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B2B Sales Tactics Customer Buying Journey

Are Your B2B Sales Tactics Derailing the Customer Buying Journey?

October 30, 2020/in B2B Customer Experience Research, B2B Customer Journey Mapping, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Marketing Enablement /by Laura Johnson
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B2B sellers often think of their role in the customer buying journey as a numbers game. And organizations reinforce this notion. Promotions and pay bumps often hinge on how well the rep measures up to their KPIs. From the number of SQLs they convert to how much revenue they generate, these metrics are necessary for tracking and analyzing your sales team’s performance. However, these metrics don’t tell the full story but are chronically overemphasized.
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The Long Game: Selling New Products | New Product Sales | Cascade Insights

The Long Game: Selling New Products

September 26, 2019/in B2B Marketing Blog /by Brian Surguine
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Does your sales team approach new product sales the same way they approach existing product lines?

According to Darden School of Business Professor Thomas Steenburgh, new product sales look very different from selling existing products. Selling new products can require more face-to-face time with customers than when selling established products. Management also has to be patient with the fact that new sales just take longer to go through. However, getting new product sales right can generate huge returns in the long run.

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Hero's Quest: The B2B Buyer's Journey

Hero’s Quest: The B2B Buyer’s Journey

August 7, 2019/in B2B Buyer Persona Research, B2B Customer Journey Mapping, B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts /by Brian Surguine
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In the B2B buyer’s journey, buyers have to wade through a lot of nonsense to find relevant information.

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Going Beyond Brexit: Doing Business in the UK, France, and Germany

May 15, 2019/in B2B Marketing Blog, Blog Posts /by Brian Surguine
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In this episode, we discuss how Brexit will impact the world of B2B with Martina Bozadzhieva, market research Europe expert at DuckerFrontier. Bozadzhieva’s expertise comes from direct experience navigating business dynamics in the turbulent European market. You’ll definitely want to listen if you do business in the UK, France, or Germany.

In This Episode:

  • Current business trends and challenges in the UK.
  • The companies set to benefit the most with a “hard” Brexit.
  • Unique EU regulations that impact B2B businesses.
  • Germany’s current economic state and unique aspects of doing business in Germany.
  • Business challenges and opportunities in France.
  • Differences in communication styles between the UK, France, and Germany.
  • Advice for country managers who are moving from corporate to another country, including how they can best interact with corporate.

Resources:

  • Martina’s LinkedIn profile
  • Martina’s Twitter page

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a hybrid market research & marketing firm specializing in the B2B tech sector. Subscribe to the podcast to keep up with the most pressing issues facing marketers in the B2B tech sector. 

 

Win-Loss Analysis: Is Your Team Set Up To Succeed?

Win-Loss Analysis: Is Your Sales Team Set Up To Succeed?

May 14, 2019/in B2B Market Research Blog, Blog Posts, Win/Loss Analysis /by Brian Surguine
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Improving win rates is within your control. After many B2B win-loss analysis research projects, we have found that simple adjustments can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of your sales team.

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Data's Cold Embrace

Data’s Cold Embrace

July 25, 2018/in Blog Posts /by Trevor Gilbert
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David Fisher, author of Hyper-Connected Selling, knows that technology-enabled sales is great, but it’s never going to satisfy the need for human connection.

The best way to listen to the episode is through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Overcast. You’ll be able to listen to past episodes and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes.

As we mentioned in the show, if you’re enjoying the B2B Revealed show we’d love it if you would leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the show.

   

B2B's Amazon Moment

B2B’s Amazon Moment

July 12, 2018/in Blog Posts /by Trevor Gilbert
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Chloë Thomas, author of “B2B eCommerce MasterPlan” joins us to talk about B2B eCommerce. Yes, B2B companies need to go online. No, they shouldn’t be taking their cues from the Amazon consumer experience.

Chloë’s book: http://a.co/fZpuzum

The best way to listen to the episode is through Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Overcast. You’ll be able to listen to past episodes and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes.

As we mentioned in the show, if you’re enjoying the B2B Revealed show we’d love it if you would leave a nice review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the show.

   

 

Boardroom Diplomacy: Marketing Needs Allies

Boardroom Diplomacy: Marketing Needs Allies

May 16, 2018/in Blog Posts /by Trevor Gilbert
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Apple PodcastsSubscribe to B2B Revealed on Google PlaySubscribe to B2B Revealed on StitcherSubscribe to B2B Revealed on Soundcloud

Myopic marketing executives focus solely on messaging to external audiences. Lack of attention to internal communications costs marketers influence on business decisions … and allies.

Savvy marketing leaders have an internal messaging strategy at the ready. This helps them achieve their creative goals while balancing business benefits.

In our latest episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast, Sean Campbell interviewed Darcy Kurtz, drawing on her experience leading global product marketing at Sage.

Partnership vs. Solo Artist

Darcy Kurtz

According to Kurtz, marketing teams often communicate poorly with other departments in their own companies. This inevitably leads to problems. Kurtz pointed out that sales and marketing executives at many companies fail to be “100 percent aligned”, and many fail, “to have the same goals.”

The tension begins when marketing teams act alone. They come up with great plans, messaging strategies, and value propositions without input from the sales team. Then, marketing qualified leads (MQLs) are thrown over the fence, with the sales team is left holding the bag.

Aligning the funnel requires better cross-department communication. Sales needs to be involved in the goal-setting process so that marketing can bring in higher-quality leads.

“[Ideally,] marketing is being held accountable for more than just, ‘Did you bring in a certain quantity of leads or certain quantities of MQLs?’” said Kurtz. “I really look at quality as much as quantity, so how many of those are converting into true sales qualified leads and closed deals?”

Boardroom Fluency

Stunted collaboration between marketing and sales is only the beginning. Kurtz also urged marketers to rethink their approach to boardroom meetings.

“I’m a big believer that marketing needs a seat at the table when it comes to business discussions,” Kurtz said. “When I’m mentoring marketing folks about this, I tell them, ‘You need to learn as much about business management as you do about marketing management,’ to be successful long-term.”

Kurtz explained that marketers often expect to sell ideas to the boardroom based on creativity alone. Marketers should take more care in explaining how their creative work furthers the company’s business goals.

Get Diplomatic

For Kurtz, marketing leaders can only expect success when they change their behavior. That means collaborating with sales, learning how to speak at the leadership table, and reevaluating how to present work internally. As a result, when those changes start to happen, everything runs more smoothly.

Messaging For The Masses

Finally, listen to the full episode for more insight into effective marketing, with topics such as:

  • 02:31 – Non-traditional techniques that work with small and medium businesses (SMB)
  • 04:50 – Overcoming resistance to closer collaboration between sales and marketing
  • 09:36 – Launching a SaaS product and developing a Go-to-Market strategy
  • 16:46 – Linking integrated marketing with business strategy and goals
  • 21:20 – Customer-led marketing vs. product benefits marketing

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

Don't Fear The Churn: Inside Sales Management

Don’t Fear The Churn: Inside Sales Management

May 3, 2018/in Blog Posts, Sales Enablement Marketing /by Trevor Gilbert
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Growth problems? Try treating your sales development reps (SDRs) like vital resources rather than cogs in a machine.

That’s the message from Trish Bertuzzi, the President of the Bridge Group, which she shared with Cascade Insights CEO Sean Campbell on the latest episode of the B2B Revealed Podcast.

Upend Your Expectations for How SDRs Should Work

Sharing insights from her book, The Sales Development Playbook, Bertuzzi demonstrates the connection between SDR job satisfaction and sales growth.

First off, it’s important to acknowledge that SDRs are put in a very difficult position.

As Bertuzzi says, “It’s a hard job, we make it harder by not giving them what they need to stay longer.” SDRs are provided with little training, the wrong tools, and are managed by people who expect the average tenure to last only about a year. It’s little surprise then that when SDRs outgrow their roles they also tend to outgrow the company.

Bertuzzi believes there’s a way to fix some of these key issues, to the benefit of both the SDRs and the organization as a whole.

Give SDRs the Freedom to Grow Into the Perfect Role

In order to improve the SDR work environment, Bertuzzi urges companies to give SDRs the freedom to grow, without expecting too much, too soon.

To do this, Bertuzzi is a big proponent of micro-promotions.

Don't Fear The Churn: Inside Sales Management

“Trish Bertuzzi is the Best Selling Author of The Sales Development Playbook and founder of The Bridge Group, Inc.”

“What we talk about in the book, and what we talk about with our clients is creating a learning culture and creating micro-promotions,” says Bertuzzi. That means getting rid of the system of of promoting SDRs to account executives after they’ve outgrown the introductory SDR role.

“If you’re an SDR1 you just do the SDR role, you’re an SDR2 maybe you get to start participating in discovery calls and even maybe running some of those discovery calls. You’re an SDR3 maybe you get to run with a couple small deals.”

By following this system, SDR’s responsibilities increase with their experience. Incremental changes in job title and compensation provide more of an incentive for SDRs to stick around.

Sharing from personal experience, Bertuzzi says that ultimately it’s “all about advancing them through a learning process that gives them the full set of skills they need to be successful.”

Equip Your Team with the Right Tools and Tactics

SDR success also depends on mastery of a few key communication skills.

Bertuzzi emphasizes that SDRs should have a solid grasp of how to use a phone and send effective emails.

While these skills can improve with training, it’s best to hire people with a natural inclination for the role from the start.
Bertuzzi describes how one company had SDR applicants spend a day shadowing the current team. After seeing what the job would really be like, only 50 percent of them continued to express interest in the role.

In all honesty, it did make recruiting more difficult. At the same time, it also meant that the people who were hired came in with a clear expectation of what the job would be like, making them more effective.

More SDR Wisdom

Listen to the full episode for more SDR answers, such as:

  • Where does the idea of “all bound” fit in a world of outbound vs. inbound?
  • Which is more effective: PACT (Pain, Authority, Consequence, Target-Profile) or BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time-Frame)?
  • What qualities should you be looking for when hiring for your SDR team?
  • What are some effective outreach tactics for phone, voicemail, and email?

The B2B Revealed Podcast is brought to you by Cascade Insights, a market research firm specializing in B2B technology. Need more B2B brilliance? There are many ways to follow us.

Heat Up Your Cold Email

February 14, 2018/in B2B Go-To-Market Research, Blog Posts /by Sean Campbell
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How can sellers use cold email to engage rather than irritate?

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B2B Revealed Podcast


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