Inflexion-Points: Smart Ideas for Accelerating Revenue Growth

Pär Edin and his colleagues at McKinsey believe they have identified the five winning strategies that distinguish the world’s leading sales organisations from their also-ran competitors. Pär presented their findings at the excellent recent Sales and Marketing 2.0 conference in London - and showed that we all have the potential to emulate the success of these top performers.

If you’re able to get to London on the 1^st November, I’d like to suggest that you join me and invest a day in attending the FUNNEL 2011 conference at the Lancaster London hotel. According to the organisers, you can expect to be in the company of over 500 of the UK’s most senior B2B and B2C ‘considered purchase’ strategists, with an agenda that shares some of the very latest best practices in attracting, engaging, nurturing and converting B2B prospects.

Is Web 2.0 simply a passing fad or an enduring trend? We no longer have to rely on the evangelists’ opinion.  A recent McKinsey study of more than 3,000 executives has come up with statistically significant proof that the intensive organisation-wide adoption of Web 2.0 technologies is closely correlated with margin and market share gains.

Sales and marketing alignment is increasingly recognised as a critical contributor to sustained business success.

I attended SirusDecisions’ excellent inaugural European summit in London yesterday. It was packed with essential information and insight for anyone concerned with improving their organisation’s sales and marketing alignment, and offered compelling evidence for the benefits of getting sales and marketing working collaboratively towards a common goal.

I must have conducted hundreds of voice of the customer surveys on behalf of clients over the past few years. Speaking with their recent past prospects, covering the spectrum of wins, losses and “no decisions”, I’ve been helping vendors to understand their prospect’s decision making processes, and how and why they chose to buy - or why they decided to do nothing.

Almost all of my recent assignments have revolved around helping B2B clients realise the power and potential of Sales and Marketing 2.0, and everything I’ve seen or done has reinforced one inescapable conclusion: Sales and Marketing 2.0 is all about collaboration.

The Aberdeen Group have just published a must-read report entitled “Sales and Marketing Alignment Collaboration + Cooperation = Peak Performance”. The report is available for free download until 3^rd December 2010 by clicking on this link.