In my last post, I outlined how the organizational design of the modern software sales organization offloads almost every important aspect of a deal cycle from the rep to specialized functions. Account development teams generate the leads. Solution Consultants deliver the demos. Value Engineers calculate ROI. Bid Management responds to proposals. The Deal Desk negotiates pricing. And Customer Success renews…
Software Sales Reps Don’t Do Anything
With each passing year, software sales representatives are doing less and less of the work required to close a deal. It was not long ago when software sales reps played a critical role in all aspects of a deal. The sales rep generated the leads, demonstrated the product, explained the value proposition, developed the formal proposal, negotiated the pricing and…
Questions for Marketing Leaders to Ask When Interviewing Sales Reps
Over the past 10 years, I have probably interviewed more than 100 sales reps. As the head of marketing I often get asked to weigh in on the success potential for prospective account executives. My initial approach to these interviews was to attempt to assess the selling skills of these candidates. However, over the years I have realized that the…
Cord Cutting Complicates Corporate Webinars
As marketers, we always remind webinar presenters to use a landline phone to deliver their presentation. Using a traditional phone usually improves the quality of the audio broadcast and the recording. Traditional phone lines have less risk of being garbled or losing connectivity. But what happens when your webinar presenters don’t have a landline?
Four Examples of Why You Should Market to Prospects in Your Pipeline
Many sales leaders do not understand the advantage marketing can provide during a deal cycle. They tell the marketing team to stop sending communications to prospects that are in the pipeline. And they ignore the behavioral intelligence being gathered by marketing software during the sales process. But not using marketing as your wingman during big deals can be the critical…
Marketing Can Prospect More Broadly than Sales
“Marketing can prospect more broadly than sales in key accounts.” I love making that statement in a room full of sales leaders. You can just feel the tension in the room as the hair on the back of the sales VP’s neck starts to go up. But the statement is NOT meant to be a criticism of sales organizations. Nor…
The Software RFP Process is Broken
The process for responding to RFPs in the software industry has to be one of the most inefficient processes in today’s business world. Software vendors spend days, if not weeks, preparing responses which require a virtual a scavenger hunt for answers to obscure questions. The answers are packaged into 50-200 page long documents that are a nightmare to format and…
Six Best Practices for Marketing to Get “the Glen Garry Leads”
In an earlier post, I discussed the challenges of focusing on calling high to obtain C-Level appointments (what I refer to as the Glen Garry leads). Most CMOs have seen this movie before. They know that not only are these C-Level leads more expensive to obtain, but they do not necessarily perform better than other types of leads. However, in…
Do Leads with C-Level Executives Outperform Other Leads?
In my last post, I discussed the common challenge that CMOs face with sales leaders who become obsessively focused on getting “premium leads” with C-Level executives. See my post on “Glen Garry Leads.” Your gut instinct might tell you that leads with more senior executives will result in a higher lead-to-opportunity conversion rate or faster deal cycles. However, in my…
The ABCs of the Glen Garry Leads
There comes a point during every CMO’s tenure where the Head of Sales comes under pressure for missing sales targets then starts complaining about the quality of the leads being generated by marketing. The rant usually goes something like this: “The people we are setting appointments with are too junior. I need to talk to someone who is a decision…
