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Congratulations, you’ve made it to December 2020! I hope your organization has weathered the storm and figured out how to make things happen. Otherwise, we could be in for a long December! Give this a listen as we work through this week’s update.
Here is what the experts are saying, and some takeaways from the past week:
Slack: Growth Lessons
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Slack for $27.7 billion. They have many growth lessons to offer. Slack co-founder Stewart Butterfield has been quite open about how the company initially spent much time and money building a product few people wanted to buy. So they made the difficult decision to abandon the online game Glitch, Slack’s predecessor.
How to Build a Growth Team details various approaches that Slack adopted on its path to success.
Rather than simply generating an endless stream of product features, Slack focused on using KPIs to direct their efforts. Contrary to many out there, Slack took a bottom-up approach to marketing, focusing on individuals. As a kind of Trojan Horse strategy, it allowed them to circumvent upper management who often stretch out decision-making – a strategy Salesforce.com used in the early days, too!
Slack is an example of a company not afraid to make appropriate pivots as it invites feedback to strengthen its drive towards growth. What’s your Trojan Horse strategy?
Stop Undermining Sales
We all know sales can be tough. I came across a checklist that might help remove some pain as you check in with your sales team. This is Dealsinsights’ 7 Reasons Why Your B2B Sales Attempts Are Failing:
- You only seek enterprise deals with Fortune 500 companies – don’t forget SMB sales!
- You don’t ask the “right questions” – review scripts based on current circumstances.
- You are selling the features, not the ROI – correct messaging has never been more important.
- You are desperate for the sale – be careful not to inadvertently push away your prospect.
- Your sales funnel is not Omnichannel – get your message out in all appropriate channels.
- You don’t loop in other experts from your team – B2B sales can be complex, so lean in to expert team members.
- You don’t ask prospects if they are “ready” for the purchase – if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
When is the last time you went through questions like the above with your sales reps? Sometimes it feels like it’s a lot of oysters but no pearls! Even helping to make small modifications with your sales team can produce better results.
Opportunity? Spotify’s Year-End Streaming Stats
Spotify saw some big gains in subscriber numbers, due to the pandemic. What were they listening to?
- Most-streamed artist – Bad Bunny with 8.3 billion streams
- Most-streamed track – “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd with 1.6 billion streams
- Most-streamed female artist – Billie Eilish
- Most popular podcast – The Joe Rogan Experience
Because of social distancing and work-from-home situations, there was a big increase (1400%) in WFH playlists. Health and wellness playlists also saw a boost. So did garden-themed ones – they were up 430%. Listening to playlists designed for cleaning jumped by 40%. Interestingly, research on Spotify streams also indicates that the pandemic seems to have triggered nostalgia as people seek comfort.
Are there any ways your business can take advantage of a captive audience like that? Perhaps test out some content or creative that taps into your target audience. Where is the opportunity for you?
Remember, no matter how hard this year has been, let’s find a reason to believe that maybe 2021 will be better than the last.
As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or ask how I can help.
Looking forward,
Rick
Rick Endrulat | President | Virtual Causeway | 519.866.1600 x622