Why you should tailor your sales messages to the buying influences

Every day it's getting harder and harder to get marketing cut-through. Consumers are becoming savvier to sales messaging and advertisements and more reluctant to reach out until later in their buyer's journey. And while it's now easier and cheaper to get your messaging in front of consumers, it's also easier and cheaper for your competitors (and their competitors… and so on). Need proof? You just need to look at some of these recent stats: A global average of 37% of Internet users now block ads 79% of buyers wait until after they’ve fully defined their needs to 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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Why saying “no” to an opportunity can get you 13% more sales

I want to talk to the topic of sales effectiveness and, in particular, argue why walking away from a bad deal early is a good idea. I could come at this conversation from multiple angles. I could explain why employee satisfaction would be higher if we walked away from bad deals. I could talk about why your market reputation is enhanced by walking away from bad deals. I could mount countless other legitimate arguments. But on this occasion, I want to mount my argument by looking only at the numbers - in particular, resource numbers. I'm going 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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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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Inbound marketing vs. outbound? A case for both.

The marketing world has been fascinated with inbound marketing for years. Is inbound always the right way to go? And are there parts of your market where inbound is the right approach, and others for which outbound is better? Three types of targets When considering who you wish to market your business to, there are generally three key targets you should focus your energy on: Target role and company — this is one or more key senior roles in the company you really want to sell to. They are the decision makers, or perhaps the right starting point. READ MORE ›

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Ideal Client Profile [video]

What is an ideal client profile, and how do you define yours? Your ideal client profile describes the type of businesses you want to serve, and excludes those that you don't. It's not so much a list of your segments, but the characteristics that need to be true of all of your segments. Let me explain what this really means and how to define your ideal client profile. https://youtu.be/CTTi2x6TTLE Your target market is those businesses who most feel the pain In any go-to-market plan, your target market is those businesses who are most affected by the problem READ MORE ›

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Trouble your market about the right problem [video]

Trouble your market about the right problem Don't ask your prospects what's keeping them up at night, because you really don't care if they have a problem you can't solve. What you do care about is how much the problem you do solve is hurting them. Be strategic - even selfish - and help your market understand why the problem you solve should be at the top of their list. Let me explain why some problems help your competitors more than they help you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdtdPkyPvmw&t=2s Establish a need Your solution, whether it's a product or a READ MORE ›

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Best B2B Marketing Campaigns [video]

What are the best B2B Marketing Campaigns? In this weeks Funnel Vision I'm going to show you some extraordinary campaigns with clever creative content, and explain why none of these will help you to maximise marketing- generated revenue. Then I'll show you what you do need to do, and then bring that creativity back into play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIpvT4BMOnU Building a campaign list I want to build the definitive list of campaigns that we need to build in B2B, and a few hints on how to build each. For example, you may need campaigns for Key READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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How to fire a bad customer

Steps to consider when firing a bad customer Work super-hard to fix their issues first If it's them (they will never be happy), grit your teeth, then Reframe the issue as a misalignment, not a fault Keep it classy. Don't give or accept blame. Refund their last payment Why should you fire a bad customer, anyway? If you are genuinely in the business of delivering great service to your clients, anything that gets in the way of that must be fixed. Just as equally (maybe even more so), if you value your staff and want them READ MORE ›

By |Strategy|
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