Partners in Excellence

APRIL 8, 2024

Every quarter there is the inevitable rush to close deals, to hit our numbers. The global economy/turmoil and continued layoffs/reductions, and shuffling of priorities–both within our customers, markets, and within our own organizations. This combined with other data showing win rates at less than 20%.

Quota 112

Quota Trust Pitch Up-sell 112

Martech

APRIL 15, 2024

What will customers remember after they have experienced your website, product, service or people? A tremendous amount of investment and resources are being focused on integrating AI into the customer experience , from automating responses to comments on social media to improving the call center experience.

Customers 115

Customers Hospitality Technology Technology 115

Martech

MAY 6, 2024

Personalization is at the forefront; it’s an expectation for customers and has become one of the most powerful tools in the marketer’s arsenal. At the same time, customers are increasingly concerned about the what, why, and how of their data. They want to know what’s being collected, why we’re collecting it and how it’s being used.

Customers 106

Customers Trust Campaign Closing 106

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 25, 2024

We know buying cycles are getting longer. And then there is always VUCA, a great yet abstract excuse around why things are getting more difficult. And then there is always VUCA, a great yet abstract excuse around why things are getting more difficult. They don’t know what they are doing. Or we have other excuses.

Customers 104

Customers Sales Presentation Start-ups 104

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 11, 2024

I leverage them constantly through my day, but for very different purposes than the majority of sellers. There are hacks piled on top of other hacks–I suppose helping us become even more efficient. We know how they work and shouldn’t have an expectation of much more–at least used in these ways.

Healthcare 112

Healthcare Drivers/motivators Engineering Presentation 112

Martech

APRIL 11, 2024

In our zeal to harness the tech part of martech, the ops part of MOps and the automation part of marketing automation, MOps professionals have failed to accomplish the most important part of the equation — marketing. But in our zeal to harness technology, operations and automation, we fail to accomplish marketing. Here’s why.

B2B 120

B2B Manufacturing Technology Technology 120

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 31, 2024

So with this as a baseline, let’s nerd out on some more data and math: We know that of those companies that are committed to a buying effort, over 60% end in no decision made. So for the 40 companies that are buying, we or our competitors close only 16 of them. So much of the time we lead with our products.

Growth 115

Growth Pipeline Represent Closing 115

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 25, 2024

In this post, I’m going to make the argument, that based on what I see in too many selling initiatives, is that we, as a community, have migrated from focusing on helping customers solve their problems to just beating the competition. While we claim to want to help the customer solve their problems, we aren’t.

Customers 112

Customers Objectives and Key Results Growth Objection handling 112

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 21, 2023

As our conversations often go, we were talking about the state of selling and how we improve. The conversation got me thinking about the issue: “Our customers desperately need help, but do we want to be helpful, do we know how to be helpful? Or the number of change projects than end in doing nothing.

Customers 116

Customers Quota Up-sell Conversion 116

Martech

APRIL 15, 2024

Our “Spotlight on the expert” series digs deeper into the stories of our expert contributors. Stanley Black & Decker is a truly iconic brand, around for more than 180 years, with a global market and its name practically synonymous with power tools. She is currently global customer CRM senior manager and CDP advisor.

CRM 94

CRM Retail Technology Technology 94

Search Engine Land

APRIL 23, 2024

Also, customers are more thoughtful than ever about what information they’re willing to share and how it’s being used. We spoke with marketers from Cox Automotive and Sobeys about charting their own paths forward and how they’re finding ways to connect with customers in this complex landscape.

Government 113

Government Campaign Follow-up Conversion 113

Search Engine Land

APRIL 30, 2024

The Google interface we know today will be gone in less than three years. It had the effect of “trapping” users on Google’s sites so they would click more paid ads and visit more Google properties. Every SEO professional knows this, too. As every SEO knows, today most people search for head terms.

User Experience 116

User Experience Niche Service Closing 116

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 11, 2024

It’s crazy to think that we purposely design our organizations to fail. We are driven to succeed, to over achieve our goals. Our prospecting outreach is failing at every increasing rates. 20% of our people are generating 80% of our revenue, year after year. And our customers don’t want to see us!

Quota 114

Quota CRM Growth Meeting 114

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

I always “know” the fastest rout to an unknown destination, consequently I ignore my Nav System. Some of the time is we are overburdened, we need to find a more efficient way of doing things. Right now, for instance we are mid way through Q4, and we are struggling to meet our Q4 and Annual goals.

Pipeline 124

Pipeline Drivers/motivators Technology Technology 124

Martech

APRIL 17, 2024

Use customer data to inform email programs. Email was the quick pivot, the messaging and the low-cost way to insert their companies into the customer experience in the inbox. We are at an inflection point in our industry. We need to turbocharge our path to innovation and greatness. The answer is, sadly, not much.

Technology 120

Technology Technology Niche Campaign 120

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 3, 2023

” It’s related to much of what I’ve written about Inciting Customers To Change. Too often, sellers catch customers who are very late in their buying cycle. The sellers simply respond to the customers’ questions, trying to prove the superiority of their offerings, getting the customer to buy.

Sell 122

Sell Up-sell Start-ups Customers 122

Search Engine Land

APRIL 30, 2024

If you’ve ever tried using avatars or buyer personas to write a Google Ads headline, you know it can be frustrating and fruitless. You try to define your target market, only to be told, “Our audience is anyone who wants our product – we don’t exclude anyone.” Ready to refine your approach? Let’s dive in.

CTR 110

CTR Real Estate Legal Clients 110

Martech

MARCH 4, 2024

As a leader, you must be agile enough to pivot as you learn new information about the marketplace, your customers and disruptive new technology. We know with certainty that we’re in uncertain times and what we know today will be different tomorrow. However, a more agile way to plan allows you to create plans that embrace change.

Technology 107

Technology Technology Launch Product 107

Partners in Excellence

MAY 6, 2024

She learned I was working with the North American teams in changing their approach to their markets and driving more aggressive sales growth. Over the years she took more responsibility and is now the CRO. When I was younger, I used to go with him when he visited customers to give them quotes and collect their payments.

Sell 85

Sell Technical Sales Up-sell Technology 85

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 19, 2023

As sellers, we always talk about the importance of our “Unique Value Proposition.” ” For decades, we have thought about our value proposition in the context of our products/solutions. And we focused on our differentiation to determine our uniqueness. We aren’t helping them succeed.

X-functional 122

X-functional Price Presentation Product 122

Martech

MARCH 14, 2024

The launch of OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora highlights a broader AI problem that too many marketers ignore: With so much AI-generated content out there, customers don’t know what’s authentic. Consider these ways customers often react at different touchpoints when AI is involved. This might not seem like a big issue.

Trust 105

Trust Customers Healthcare Service 105

Search Engine Land

APRIL 15, 2024

Our goal here should be to create well-optimized, people-first content. Any savvy marketer knows you build trust with your prospects by being helpful and sharing. Just ensure you use these generative AI tools as an SEO assistant rather than create the whole article for you. To improve our website’s ranking on Google.

Process 121

Process Objectives and Key Results Angle Follow-up 121

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 12, 2023

We all know customer retention is important. Creating great customer experiences, making sure we deliver on our commitments, keeping them happy are critical. And most of the strategies seem built around customer retention. The problem with most of our retention strategies is we become the status quo!

Cross-sell 128

Cross-sell Up-sell Sell Customers 128

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Ever since I started selling–you know back in the old days when phones were still attached to cords–I’ve been taught, “Buyers have a structured buying process.” ” I’d see all sorts of block diagrams, showing how the buying process always, coincidentally, aligned with the customer buying process.

B2B 125

B2B Up-sell Contract Start-ups 125

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 5, 2023

” There was an awkward silence, the CEO eventually said, “I don’t know…… What should I be doing? In complex B2B initiatives, the reality is they probably don’t know! ” We are trained to pummel the customer with questions: Who is the decisionmaker? What should I be looking at?

B2B 99

B2B Clients Pitch Consult 99

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 22, 2024

Sometimes, I feel like a broken record talking about Customer and Business Acumen. Speaking to sales enablement executives, fewer than 10% have any sort of business acumen programs in place. Yet these same leaders complain about the ability to connect to prospects and customers. I ask: “How does your customer make money?”

Customers 105

Customers GTM Trust Up-sell 105

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 12, 2024

Google Ads customer service has plummeted to an unacceptable all-time low, according to search marketers. ” “Recently, I posted a job on Upwork that pays a reward of $500 for anyone that can get us access and set up Instant Reserve TV ads for our account. But even they have had no response to this query.”

Engineering 140

Engineering Clients Networking Represent 140

Search Engine Land

MARCH 13, 2024

I will share with you my top five tips to make your content feel more human and to ensure it speaks to the people digesting it. Be clear on who the content is for and what motivates them Knowing your customer goes back to the basics of marketing, but often when we get into a rhythm of delivering website content for SEO, it can be forgotten.

Drivers/motivators 104

Drivers/motivators B2B B2C Quota 104

Martech

APRIL 24, 2024

Providing genuinely outstanding customer experiences is the ultimate goal of marketers today. Customers have come to expect seamless, personalized brand interactions across all touchpoints. This guide provides a roadmap for leveraging AI and agile marketing practices to craft unforgettable customer experiences.

Customers 101

Customers Represent Promote Start-ups 101

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 5, 2023

We know trust and trustworthiness are critical in our ability to engage prospects and customers. It’s a foundation of our ability to develop and maintain relationships. We know what happens when, inadvertently or purposefully, we betray that trust. Some because of the lack of currency in their data bases.

Trust 119

Trust Construction Represent Technology 119

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

The tools themselves are evolving quickly, but having gone through a several of these technology disruptions in the past, I recognize we usually find the mediocre to poor uses first, but as we gain experience we improve our understanding and start to leverage the technology to its full potential. We will move beyond this.

Manufacturing 112

Manufacturing Engineering Technology Technology 112

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Without a doubt, we face more turbulence, complexity, volatility, and uncertainty than we have ever experienced. It’s not just in our business lives, but permeates all parts of our lives. ” And over time, we find ourselves compromising more and more. It’s exhausting!

Growth 132

Growth Gaming Technology Technology 132

Martech

FEBRUARY 5, 2024

They’re useful, and we use the return data in our email program, customer profiles and product development B. Meh … They don’t do much for our email program, but we send them anyway to stay in the inbox and every once in a while, we get interesting comments. The boss told us to do it. But what about the recipients?

Profit margin 120

Profit margin Contact Campaign Service 120

Martech

JANUARY 12, 2024

It’s a challenge beyond being more efficient with limited resources. Is 2024 about doing more of the same? If true for you, doing more of the same will not produce better outcomes. Now is the time to question prior assumptions, change your thought process and find comfort in testing more than subject lines.

B2B 125

B2B Construction Strategize Growth 125

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 4, 2023

If you don’t know/follow Brian, you should, he’s one of the best thinkers/practitioners I’ve met in selling. We were talking, loosely, around the advantages of being customer focused and what that means. His research showed those being customer focused outperformed those being more product focused by more than 2-1.

Customers 110

Customers Pitch Meeting Sell 110

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 4, 2023

I think, “Why do we revel in achieving our quotas and scaling goals, when we could be doing so much more?” ” If we achieve our growth/revenue goals, we think we are doing well. Imagine what we could do, without impact to the cost of selling, if we started being more effective in how we manage each deal?

Quota 113

Quota Growth Sell Process 113

Martech

MAY 9, 2024

But I know you think they’re trying to implement some over-complicated solutions. We are seeing very cautious adoption, where people are mainly trying to do use cases that are more internal — like knowledge summaries, quick ways for employees to find answers. We had this issue with translation of our own website.

Appointment 79

Appointment Technology Technology Follow-up 79