AI in business: balancing innovation and responsibility

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a hot topic of conversation amongst friends and colleagues. And there's been a sense of urgency felt among business leaders to understand how it's changing how we use technology to run our businesses. In fact, it has been the centre of align.me's workplace for the past few months. It even inspired our 'AI Madness Month', where we invited staff to spend a few weeks trialling and testing all the things AI, not just ChatGPT, can do for business. We recorded our findings in the hopes of discovering different ways we can leverage READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog|
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Sales and Marketing Webinar Series – Funnel Forum

[av_three_fourth first min_height='' vertical_alignment='' space='' custom_margin='' margin='0px' padding='0px' border='' border_color='' radius='0px' background_color='' src='' background_position='top left' background_repeat='no-repeat'] Why you should give a damn about Sales and Marketing alignment In late 2013, align.me and Marketo studied the sales and marketing alignment practices of 500 companies, and analyzed any improvements they saw as a result. In this sales and marketing webinar, align.me's Brett Bonser is joined by Chuck Besondy of Besondy Consulting, to share with you the highlights of our 2013 research into Sales and Marketing alignment. Team members from the Hardbits Corporation, of Leaky Funnel fame, wil also READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog|
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B2B marketing terminology and definitions – the best 50 [reference list]

When George Bernard Shaw said that England and America were "two countries divided by a common language", he might as well have been talking about Marketing and Sales. In fact, he might have been talking just about different marketers themselves as a profession. Marketers are shocking for using the same phrase to mean very different things. A personal favourite is the confusion between branding and positioning. More on that later. We're going to have a go this week at building the definitive source of B2B marketing terminology and definitions. We'll offer up some phrases, with definitions, and invite you READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog|
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Equipping your sales team for success

Eddie Smith, Founder of Sales Schematics Australia, writes... We’re often asked by clients: “How can we replicate the results that are being achieved by our top sales performers?” In other words, they want to know what they have to do to get their whole team performing at the same level... This question almost always comes from sales managers, and whilst it’s a valid question, it also fails to recognise an important truth – most salespeople fail in their roles because of poor sales management. Whilst most sales managers ask what his or her top performers are doing that READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog, Sales, Velocity|
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How to get your business performing like a winning Formula One team

align.me Director, Brett Bonser, writes... Motor-enthusiasts know that March in Melbourne means cars. Really expensive, really loud, really fast cars. From my desk, I will be able to hear the sound of engines and virtually smell the petrol and rubber burning. In motorsport, the top drivers know that, “the farther you look, the faster you go.”[1] Even before the season begins, a common set of objectives are defined.  Driver and support crew will have agreed how fast they want the car to go – race by race, corner by corner, straight by straight. So why is it useful READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog, Velocity|
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align.me releases new B2B marketing whitepaper on ‘The Strategy to Action Gap’

October 26th 2010, Melbourne, VIC, AU - align.me today announced the release of its latest B2B marketing white paper, The Strategy to Action Gap: How to Turn Good Ideas into Hard Sales Results, now available to download for free. In their many years of work with leading B2B companies worldwide, the team at align.me have witnessed first-hand the difficulties of translating marketing strategy into action. They have found that formulating a killer strategy is useless if it is executed poorly, or worse – not executed at all. Yet so many businesses still have difficulty translating their ideas READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog|
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Social media – think before you tweet

Chris Fell, Managing Director of g2msolutions, writes... It is simply impossible to read a marketing article these days without someone expressing an opinion about social media. I have actively avoided blogging about this phenomenon up to this point because, well, I didn't want to be part of the Twitterati (with the emphasis firmly on the "Twit" in too many cases!) However I can resist no longer! If for no other reason than that I feel the urge to shout from the rooftops that social media is NOT some incredible technological breakthrough that is going to revolutionise our world, READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog, Strategy, Tactics|
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Record buyer progression, not seller hope

Some sales methodologies ask sales people to characterise their sales calls as an 'advance' or a 'continuance' which creates loads of 'wriggle room' for the sales person. What we should actually be recording is the stage a buyer has reached, not whether the sales person thinks this is good or not. Your buyers progress through a series of definable stages, along the way to buying (from you or somebody else). Simplistically, they move through recognition of pain, clarity about need, understanding who the possible solution providers are, having clear options, making a choice, and buying. and somewhere READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog, Velocity|
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Don’t start something you can’t sustain

We all recognise the power of loyalty programs, and enjoy the rewards of airlines, card providers, stores and other businesses who reward our loyalty. Be careful about starting one that you can't sustain though. This is a personal story, but perhaps salient to those of us who market for a living. Before starting align.me, I worked for the Australian arm of a large US company, and commuted from Melbourne to Sydney weekly. So I stayed in lots of hotels. I was delighted when the manager of my regular hotel presented me with a silver Tiffany key ring READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog|
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Balance short & long term revenue generation plans

Charles Besondy, President of Besondy Consulting & Interim Management, writes... Every company, including my own firm, is working hard each day to find, keep, and grow customers. The urgency for revenue now is real.  But, I asked myself this morning a very direct question. Am I implementing strategies and tactics that are perpetuating this short-term thinking? Or, do I have strategies and tactics in place that will in good time create a consistent revenue flow? Sometimes I have to remind myself that if I don’t want to be in a hole, stop digging! If I want to READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog|
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