Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:04.160 There's a ton of noise out there. So how do you get decision makers 2 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:09.310 to pay attention to your brand? Start a podcast and invite your ideal clients 3 00:00:09.550 --> 00:00:19.390 to be guests on your show. Learn more at sweetfish MEDIACOM. You're listening 4 00:00:19.429 --> 00:00:24.179 to be tob growth, a daily podcast for B TOB leaders. We've interviewed 5 00:00:24.219 --> 00:00:27.859 names you've probably heard before, like Gary vanner truck and Simon Senek, but 6 00:00:27.980 --> 00:00:32.259 you've probably never heard from the majority of our guests. That's because the bulk 7 00:00:32.299 --> 00:00:36.810 of our interviews aren't with professional speakers and authors. Most of our guests are 8 00:00:36.929 --> 00:00:41.729 in the trenches leading sales and marketing teams. They're implementing strategy, they're experimenting 9 00:00:41.770 --> 00:00:45.729 with tactics. They're building the fastest growing be tob companies in the world. 10 00:00:46.369 --> 00:00:49.850 My name is James Carberry. I'm the founder of sweetfish media, a podcast 11 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:53.119 agency for BB brands, and I'm also one of the CO hosts of this 12 00:00:53.240 --> 00:00:57.520 show. When we're not interviewing sales and marketing leaders, you'll hear stories from 13 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:00.000 behind the scenes of our own business. Will share the ups and downs of 14 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:04.349 our journey as we attempt to take over the world. Just getting well, 15 00:01:04.989 --> 00:01:14.870 maybe let's get into the show. Welcome back to be to be growth. 16 00:01:14.989 --> 00:01:18.659 I am your host for today's episode, Nikki Ivy, with sweet fish media. 17 00:01:19.019 --> 00:01:22.980 Guys, I've got with me today Yama Habibsi, who is chief marketing 18 00:01:23.060 --> 00:01:26.459 officer at densify. Yama, how you doing today? Good morning to Kay. 19 00:01:26.459 --> 00:01:29.420 How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Good. I'm 20 00:01:29.420 --> 00:01:30.980 glad to hear it. Listen. So what we're going to be talking about 21 00:01:30.980 --> 00:01:36.129 today something that is on everybody's mind these days, and that sales and marketing 22 00:01:36.170 --> 00:01:38.569 alignment. But we're going to get a little deeper into you know, some 23 00:01:38.730 --> 00:01:44.209 ways to identify what the common issue is, and I had to know you 24 00:01:44.329 --> 00:01:49.280 have sales and marketing misalignment, some of the things that you can measure to 25 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:55.000 sort of reafforce that alignment once you fixed the first issue, and then some 26 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:57.840 other issues sort of looking toward the future. But before we get into all 27 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.709 of that, Yama, I would love it if you would just give us 28 00:02:00.709 --> 00:02:05.109 all a little bit of background on yourself and what you had to you and 29 00:02:05.150 --> 00:02:07.469 the folks that identify are up to these days. Sure, Nicky. So, 30 00:02:07.750 --> 00:02:14.789 I run marketing here densify and we're company that it's pretty cool place to 31 00:02:14.870 --> 00:02:23.539 be in terms of technology. Were a cloud management and resource optimization software company 32 00:02:23.780 --> 00:02:29.340 that's fully SASS based. There's thousands of thousands and thousands of companies that are 33 00:02:29.460 --> 00:02:34.889 putting their workloads or applications in the cloud, with Amazon, Microsoft as a 34 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:39.490 Google cloud idem and so on. But what they part of the challenge. 35 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:43.490 I guess what that is that that technology is moving so fast that they can't 36 00:02:43.490 --> 00:02:47.759 keep up. New, newer and more modern capabilities are being introduced and folks 37 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:52.599 are not able to just be on top of things. So we've built a 38 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:59.270 platform that essentially is a machine learning based, or called AI based technology that 39 00:03:00.349 --> 00:03:06.990 learns the usage of the cloud based on these companies products and recommends how to 40 00:03:07.189 --> 00:03:14.900 use the cloud. And when they follow our recommendations, they essentially have applications 41 00:03:14.939 --> 00:03:19.939 at better run better that are more efficient and they save themselves a ton of 42 00:03:20.060 --> 00:03:23.900 money, which is, you know, aligning the the spending with the right 43 00:03:23.020 --> 00:03:25.860 resources. So that's, in a nut show. What we do is pretty 44 00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:30.370 exciting space because the world has been no, everybody going to the cloud, 45 00:03:30.449 --> 00:03:31.969 and that's we're right in the middle of all life. Yeah, I never 46 00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:35.930 thought about that. You know, the way that these like you mentioned, 47 00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:40.840 these these technologies move so fast, having sort of a guide and intermediary. 48 00:03:42.759 --> 00:03:46.840 So how do you what is the one of the main things that you see 49 00:03:46.719 --> 00:03:52.479 happening between these sales and marketing teams where you're like, okay, that's that's 50 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:53.879 the issue, that's the thing, that's that's, you know, causing the 51 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:59.509 problem. Show one of the final you know, the fundamental thing that any 52 00:03:59.590 --> 00:04:02.830 sales leader and marketing leader will tell you that there's always tension between cells and 53 00:04:02.909 --> 00:04:09.069 marketing. Always has been. The tension really is due to the fact that 54 00:04:09.389 --> 00:04:15.699 marketing is traditionally tasks with go create me contacts or opportunities that I can go 55 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:19.980 and sell into. That's what the sales people ask for, right and when 56 00:04:20.019 --> 00:04:26.089 marketing generated those contacts, they're a number of different ways of are, you 57 00:04:26.170 --> 00:04:29.129 know, getting in front of those. You know, it's a child, 58 00:04:29.209 --> 00:04:31.529 always a child. Not Everybody's going to buy. So what marketing does is 59 00:04:31.610 --> 00:04:34.209 say, points the thing at sales and says, Hey, you guys are 60 00:04:34.290 --> 00:04:40.000 not do not know or not good at closing deals here. So I've seen 61 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:45.079 this throughout my career, where is essentially a lot has a lot has happened 62 00:04:45.199 --> 00:04:48.319 in that in that space. So you know what, the way we solve 63 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:53.750 that problem, and I've solved this in across different COMP number of organizations I've 64 00:04:53.750 --> 00:04:57.990 been with, is that, you know, embracing each other and a sense, 65 00:04:58.509 --> 00:05:01.470 which means sales and marketing really need to be aligned, really need to 66 00:05:01.550 --> 00:05:05.509 be working together. You know, if you look at a you know, 67 00:05:06.420 --> 00:05:11.660 I use the car analogy in terms of the sales cycle, right, in 68 00:05:11.819 --> 00:05:15.620 terms of if you wanted to buy a new car, there's really for mental 69 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:19.259 stages you got to go through as an individual. The first stages you got 70 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:23.810 to become aware of the existence of that company or that car. Right, 71 00:05:24.449 --> 00:05:27.769 and I'm a car guys. I talked about cars a lot. So once 72 00:05:27.850 --> 00:05:31.449 you've become aware of the existence of a car, take the new electric cars 73 00:05:31.490 --> 00:05:34.879 for example, of the world that are coming up left and right. The 74 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:40.639 companies are spending a ton of money making you aware of the existence of themselves. 75 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:43.879 So that's the where and the stage. Next thing you want to do 76 00:05:44.279 --> 00:05:46.879 is go and learn about that car. Now, what is it do? 77 00:05:47.040 --> 00:05:50.509 I fasts, though. What are some of the features and functions? That's 78 00:05:50.509 --> 00:05:57.470 what we call the knowledge stage. So so learning is the next stage. 79 00:05:57.470 --> 00:05:59.750 And then what you want to do is you want to keep the tires and 80 00:06:00.069 --> 00:06:03.579 go for test drive. So that's the trial stage and then ultimately the final 81 00:06:03.620 --> 00:06:09.420 stages when you could you know their across. You've done the education, you've 82 00:06:09.420 --> 00:06:15.300 become aware, you've test driven the car. Now you want to compare them 83 00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:18.689 to other cars. Right, you want the company, the common factor. 84 00:06:18.810 --> 00:06:24.569 Would want to be the preferred vendor or or product that you want to purchase. 85 00:06:25.410 --> 00:06:29.970 So if you take those four stages, awareness, knowledge, education, 86 00:06:30.209 --> 00:06:33.079 the trial stage, in the preference stage, or what I call sales and 87 00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:39.000 marketing, usually need to be aligned up all four of those categories. Awareness, 88 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:43.000 for example, one could argue, well, awareness is something that marketing 89 00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:46.720 does. They put up build boards, they do advertising on TV or youtube 90 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:50.870 or whatever, and its educating the market. That's marketing job. Well, 91 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:58.990 what I've experienced throughout my life is that sales can have an amazing effect on 92 00:06:59.149 --> 00:07:02.899 awareness. Right the calls we make now with the two powerful tools, with 93 00:07:03.100 --> 00:07:10.459 social media in Linkedin and others. I've seen our web traffic, for example, 94 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:14.620 spike as a result of a calling campaign. For example, when cells 95 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:17.529 are calling into accounts, they leave voice messages and then those guys wonder who's 96 00:07:17.610 --> 00:07:19.810 this, who's this guy that just called me so many let me go check 97 00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:27.449 out their website. Across educational the knowledge stage, sales can have quite a 98 00:07:27.529 --> 00:07:30.600 bit of a fact in terms of educating the people that they talked about the 99 00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:36.120 value in the perceptions in the market. So even you know the trial and 100 00:07:36.199 --> 00:07:41.000 preference stages. That's really essentially when sales can really comes out on board and 101 00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:44.910 walks the custom through a trial and so on. So in a be to 102 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:49.949 be space selling software, it is critical that sales and marketing a line well 103 00:07:50.069 --> 00:07:58.509 together. But we have to break the barriers between what sales is doing or 104 00:07:58.550 --> 00:08:03.180 what the sales as job is and what marketing job is. It is ultimately 105 00:08:03.180 --> 00:08:07.620 everybody's job. So you look at the sales stages of those four that I 106 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:13.610 mentioned, everybody needs to be working together and and and getting customers across as 107 00:08:13.610 --> 00:08:18.170 four stages. Now there's additional things that we've done, simple things like having 108 00:08:18.209 --> 00:08:22.250 sales and marketings it on the same floor and the same bullpins and same space. 109 00:08:22.329 --> 00:08:28.360 We're all in the mingled together when we do events, for example, 110 00:08:28.439 --> 00:08:33.240 running campaigns, daily meetings in terms of who supposed to do what. So 111 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:37.279 having that alignment and the relationship between the chief marketing office and a chief revenue 112 00:08:37.279 --> 00:08:43.470 officers critical as well. I am pretty lucky and blessed to have at Cro 113 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:46.669 that is really nice guy. We work really well together. So having that 114 00:08:46.830 --> 00:08:50.629 relationship between the more ahead of marketing head of sales is important to all. 115 00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:54.940 But when all those things come together and sales of marketing work together, a 116 00:08:56.059 --> 00:08:58.700 lot of magical things can happen and that's something I would say. You know, 117 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:05.460 advised the people that it's fundamental problem out there that they need to focus 118 00:09:05.500 --> 00:09:09.460 on. Yeah, yeah, so, so you know it's a problem when 119 00:09:09.289 --> 00:09:13.250 they when there's thing or pointing, when there's the blame game. That's a 120 00:09:13.450 --> 00:09:18.490 symptom of the disease of a misalignment between sales and marketing. Is What you 121 00:09:18.610 --> 00:09:24.279 just described and I love that. You know, in your your for examples 122 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:28.120 you gave the awareness education and then the other, the other two pieces. 123 00:09:28.159 --> 00:09:35.559 It's been very rare in my career as a salesperson where I was included in 124 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:39.950 the awareness step. That is one hund you're so right that that's something that 125 00:09:39.190 --> 00:09:45.669 is treated as one hundred percent a marketing function in the what what happens? 126 00:09:45.750 --> 00:09:50.429 The irony of that is what happens is then that a lack of that awareness, 127 00:09:50.429 --> 00:09:52.379 say at a startup, for instance, which where you know there's it's 128 00:09:52.419 --> 00:09:54.580 built into the you know it's on the label, there's not going to be 129 00:09:54.700 --> 00:09:58.940 awareness right because it's a startup, depending on how long it's been around. 130 00:09:58.580 --> 00:10:05.779 So if you're a salesperson at a startup and the awareness piece has not been 131 00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:09.409 sort of done for you before you've got there, then yeah, automatically part 132 00:10:09.450 --> 00:10:13.009 of that awareness piece is up to you. But if you have it in 133 00:10:13.049 --> 00:10:16.409 your mind that there's something that's so, that marketing was that have supposed to 134 00:10:16.450 --> 00:10:20.480 have done before I got here, then there's more of that tension that's that's 135 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:24.559 reinforced. And I mean I understand it right on a if you're doing a 136 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:28.440 call campaign, you're in a call, cold call or something and there hasn't 137 00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:33.840 been any work done to measure intent or to be really more targeted around who 138 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:39.389 you're calling and you're having to do all of the work of awareness in real 139 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:43.429 time on a phone call doing stranger yeah it could be. It can be 140 00:10:43.549 --> 00:10:48.710 pretty frustrating, but to be frustrated with the marketing team is to sort of 141 00:10:50.100 --> 00:10:54.820 misplace that energy right that that's something that needs to be coming from the top 142 00:10:54.980 --> 00:11:00.460 down and like you're talking about, and then facilitated between the two things. 143 00:11:00.860 --> 00:11:03.409 And so once one spooks of identified this problem and said Hey, you know, 144 00:11:03.490 --> 00:11:07.330 I'm there's a lot of finger pointing going on and here's why we're not 145 00:11:07.409 --> 00:11:11.769 aligned on these four for for measures. What kind of things can you besides 146 00:11:11.850 --> 00:11:16.169 the meetings and stuff like you just talked about, when it comes to what 147 00:11:16.289 --> 00:11:18.320 we measure and how we really put it on paper, that it's a shared 148 00:11:18.679 --> 00:11:22.759 goal and a shared set of, you know, indicators that performs indicators. 149 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:28.039 What? What should those look like? Yeah, great question, because metrics 150 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:33.830 is something that I fundamentally live by. I've learned also, and are seeing 151 00:11:33.950 --> 00:11:39.990 this happen, where metrics established in such a way that I could easily gain 152 00:11:41.110 --> 00:11:46.029 the system right to make myself look good. Ultimately, you know, sea 153 00:11:46.070 --> 00:11:50.539 level individuals, they need to ask or to the board and to the math. 154 00:11:50.659 --> 00:11:54.860 They're, you know, management in such a way that you know they 155 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.419 need to deliver results. But you know, take, example, website traffic. 156 00:11:58.580 --> 00:12:03.690 Example website traffic is a great indicator that, Hey, our presence is 157 00:12:03.769 --> 00:12:07.929 improving, people are coming to us in that but I could easily fix that 158 00:12:07.129 --> 00:12:11.929 with money. Right, I could take a budget from one program and stick 159 00:12:11.929 --> 00:12:16.240 it on to add words and drive a bunch of traffic on there and make 160 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:18.720 myself look at but right will? We don't. Let we don't like to 161 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:24.559 do that. So, ultimately, what it comes down to it is the 162 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:33.230 establishing the metrics that the team is aligned with and metrics that are not to 163 00:12:33.669 --> 00:12:39.230 you know, extremely set, too high or too low. So there's needs 164 00:12:39.269 --> 00:12:43.389 to be a communication and you know, we do this every beginning of every 165 00:12:43.470 --> 00:12:46.940 year and then we would visit every quarter. Then time management team looking at 166 00:12:48.139 --> 00:12:52.220 the top level metrics. What are the things that you want to track as 167 00:12:52.259 --> 00:12:56.419 a team and and what do we look at? Ultimately, it is, 168 00:12:56.139 --> 00:13:01.250 you know, number of contacts that we've generated. Ultimately, you need to 169 00:13:01.370 --> 00:13:05.690 have a person to reach out to the number of contacts that lead to the 170 00:13:05.769 --> 00:13:11.529 number of calls that are made on a daily basis or called, could be 171 00:13:11.610 --> 00:13:16.200 emails or a commodation that end up being, you know, resulting in the 172 00:13:16.279 --> 00:13:22.000 number of meetings you conduct per day, to the number of demos or demonstrations 173 00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:28.789 that you conduct that lead to the number of opportunities or some people call POC's 174 00:13:28.870 --> 00:13:33.909 proof of concepts or proof of value, POB's and then number of deals closed. 175 00:13:33.309 --> 00:13:37.350 So the pipeline and the funnel is pretty clear in terms of what needs 176 00:13:37.389 --> 00:13:41.700 to happen. It's just that you need to stick together as a team and 177 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:45.379 get those things done. There are things like awareness. You know, how 178 00:13:45.500 --> 00:13:48.700 the help you measure awareness and and how do you make sure? How do 179 00:13:48.779 --> 00:13:52.899 you know the right amount? You know you have the right amount of budget 180 00:13:52.299 --> 00:13:58.850 to achieve your metrics? So those are kind of scientifically more difficult to achieve, 181 00:13:58.970 --> 00:14:03.450 but there are tools out there. For example, we leverage, you 182 00:14:03.529 --> 00:14:07.809 know, our net promoter score. We do a every six months. We 183 00:14:07.929 --> 00:14:13.480 do a market, you know, awareness study and a cross our customers. 184 00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:20.480 We do net promoter score. We have invested heavily and public relations and anidless 185 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:28.389 relations that elevate your brand across those so metrics is an area that I certainly 186 00:14:28.549 --> 00:14:33.269 would agree with you that we need to focus on, but watch out for 187 00:14:33.389 --> 00:14:39.860 those metrics where it's easy to kind of gain the system, either even unconsciously, 188 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:41.740 if you don't know what you do, if you don't know that you're 189 00:14:41.740 --> 00:14:45.139 doing it. You want to look good at the end of the day, 190 00:14:45.419 --> 00:14:50.179 but some I was looking good at comes at a cost of business. Hey, 191 00:14:50.259 --> 00:14:52.409 everybody, logan with sweet fish here. If you've been listening to the 192 00:14:52.450 --> 00:14:56.129 show for a while, you know we're big proponents of putting out original, 193 00:14:56.169 --> 00:15:01.330 organic content on linked in, but one thing that's always been a struggle for 194 00:15:01.370 --> 00:15:05.450 a team like ours is to easily track the reach of that linkedin content. 195 00:15:05.809 --> 00:15:09.279 That's why I was really excited when I heard about shield the other day from 196 00:15:09.279 --> 00:15:13.120 a connection on, you guessed it, linked in. Since our team started 197 00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:18.000 using shield, I've loved how it's let us easily track and analyze the performance 198 00:15:18.039 --> 00:15:22.549 of our linkedin content without having to manually log it ourselves. It automatically creates 199 00:15:22.629 --> 00:15:28.669 reports and generates some dashboards that are incredibly useful to see things like what content 200 00:15:28.710 --> 00:15:31.710 has been performing the best and what days of the week are we getting the 201 00:15:31.750 --> 00:15:35.980 most engagement and our average views proposed. I'd highly suggest you guys check out 202 00:15:35.980 --> 00:15:39.059 this tool if you're putting out content on Linkedin, and if you're not, 203 00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:43.419 you should be. It's been a game changer for us. If you go 204 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:46.779 to shield APP DOT AI and check out the ten day free trial, you 205 00:15:46.820 --> 00:15:50.809 can even use our promo code be to be growth to get a twenty five 206 00:15:50.889 --> 00:15:56.409 percent discount again. That's shield APP DOT AI and that Promo Code is be 207 00:15:56.769 --> 00:16:00.970 the number to be growth all one word. All right, let's get back 208 00:16:00.970 --> 00:16:07.720 to the show. Sure, and it's always in a come to light. 209 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:12.039 It's always going to be exposed if you are measuring the wrong metrics. is 210 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:15.559 going to be exposed on the bottom line either way, whether it's, you 211 00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:18.399 know, sales, it's doing it or marketing, it's doing it. And 212 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:22.590 another way that you and I talked about offline, as far as how to 213 00:16:22.710 --> 00:16:27.750 make this alignment really stick, that I thought was really smart, the way 214 00:16:27.750 --> 00:16:32.509 you talked about it, and it was helping these discipline, sales and marketing, 215 00:16:32.590 --> 00:16:37.899 understand how they give each other a competitive edge in the market, how 216 00:16:37.019 --> 00:16:41.100 each of them sets each other up for that kind of success. Talk about 217 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:45.419 that force a little bit. Show Cup. Competition is something that is you 218 00:16:45.539 --> 00:16:48.809 know, I remember one time the many, many years ago, I did 219 00:16:48.929 --> 00:16:52.970 this as a full time job for about eight years. I my job was 220 00:16:52.049 --> 00:16:56.970 nothing but the competitive analysis, building a lab with all the competitive software. 221 00:16:59.129 --> 00:17:03.519 We invested a lot in that that part of the business. And what's interesting 222 00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:07.640 is that, you know, companies do spends quite a bit of money and 223 00:17:07.759 --> 00:17:12.200 time on competition. Some people don't do much at all. After eight years, 224 00:17:12.319 --> 00:17:17.430 I can tell you one thing of doing, you know, essentially every 225 00:17:17.430 --> 00:17:22.869 day nothing but competitive and educating our sales teams across the world, I'll partners, 226 00:17:23.029 --> 00:17:26.589 and trying to win deals competitively. It came down to one thing. 227 00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:30.740 It can doune one thing after eight years. It took me Athi is to 228 00:17:30.779 --> 00:17:37.259 learn us one in the lesson, which was giving sales confidence in a deal 229 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:42.380 wins every time. It doesn't matter how good or how bad your product. 230 00:17:42.460 --> 00:17:47.690 Like this, that level of confidence, knowing that I know my product, 231 00:17:48.210 --> 00:17:51.650 I know my competitions product, and I'm telling you, as the customer, 232 00:17:51.809 --> 00:17:56.809 here are the reasons essential why should buy for me right and that is so 233 00:17:57.130 --> 00:18:02.680 important. And in most cases, you know, what what happens is that 234 00:18:03.240 --> 00:18:07.640 if you look at customers when they go through a competitive bake off or competitive 235 00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:11.920 you know, choosing a product, they've already made the decision. By the 236 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:15.750 time they talk to you, they've already made a decision on which product to 237 00:18:15.829 --> 00:18:19.230 go with. What they need is validation that they've done it right, that 238 00:18:19.789 --> 00:18:23.470 they've purchased the right product. UPART behind the right product, which I mean 239 00:18:23.990 --> 00:18:27.579 look at ourselves you know, when we buy a new phone or a new 240 00:18:27.740 --> 00:18:30.700 car or whatever, right after we buy that product, what do we do? 241 00:18:30.819 --> 00:18:34.859 We constantly looking at, you know, other products to see that we 242 00:18:34.980 --> 00:18:40.500 make the right purchase. I think I'm essentially psychologically giving us off confidence that 243 00:18:40.779 --> 00:18:44.529 you know, I made the right choice. Right, right. So they 244 00:18:44.609 --> 00:18:48.049 call this in this business a column Father Right, you become a column father 245 00:18:48.130 --> 00:18:52.369 ware. Basically it's a your column be calumny, is all the features and 246 00:18:52.450 --> 00:18:56.279 functions that they've decided on and you're just basically check mark. So what I 247 00:18:56.319 --> 00:19:03.240 would encourage people to do is don't spend so much time losing sleepover competitive features 248 00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:10.990 and functions and loose really grit analyzes, because a customer already usually makes a 249 00:19:11.069 --> 00:19:15.869 decision. What we have to do is established confidence of the customers that look, 250 00:19:17.269 --> 00:19:22.230 these customers bought from us. They are happy customers. We have capability 251 00:19:22.430 --> 00:19:25.819 that is, you know, find the secret sauce. This is what makes 252 00:19:25.859 --> 00:19:30.660 us unique. But ultimately comes down to instill in confidence in the sales teams 253 00:19:30.700 --> 00:19:34.380 and the marketing teams, and that can go a long way compared to anything 254 00:19:34.380 --> 00:19:37.690 else you do in the competitive space. For sure. Yes, it's the 255 00:19:37.730 --> 00:19:42.289 difference between a marketing team focusing on, like you said, these needy, 256 00:19:42.329 --> 00:19:48.490 gritty analyzes, right, that I try attempt to teach the customer, Hey, 257 00:19:48.609 --> 00:19:52.079 this is how much better our product is, versus spitting that energy teaching 258 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:56.240 salesperson like, no, no, when you go into these conversations, you 259 00:19:56.319 --> 00:19:59.880 need to understand that you have every right to, like, have your head 260 00:19:59.880 --> 00:20:03.119 up and be confident about the things that you're saying, and here are the 261 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:07.309 stories that prove that out or whatever. That looks like a sort to interrupt 262 00:20:07.349 --> 00:20:11.549 you, but what happens is customers are looking for partner, right. They 263 00:20:11.710 --> 00:20:18.470 looking for advice in terms of how they should what they should do as as 264 00:20:18.509 --> 00:20:25.900 a purchase. And if the salesperson comes across as an educated and confident person, 265 00:20:26.539 --> 00:20:29.980 mostly, as they say, people buy from people, right. You 266 00:20:30.099 --> 00:20:34.579 want to come across as a confident individualist and instead of standing on your heels, 267 00:20:34.970 --> 00:20:37.569 kind of backtracking and fear of, Oh my God, what if this 268 00:20:37.690 --> 00:20:41.849 customer says that brings up this feature and we don't have that future? Right, 269 00:20:42.170 --> 00:20:45.690 that's fine. You know, got to be standing on your toes and 270 00:20:47.250 --> 00:20:52.359 talking confidently, speaking confidently about here's why you the kind of thing you should 271 00:20:52.359 --> 00:20:56.279 worry about or think about and hear that the reasons why you should, and 272 00:20:56.599 --> 00:21:00.240 not necessary even push your products so much. But be sure come across as 273 00:21:00.279 --> 00:21:04.910 an educated as an educator right to the customer, and eventually customers buy from 274 00:21:04.950 --> 00:21:08.470 those that they trust. No, you're so right. This is something I 275 00:21:08.549 --> 00:21:11.869 know. There's not a lot of folks that would say, Oh, I 276 00:21:11.990 --> 00:21:15.349 took these things I learned from car sales into my career is, as this 277 00:21:15.509 --> 00:21:19.460 says, account executive. But there are. What you just described is exact 278 00:21:19.500 --> 00:21:25.259 when I was successful, my most successful days selling cars. Like I sold 279 00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:30.819 Kia's right, I sold he has on this stretch of car dealerships in Austin, 280 00:21:30.900 --> 00:21:33.210 Texas, called the motor mile, where there were all the other, 281 00:21:33.490 --> 00:21:37.410 you know, bigger, more established names. Right, I'm sandwiched between fords 282 00:21:37.450 --> 00:21:41.970 and NISSANS. And you know there's an Outi dealership of BMW and whatever it 283 00:21:42.130 --> 00:21:45.730 is. Right. And so they're beating me already in a lot of ways 284 00:21:45.930 --> 00:21:51.079 on awareness and on, you know, the research that's out, that that 285 00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:53.240 the customers might have done before they came to me. Right, but they 286 00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:57.400 did come to me. And when I if I try to focus on here's 287 00:21:57.400 --> 00:22:03.829 the difference between this Kia vehicle and the one they're going to show you next 288 00:22:03.869 --> 00:22:07.670 door at Nissan. I lose right because, whether what I'm saying is true 289 00:22:07.710 --> 00:22:12.349 or not, these sounds already done decades worth of a job. You know 290 00:22:12.509 --> 00:22:15.819 that we're playing catch up on trying to, you know, prove that out 291 00:22:15.859 --> 00:22:21.779 or establish confidence in the buyer on that right. And and so then my 292 00:22:21.819 --> 00:22:26.500 job becomes, just like you said, to just be more confident about what 293 00:22:26.700 --> 00:22:30.369 I'm doing and why I'm there, outside of being, you know, more 294 00:22:30.690 --> 00:22:34.130 more linkable people, more engaging, less pushy. Right, because that matters 295 00:22:34.170 --> 00:22:37.690 too, I think, in both contexts. Right, you to see and 296 00:22:37.769 --> 00:22:40.410 bb, but you hit it right on the head. It really is, 297 00:22:40.490 --> 00:22:45.039 especially for the the salespeople and the job that marketing does. When it comes 298 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:48.079 to that, it just like you said, is focusing less on the the 299 00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:53.279 competition and more on how to set these sales people up. And I was 300 00:22:53.400 --> 00:22:56.519 fortunate in that situation where that's exactly what was happening. They were telling us 301 00:22:56.519 --> 00:23:00.390 all day long like look, man, it's not like these cars aren't bit 302 00:23:00.430 --> 00:23:03.470 really all that different one from the other at this level, right, like 303 00:23:03.589 --> 00:23:07.230 we're talking about luxury cards, something different, but they're really not. And 304 00:23:07.349 --> 00:23:11.269 what would set a person up set, you know, product apart. Are 305 00:23:11.349 --> 00:23:14.299 these things here, happy customers and by these measures we went so just go 306 00:23:14.420 --> 00:23:18.539 in there with that and talc them dead. So I really love that did 307 00:23:18.579 --> 00:23:21.740 of advice. I do want to make sure we get to the next couple 308 00:23:21.740 --> 00:23:23.180 of segments, but I got it here from you while I got you in 309 00:23:23.259 --> 00:23:26.980 front of me. What's next? So once, because a lot of folks 310 00:23:26.980 --> 00:23:29.650 are starting to wake up to this right yes, and we've been talked about 311 00:23:29.650 --> 00:23:32.970 for the past I'd say three years or so, the sales and marketing alignment, 312 00:23:33.009 --> 00:23:36.569 and so folks are they're getting there. Once we got that figured out, 313 00:23:36.609 --> 00:23:38.210 what do we do with it? What? What's the future of that? 314 00:23:40.009 --> 00:23:44.000 Yeah, great questions, I think. You know, having done marketing 315 00:23:44.119 --> 00:23:48.599 for twenty plus years my myself, what I see quite a bit of. 316 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:52.440 The thing, the area that's taking up momentum keep picking up momentum, is 317 00:23:52.799 --> 00:23:57.670 this notion of account based marketing right in the you know, ten fifteen years 318 00:23:57.710 --> 00:24:02.470 ago, a lot of companies were in to this day, some are doing 319 00:24:02.549 --> 00:24:07.869 what I call spray and pray right go to trade shows, try to add 320 00:24:07.069 --> 00:24:12.180 run ads on youtube and Google and drive people to your website and the hope 321 00:24:12.220 --> 00:24:15.220 that they'll fill out a form and the hope that they'll take a demo. 322 00:24:15.380 --> 00:24:19.059 That the hope that hoop the cup. You're called. I think this account 323 00:24:19.099 --> 00:24:23.019 base marketing is this whole. You know the tools and the technology of a 324 00:24:23.019 --> 00:24:27.730 dance so much that I can tell you right now you tell you know very 325 00:24:27.849 --> 00:24:36.369 specifically which it comes which company in North America or companies are certain size, 326 00:24:36.569 --> 00:24:40.640 running which technology, how many employees they have, where they located. I 327 00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:45.480 mean we can get so granular in terms of the kinds of accounts that we 328 00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:48.680 care about, that aligned to our technology that we've seen success in the past. 329 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:52.150 So you can look at your past customers, see what kind of customers 330 00:24:52.190 --> 00:24:56.789 have gravitated to your technology and product and then go find more of them out 331 00:24:56.789 --> 00:25:02.750 there. So once you've done that, you've identified these accounts, one thing 332 00:25:02.789 --> 00:25:04.910 you realize, oh my God, this world isn't had that big. It's 333 00:25:04.910 --> 00:25:11.180 a small set of companies. You know, the first fear is, Oh, 334 00:25:11.819 --> 00:25:15.019 what we how we going to, you know, generate enough opportunities and 335 00:25:17.180 --> 00:25:22.049 in context within those but you be surprised. What happens next is that as 336 00:25:22.089 --> 00:25:25.769 you go through from company to company, you realize that you need to find 337 00:25:25.849 --> 00:25:29.930 contact. is a lot of different types of titles you can go after and 338 00:25:30.130 --> 00:25:34.049 then you use technology to look at your own website, for example, and 339 00:25:34.210 --> 00:25:41.039 social media channels targeting those individual accounts. There's tools now out there that you 340 00:25:41.119 --> 00:25:45.039 know, as you know, follow you with ads, like remarketing as they 341 00:25:45.079 --> 00:25:48.759 call it. There's ways to penetrate into those accounts. We've gone to the 342 00:25:48.960 --> 00:25:53.150 point where actually sending physical items. You know, the physical mailers, or 343 00:25:53.349 --> 00:25:57.910 so get while ago. They're coming back. So people are actually paying attention 344 00:25:57.990 --> 00:26:03.150 to something that they get in the mail right right, sending out a in 345 00:26:03.339 --> 00:26:07.180 an item. That's interesting. One customer said, we didn't do this at 346 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:11.900 a lot full disclosure. Some another company that this. But this guy was 347 00:26:11.940 --> 00:26:17.740 a portion enthusiast and the salesperson did Atle bit of research on this individual, 348 00:26:17.940 --> 00:26:21.650 found out it is a portant portion enthusiast and send them a book on the 349 00:26:21.730 --> 00:26:26.890 history of Porsche. And the guy still talks about that experience and still has 350 00:26:26.930 --> 00:26:30.289 the book on his desk ten years later and we'll never forget that experience. 351 00:26:30.450 --> 00:26:36.240 This is the client right. So getting to that level of engagement where you're 352 00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:41.119 doing research on the individual, their backgrounds and and an aligning to those emotional 353 00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:48.029 connections and targeting those accounts can definitely result in positive, positive things, and 354 00:26:48.069 --> 00:26:52.950 I think that's where the features going. The the technology and the mechanism and 355 00:26:52.029 --> 00:26:56.910 the logistics are available now that's through a couple clicks to right within your crm, 356 00:26:57.190 --> 00:27:02.539 you're able to send physical items, you can send messages, you can 357 00:27:02.700 --> 00:27:07.420 push out social media card, you know, engagements, rverything is fully automated. 358 00:27:07.460 --> 00:27:11.819 So account based marketing, sales and marketing. I should say it's not 359 00:27:11.859 --> 00:27:15.970 just marketing. Is is the area of our focus and I think that's what 360 00:27:15.089 --> 00:27:18.769 the world was going as well. Yeah, just start looking into and I 361 00:27:18.930 --> 00:27:22.250 like the way that we you know, we talked about these points in that 362 00:27:22.450 --> 00:27:26.970 order, because I think a lot of folks sometimes there's a tendency to think 363 00:27:26.009 --> 00:27:30.119 of okay, how do I fix sales and marketing alignment? Well, we're 364 00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:33.960 just going ABM, but it's not a simple right. The ABM can't happen 365 00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:41.319 successfully until sells and marketing are already aligned, until everyone's already brought into those 366 00:27:41.400 --> 00:27:44.990 ideals and understands why we're doing it, what we're measuring. Then you start 367 00:27:44.990 --> 00:27:48.950 to invest in the text act to support that. As been what what I'm 368 00:27:48.950 --> 00:27:52.470 hearing from a lot of markets I talk to in it and according to research 369 00:27:52.710 --> 00:27:57.349 from Gardener, I believe it was, I saw shocking number, which I 370 00:27:57.390 --> 00:28:03.740 think it was like eighty five percent of ABM strategies fill. Yeah, simply 371 00:28:03.859 --> 00:28:08.180 because the companies stopped doing the spray and praying and they focus on it a 372 00:28:08.299 --> 00:28:15.329 handful of accounts and when they go try to execute, they fail at the 373 00:28:15.410 --> 00:28:19.650 execution. So the there's a whole area of learning to be had in that 374 00:28:19.769 --> 00:28:22.529 space. Yeah, because if you don't do it right, if you're not 375 00:28:22.650 --> 00:28:26.799 focused enough, now you've pulled a run from Monday yourself, you know, 376 00:28:27.160 --> 00:28:30.920 shut yourself in the foot, as they say. Yeah, because you've stopped 377 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:34.200 the traditional selling and now you're going very small and that's not going to work. 378 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:37.240 All of a sudden you lose a quarter of two of sales and that 379 00:28:37.319 --> 00:28:41.150 could be a bad situation. So you got to really paying attention to that. 380 00:28:41.869 --> 00:28:44.950 Well, thank you so much, like I said, for laying that 381 00:28:45.069 --> 00:28:48.349 out. It's all really sound advice stuff folks can use today, uh hum, 382 00:28:48.829 --> 00:28:52.589 that they're thinking about doing this and doing it right. Now that I've 383 00:28:52.589 --> 00:28:56.220 successfully picked your brain and seemed I could get out of it. It is 384 00:28:56.299 --> 00:28:57.819 time for you to tell us about what you're putting in it. So yeah, 385 00:28:57.819 --> 00:29:02.579 I'm a tell us about a learning resource that you've been engaging with here 386 00:29:02.619 --> 00:29:04.660 recently that is, you know, informing your approach or it's just got you 387 00:29:04.819 --> 00:29:10.009 excited these days. Well, my personal approach to learning, I guess that 388 00:29:10.450 --> 00:29:15.170 I used to have to admit, read a lot of marketing books and sales 389 00:29:15.250 --> 00:29:19.769 books, you know, my favorite being good degrede of like most people would 390 00:29:19.849 --> 00:29:25.279 agree with that. But what the thing that helped me in the last number 391 00:29:25.279 --> 00:29:30.559 of years really advanced in my own career and knowledge and education, is the 392 00:29:30.720 --> 00:29:33.720 people around me. You know, we we you build a circle of friends 393 00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:37.910 that are having the same job as you, the same challenges as you, 394 00:29:38.589 --> 00:29:42.869 and they also are wanting to learn from you. Right. So we put 395 00:29:42.910 --> 00:29:48.349 together a group of us at cemos got together and we said, look, 396 00:29:48.029 --> 00:29:52.819 we're all facing similar challenges. Why don't we get together once every six weeks 397 00:29:52.859 --> 00:29:59.980 or so and share our successes and failures and learn from it? At first 398 00:29:59.980 --> 00:30:02.940 I thought, I don't know it's going to work it out, but it 399 00:30:03.380 --> 00:30:07.650 was probably the most amazing education outside of any school that I've ever attended, 400 00:30:08.170 --> 00:30:12.890 because you learned that these people of our living the life experience in the same 401 00:30:12.970 --> 00:30:18.250 challenges, but once in a while you come across this nugget of opportunity where, 402 00:30:18.490 --> 00:30:21.720 wow, they solved it this way, and then we go off and 403 00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:26.400 apply the same solution to all problems. So our mantras come to these meetings 404 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:30.759 with one problem and one solution right, one challenge that's your face with, 405 00:30:32.240 --> 00:30:34.680 and ask for advice and then come with an idea or something that have worked 406 00:30:34.710 --> 00:30:40.869 for you and that's worked out really well. And again it am, I 407 00:30:40.910 --> 00:30:44.750 advised to people, as there's plenty of others just like you out there that 408 00:30:44.869 --> 00:30:48.309 are wanted to learn from you right, just like you want to learn from 409 00:30:48.309 --> 00:30:52.460 them. If you can put that circle of friends together and find a way. 410 00:30:52.940 --> 00:30:56.299 Now technology, with zoom and online meetings and what that, makes it 411 00:30:56.420 --> 00:31:00.579 so easy to set up a an hour meeting every few weeks just to touch 412 00:31:00.700 --> 00:31:03.930 base and talk about some of the ideas, and so I takes a little 413 00:31:03.930 --> 00:31:10.009 bit of investment, but the but the return can be amazing in as a 414 00:31:10.049 --> 00:31:12.009 results of that. So that's what I've done and I've learned quite a bit. 415 00:31:12.130 --> 00:31:15.769 motherful to continue to do that. Absolutely. That's something I believe in 416 00:31:15.890 --> 00:31:22.720 and we at sweetish media. One grows show community as a resource, people, 417 00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:26.480 human beings as a learning resource top of my list. So I'm glad 418 00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:30.759 you said that and I know that, just like me, everybody listening has 419 00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:32.910 become a fast fan of yours. They're going to want to keep up with 420 00:31:33.029 --> 00:31:34.430 you. So yeah, Ima, tell us how folks can connect with you? 421 00:31:36.029 --> 00:31:37.670 Yeah, I guess the best way to connect with me through Linkedin. 422 00:31:38.109 --> 00:31:42.309 That's the place where I get a lot of contacts and connections. So you 423 00:31:42.390 --> 00:31:47.259 can find me on Linkedin. I'll be happy to speak through that plaform. 424 00:31:47.859 --> 00:31:49.579 Done and done. Hey Man, look glad to have you on again. 425 00:31:51.460 --> 00:31:53.019 With all of your years of experience, I'm sure there's a number of topics 426 00:31:53.059 --> 00:31:56.380 that you can enlighten us on, but for now we'll say goodbye. Thank 427 00:31:56.420 --> 00:31:59.859 you so much for being on the show. Thank you. Ta Care. 428 00:32:01.529 --> 00:32:06.769 We totally get it. We publish a ton of content on this podcast and 429 00:32:06.849 --> 00:32:08.970 it can be a lot to keep up with. That's why we've started to 430 00:32:09.089 --> 00:32:14.529 be tob growth big three, a no fluff email that boils down our three 431 00:32:14.609 --> 00:32:19.279 biggest takeaways from an entire week of episodes. Sign up today at Sweet Fish 432 00:32:19.319 --> 00:32:24.079 Mediacom big three. That sweet fish Mediacom Big Three
