What velocity do you need? And what does your current velocity tell you about what you should change?

Are you suffering from “Top of Funnel Myopia”?

Bob Apollo recently launched a poll on LinkedIn asking: “Which one of the following initiatives has the greatest potential to boost your organisation's sales performance ?” a) Finding more qualified opportunities b) Shortening our average sales cycle c) Increasing average sales win rates d) Qualifying bad deals out earlier e) Improving sales & marketing co-operation Finding more qualified opportunities as well as improving sales & marketing co-operation are “top of funnel” initiatives. Three quarters of the respondents to Bob's poll consider that this is the key to boosting sales performance. For those respondents, Bob has since written READ MORE ›

By |Strategy, Velocity|
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Do marketers have the right stuff to be revenue marketers?

In the past few months a cool new term has appeared on my radar. That term is, “revenue marketer”. Wish I had thought of it first. It defines a new level of marketing professional. While I’m energized by the term, sadly, I’m concerned that too many B2B marketers don’t have the right perspective and skills to play in this new league. My latest exposure to the term was at an event in Austin hosted by Marketo, a marketing automation platform vendor. Speaking at the event was Debbie Qaqish , Chief Revenue Marketing Officer of  The Pedowitz Group, READ MORE ›

By |Sales, Skills, Strategy, Velocity|
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The surprising math of cities and corporation

B2B marketing may have universal properties. Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this mind-bending talk from TEDGlobal he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations. Enjoy the video, then our views on how this phenomenon plays out in the world of the funnel. The universality Geoffrey West (and his collaborators) speaks of applies equally to the funnel. That READ MORE ›

By |Velocity|
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How to improve your propose-to-close ratio and get the John Hancock on the dotted line

What’s so special about the  4th of July? As well as being my wedding anniversary (tip to the males like me who have problem remembering dates, pick a wedding date you can remember) it’s also the American Independence Day. Regardless of your origin, I’m sure you will recognise the date and its significance - but like many things in history there’s a twist few of us know about.  And that’s the subject of this week’s blog - reducing your propose-to-close sales leakage.  Interested in the connection?  Read on... While nobody doubts that John Hancock signed the Declaration READ MORE ›

By |Velocity|
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align.me CEO & Founder, Hugh Macfarlane’s featured keynote at DemandCon now available

Hugh Macfarlane’s featured keynote at DemandCon in May 2011 now available as an interactive video. July 8, 2011, Melbourne, VIC, AU – Hugh Macfarlane, Founder and CEO of align.me and author of The Leaky Funnel, was a featured keynote at DemandCon in May 2011. He then joined Funnel Coach, Charles Besondy, to run a full day Funnel Plan training workshop with the foremost thinkers in B2B demand generation. His keynote was centred on a topic that has made it to AMA’s Top 10 list of primary focus areas two years in a row – Sales and Marketing READ MORE ›

By |Strategy, Tactics, Velocity|
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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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Why lead generation is a waste of time for B2B Marketers

Those of us who provide marketing services and solutions for B2B Marketers get to speak with many, many marketers and organisations during the course of a year. Its one of the best parts of my job. I have had four prospect meetings this week. It was a week of extremes. On one end of the spectrum I met with a gargantuan international Telco and at the opposite extreme a classic smart, entrepreneurial small software business. What I found interesting was despite almost every facet of their businesses being so different, they had the same issue. Content. The READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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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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Sales Quota Attainment: Whose Performance is Measured?

Christian Maurer, a Paris-based Consultant, Trainer and Coach, writes... When companies approach the end of their fiscal year, their sales leaders start thinking about the next year. One of the key parameters to figure out is the sales quota to be assigned to salespeople. The percentage of salespeople who reach or overachieve their set quota can be considered established measures of sales effectiveness. Likewise, it is common knowledge that the percentage of salespeople who do not reach their set quota indicates room for improvement, which brings the above question into mind - when it comes to READ MORE ›

By |Sales, Velocity|
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2011 Miller Heiman Sales Summit

The annual Miller Heiman Sales Performance Summit will be held on the 23rd of June, in Walsh Bay, Sydney. The annual Miller Heiman Sales Performance Summit is for sales leaders who are committed to improving their organisation's ability to consistently find, win, and keep profitable business. The event is an opportunity to hear best practices, case studies, and key insights to help you fully leverage the role of Miller Heiman sales methodologies in the ongoing improvement and success of your sales organisation. Miller Heiman is an organisation admired around the world as the leader in the area READ MORE ›

By |News, Velocity|
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