How do you align the efforts of your sales and marketing teams?

Is your CRM System a Sales Prevention System?

Most sales organisations have some sort of CRM system in place. Many have made significant investments in the system. Yet simply implementing CRM – just like just running a sales training course – offers no “magic wand” for improving sales performance. In fact the energies expended on them are often wasted. Time after time, we come across Customer Relationship Management solutions that bear little or no relation to how a vendors’ most promising prospects actually buy, or what the vendors’ top performing sales people actually do. There are 5 danger signs that indicate that a CRM system READ MORE ›

By |Alignment, Sales, Tactics, Velocity|
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Aligning content with the B2B Buyer’s Journey at DemandCon 2012

Great content has become the foundation stone of B2B marketing. But with the customer changing the way they buy, you have to wonder if your content plays an effective role in advancing their decision-making process, or if it misses the mark entirely. Buyers are in control (or like to think they are). They involve vendors later than ever in the decision process, and they hate the hard sell but love to learn. So what? If you are to win their business, you need engage them with content that enables you to stand out from the crowd, articulate READ MORE ›

By |Alignment|
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DemandCon 2012: Marketing & Sales Alignment – the journey one global organization has taken

Growing bigger requires you to make big decisions about changing the way you operate and the cultural and organizational structure of your company can play an integral part in how to approach these big decisions. But where do you start and which changes should be made first? Joel Puznava, Head of Customer Success Directors at DemandGen AG, and David Dorling, Head Global Marketing at Swiss Post Solutions, know the challenges associated with rapid growth and will present the case study of Swiss Post Solutions (SPS) who successfully consolidated 40 brands under one global brand, across the fifteen READ MORE ›

By |Alignment|
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Maximising CRM investment to drive productivity and return

(Too) Many sales organisations undertake a CRM strategy and associated hefty investment, and then when the software vendors come on site to undertake their (too) often “generic customisation”, the purchasing sales organisation is jolted into a process that forces them to retro-think about the functionality and the process support that can be derived from their investment. This common egg-and-chicken scenario usually results in one or two forms of investment sub-optimisation: Paying for functionality embedded in the system that is unnecessary but the organisation was not well prepared to say they didn’t want it; Conversely, they don’t adequately tailor READ MORE ›

By |Alignment, Sales, Tactics, Velocity|
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B2B Marketing and Sales Alignment: The Making of Concur

B2B marketing and sales professionals often hear about how they need to align themselves for successful business outcomes. As simple as it is to say, the reality is that it is often quite a difficult thing to achieve, and in some cases a seemingly insurmountable task. So it helps to be able to learn from companies that have succeeded in achieving alignment. According to David Lewis’s their DemandCon presentation blurb, “when it comes to marketing automation, no one has more experience then DemandGen with implementing end-to-end lead management systems to align sales and marketing.”  As Founder and READ MORE ›

By |Alignment|
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B2B marketing and phone selling experts at work

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. B2B marketing is nothing without a strong sales team to work with on the same set of goals. The crucial thing for B2B marketing teams to pre-empt, is that their sales counterparts will likely have more talk-time with prospects, and so that time needs to be spent wisely. So how can B2B marketing teams help sales develop this wisdom? B2B marketing strategies should encompass clear tactics that equip sales representatives with everything necessary to nurture prospects effectively. And at DemandCon, READ MORE ›

By |Alignment|
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Will B2B Marketing ever align with Sales? Quelling the Clash of the Titans

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... In B2B marketing, goal-setting is used to incite progressive behaviour. B2B Marketing 101 teaches us to: Know what’s happening in the market; and Set the right goals to keep on top of (or lead) market trends. Piece of cake, right? Well, actually, it’s only one piece in the bigger B2B cake, which is precisely why fellow DemandCon keynote Christine Crandell believes B2B marketing departments disconnect with their cousins from Sales. So why are Sales and Marketing agendas often so disparate, and how can you use this understanding to broach alignment? READ MORE ›

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B2B marketing and sales alignment: How to expel the twin complex

Hugh Macfarlane, Founder & CEO of align.me, writes... B2B marketing is “...more than right brain vs. left brain,” says James Obermayer, CEO of the Sales Lead Management Association. Obermayer has made it his mission to overcome the rhetoric about what ‘separates’ Marketing and Sales – the two wealth-builders in a b2b marketing company.  Obermayer suggests a new way to banish the ‘evil twin accusations’ that circulate between the marketing and sales departments whenever a company underperforms.  Instead of pointing the blame, Obermayer suggests bringing the two parties together to negotiate a renewed effort of cooperation. Sound far-fetched? READ MORE ›

By |Alignment|
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Hugh Macfarlane to present keynote at CRM Acceleration

February 21st, Melbourne, VIC, AU – align.me CEO & Founder, Hugh Macfarlane, has accepted an invitation from Sugar CRM to provide a keynote presentation at CRM Acceleration in Sydney and Melbourne this March. Hugh’s keynote will address ‘How to Make Your Funnel Flow Faster with SugarCRM.' SugarCRM provides open source CRM software used by over 7,000 customers, and more than 1 million users for executing marketing and sales strategies. The two four-hour seminars will cover successful CRM strategy and implementation. Event details: 2ndMarch 2011, 2pm – 6pm, Stamford Plaza, Melbourne. 4thMarch 2011, 2pm – 6pm, Kirribili Club, READ MORE ›

By |Alignment, News, Tactics, Velocity|
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Why you need to protect existing client relationships

Eddie Smith, Founder of Sales Schematics Australia, writes... Increase your business with existing accounts Many companies make the mistake of concentrating too hard on winning new business instead of cultivating additional business with their existing clients. The matrix below explains the notion that selling existing products and services into existing relationships is the easiest sale to make. After all, if your client is familiar and comfortable with your offering, they’re more likely to increase their business with you. Furthermore, selling new products and services into these existing accounts is also a relatively easy sale to make. Existing products/services READ MORE ›

By |Alignment, Tactics, Velocity|
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