How is your organization driving revenue in the digital world?
Your customers are changing. They’re digitally driven, socially connected & mobile empowered, as the queen of Social Selling Jill Rowley says. The customer is at the center of everything. And for your organization to survive in the ever-changing B2B landscape, you’ll need to equipyour sales and marketing teams with the right strategies to help your customers.
We’re one month into 2016 and certain themes for B2B sales and marketing teams are already emerging. With insights from top research firms such as Aberdeen Group, Forrester and SiriusDecisions, the following infographic describes five trends that your organization should consider to stay ahead of the curve in 2016.
In every race, the winners tend to share commonalities. Right now, the companies growing faster than their peers have done so with a winning combination of investment in technology and talent. Those falling behind tended to bet their revenues on improving legacy systems. This is just a sample of the insights that have emerged from KMPG’s report on Harnessing Disruption for Growth.
The study aggregated answers from hundreds of international execs at companies with valuations ranging from $500 million to $100 billion. Analysts have parsed the data, culling the most valuable information on how global markets and market winners operate today.
The core message is that those who have posted strong growth numbers despite massive market changes are those who have prioritized talent with sales education and experience with emerging technologies. The companies have pursued a three-fold strategy of retraining employees, deploying technology for better agility and solidifying company culture that has resulted in a decisive competitive advantage.
What are you working on right now? If more people asked themselves that question (and answered honestly), 2016 would be the dawn of a much better world. More than $350 billion evaporated in 2015 due to poor productivity. Commit to working smarter in the new year to recover some of that lost revenue.
Steven Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, advised, “The key is not to prioritize your schedule but to schedule your priorities.” Step one is knowing what those priorities are. Here are the top priorities for B2B sales and marketing teams, culled from a host of recent surveys. Keep these goals handy throughout the coming year, and check off them off as you knock them down.
What is it with sales and marketing? Haven’t you ever wondered what all the tension is really about? They share the same goal of bringing in customers and they frequently use the same communications channels. Even some of the best companies can’t tell them apart. However, if you are still struggling with bringing these two divisions together, it helps to think of the problem as something akin to sibling rivalry. What may seem like a slight alteration in priorities or procedures can often drive them into conflict. It’s up to you to straighten them out.
If you want to start reaping all the benefits of sales and marketing alignment, digital transformation is your answer. Put the right people, process and technologies in place to help them collaborate seamlessly, eliminate the blame game and turbocharge revenues. If you need help justifying this kind of digital transformation for your business, here’s the data and hard stats that will make your case for you.
“Marketing is absolutely the place to drive this transformation [in sales]… If you don’t have a corporate strategy around social media and social selling, and if you don’t proactively build that strategy collectively with sales, then however many number of sales people you have is however many strategies you have. It’s completely intersected.” –Bryan Jones, VP Commercial Marketing at Dell
I recently read this quote from Bryan Jones, VP Commercial Marketing at Dell. I both agree and disagree with Bryan. Here’s why.
In world-class organizations, digital transformation is the role of the sales enablement department. Sales enablement is part of the Revenue Generating team, which includes sales operations, sales, and marketing. Great sales enablement teams connect these commercial departments, and act as the bridge between the VP of Sales and the VP of Marketing.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of Social Selling lately—and there’s no question that it’s evolving. I’m reminded of Social Selling evangelist Jill Rowley and Steve Woods, co-founder of Eloqua (now the CTO of Nudge), who described the evolution of Social Selling well. They said it reminded them of the marketing automation space.
The marketing automation space was created Steve Woods for Eloqua in 2000. Fifteen years later, it’s a staple for the marketing industry. Marketing automation has taken archaic based marketing and turned it into insights analytics based marketing.
Whether your company is ready for it or not, there is a progression happening. And the future of Social Selling lies in the creation of digital selling departments. Enterprise level organizations are already doing this, and over the next five years, it will be the norm.
Sales for Life was founded with one goal – to become the most trusted sales resource for its customers. During our journey, we’ve had the privilege of serving thousands of sales professionals and leaders around the world, from start-ups to Fortune 50 corporations.
