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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Here’s why the buyer’s journey isn’t dead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TtNWA3IjvM   Earlier this month, our co-founder Hugh was interviewed on the Pathmonk Presents podcast by host and design/UX expert Lukas Haensch. The Pathmonk podcast is a fast and effective show to sharpen your growth marketing skills. Hugh was interviewed to cast more light on recent statements purporting that the buyer's journey is dead. And as an expert on marketing and sales funnels, it was clear that Hugh could help bring more clarity as he discussed why this statement is categorically untrue. From here, we get an unfiltered view of Hugh's expertise on buyer-centric thinking, the READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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A Leaders guide to crossing the chasm post-Covid

Back in 2016, I wrote and shared an article that looked at how you should consider market maturity as an input to setting effective go-to-market strategy. The article was originally triggered by a conversation with the owner of a prospect (later a customer of align.me)  Justin Annesley the Managing Director of local printing company  Inkifingus. Justin was struggling with accelerating his SME print business revenue during a period where traditional printers like his needed to transition from long-run print to shorter run, digitally enabled solutions. Many of his traditional buyers were moving away from him to lower READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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What can we learn about sales and marketing from legendary sportsman Captain Blood?

For those of you who know me beyond my business pursuits, you will know that – like 100,000 other Australians – one of my passions is Australian Rules Football (to my American friends: no, this is not rugby) and one club in particular: The mighty Tigers – the Richmond football club. In our history, we’ve produced many great champions but probably the greatest of all is the legendary Captain Blood himself, Jack Dyer. Dyer was renowned for being one of the toughest men ever to play the game. Why Captain Blood, you ask? Well, I answer you READ MORE ›

By |Sales|
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3 B2B sales trends that cannot be ignored

Forward from Brett Bonser: As a new member of our team, I am delighted to allow Claudia to share with you her findings - on key B2B sales trends that are shaping the future. Don’t let your sales be left behind. Read on, to prepare yourself for the changes ahead. As a business leader, you need to keep up with the rapidly evolving B2B selling environment. Your customers are continuing to change the way they engage and buy. To make things even harder, digitally aggressive new competitors will be entering into the market, intent on disrupting the READ MORE ›

By |Sales|
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Go to Market Strategy Example [video]

A go-to market plan needs to articulate the solution that's on offer, its price, what's unique about that solution and how you position that difference, who your target, the channels you will use to reach the market, and the tactics you will use to take that offer to the market through that channel. As I've been doing recently, I went looking for five sources of a great go to market strategy example. Truth, I only found three good ones, so after I've given you the conclusions, I'll give you two more align.me go-to market strategy examples. READ MORE ›

By |Sales, Skills, Strategy, Velocity|
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5 B2B sales funnel statistics you need to master

We need data to drive our businesses. But more statistics won't necessarily deliver a better business. There are five sales funnel statistics that you simply must know (and manage).   In earlier blogs I have argued you need only four statistics to build a back of the envelope model of your funnel. In this brief blog, I'll shift to measurement, and detail the five sales funnel statistics that you need to know, sweat, and improve.   In 'How to size your funnel on the back of an envelope' I argued that you need to know just four statistics from your current READ MORE ›

By |Velocity|
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5 Ways to Align Your Sales and Marketing Teams

Alignment between Sales and Marketing has been a challenge for organisations through the ages. Now, fundamental changes in your buyer's behaviour are increasingly creating misalignment between these two functional areas. Misalignment breeds inefficiency. Propose to close rates fall, the quality of leads fall - cost of acquisition increases. The buyer - your target customer - is fundamentally changing the way they buy. They are researching the problems they have differently, they are operating independently, forming opinions of their needs and the solutions they require before dealing with a selling organisation directly. Their buying journey has effectively changed, and Sales READ MORE ›

By |Tactics, Velocity|
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How to size for sales success – know thy funnel

Most sales teams have an inherent awareness of how many customers they need to see in order to make a sale - in other words, the key ratios that affect their business. One business will tell you confidently that they win one sale from every four proposals. Another will say that it takes around three phone calls just to get a meeting. But how many drill back into their statistics to determine the total number of activity steps needed to achieve a result? And how many in this age of quarterly reports bother to work out the READ MORE ›

By |Velocity|
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How many leads do you need per campaign?

Calculating the number of leads needed for a B2B marketing campaign seems simple. You can do it on the back of an envelope: firstly, work out the real target - consider your revenue target, reduce this by any annuity revenue to get your "sales target". Then reduce this by the weighted probability of opportunities you can already see, and you have your revenue gap. Divide this revenue gap by your average sale value, and you have the number of sales required. Easy right? Well, not so fast. Why quick calculations aren't enough to forecast leads Quick calculations READ MORE ›

By |Velocity|
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