Growth marketing is a new way of structuring the marketing team and holding them accountable to increase revenue and company growth. The idea involves the alignment of sales and marketing, as well as coaching and strategizing for higher management. Sujan Patel, interviewed by John Golden, explains more.

This expert sales interview explores growth marketing, including:

• Defining growth marketing
• Examining the current playing field
• Differentiating your company from others

What is Growth Marketing?

Growth marketing is a new kind of marketing that focuses on growth. It came out of the rise in technology, marketing automation, and the introduction of new channels. This method is unique in that helps hold the marketers accountable. In a similar rate that salespeople have been responsible for the pipeline and close rate, it holds marketers responsible for metrics and producing growth. “It’s having the marketer look at the full funnel, exploring what it’s like in the buyer’s mind, all the way through when sales make their pitch and getting the customer on-boarded,” said Patel. It requires both sales and marketing to work more closely together and to pull down the dividing wall that has separated them for so long for the ultimate success of the organization.

The Playing Field:

The current business world is in a state of increased competition. There is also more of a level playing field because everyone has access to the same information. The introduction of chatbots, Facebook ads, and other technologies mean that you can make a lot with very little. It comes down to who can execute it better. For the longest time, the job of the marketing team is to bring in traffic and leads, and then it was the job of the sales team to do something with them. “A marketing qualified lead is great, but it has to turn into a sales qualified lead. And even more importantly, a product qualified lead,” said Patel. You have to hold the team accountable for every part of this to get ahead of the competition. It comes down to thinking about the full funnel and where you can control parts of it and where you can optimize.

Differentiation:

Considering this challenging market, how do you differentiate yourself in the market? “We’re in the world of commodities. Companies are coming into the space every day. What matters is brand, your messaging, and what people think,” said Patel. “Why do people buy Nike versus Adidas versus any other shoe? It’s because they have a brand, and the companies have a reputation.” Molding your company around your branding, messaging, and reputation is what will ultimately draw in buyers and differentiate you from competitors.

For more information on growth marketing, watch the expert sales interview! To learn more about Sales & Marketing Alignment, check out the section in SalesPOP!.

About our Host:

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Pipeliner CRM empowers sales and marketing to work hand-in-glove.  Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

The annual sales kickoff is a great opportunity to network and meet new colleagues, learn new things about the sales industry, and maybe even relax a little bit. But, often times, this long weekend is packed with so much information, that many salespeople leave without solidifying that knowledge. And, even if they do take away concrete points, the implementation often falls quickly to the wayside. Julie Hansen, interviewed by John Golden, explores sales kickoff meetings and how to make the most of them.

This expert sales interview explores sales kickoff meetings, including topics such as:

• Ensuring your ROI
• Creating staying power
• Why Less is More

Return on Investment?:

There’s a lot of money, time, and energy being put into these events, but often times there is not a sufficient return on investment. “You only have to think back to last year’s sales kickoff, and how much you really remember, to realize that a lot of the content doesn’t have as much staying power as you would like,” said Hansen. The problem with these sales kickoffs is that there is a lot packed into a short amount of time. Between new products and services, new technology, new feature training, new marketing messages, and learning new sales skills, the salesperson doesn’t come away with much. “What are they actually doing nine to ten months later? What are they taking away from these kickoffs?” asks Hansen.

Staying Power:

We need to structure these sales kickoffs in such a way that people are going to remember the important things after the meeting is over. Hansen likens it to a sales presentation with a customer when you pitch a complex solution over several days. “You have to think about, at the end of the two days, what are they going to walk away with?” said Hansen. Pick three or four important messages to reinforce throughout the entire time period that you want to be remembered when it comes to making a decision. “When you are in that planning process, think, how do I make this sticky? How do I make these key ideas that I’m spending a lot of money on have staying power?”

Less is More:

“I think less is almost always more these days,” said Hansen. “People are so overwhelmed, and there are so many things coming at people in a sales kickoff.” But, it’s tough when people only get together once or twice a year. These sales kickoff meetings can be one of the only opportunities to present new information. “I think you need to be realistic about what you want people to do afterward. It’s like a customer situation, at the end of the call, what do you want them to do?” asks Hansen. “If you don’t think about it, if you don’t plan for it, you’re at the mercy of whatever strikes them.” This doesn’t mean that you can’t introduce a variety of topics and information. Rather, it means that you have to keep in mind the few things that you want attendees to take away, and how you can set them up so that they have success implementing those points after the sales kickoff is over.

To learn more about making the most of these sales kickoff meetings, watch the expert sales interview!

About Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Pipeliner CRM empowers companies to better train salespeople. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

Expert Interview on Sales Process

The sales process gets talked about a lot, but people in the organization often don’t fully understand it and struggle with the concept. Using a sales process can be so beneficial for a company, and lead to great success for salespeople. Understanding how to evolve and adequately use a sales process can be instrumental in fostering that success. Jeff Galas, interviewed by John Golden, discusses sales processes.

This expert sales interview explores the sales process, including:

• How the process influences creative freedom
• The importance of the buyer’s journey and understanding the buyer
• How to make the sales process actionable

Process and Creative Freedom

“I do think people struggle with the process throughout their entire life, not just in the sales process,” said Galas. Part of this struggle in the context of the sales world is that people become fearful that utilizing a process will remove the ability to be creative and heartfelt. “They think of it as an either/or, when the process really sets the people free to have their creativity in a way that allows for the best results,” said Galas. “I think the struggle comes from the mindset around the process.”

The Importance of a Process

The fact is, the best performing organizations not only have a well-defined process but have defined activities within the stages of their process. When you learn about your process, and you dig into your process, it allows you to work with your customers, prospects, and clients in ways that best suit them. Those set standard operating procedures are driven by what is useful and efficient. You are working from the buyer’s journey to create the sales process is the best way to develop teams that outperform.

Understand the Buyer

“My starting point with all consulting and strategy is two-fold. First, I want to understand the company that I’m working with, including the clients and what makes them unique and special,” said Galas. And then, I look at their clients and their prospects and their buyer’s journey. If your process isn’t matched up with your buyer’s journey, then your process is focused on internal control rather than production.” People in companies often make assumptions about their buyer, or their buyer’s buying process is extremely outdated. They are internally focused or naïve to how the buyer makes purchases. These assumptions can significantly hold a salesperson back, and limit their selling potential.

Actionable Sales Process:

After aligning with the buyer’s journey, you must transfer that into something that is actionable. Take a step back and examine the most effective ways to meet the buyer’s needs. You have to create the process to test if it’s possible to get these things to the buyer in a way that makes sense. The second step is to start measuring it and start improving it. Once you have those things in place, and you have those measurements, driving adoption is the next important step. Some companies use the command and control method to encouraged process adoption, where you are rewarded for doing well, and punished for doing poorly. However, this isn’t recommended. What is suggested is creating a team. “When we’re exploring the buyer’s journey, ensure that everyone is included. Create a team and a culture of complete transparency so that everyone sees the base information that’s being used to create the new sales process,” said Galas. “As the process gets created, it must be facilitated in a way that gets everyone engaged.

The Backup Plan:

What happens if you do all of those things and the process still isn’t followed? You could continue to coach them and continue to try to create buy-in. The second option is that you create a team culture that discourages lone wolf’s that operate differently because the end up hurting the team as a whole.

To learn more about the evolution of sales processes and how to create and incorporate them into your business, watch the expert sales interview.

About Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Pipeliner CRM totally empowers to visually follow and use their unique sales process. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

If you want to rise above the noise, build a value-creating sales force.

The other day I found myself leafing through a well-worn copy of Rethinking the Sales Force by John DeVincentis and Neil Rackham. In this book the two authors boldly challenged the traditional ideas of value and competitive differentiation, and I was recalling how far ahead of the selling landscape they actually were at the time. It was written in 1999, and it was roughly a decade before many B2B sales organizations started adapting the concepts that Rackham and DeVincentis put forth in this book.

A great deal has changed for B2B sales organizations since 1999, but one thing has not changed. Sales forces must continue to adapt to the changing demands and behavior of buyers. You cannot achieve competitive differentiation simply by communicating the features and advantages of the products and services that you sell. You must understand how to create value for customers and know that it has everything to do with how you sell versus what you sell.

The big challenge now is how to build a value creating sales force that can continually adapt to the constant and rapid changes going on in the marketplace around us. It may be the biggest opportunity that you and your sales organization have out in front of you for the foreseeable future. I recorded a video addressing that specific opportunity and some of the insights that my team and I have gained over the last seven years while working with B2B sales forces to build value creating sales forces. That video appears above, so please take two minutes to watch it. Let me know if what I have to say resonates with you. You can do so by offering a comment in reply to this post, or you can contact me directly at matt@usr-llc.com.

Pipeliner CRM empowers companies to build a value-creating sales force. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.