sales conversation can adapt and respond during the
course of the meeting to the prospect’s specific interests.
The sales person can call up a wealth of relevant information,
and assemble a set of messages that resonate with what
they have learned is most important to the prospect.
I’ve been involved in mobilising workforces for the past 15
years. I’ve never seen greater progress than today in the
potential for the intelligent application of technology to
enhance the sales process—and the buying experience.
Your competitors may have cottoned on already. If your
organisation hasn’t, will you be tempted to blame your
next sales loss on marketing failures, product or price?
C H A P T E R T W O
HOW AGILE ORGANIZATIONS ARE IMPROVING THE SALES EXPERIENCE
P R O C E E D T O :
Nine Shortcuts to More E!ective Sales and
Marketing Collaboration
C H A P T E R T H R E E
NINE SHORTCUTS TO MORE EFFECTIVE SALES & MARKETING COLLABORATION
C H A P T E R T H R E E
C H A P T E R T H R E E :
B Y M A T T H E I N Z
Nine Shortcuts to More E!ective Sales and Marketing Collaboration
The concept of getting sales and marketing to work more closely together isn’t new.
It’s been an issue, if not a focus area, for as long
as sales and marketing teams have been working
together (at least in theory) to drive predictable,
sustainable growth for their business.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
NINE SHORTCUTS TO MORE EFFECTIVE SALES & MARKETING COLLABORATION
Discussions around how to make sales and marketing
collaboration work have been intensifying of late, which
is a good thing. And the fact that we keep talking about it—
at conferences, on discussion boards, and blog posts like
this—is an indication that we’re far from solving the problem
(or should we say, taking advantage of the opportunity).
The fact is, there’s no secret to making the two teams
work as one. And the answer is not just more meetings.
Below are nine specific shortcuts to help your organisation
(or your clients) accelerate their path towards sales and
marketing collaboration nirvana.
1. Common ObjectivesIt starts with what you’re working towards. Traditionally, sales is responsible for sales and marketing is responsible for leads. That may still be operationally true, but marketing needs to be comfortable with sales and revenue as the lagging indicators of their success.
Yes, the sales team is required to achieve those goals. And the leading indicators of success, the short-term deliverables, will be leads and case studies and microsites and the like. But sales and marketing must first agree on a common set of well-defined outcomes. This is the grounding that becomes the basis for all other work, discussions, triage and execution.
2. Common DefinitionsWith sales as the output, it’s important for sales and marketing
to agree on definitions and standards for the critical steps and
deliverables that lead to sales. For example, what qualifies as
a lead? What qualifies as a short-term sales opportunity?
Your common definitions will manifest themselves in a single
dashboard to measure, review and improve results. It starts
with a model that predicts the sales or revenue result.
How many opportunities are required to get a sale? How many
leads to get an opportunity? By combining this model with
common definitions of each deliverable and stage, both sales
C H A P T E R T H R E E
NINE SHORTCUTS TO MORE EFFECTIVE SALES & MARKETING COLLABORATION
For example, let’s say you expect to generate 3,000 leads per
month with a $30,000/month budget. What if the marketing
team can generate the same leads for less? Would you give
them a percentage of the budget difference as a bonus?
What about if they generated more leads for the same
budget? Would you give them a percentage of resulting
sales commissions as a bonus? Worth thinking about.
4. Executive sponsorshipIf your C-suite doesn’t believe in sales and marketing
working together, it will never be a priority at the functional level.
If your CEO and CFO mandate certain levels of performance
and outcomes based on joint goals and market approaches,
you’re far more likely to get everyone in each organisation
to fall in line and at least figure out how to operationalise
the right priorities and tactics.
and marketing have a crystal-clear understanding of what’s
required to achieve success. All other inputs, opportunities
and distractions are triaged based on those goals, metrics
and definitions.
3. Common compensation/objectivesThis one is controversial, but is a natural next step if both
sales and marketing have common objectives and definitions
of success. Sales is most likely measured largely on their
success in driving new business. Why shouldn’t marketing
be similarly compensated?
If you’re nervous about taking this step,
start small. Give marketing a goal in
line with your objectives and definitions,
then give them a percentage of the
“lift” achieved above and beyond that.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
NINE SHORTCUTS TO MORE EFFECTIVE SALES & MARKETING COLLABORATION
5. Up-front planningWhat if you treated the marketing planning process
as if it were a proposal to a customer?
Marketing doesn’t work for sales, but in many companies
the primary “customer” for marketing is in fact the sales
organisation. So if that’s the case, it seems appropriate
that the marketing plan each year should at minimum be
reviewed and “accepted” by sales leadership as sufficient
to help them achieve their own 2012 growth objectives.
This doesn’t mean that sales has complete veto power over
strategies and tactics. The “means” by which marketing
achieves collective goals agreed to by sales and marketing
together should continue to be, ultimately, up to the
marketing team. But before the marketing plan is finalised,
it stands to reason that it should be presented to the sales
team for review and comment.
For example, does the marketing plan enable the sales team
to access sales materials and new leads on the go? Can the
sales team send the latest versions of content to their
prospects from the road? These may be tactical considerations,
but are critical to enabling the sales team to operate at their
best wherever they are.
6. Lead distribution and management processWhere will your sales team get most of their leads?
If they’re constantly on the road, for example, it’ll be critical
that you have a strategy for reps to receive, accept and follow-up
with leads directly via their mobile devices. Similarly, are you
working together to enable quick updates on leads and
opportunities from the field? If your reps can update lead
records in 60 seconds or less, you’re doing something right.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
NINE SHORTCUTS TO MORE EFFECTIVE SALES & MARKETING COLLABORATION
7. Daily/weekly triageEven with the best-laid plans, things will go wrong.
Problems will pop up. Tests will fail, campaigns will fall flat.
Assumptions will be made, loyalties questioned. And new
opportunities will be identified or discovered.
For these and many reasons, it’s important to have regular,
metrics-based reviews of what’s working and what’s not,
as well as a forum to capture and review new ideas to determine
which of them should be operationalised quickly and which
should stay on the side burner (at least for now). This process
allows for an unlimited set of new ideas to be input and
addressed, with a specific process to, together, determine
where the focus should be moving forward.
8. O"ine relationship-buildingAll work and no play, well, you know how that ended. You
can’t force offline or out-of-office interaction, but you can
encourage and facilitate it. Get the teams together for happy
hour, do a March Madness bracket that mixes the teams
together, or other activities that fit your culture that help sales
and marketing leaders get to know each other outside of their
professional focus areas. When you can connect about sports
or music or family, it’s easier to get through the professional
obstacles and sticking points as well.
9. Measure before and after team satisfactionSalespeople want to make more sales. Marketing, believe
it or not, wants to help salespeople make more sales.
The blame-game that exists in many organization not only
keeps companies from closing more business, but frustrates
members of both teams. Driving effective, successful
collaboration between sales and marketing will drive both
sides to feel better about their contribution, the direct line
it provides to revenue, and greater satisfaction in their
day-to-day execution to achieve those results.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
NINE SHORTCUTS TO MORE EFFECTIVE SALES & MARKETING COLLABORATION
P R O C E E D T O :
Deliver a Great Experience to Prospects, IncludingThose That Don’t Buy
C H A P T E R F O U R
DELIVER A GREAT EXPERIENCE TO ALL PROSPECTS, INCLUDING THOSE THAT DON’T BUY
C H A P T E R F O U R
C H A P T E R F O U R :
Deliver a Great Experience to Prospects, Including Those That Don’t Buy
B Y B O B T H O M P S O N
For sure, increasing sales productivity is a good thing.Marketing organisations are putting in place systems and tools to generate and score leads, so that reps can
focus on more qualified prospects.
However, even in the best case scenario reps will not
close every opportunity. Some cusomers may not have
a need to buy now. Others may have a need, but they
may select another alternative.
C H A P T E R F O U R
DELIVER A GREAT EXPERIENCE TO ALL PROSPECTS, INCLUDING THOSE THAT DON’T BUY
A CSO Insights study found average win rates of about
45% in 2011, a five point drop from 2006.
So the key question is: What kind of sales experience are you delivering to all of your prospects – including those that weren’t qualified or didn’t buy?
This is important because, whether a prospect buys or not,
their experience interacting with your company will create a
lasting impression. A good experience means they may return
another day, when they have needs that match your solutions.
Or, they’ll recommend your company to a colleague.
Either way, that helps increase revenue productivity.
For example, last year I was looking for software to support
my online community CustomerThink.com.
Over the course of a couple of weeks, I searched for solutions,
interacted with vendor web sites and engaged with several
sales reps by email and phone. To most of the vendors I was
just another not-very-valuable small business buyer. And I was
treated accordingly, no doubt thanks to some nifty lead scoring
algorithms that have become de rigueur for B2B marketers.
Unfortunately, these vendors probably didn’t factor into their
scoring that my posts on CustomerThink reach an audience
of 80,000 visitors per month. Or, that I have colleagues in the
publishing business that are also potential buyers. And what
do you know, shortly after my buying experiences, an industry
colleague asked me for advice on similar tools, and I was only
too happy to share my recommendations. Privately.
Bottom line: While I may not have been scored or treated as a
valuable prospect, I was valuable in other ways—as an influencer.
And many of your prospects are, too.
C H A P T E R F O U R
DELIVER A GREAT EXPERIENCE TO ALL PROSPECTS, INCLUDING THOSE THAT DON’T BUY
The point of lead scoring is to assess the value of the
prospect to you—the seller—so you can make the best
use of your resources. Let’s flip this idea around. What I’m
advocating is that you spend time to really understand how
your prospects—all of them—perceive their experience with
your brand. From the initial web search to interacting with
your web site to engaging with inside or field sales reps,
all of these touchpoints form an impression and influence
their likelihood to buy or recommend.
Start by assessing your current customer and prospect experiences. Look for opportunities to get prospect feedback using web analytics and feedback solutions. You could even hire “mystery prospects” to take on different personas representing buyers, influencers, researchers, etc.
C H A P T E R F O U R
DELIVER A GREAT EXPERIENCE TO ALL PROSPECTS, INCLUDING THOSE THAT DON’T BUY
If you do a buyer “journey map” you’ll probably find that
more and more buyers start their journey online and are
rapidly adopting mobile technologies such as smart phones
and tablets. In the US, Nielson reports that in 2012 about half
of all mobile subscribers are using smartphones.
Ultimately, a great prospect experience is about interacting
on their terms—giving them the information they want, in
the form they want, where they want, at the time they want
it, on the device they want. Whether prospects buy
immediately or not, a positive experience will become
the “gift that keeps on giving” in the future.
Realise that as you’re scoring prospects on their value to yours, they are also scoring their experience with your company. Delivering a great prospect experience can help you differentiate and become a B2B brand that
businesspeople talk about like consumers rave about Zappos!
The prospect experience used to be mainly face-to-face
interactions. Then it moved to the phone, and now it’s
going digital in a big way.
$