THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN B2B SALES AND MARKETING IN ANY INDUSTRY: HOW DO YOU GET ALL THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE THE DECISION TOGETHER AND CLOSE THEM OUT?

The myth of the decision maker

On average, 5.4 people are involved in today’s B2B purchase decisions. This creates differences in opinion that make it increasingly hard to reach a decision and many teams simply give up on purchases altogether. This scenario combined with a buyer- controlled purchasing process significantly increases the challenge for sales and marketing to influence the buying process.

MORE ORGANIZATIONS ARE LOOKING TO MARKETING TO SUPPORT AN INSIGHT SELLING MODEL :

I don't know if it's merely coincidence or because there's a growing recognition that the way complex technology products are sold must change; but a number of CEO's, sales leaders, and marketing executives I've spoken with lately have specifically brought up the Challenger Selling Model or have described issues that this model addresses.  The conversation either starts with or leads to the need to improve their marketing  (and more specifically what is usually considered product marketing)  to provide support for this approach.  They typically mention the need for "better information on our buyers to create more effective messages" 

Sales enablement tips to boost productivity

With sales spending two-thirds of their time last year on non-selling activities, it should come as no surprise that with such low sales productivity, 79% of companies surveyed report that their top priority is to improve sales productivity.

If only one-third of a salesperson’s time is spent selling- what’s happening the rest of the time?Sales bandwidth is consumed by a number of non-selling activities including internal meetings, administrative tasks, service calls, training, researching accounts, generating leads, and preparing for sales calls.

Some of the above mentioned tasks are unavoidable, however one stat is very revealing: 31% of rep time is spent searching for and creating content, which indicates a major disconnect between what...

The Great Divide:

If you’re trying to understand how product marketing can bring value to your organization try looking at it from the CEO’s perspective. The CEO of a global IT security vendor recently emailed me and stated:

“In brief, our current challenge is the gap that exists between product management (very technical) and marcom.  We need to do a better job on sales enablement, competitive analysis, pricing, licensing and all that goes with product marketing...Getting this right is the key to our growth”

Addressing Products Not Problems 

This statement says a lot and gets to the heart of what holds many technology companies back. 

What is the role of Messaging and Positioning in a Communications Strategy

Ensuring your communications development process covers both these critcal and foundational elements.

B2B product marketers have to think about both positioning and messaging when developing marketing content, training sales and working with influencer groups.  Your messaging and positioning needs to be developed with these uses in mind and has to

Providing sales with the content and context they need to effectively engage and support the buyer’s journey:

What content do you need for the last leg of the buyer’s journey? How do you support the bottom of the funnel as your prospects begin to engage with sales?

The concept of the Buyer’s Journey is essentially a framework that 

describes the cognitive steps each buyer must personally traverse leading from apathy (Do I care?) to 

Of the million or more messages you encountered in the last year, how many can you remember? How many were meaningful enough to shape your buying decision or to change your behavior?

Just recently, Cybersecurity Ventures published "The 500 Top Cybersecurity Companies". (that's not a typo) In 2016 VC's invested $3.1 billion in a record 279 cybersecurity startups- adding even more "next generation" technology. CTO's CISO's, and security decision makers are overwhelmed and inundated by vendors offering "solutions". It's now harder than ever to reach buyers of complex technologies, vendor's struggle to get their messages across and get lost in the noise.

There are a few key things you need to do to stand out in any marketspace and especially a complex one like cybersecurity where the margin...