Welcome to our 3 Links Not To Miss “will/they won’t they - NBA season” edition. This is going to be a semi-regular feature on the blog where we’ll be sharing 3 recent links we found particularly interesting.
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Conversational: Sales as a Noble Profession
Trish & I were fortunate to sit down with Don Perkins and chat about trends in sales & marketing. In this segment, we spoke about the selling profession and how Reps can become better sellers.
Actionable: Are your Sales Reps Invisible?
Paul Castain argues Reps need to understand that buyers aren’t shy about searching for them online. Like Jill Konrath says, buyers are crazy busy. And what they find (or don’t find) on Google, LinkedIn, etc. might go far in answering “Is taking a meeting with this person worth my time?”
Here's an excerpt from Paul:
So if this were a radio station I guess I would sign off by saying . . .
“This one goes out to all the ‘anonymous sales people’ who still ‘don’t get’ the importance of having an online footprint.”
Then I’d play a really cool tune called - “Google yourself to see what your prospect sees”
Today is your tap on the shoulder.
Things have changed and . . .
They keep changing whether you and I get it or not!
Controversial: An Open Letter to B2B Marketers
Fresh off a trip to Dreamforce, Carlos Hidalgo addresses three themes he repeatedly heard from Marketers he met there. One theme Carlos shared was:
Fear of Change
Technology (namely marketing automation) is one of those forces challenging today’s marketing status quo. Too many marketers are resisting the change that automation is driving. It’s time we faced the reality that B2B marketing as we know it has changed. This fear was highlighted by a discussion I had with a CMO who said “I want nothing to do with this revenue discussion. We are not ready for that and quite frankly it’s too big of a shift.”
WHAT?!? Maybe this is why the average CMO’s tenure is only 18-months.
Several vendors have hitched their branding wagon to Revenue Fill in the Blanks as a tag line. But, does that concept scare off Marketers who want to reap the benefits of lead scoring, nurturing, etc. but aren’t ready to be measured on revenue?
Brain Kardon from Eloqua shares this in the comments:
Seems like the “safe” measures of lead score, # of SQOs, conversion rates, open rates, etc. are not really tied to what the CEO and CFO care most about — revenue. While I do agree that making the leap from CTRs to sourced and attributed revenue measures can be scary, marketers need to know that this is the destination.
On this “journey” (sorry — take one drink per Steve Gershik’s drinking game), there are interim stops along the way. But I think our emphasis on revenue attribution, scary as it is to some marketers, is the right way to go.
We’d love to hear what others think. What are some of your recent not to be missed links? Please let us know in the comments.