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A practical table of contents for a streamlined go-to-market plan
Lately, I've been asked for recommendations for a streamlined go-to-market plan template. This is a great request because I continue to see a lot of marketing teams get wrapped around the axle of a "10-step marketing plan" or some other beastly exercise. Now, please...
Shortening the Sales Cycle Through Ruthless Qualifying
Ruthless qualifying should happen at every stage of the sales cycle to increase win rates, improve sales productivity and shorten the sales cycle.
Setting up your 1st CAB? Here’s a sure-fire agenda
Lately, I've received many calls from executives looking to start up a customer advisory board program for their company. Inaugural CAB meetings are especially important because it marks the first opportunity to not only introduce your CAB program, but to also put...
The mousetrap the world has been waiting for?
Conceptually, the theories of persona-building, positioning and messaging are easy to understand. However, sometimes it's helpful for a marketing team to critique a real example and then discuss the parallels to their own business. An example that everyone can...
After Content: Where Does Your Prospect Go Next?
Make sure your content is never a dead end. Make it easy for your prospects to move on to the next step, and always with appropriate content. If you don’t have relevant content for all the stages of the sales cycle, your first job, right now, today, is to make sure to produce and post it and make it abundantly available via SEO and social media.
How POLYCOM and VMware are Implementing Sales PlayBooks
Last week I attended a SalesCraft roundtable hosted by Sharon Little, Director of Global Field Communications at VMware. SalesCraft is a forum for Silicon Valley sales leaders to talk about strategies and trends for empowering successful sales teams. The topic:...
What Is Inbound Marketing?
For years I've talked about transitioning in tech from Sales through Product Management and ultimately to Outbound Marketing. But lately, I've been talking about inbound marketing and am frequently met with puzzled looks. People inquire, "What is inbound marketing?"...
Voice of the Customer and Social Media – An Intuit Case Study
The DMA Northern California (DMANC) recently hosted a presentation by Scott K. Wilder, former GM of Intuit's Small Business Online Communities. The topic: "Getting Closer to the Customer Using Social Media: A Case Study from Intuit." Here are a few key "take-aways"...
How to Change Things When Change Is Hard – A book review
Human behavior. It seems to fall into grooves so easily. And it is often very, very hard to change. Change is not necessarily always good, but even when people know it would be good, it can seem impossible to make it happen. Besides that, people don’t always realize...
Building a Persona – The “Skeptical Futurist”
If you are selling to CIOs or IT strategists, you may find this post of interest. (Visit The Marketing High Ground blog for more examples of personas.) Human perception is a tricky thing, for although teams may share a common understanding of their product portfolio,...