Phil Lauterjung

Posts Tagged ‘sales and marketing alignment’

Social media continues to receive a lot of press.  Today eMarketer had an article “Why You Need a Strategy for Social Media.” I wonder if someone there had read my last post on this topic?  Probably not, but I can dream can’t I?  Their lead point was that no one is asking if they should have a strategy, but how and where should they participate.

Any one who has followed this blog knows that I don’t have any argument with their premise.  However, as they do with almost everything they post, they had a graph showing the reasons that U.S. marketers use social media.  The graph was from a study done last July by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law titled: “Social Media: Embracing the Opportunities, Averting the Risks.”  Read more... (428 words, 3 images, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

In the previous post – Why Should You Care About Data Driven Marketing – I gave you data from a study done by the Aberdeen Group showing a very significant difference in performance between Best-in-Class companies and Laggards in the use of data driven marketing.  I promised to not leave you hanging with just data, but to furnish some steps to success from the report for the Laggard companies.

The number one thing to remember is that any improvements that you hope to attain will require you to develop a plan.  The findings in the study showed that laggard companies lacked formal processes to actually use the data they collect.  Data without insight on how to use it is still just data.  Read more... (437 words, 2 images, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

When one has been in sales for more than a few years you think you’ve got it down pretty well.  If this recession has had any positives, it’s that we have had to examine our professional assumptions.

Difficult times force us to face reality as it is, not as we thought it was.  If you haven’t worked through this process it’s not too late.  If you’ve been out of work and frustrated with the lack of opportunities, now is the time to reassess.  If you have a job with constant pressure to “make the numbers”, this is for you too.  Read more... (880 words, 2 images, estimated 3:31 mins reading time)

If you’ve been following along in this series (if not, why not?), you have hopefully started what you need to in order to get more leads.

Now you’ve got to decide which are the HOT leads?  Remember, we mentioned before that only 20-25% of your leads will be “sales-ready”.  How do you figure that out?

Start with lead scoring.  A process that should be done before you start getting leads, but if you haven’t yet done that don’t worry.  No time like right now to get it done.  You’ll want to take that exercise you went through earlier in developing a typical buyer profile and use that to develop a lead scoring process.  Read more... (608 words, 2 images, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

When I used to work at a Fortune 500 company we had a VP who was very provincial concerning his department.  Whenever another VP got a little too involved in his area he would  tell that other VP in no uncertain terms to “get out of my sandbox.”  I’m not quite sure why that has stuck in my brain all these years, but someone else can do the psychoanalysis on that.

I have seen that attitude persist in a lot of companies today between sales and marketing.  If you don’t believe that check out some of the other blogs on  the subject.  It’s been a hot topic lately – a lack of alignment between sales and marketing.  Read more... (501 words, 2 images, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)