Accelerating Revenue Growth: The Inflexion-Point Blog

I admit it. I’ve been guilty of promoting the benefits of sales and marketing alignment as if they were self-evident to everybody involved. I’ve quoted studies that suggest that better sales and marketing alignment is a key priority for CEOs. I’ve spoken to hundreds of marketers who genuinely believe they could do a better job if they were able to work more closely with sales - and of course they are right. But here’s the problem: many sales leaders (and sales people) see concepts like “alignment” as yet another fluffy marketing idea, along with the latest expensive and irrelevant re-branding campaign.

Coming from somebody who has consistently sought to promote the value of focus and process in all matters connected with B2B sales and marketing, the above headline may strike you as bordering on the perverse. But bear with me. It’s just that no sales process can be successful unless it is based on a deep appreciation of your prospective customer’s buying process.

Apple has just posted results that far outstrip analyst expectations - nearly doubling their revenue year-on-year and more than doubling their profit. What lessons can we in B2B sales and marketing learn from Apple’s stunning success? I’d like to focus on three aspects that I believe we can all put into practice in our own businesses: clarity of focus, disciplined execution and the relentless emphasis on the customer experience.

I come across many marketing organisations that seem to believe that the more leads they generate, the better they are doing. They may even be measured and rewarded by their management on the basis of the number of leads marketing generates. But I want to show you why why focusing on quantity rather than quality is a really, really bad idea.

There has been no shortage of articles highlighting the growing importance of having great content to support your sales and marketing processes at every stage in the buying decision journey. MarketingProfs recently published a study of over 1,000 B2B marketers - and their findings suggest some clues as how today’s best-in-class B2B sales and marketing organisations are able to make their content irresistibly attractive.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book of the same name, pointed out the power of “The Tipping Point”, and sought to demonstrate with a series of examples how little things can make a big difference. Now Lauren Carlson of Software Advice has picked up on the theme in a recent blog, in which she asks whether SFA (and its more widely targeted superset CRM) has passed a tipping point?

The good folks at Eloqua have come up with an infographic to celebrate the launch of their latest offering - Eloqua Engage for iPad. It turns out, according to Eloqua, that this is just the latest in a long line of disruptive B2B innovations stretching back to 9th Century Merchant Capitalist Trade Fairs. Isn't innovation a wonderful thing? Anyway, I thought the infographic worth sharing. Which innovation are you most impressed with? And what can you imagine a 9th Century Merchant being able to do with an iPad?

Your prospects' concerns, motivations and priorities change - often significantly - as they move from stage to stage in their buying decision process. Smart marketers are conciously aligning their offers, activities and content to the relevant point in the buyer's journey in order to encourage the prospect to move to the next stage with them. This is an easy concept in principle, but requires focus and real discipline to make it work in practice - although the potential benefits to sales and marketing effectiveness are profound.

At any time, every one of your sales prospects are likely to be able to identify - with or without your help - any number of issues or needs they would like to see addressed. They may be very happy devoting their time to investigating potential solutions. But unless the problem is so significant that they cannot afford not to deal with it, they will almost certainly end up deciding to stay with the status quo. Here’s why - and what to do about it…

According to a recent Aberdeen Group report, “alignment of marketing and sales goals is a key strategy for many organisations seeking revenue and customer growth amid economic and market challenges”. Poorly aligned organisations are quickly falling behind their best-in-class competitors in the critical areas of revenue growth, sales productivity and return on marketing investment. But how can you tell if your organisation has an alignment problem?