This is a guest blog post by our partners @ Crowded Ocean (http://www.crowdedocean.com/). It’s a marketing truism that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. But, faced with all the challenges of starting a company from scratch, the question is: what do you measure and when do you start measuring it? Startups often think that…
I’m a marketing automation lover. I’m also a big Marketo fan and a regular user of most of the major tools. I love it. I’m good at it. For those of you who might not know about any such things … they are the latest rage in the world of sales and marketing. Some call…
What is discernment and why is it so important in enterprise sales? According to the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary discernment “is the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure”. My old fashioned paper back version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines discernment as the ability “to come to know or recognize mentally”. Over…
What is a sales playbook and why is it important? Sales playbooks are the synthesis of sales process, best practices, the sales tools used and the tactical steps that should be adhered to as part of an effective sales engagement. Think of it as a blueprint for sales success, which allows for creative tailoring based…
Another great blog post from the TAS Group, the difference in quality vs. quantity really plays out in the winning sales conversion ratios: http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=10
One of my favorite movies is “Being There” starring Peter Sellers. If you haven’t seen it, I highly suggest that you rent it, as the movie and cast won numerous awards for their performance and wonderful story. I’ll paraphrase the story by saying that a simple-minded gardener (Chance Gardner) is thrust in to the outside…
Metrics are good. They can be valuable and you can glean insight from them. But my admonition to all is that you proceed with caution when it comes to using metrics and data to make business decisions. All too frequently, I see business leaders completely absorbed in spreadsheets and reports. Percentages, conversion ratios and growth…
It seems that sales and marketing alignment, unlike a doctors exam, is something everybody wants to do. It feels like we get an email a day from Marketo or Eloqua on alignment issues, ranking as a topic only slightly behind insights on how to integrate social media into the mix. The esteemed CSO Insights and…