To drive growth, the mandate for sales organizations is to make more calls, send more cold emails. Sales reps are hustling and using automated tools to move faster. But sales hustle and automation have a downside: they can hurt customer experience. Here’s what I mean: B2B companies are now hiring more people to do this. […]
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Are you applying empathy as part of your sales and marketing approach? Why? Because according to Brent Adamson, “empathy” is the one word that matters most to sales [and marketing] success. It’s tough to buy. B2B customers are overwhelmed with too much information, too many choices, trying to getting their colleagues to agree, not to […]
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CEOs and sales leaders have long wondered: how can we drive organic growth and increase sales from existing customers? But it’s elusive. In fact, the traditional approach is no longer working. According to CEB, now Gartner, “Only 28% of sales leaders report that account management channels regularly meet their cross-selling and account growth targets.” That’s […]
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Do you feel excited about your 2018 plan? I hope so. If not, you’re not alone. Why? Because dealing with change, staying motivated, and building momentum is hard. That’s why business plans often change February 1st (just like personal goals). To help, I’ve compiled a list of the Top 10 most useful (and favorite) posts on […]
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How often do you spend weeks or even months putting blood, sweat, and tears into a new marketing campaign, only to have it fall flat? It’s a marketer’s worst nightmare. You swear you did everything right, but when it comes time for the results to pour in, they never show. The likely culprit? Bad buyer […]
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Some businesses make it hard to work with them. It seems at times that many B2B organizations have made it so complex and uncomfortable to work with that customers are forced to find an alternative even if their current provider offers a better product or solution.As connected consumers, we want ease, we want a good experience, we have an expectation of those with whom we spend our money. We have seen this with 1-click ordering, same-day delivery and improved e-commerce experiences
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Last week Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs released their annual B2B Content Marketing Study that dives into the practices and habits of B2B content marketers in North America.Content marketing is a key component for any customer experience strategy and while the overwhelming majority of B2B organizations are producing content, the study shows that successful execution may still be elusive.In looking at this year’s study there are some thoughts and musings I have listed below.
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Sales enablement is intended to help raise performance, but a lot of efforts have backfired due to departmental silos. And now there’s growing gap between what salespeople need and what they’re getting to improve performance. For example, Corporate Visions recently surveyed 500 B2B marketers and sales professionals that 20% of organization content creators “just do […]
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Are you connecting with and empowering your customer advocates? If not, you should. Here’s why. Customer advocacy marketing programs help you increase revenue by improving customer acquisition and retention (and they’re also your best source of leads). How? Because you’re helping to motivate happy customers to speak about you positively to others. And delighted customers […]
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Content marketing is booming. According to the 2017 B2B Content Marketing Trends, 39% of companies are increasing investment in content marketing. And yet most companies are not creating effective content. Want proof? Two of the leaders in B2B funnel benchmarking, SiriusDecisions and Forrester, will tell you that inquiry-to-closed-won conversion ratios are often below two percent […]
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