Sales Alignment

We know the sales cycle is composed of phases. It may vary greatly, especially on the time that it takes to complete. A long sales cycle typically requires several touch points and spans several weeks to months. I remember seeing around 84 days to convert a lead into an opportunity when I ran demand generation for a large software company. Then  it took on average, another 18 days to turn…

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most of your B2B leads most likely won’t convert into sales. Some might not be ready to buy, some you could lose to competition, while some might have needs that your solutions don’t exactly fit. You aren't alone in this struggle. Only 12% of B2B marketers are actually satisfied with their lead conversion initiatives. As B2B marketers, you need to…

It happens all too often: a person is shopping on your site. They’ve picked out a product or two, added them to their cart, created an account, and might have even put in their credit card information, but all of a sudden just stopped. They don’t finish the purchase, never come back, and you don’t know what happened. Does that scenario sound familiar for your eCommerce business? Do potential customers…

Account-based marketing (ABM) offers a lot of benefits to most B2B organizations. An expert round-up on Forbes Agency Council revealed that the majority of B2B business leaders saw incredible results from an ABM program, including improved lead generation, opportunities for personalization, lowered costs, and better relationships with clients. All of these things can clearly lead to a more profitable company and a better customer experience, which is why many companies…

Want to connect better with people on the phone or in person and build rapport today? Over the past few days, I’ve had two readers reach for advice on how to do better outreach. One reader wrote, “never had a role like this before and I’m desperate to succeed and be the best I can be for myself and the company.” Another one writes, “thankful for any help I may…

As anyone in sales or marketing knows, there are plenty of issues that can derail everything from a campaign funnel to a prospect's buying decision. Circumnavigating, or even better, mitigating these issues entirely is what keeps us on our toes. When it comes to sales specifically, it is a common problem to see a lead go dark, and can be worrisome when you audit your prospect lists and discover just…

The page had hardly turned on 2018 when I saw the headline . . . “Why You Need to Align Your Marketing and Sales Team for 2019.” Another year, another article for why it is important for organizations to align their marketing and sales teams – as if organizations do not know this given the hundreds of thousands of articles and blog posts that have been written about the topic.…

To make the most out of your marketing budget, it’s essential to focus on your leads with the highest chance of conversion. But how do you identify these leads? It can be very difficult for a human to accurately identify high-quality leads, even with a large amount of data. In fact, the more data you collect, the harder it becomes – as the number of different variables grows, working out…

Marketing can take you on a long hike. The one thing I can guarantee you about the journey is that getting more leads are not better if you don’t know how to nurture. The goal of lead nurturing is to help potential customers on their buying journey. It’s not just about converting leads to becoming “marketing qualified.”  It’s about helping them progress along the way to get more sales. That…

Not everyone’s a natural-born salesperson, and for a lot of professionals, the sales call is a daunting task. You’ve most likely experienced a call that went from bad to worse in an instant, where you seemingly fail to impress your prospect no matter how hard you try to sweeten the deal. You think you used the right language, prepared for the call, and worked hard on understanding what to offer…