Nuance, anyone?

wittlakeI was waxing a bit poetic about “Nuance” recently and Eric Wittlake, as he’s wont to do, nudged me for examples. Because he’s a data guy and floaty opinions don’t mean much to him. He wants examples. And in the past couple of weeks, I had plenty of company talking about nuance. I’ll share some examples first about who else is talking about this and then I’ll jump in with why it matters.

Extra props to ITSMA for actually using the word “Nuance” in their piece:

Does your thought leadership read like a book report? All facts, no nuance? Winning is in the nuance. Repositioning for SMAC: 7 Rules for a New Era

Matt Heinz writes in It’s not a lead, it’s a relationship (there’s a big difference):

“If marketing stopped talking about leads, and started focusing on relationships, how would that change their execution? How might it affect the importance they place on managing and nurturing existing leads vs. constantly generating new clicks and entry points?”

In fact, Matt’s first line is really all about nuanced levels of understanding: “Sales has had this right all along. They may start with leads, but over time they are focused on turning those ‘contacts’ into trusted relationships.”

Ardath (she only needs one name like CHER) is up next with this tweet about missing nuance:

@ardath421: I tell salesperson “I’m not your buyer” Resp: “Yes, but you can sell us to your clients, so I need you to watch our demo” Ugh!

And all Amber Naslund is asking for in her post about connecting on LinkedIn is a little finesse mixed with some nuance:

Connecting On LinkedIn the Right Way

Money line: ”Because I’m open about it, I get lots of notes from people within a day of our connection trying to sell me their stuff. Instead of launching straight into the make-out session, let’s have coffee first.”

So What?

The single biggest block (floaty opinion alert) to B2Bs selling more efficaciously is such limited understanding of how important nuance is.

We get Automation. We get Color Psychology. We apparently get excited about Automators releasing coloring books. Whatevs. We get Process. We kinda get training (on Automation, Process). We at least pretend to get Mentoring, Coaching. We clearly get tactical overproduction. We get dials. We get touches.

We. Get. It.

But we don’t get nuance. Marketers don’t get it. Sellers don’t get it.

It’s the single biggest block I see when coaching sales teams. And you can see from this small sample above that I’m not the only one bugged by it.

It doesn’t matter how great (*mammoth) the entire sales and marketing process is, if the sales person flubs the first 1:1 interaction, that’s almost impossible to set right. And when marketers add more tone-deaf clutter, it just increases the noise to signal ratio.

My recommendation: Let’s redirect 10% of the resources going towards clutter production (*marketing) and provide some training in nuance to our sales teams.

RIght?

B2B Social Media = University 100 Level (& blips of 500 Level)

Fotolia_1063701_S.jpgI’ve loved the #SDSummit stream. SO in depth. SO smart. And … really geared for Fortune 1000-type business. Matt Heinz even noted “Would love to see a ‘Sirius for SMB’ session or track next year.” I love SiriusDecisions. IMHO they are doing some excellent work for B2B. I even wrote an ode to Meg Heuer a while back. Their work is particularly relevant for their clients, who come to them with the right kind of mindset.

And I love the inspiration they’re providing to the B2B space – but for a variety of reasons, the change they promote is categorically out of reach for the lion’s share of B2Bs. Can a non-Sirius-Customer accomplish some change based on their learnings from Sirius? Absolutely. Enough to make a measurable difference in their margins? Probably not. Would most B2Bs get tremendous value out of being a client of Sirius? Yes, absolutely.

But.

The kind of program that Sirius rightly promotes requires a tacit understanding that to be successful, there’s gotta be some heavy lifting with a change management program. Sirius is graduate level work that can’t be cherry-picked for self-study and real change. Most B2Bs don’t have executive buy-in for that kind of change management. Thus what sales orgs and marketing orgs can accomplish is limited.

Another organization clearly doing B2B graduate level work is ITSMA. Just happened to be looking at their bio page and was blown away by the CVs of their team. Holy moly. I love that ITSMA stays completely away from bloviating and spends serious time, doing serious, relevant research that they present to our space. Again, it adds tremendous value to their members, while the rest of us can be inspired and implement some of the learnings.

So we’ve got blips of this high-level, rich, grad-level work. And everyone else pontificating? It’s 100 level stuff, baby. (If I see ‘content’ one more time in my stream, I’ll…. erm… well I guess I’ll just continue to ignore it.)

Not every individual or company can be at the level of Sirius and ITSMA. But you know what? Everyone can do their part to put an end to proliferating the noise so the real signal can come through:

  • Stop posting cotton candy.
  • Sharing meaningful content > than relationship-building and in fact leads to healthier relationship-building.
  • If you’re posting anywhere because you are going to be gifted something, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Let’s raise the level, shall we? While more of our space should aspire to be clients of Sirius Decisions or ITSMA, we can still raise the bar both with what we publish and what we share.

Our revenue generators and clients deserve better.

 

The Harm & The Solution to Marketing/Sales Imbalance

This is a follow-up to: Automators Great at Automating; Pathetic at Selling, Marketing

Why do I care so much about the crazy antics of Automators? Besides the fact that disingenuous always bugs me…

Harm: Amplified misinformation, from a trusted company, misleads targets into pursuing costly strategies at the expense of sound Revenue Generation strategies.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s keep this discussion to Marketing Automators (excepting Eloqua).

You can’t ignore the Automators. They’re certainly winning at shovelcontent. They’re the loudest guy sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Automators garner quite a bit of attention and they’re persuasive to their audience who giddily amplifies their misinformation. (Remember The Music Man, anyone?)

Why Few Should Follow Automators’ Marketing Methodology

Automator Targets are Atypical: Marketing Automators sell to Marketers. Marketer Buyers of marketing tools are a unique breed of buyers. Traditionally, they’ve had plump budgets over the years and they are used to buying. Marketers are early adopters of/distracted by the bright, shiny, and new. Marketers are certainly on social media more than any other buying segment. So when an automator runs a, for example, facebook ‘test’ and gets “a lot” of feedback, the automator declares the use of facebook as a slamdunk – which may well be true for companies marketing to Marketers. But what about companies marketing, for example, to buyers of:

  • Structural Engineering
  • Bioscience Research
  • Industrial Toilets
  • Hospital/Payor Contract Analytics
  • Commercial HVAC
  • Managed Services
  • Change Management
  • Leadership Development
  • Data Warehouses
  • Industrial Pumps, Valves, Seals
  • Shall I go on?

I can guaran-damn-tee you that the buyer examples above behave very differently than Buyers of Marketing Stuff. Behaving differently still are Buyers Who Aren’t Searching. And the Buyers Who Are Barely On Social Media. (Sure, they may have a Facebook account for personal use, but there are still PLENTY of buyers for whom a meager LinkedIn presence is cutting edge.)

Sexy Marketing Automators, selling to not always selling-savvy Marketers who are likely not selling to other Marketers, are really setting false expectations for their targets. The Marketing Automator method of marketing may be working for the Automator, but it’s not efficacious for Marketers selling to companies like the list above.  But clients will pursue it anyway, wasting valuable resources.

Bloated Marketing efforts, Underserved Salespeople: The Automators’ Sales and Marketing model is remarkably similar to what’s wrong in many B2Bs. The Marketing org has an over-funded budget so they can do some good work and a whole lotta nonsense (just like the Automators). Meanwhile, the folks who are responsible for landing the deals still don’t have the skills they need to create a meaningful relationship with prospects and customers. I’ve covered this before, as has Jill Konrath, as have others.

The sales training work that I do, as well as the work my esteemed sales guru colleagues are doing, confirms that we have a looooong way to go in sales effectiveness. In many sales organizations there is roughly a 20-60-20 rule and that is: your bottom 20% likely needs to be managed out, your top 20% likely don’t need robust support – and that leaves your middle 60%.

How much more successful would your organization be IF …

If even 1/3 of your middle 60% could improve their sales success? In my experience, these are often good people who are willing to work, but the sales training, support, mentoring, coaching is lacking. Really lacking. An even bigger issue may be that sales managers are rarely trained to be great coaches or mentors. But that’s a rant for another day.

So what do you suggest, Miss Smartypants? 

I am not without suggestions, as you might imagine:

  • Unless you’re selling Marketing stuff to Marketers, do not follow an Automator’s marketing strategy. Figure out what works for your specific targets. Period. 
  • Let’s all start paying more attention to what sellers are putting out into the prospect cosmos. This is hard work, and those of you who don’t sell wouldn’t have a job without them. They need far better training and support and sales managers need to be trained on how to be great coaches and mentors. We can all be supportive of making that happen.

When we all focus on the most efficacious path to Revenue Generation, we all win, right?

yin yang button

Automators Great at Automating; Pathetic at Selling, Marketing

42-15495677Most of my clients have some kind of Marketing Automation. A few have one of the big four or five, and the rest have a variety of smaller marketing automation packages, or something they’ve cobbled together on their own. I’m mostly not particular about which system they use, unless it’s getting in our way.

Same is true for sales automation tools in my clients’ worlds. It’s not my job to be an expert on any of the systems, but I do try to have baseline familiarity. Occasionally I’ll get a free trial or clients will get a subscription for me.

Wham, Bam
When I discovered recently that I hadn’t actually dug in to a major automator’s product, I signed up for a free trial. AND THEN WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM: The phone calls and emails started. Literally within hours. Jill Konrath has recently complained about the same thing.

Not cool, y’all. Not cool.

Similarly, when I’m on a particular marketing automator’s site, I immediately get an email with something like this: “Hey, Maureen. Noticed you were on our site today. What can we do for you?” Seriously.

First of all: CREEPY. Second: that’s the best you got? Third: Can ya practice what you preach?

Right hand, meet Left hand.
I recently read a pretty good column from an Automator CMO about how to create emails that are more engaging. And the examples he used in his piece – they were pretty good. In fact they were along the lines that I do with my clients.

And then, ugh.
I received an email from his company and the subject header was “Please join us at our <event>.” The generic body copy in the email was even more milktoast.

Unfortunately, this tone-deaf marketing is more the norm than the exception.

How much MORE successful could you be?

Now I know many of you Automators are growing. Congrats. But how much more successful could you be? And let’s define ‘successful’ as more new customers, less churn, + lower cost per acquisition and retention.

Even though I’m not a direct target for any Automator:

  • I am an influencer.
  • Your targets (my friends and colleagues) are also complaining about your approach.

Automators: You are OVERdoing your marketing outreach. Way overdoing it. And you’re neglecting Sales Support. Your sellers do not know how to interact with their targets in a savvy, professional manner. And while you may not be feeling it today, your market is increasingly savvy to your space. And your approach will fail you sooner rather than later.

Simmer down with the frenetic, boisterous, overblown marketing outreach and start paying attention to, and funding, better sales training. Balance is the sustainable path.

The Harm & The Solution to Marketing/Sales Imbalance

Latest B2B Marketing Stats That Scare Me

  • Marketers report that their biggest challenge is producing enough content.
  • Marketers report that they’re confused about how to create content that engages with their targets.
  • Thought leadership content development overtakes sales enablement as the top marketing priority.

Am I crazy or is this crazy? I’m seeing reports that these are THE pressing issues for B2B Marketers today. I’d love for B2B Marketers to report that their biggest challenges are understanding what their buyers need to make a decision and how to efficaciously support their sales organization. While we’re at it, I’d love it if Marketers didn’t feel compelled about doing more of <anything> that they’re confused about. And of course CONTENT is very confusing. Because,

  • Every company is a publisher.
  • If you’re not publishing, you’re doing it wrong.

Right? Yeah, no. Stop. Stop. Stop. If you are confused by something, the goal is definitely not to do more of that thing.  (Really? Do we have to say this?)

Content Madness is a fad. Absolutely. Does that mean all Content is nonsense? Nope. Is most of it nonsense? Yes.

Look. I use Content every day. For all of my current clients as well as for myself and my team. I teach salespeople how to use content to cement their savvy with targets. Content is almost always a part of the sales and marketing support I recommend. Mostly I’m recommending content published by others, and infrequently (comparatively) my own content.

But for pontificators to tell the marketplace that every company is a publisher and if you’re not publishing you’re doing it wrong is ridiculous. That notion only serves the folks who are trying to up their shiny star counts. And it is a disingenuous for self-proclaimed gurus to encourage the listening masses to take their eyes of the ball.

Prospects and customers aren’t stupid. They know what you’re doing and they’re filtering it out.

So can y’all stop scaring me with your self-reported ridiculous goals. Just remember: If Step One is you’re confused then Step Two should definitely not be Do More of the confusing thing.

K?

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