by William Walsh | Aug 29, 2023 | 2023
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 3 Minutes
Insight from Best-in-Class Companies
After combing through hundreds of customer, employee and sales rep interviews at best-in-class companies you may want to consider doing it.
Logically, it makes sense. Until the prospect buys they have no idea if the claim/s you make about your product or service are actually true. They ”hope” they are but they don’t know for certain.
But hope goes even deeper, prospects hope that your solution can help them fix their issue, solve their problem and/or improve productivity/performance.
In reality, what we found was that high performing reps get this.
In our interviews, we found that top sales people had an unique and personal connection to their customers.
How do they do it? They are very good at asking questions. They get into the head of the buyer – understanding their business AND personal motivations for making the purchase. Not just their business needs.
For example, we found reps selling to aerospace engineers in very vulnerable situations. A piece broke in a prototype that they needed to demo, or they were searching for a hard to find item that was out of stock.
In another company selling to small business owners, reps understood the importance of getting the label right because it was the physical manifestation of the brand, more importantly, the deep connection to the business owner…who oftentimes, created it.
Giving someone hope is not only uplifting and motivating, but it also establishes a level of depth to the relationship. Think, what does this person hope to get out of this decision?
By adopting this mentality, early in the relationship/buying process, it will force you to dig deeper into their needs (personal and professional). It makes you more empathetic, and changes the dynamics of the sales experience.
A purchase, especially in B2B, is more than just a transaction, it’s the hope that the product or services will deliver on a promise (mostly likely made by you). And that decision is more personal than we recognize or cater to.
I “hope” you get the point.
by William Walsh | Aug 1, 2023 | 2023
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
Insight from buyer and employee research from 20 companies with 70+ NPS scores
Are customers just buying your products?
Yes, as you will see, it is true a good product will sell itself but there is more to that decision than what is on the surface.
Recently, we were able to conduct research on close to 20 companies that have net promoter scores (NPS) above 70, with a handful at 90+. To put that into perspective, scores 10 to 60 are typically detractors, 70 to 80 are passives, and above 90 are active promoters.
While an average of 70 or above might not sound all that impressive, it’s higher than the Top 7 industries ranked (see below). And, it is extremely rare to find an organization that reaches a score of 90 or above.
The companies included in our research span industries from Aerospace, Hi-Tech, GovCon and Manufacturing, to Cannabis and Agriculture, with services as complex as cybersecurity, to as simple as producing labels for food items. Buyers ranged from Engineers and Chief Security Officers, to Procurement and small business owners.
What also made this opportunity unique is that we were able to interview over 100 customers, and survey more than a 1000, who represented the areas listed above allowing us to gain insight into what was driving the scores.
The top 3 purchase drivers are listed below, and this is what we learned:
- A great product makes for a great score – without question, the quality of your product is the biggest driver of purchase satisfaction (93%). In addition to quality, reliability was critical.
- Usability is second. This includes ease of use, integration, configuration, works as designed, etc.
- And third is Value, including affordability, value for the money, price competitiveness, etc.
Now for the key question… What is interesting about the key purchase drivers, and how we sell?
None of the three purchase drivers are realized during the sales process. It’s only once they have purchased the product that they truly experience the quality and value.
So, this tells us we are selling something else during the buying process. In fact, we found that there are four things you are selling before you close the deal.
- Hope – Customers, especially newly acquired ones haven’t experienced your product, service, and support so they are buying a promise. The most motivating thing you can sell early in the process is hope. Give prospects the hope that their work lives can be better, that your solution can solve their problems or pain. But, you can only do that if you find the pain. In today’s economic environment, if there is no pain, reps will have no hope of making a sale.
- Credibility – we had a chance to survey Chief Information and Security Officers (CISO) during this period on what they looked for in a sales rep. CISO stated that they preferred a representative to be highly knowledgeable of both products and services, (three times more likely than a relationship.) In some industries, like Cybersecurity, there is nothing more important than your credibility. Why? Buyer’s top 4 information sources are all people channels (Peers, Colleagues, Influencers, Analysts). Your reputation is everything. Every word written or spoken is critical. Opinions don’t matter, and reps have to do their homework.
- Trust – trust and credibility are a one two punch. If you’re not credible, you probably don’t have a shot at being trusted. There is no undervaluing the importance of trust in the purchasing process. When we asked customers to rank brand attributes, Trustworthiness tied for first along with Reliability. Not only is it important to the acquisition, it is critical for retaining customers. And, trust is the most broadly defined attribute – the brand, product performance, availability, service, pricing, staff, shipping, etc.
- The Business Argument – did you notice that I didn’t write ROI, or business case? In reality, few companies can deliver on the ROI used to close the deal. Additionally, few businesses produce (or can prove) the outcomes predicted, and buyers know it. In fact, researchers have tested upside gains versus downside risk reduction with buyers. Buyers, interestingly, discount upside predictions and are more likely to believe risk projections. It’s why a solid, logical business argument is the most believable and compelling reason for making a purchase decision…e.g. “You’ve invested XXX dollars into this solution, why wouldn’t you want to optimize by enabling this functionality…”
One of the most interesting discoveries in our research came through one on one interviews. The discovery was Ben, a senior sales representative who worked for a PE owned company that had several brands selling into complex manufacturing companies.
Ben was an eye opener. He was a multidimensional product expert, sales and service machine. In our interviews with customers, they offered up his name but never for the same thing twice. In one conversation with a buyer, they highlighted how Ben was just talking with their engineers about a new product design and in another one with procurement, talked about him being able to create one invoice with products from multiple manufacturers.
One of the goals of the work we were doing was to uncover opportunities for more cross selling of products…Ben was already doing it! But, one of the most important statements about Ben that stuck with me was “Ben answers his phone.”
Ben had their trust because he was credible with the internal buyers – the engineers. He solved procurement problems, but most importantly gave them hope. Most of their orders were urgent or hard to find products. Ben knew this, he answered his phone because he also knew that they relied on him to find a way to get them what they needed.
Ultimately what we learned was companies that perform the highest with customers also scored the highest on employee satisfaction. We surveyed over 1000 employees across companies and found that what drove their satisfaction in their role was the connection to their customers.
Here’s the reason, when asked the question;
“Beyond the products we offer, why do you think customers choose to shop with the brand(s) you work with?”
The number 1 answer, mentioned by 80% of the employees, was Trust. It connects customers to you, and you to your customers.
NPS scores are notoriously difficult to move. In fact, some companies abandon using them because of it. Maybe it isn’t that difficult to improve after all. Perhaps it just comes down to focusing on building trust – companies trusting employees, sales building trust with customers, and service and product maintaining that trust through delivery.
And of course, a quality product.
by William Walsh | Jul 11, 2023 | 2023
As previously published on 6/28/23 in MarTech
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
What if they are wrong?
When responding to questions about AI replacing humans in certain roles, most ‘experts’ claim that AI will replace some jobs, but will be a much more valuable tool for augmenting human intelligence and ability.
In all of the hype associated with this latest technology wave, an important trend is occurring across industries that could significantly change the impact of AI – the retirement of the knowledge worker.
We need to look no further than the last wave of intelligent technology – the “internet of things” (IoT) to see the impact.
The term ‘Internet of Things’ was coined in 1999 by computer scientist, Kevin Ashton. While working at Procter & Gamble, Ashton proposed putting radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips on products to track them through a supply chain.
“Machines talking to machines” started rolling out in early/ mid 2010 making their way into manufacturing, precision agriculture, complex information networks, and for consumers in a new wave of wearables.
Now, having about a decade of experience of how IoT has impacted certain industries and markets, perhaps it can give us some interesting insights on the future of AI.
In 2010, Cisco launched the “Tomorrow Starts Here” IoT campaign at the time when communication networks were transitioning from hardware “stacks” to software development networks (SDN).
The change meant that in order for carriers to expand their bandwidth, they no longer needed to “rip and replace ” hardware. They only needed to upgrade the software. This transition began the era of machines monitoring their performance and communicating with each other, with the promise of one day producing self healing networks.
Over this same period, network engineers who ushered in the transition from an analog to digital began retiring. These experienced knowledge workers are often being replaced by technicians who understand the monitoring tools, but not necessarily, how the network works.
Over the last dozen years networks have grown in complexity to include cellular, and the number of connections has grown exponentially. To help manage this complexity, numerous monitoring tools have been developed and implemented.
The people on the other end reading the alerts see the obvious, but have a difficult time interpreting the issue, or what to prioritize. The reason is, the tool knows there is an issue but is not smart enough yet to know how to fix it or if it will take care of itself. Technicians end up chasing “ghost tickets,” alerts that have resolved themselves, resulting in lost productivity.
The same thing is repeating itself in marketing today. As one CMO told me; “I can find people who know the technologies all day long, but what I can’t find is someone who thinks strategically. Ask a marketing manager to set up the tools and run a campaign and they have no problem, but ask them to write a compelling value proposition or offer for the campaign, and they will struggle.”
It’s easy to get sucked into the tools. AI generators are really intriguing and can do some amazing things. But based on what we have seen, the tools are not smart enough to fully deliver on their promise…yet.
Here’s the warning from IoT – as tools become more knowledgeable, the workforce operating them is becoming less. It is leaving a knowledge gap. As that knowledge is transferred from worker to machine, we need to ask ourselves what we’ll be left with. Will there be enough experience and expertise in our workers to know if what comes out of the machine is accurate, factitious, or even dangerous.
In a recent WSJ article, Melissa Beebe, an oncology nurse, commented on how she relies on her observation skills to make life-or-death decisions. When an alert said her patient in the oncology unit of UC Davis Medical Center had sepsis, she was sure the AI tool monitoring the patient was wrong.
“I’ve been working with cancer patients for 15 years so I know a septic patient when I see one,” she said. “I knew this patient wasn’t septic.”
The alert correlates elevated white blood cell count with septic infection. It didn’t take into account that this particular patient had leukemia, which can cause similar blood counts. The algorithm, which was based on artificial intelligence, triggers the alert when it detects patterns that match previous patients with sepsis.
Unfortunately, hospital rules require nurses to follow protocols when a patient is flagged for sepsis. Beebe could override the AI model, if she gets doctor approval, but faces disciplinary action if she’s wrong. It’s easy to see the danger of removing human intelligence in this case, it also illustrates the risk associated with over relying on artificial intelligence.
AI will free us from low value tasks, and that is a good thing, but we need to redistribute that time to better developing our people, and our teams. The greatest benefit from these game changing technologies in the business to business environment will be realized when we combine equal amounts of human intelligence with machine intelligence.
by William Walsh | Jun 12, 2023 | 2023
As previously published on 6/7/23 in MarTech
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
5 Steps for Building a Recession Grade ABM Program
Looking to get off the treadmill of producing what seems like never ending content and feeding the ABM machine hoping you get a hit? Tired of anonymous and/or intent data that produces very little results?
In today’s challenging economic environment, you’re going to need to take your program to the next level. Casting a wide net in a sea with less fish will be less productive.
It’s time to build a program that is proactive and targeted, and it’s going to require some work. Here are five steps to get you started on your way to building a market ready ABM program.
- Target specific people and accounts – because it’s called “account based marketing”, you need to have actual accounts identified. Additionally, you’ll need to have a list of key targets within the account. Forget trying to figure out anonymous hits on your website or content, invest in getting the list built.
- Know who, and what is important – not all prospects matter, in fact, the ones you are most likely to engage are not the most important. One will be active and the other passive. Not all responses or engagements are important either. To know the difference between the two you will need to profile the personality type of your targets. Doing so will allow you to gain valuable insight into the type of people you’re dealing with, and the corporate culture.
- Use the “friendlies” to get to the real buyers – we’re in an economic environment of “if it’s not broken it will not get fixed” unless you find the pain. Forget about targeting the “C-Suite,” go for the users. Get to the people who have the need, not the decision makers. For that group, there is no decision to make yet. You have to build the case and surface the need.
- Build the business case – once you have this insight, talk less about your solution and more about relieving the pain, being specific to that account. It will also need to be as close to the core operation of the business as possible. Can you help reduce cost, improve revenue, or make employees more productive, etc? We are in a “have to have,” not a “nice to have” buying environment. This is where sales and marketing have to come together.
- Communicate it back – once you have the business case, you now need to communicate back to the key targets in the account in a language that connects with them personally. To move the buying process forward, you need to get the right people to take action. You’re looking for a way to motivate them, and this is where knowing their personality type comes into play. You can create offers and marketing assets that are highly personalized and create action.
Think of this approach in two parts – a front end and a back end. You’re going to have to “make orders” versus “take orders”, as they say (could I possibly use more cliches?!). The front piece is discovering or creating the pain, which requires tight integration between sales and marketing.
The back end is communicating and selling the pain. You’ll need to find a way to motivate the organization on 3 levels – corporate, line of business, and at the individual level, in order to get a deal through the organization. This will be true for acquisition and existing accounts.
Collecting information on the front end should give you the insight you need to build the messaging and business case on the back end. And again, this takes a coordinated approach between sales and marketing.
It’s a difficult market right now so you not only need to work smarter, but also, harder (there I go again). This isn’t about more tools or increased scale. It’s about identifying the right opportunities and leveraging them efficiently. Now if it was just that easy.
by William Walsh | May 22, 2023 | 2023
As previously published on 5/16/23 in MarTech
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
Less than 10 minutes after the release of Chat GPT 4 I received a spam email from a company offering AI generated blog posts, probably generated by the tool.
Maybe it wasn’t exactly 10 minutes, but it sure felt that way. Since then, I’ve recently received countless solicitations from companies offering all kinds of AI generated solutions.
Will the ability to send better emails/content written more quickly by AI change the lives of B2B marketers for the better? Not yet. In fact, the greatest performance impact will not be seen in creation, but rather, in execution.
The promise of AI’s ability to deliver mass “personalization” and unique experiences, is only realized if we focus on gaining better insight into the audience, specifically their preferences.
Here’s Why
The ability to create more content faster will only result in lower performance. In a 2019 survey, Gartner research showed that 89% of decision makers said the content they encountered through the buying process was of high quality.
In fact, they found that buyers were almost at the point of saturation in their cognitive ability to consume more information. Simply said, more content will not result in increased consumption or understanding. The supply of content is at maximum, according to buyers. And that was four years ago, imagine what they would say now.
This insight led to the discovery of the “sense making” seller. A person with the important attributes of being able to connect the right information to the right person, at the right time. They also possess the ability to filter out unnecessary information, giving the decision maker only the information they need in order to take action.
It’s one thing to have a human listening and understanding the needs of buyers during the sales process, but it’s another when trying to do this at the top of the funnel with marketing assets. This is where the opportunity for AI in B2B lies.
We’ve now built ABM stacks which typically encompass dozens of marketing technologies able to pump out endless contact and engagement data, yet the performance of those “leads” is still poor. Why? Mainly, because we don’t have a “sense making” filter to align and route the right marketing asset to the right person, for the right reason.
AI personality profiling tools represent an opportunity to be the “sense maker” for marketers. By understanding the distinct behavior of audiences, marketers can better align content based on individual preferences, understand what intent “signals” are real, and create messaging that appeals to specific segments of the market.
Understanding buyer behavior offers value beyond just outbound marketing. It extends to routing and aligning business development resources. It can help sales managers understand how to align their teams based on the preferences of prospects with their engagement activity.
The combination of understanding the personal motivations and engagement behavior gives insight into what “leads” hold the most potential to move forward. It can identify which targets to avoid and identify the most fertile ground to build relationships.
Here’s an example… A professional services firm was getting high attendance for its webinar series, but very few attendees converted into leads. After analyzing the audience they found that over 50 percent of their attendees had one dominant personality type.
Their webinars were rich with data and research and their content consisted of mostly research based white papers. And that was the problem; their audience was made up of mostly strategists and consultants. Their behavior was to learn the information in order to inform others. Their content preferences were for “light” content that traveled easily and could stand on its own without an explanation.
Think infographics and animated videos. In fact, that’s exactly what was created. Lead conversion post webinar increased by 35% after they shifted to “lighter” follow up content. Why, because this group had a personality profile of an “Influencer” – those who use information to inform others. They were not the “lead” but rather, they pointed to the opportunity.
The organization started tracking sharing versus downloads, and then followed the content to the intended audience. More content was not the answer, but personalized content aligned to how the audience wanted to use it was.
The “sense maker” in this case was the Influencer attendee who was routing the relevant information to the right person, at the right time. AI tools unlocked the insight into understanding their behavior and motivations. Better understanding the audience improved the performance of their outbound efforts.
And that is where the ROI will be found. If you’re truly interested in impacting performance, find the solutions that will provide you with insight into buyers. You don’t need more content, buyers already told you they do want or need it four years ago.
by William Walsh | Apr 11, 2023 | 2023
By Scott Gillum
Estimated read time: 5 Minutes
Last week we finished a new website for a client. It’s the third time in the last 2 years we’ve been the “rescue” vendor on a website build that had gone wrong.
If you are thinking about updating your website, and/or are an agency building sites, here’s what we’ve learned through those experiences that you need to know.
- Building a new or “refreshing” a website is not just a website build – it is also a rebranding, repositioning and a messaging project. Know that going in and plan for it. You may also want to scope in a competitive assessment.
- Don’t build anything until everyone that counts has a say or has reviewed a page, content, images, etc. To hell with project timelines, don’t do a thing until the right people are on the same page.
- Make it “paint by numbers.” Use pre-designed templates, provide direction on what you need from the client and be specific….”We need 250 words that describe your corporate culture.”
- Scope in a copywriter. You’ll need one to either fill the gap on content or at a minimum, edit copy.
- Give the client access to the staging server. Let them see the site as it is being built. Full transparency, do not wait to the end to share the site. At each client update meeting, walk them through the new updates and get their input. This is a collaborative effort.
And finally, if you offshore or nearshore the build, see the paint by numbers point. Give exact and specific directions to your developers. Stay on top of the development at each stage of the process. Plan reviews before showing anything to your client. Look at EVERY single detail.
