Buyer-centric go-to-market strategy (with a little help from Geoffrey Moore)

This article is something of an essay on my current thinking about buyer-centric go-to-market strategy and has been shaped by a recent conversation with strategy luminary Geoffrey Moore. Why buyer-centric go-to-market strategy? And why now? As a high-school drop-out, I was in a customer service role from 1980 and earned my first sales role in 1983. I was lucky enough to start my career in sales at a company with a deep commitment to soft-skills training, and to work for managers committed to nurturing any skills they'd helped me acquire. I did very well. Not through any READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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A Leaders guide to optimising your technology, people, and supply chains

Over the past few years, the align.me team has been regularly holding events for leaders (both our clients and their guests) to share and collaboratively workshop growth insights. Our objective is to create new networks, refine best practice in B2B marketing and sales, and give a little thank you to those who have entrusted us with referrals over many years. When we brought this group together late in 2020, the global economy was climbing out from the depths to which it had plummeted. And, locally, we were dealing with the aftermath of the early lockdowns. At the READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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How to choose an outsourced marketing partner

If you're an avid (or even just casual) readers of our blogs, you'll know we've written a lot about outsourcing your sales and marketing. We've said why you should do it, when you should do it - even how to best manage and work with your outsourced partner. But to gain all the advantages that outsourcing can offer and achieve successful marketing outcomes, there's another crucial step: Picking the right outsourcing partner. It can be hard handing over such a crucial part of your business to a stranger - especially if you're totally new to outsourcing. You READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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Five key skills every B2B digital marketer needs

Digital marketing is, by nature, a creative industry. And while people often come into the industry rearing to go with innovative ideas, but there's more to marketing than just a creative itch. Whether for those starting in B2B digital marketing, professionals who are deep in their career, or business leaders looking to hire the next best digital marketer, there are various skills and attitudes to the role that, if overlooked, may be leaving people at a disadvantage. Overlooked areas in B2B digital marketing Marketing is an industry that is constantly evolving as new tools and technology pop READ MORE ›

By |Skills|
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5 tips for successfully managing an outsourced agency

Ask any successful couple, sports team, management partnership or psychologist what their secret to a prosperous relationship is and they'll probably all tell you the same thing: Communication is key. A successful relationship between a business and an agency is much the same - you need to be clearly on the same page to build a robust framework and clear intentions. For businesses, it can be a very daunting experience navigating best practises when engaging with and managing an outsourced marketing agency. But moving past the trepidation can be worth it - if done correctly, working with READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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Should you outsource your B2B marketing? (Yes, probably – here’s why)

Back in 2008, when the global financial crisis hit, many businesses were looking for ways to cut down costs – fast. There was a mass-culling of staff and marketing teams were one of the first to be bid adieu. But those businesses that wanted to keep selling knew they’d need some kind of marketing support. So, they looked for external experts who could help at a lower cost – and outsourced marketing services took off. Over the last several years, outsourcing has really caught on. It’s gone from something only big companies do to something businesses of READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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6 lessons we learnt running workshops remotely

Virtual workshops can be measurably better than physical workshops if you have the stamina of a bull, can work in three time zones simultaneously, and have the technical dexterity of a 12-year-old. For the rest of us, there’s work to be done to master the craft. For context, we've been building go-to-market plans for B2B companies, large and small, around the world for 20 years. This planning is usually carried out in a workshop setting; we've done about 500 physical workshops (or ‘Funnel Camps’) - usually 2-3 days in duration - in some 30 countries. We’ll typically READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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Take your Sales and Marketing Processes to a whole new level

We're going to help streamline your Sales and Marketing process, every step of the way If you’re a B2B sales and marketing consultant, you’ve probably already got some pretty strong insights into what works and what doesn’t. But you likely also know that poor alignment is one of the most common causes of an underperforming sales and marketing engine. Our clients often feel they can solve all of the world’s problems. And getting them to boil it down to just one problem that Sales and Marketing agree to can really help them improve their sales closure rates READ MORE ›

By |Alignment|
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B2B Sales+Marketing: you end up talking to the person you sound like

Sales training traditionally encourages B2B sales people to “call high” - in fact, it’s hard to keep track of all the articles and publications focused on selling to the C-level (a simple Google search reveals over 100 million hits). “Thought leadership” is no less fashionable amongst the B2B marketing community (over 200 million hits). But if you want to engage at the right level, and stay there as opposed to being bumped down the decision-making stack, you need to bear one simple principle in mind at all times: you’ll end up talking to the person you sound READ MORE ›

By |B2B marketing blog, Sales, Strategy, Tactics|
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