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The English language fascinates me. Words can have different spellings but sound the same, the same spellings but sound different, and all have different meanings… and idioms can confound even native English speakers!

With this month’s Super Bowl, I was reminded of a phrase in football that works for many situations. A top-caliber quarterback knows when to “stay in the pocket,” meaning he doesn’t get distracted by the chaos coming toward him – instead keeping his eyes on the prize, and staying focused on getting the ball into the end zone.

You can also be “in someone’s pocket,” meaning under their control or influence (like a prospect or customer). Or in music “playing in the pocket,” meaning grooving, where the rhythm section is locked in and working as a unit.

Whatever pocket you find yourself in, give this song by Alanis Morissette a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week.

Keep your Sales Team in the Pocket

We’re halfway through Q1 – how focused is your sales team?

Here are some simple tactics to get your sales team on track for 2023 quotas:

• Fill your pipeline each week. This could mean weekly follow-ups to warm contacts, or daily – yes, daily – prospecting.
• Get curious! 74% of buyers say sellers don’t listen. Prove them wrong! Find out how you can provide value for your prospects, not just for your own bottom line.
• Lead a thorough needs discovery. Don’t pounce on the first need you hear from a prospect. Take the time to dig deeper… you might learn of additional needs that give you, the seller, a more compelling case.
• Set goals and develop an action plan to reach them. You’re much more likely to get where you need to go if you have a destination in mind and an action plan to reach it.

They may be simple and straightforward, but often those tactics are the best ones! Which tricks are you using to stay in the pocket and hit your and your sales team’s goals?

Now Hiring – Musicians Wanted!

Musical ability and playing in the pocket aren’t all that make a successful musician. According to DK Music Business Academy, musicians often owe their success to specific traits that are conducive to business. Maybe that’s why so many of them have side hustles (remember Ozzy’s CryptoBatz NFTs?).

What are some of these traits? To name a few:

• Being consistent and making time every single day to create
• Caring about their audience more than vanity metrics
• Exercising patience
• Being able to take the hard (and sometimes long) road

But surely not every person successful in business can also be a celebrated musician. So then, how does this impact B2B?

Hmm, well those traits sound familiar, don’t they? Why don’t you try bumping this list up beside that first one and see how things line up! Regardless of whether you’re a musician, you can certainly draw wisdom and apply it to your own work!

And maybe next time you’re hiring you should be looking for a musician to help fill out your B2B sales roster…

Hot Takes Live – Replays

Our friends at breadcrumbs.io ran ANOTHER kick-ass session of Hot Takes Live. From the death of marketing funnels to data generation and – somehow – fidget toys… there’s a whole lot to learn! Check out the replay here!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Keep Your Sales Team in the Pocket appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

Maybe it’s age or simply the accessibility of online information – but I feel like my memory isn’t nearly what it used to be. But why should it be? If I need to know something, I look it up online. If I need to remember something, I scroll through my pictures or social media. Heck, I don’t even need to type – I can just ask the virtual assistant that lives in my phone! I know I’m not the only one feeling this way – should we be concerned, or is this just evolution?

Give this song by Pearl Jam a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week.

Doing the Evolution: Dark Funnel

I first saw this article last year but thought it was worth discussing again. I’ve really started to hear my clients talk more and more about the ‘dark funnel’. So what is it, and how does it impact the B2B waterfall?

The key to aligning funnels with buyer journeys is to employ modern data science to illuminate what vendors like 6sense call the Dark Funnel.

Unless you’re the only provider of the solution you offer AND that category of solution is only discussed in your own digital properties (and what are the odds of that?), it’s likely that some or even most of your potential buyers will begin their buyer journeys elsewhere: on influencer sites, product review sites, competitors’ sites, social media, or one of many other places buyers can go in the digital realm. Taken together, all those places outside of your realm/control where buyers are searching for information make up the Dark Funnel.

But how do you track this? As a B2B organization, do you account for these activities in your analysis and funnel tracking? What about marketing attribution?

For many, it means that your sales cycles and funnel can be unpredictable. By tapping into the Dark Funnel, organizations can see and align their marketing and selling processes to the beginning of the buyer’s journey. By doing so, you’ll have a better chance of winning more deals, and you can bring consistency and predictability to the revenue generation process.

Doing the Evolution: Overusing Technology

I can’t attest to the seriousness of this study, but according to the authors, we will continue to evolve in a certain biological and physical way if we’re not careful. Given that North Americans are on their devices for at least seven hours a day, things could get weird!

Future evolutionary-induced traits may include:

• A hunched back and arched neck from looking down all the time
• A clawed hand from holding onto a phone constantly
• An elbow at a permanent 90° angle from holding our phones
• A thicker skull and smaller brain because of outsourcing knowledge and memories to the cloud
• A second eyelid (like camels!) to protect us from the blue light given off by our devices

What do you think? As you know, I’m already suffering from the smaller brain due to outsourcing knowledge to the cloud… maybe your prospects in the Dark Funnel are, too! So how do you take advantage to ensure their outsourced knowledge guides them to you?

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Doing the B2B Evolution appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

For many, this weekend marked the end of summer. This magical switch is flipped in our collective consciousness, and we immediately return to business mode, right? For years I’ve tried to condition my clients to keep pushing their sales and marketing efforts throughout the summer, yet every year we hit September and it’s the mad rush to get things back up and running! Maybe that’s just part of being human…

Give this song by the Killers a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week.

Humanizing Lead Gen

Almost every step of the sales funnel can be automated to a certain degree, from adding prospects to the funnel, through a closed deal. But according to Heinz Marketing, this lack of human connection can be harmful, especially in the B2B landscape. Although we’ve seen an increase in lead gen efforts, we’re also seeing a decrease in personalization efforts, with some thinking that it is not necessary at all.

I’ve seen it with my clients. They always did the best they could with automated processes, spending countless resource hours building ‘sequences’ for sales outreach, but ignoring the human touch points. In B2B – and especially in a complex sale – you can’t ignore the importance of a bi-directional conversation with a prospect. Keeping the human connection alive is a fundamental part of the buyer’s journey, and both digital and human interactions need to be integrated in the overall process.

Humanizing Musical Education

You may know that I helped to bring the ‘School of Rock’ business to Canada years ago. I’ve always been a strong believer in music as a tool for education and therapy – and at any age. Music can bring people together, build community, and improve mental health.

Today outlines some steps for raising a musical kid. I would take these same tenets and apply them to people of ALL ages – including co-workers!

1. Start early
2. Add music to routines
3. Make it playful
4. Share the experience
5. Give life a soundtrack
6. Get creative
7. Find the right kind of lessons

How does this impact B2B? I’ve seen the power of music when used at the corporate level, helping to build employee engagement, etc… and it can make for a fun weekly newsletter!

Try it yourself! See how you can leverage music at work and what kind of results you can get. You’ve gotta let me know how it goes!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Do Your Best to Connect appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What Do B2B Marketers Do Now? is an ongoing email. Join the mailing list to be the first to receive these weekly insights!

How does it feel? 2020 has often felt like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone that keeps on rolling. Listen to this with me as we focus on finishing the year strong!

Here’s what the experts are saying, and takeaways from the past week:

Flexible Go-To-Market Framework in 2021

Are you making the shift to combine multiple go-to-market (GTM) strategies side-by-side to see how they work together? TOPO’s introduction of the Double Funnel in 2019 illustrated how the world’s fastest-growing companies understand how all GTM approaches contribute to revenue.

TOPO’s Go-to-Market Framework companies need to not only find the balance between volume/velocity and account-based strategies, but understand that these can overlap and share tactical approaches.

Their key takeaways to build a flexible GTM portfolio:

• Eliminate silos between GTMs and specify how and when contacts, accounts, and insights flow between other GTMs.
• Embrace an audience focus. The buyer and their mission-critical priorities determine the tactics, messaging, and offers to be used – not the product.
• Orchestrate everything. Fluid transitions between GTMs and teams deliver the speed and flexibility required to win.
• Measure consistently and specifically. Aligning all GTMs side-by-side identifies points of unification and the most meaningful insight for every slice of data.

Sometimes marketing programs can feel disconnected and without a shared home, but the TOPO framework offers a fresh approach. What have you got to lose?

Top Holiday Email Marketing Tips

I have put this off as long as I could, but even I have to admit… it’s officially holiday season! Consider the experts who shared with HubSpot their top 8 email marketing tips for the holidays:

1. Start planning way before you think you should.
2. Focus on the customer, not an aggressive sales agenda.
3. Interactivity and fallback go hand in hand.
4. Segment and rule.
5. Get personal.
6. Take the responsive route (it’s not just an ‘option’ anymore!).
7. Get real with real-time content.
8. Break the boundaries of email and go social.

Segment and rule would be a cool t-shirt slogan or band name! Seriously, it is too easy to just send an email without thought into its effectiveness… keep these tips in mind as you manage your campaigns – just don’t spill any egg nog on your keyboard!

Dylan Sells

As you may have heard, Bob Dylan recently sold his songwriting catalogue for hundreds of millions of dollars. The music industry has reacted in many different ways, and commented on his motivations as well as Universal Music’s motivation for the purchase.

Music journalist Bob Lefsetz, however, feels that Dylan should NOT have sold. Is Dylan just selling out and should remain some kind of “suffering artist?”  In our B2B world, we continue to see the evolution of the “cash now” versus “ongoing revenue” argument. SaaS companies are built on the concept of monthly recurring revenue (MRR) – providing greater sales predictability and stability.

But if you win the lottery, are you taking the lump sum or the monthly payout? Sometimes our business decisions are different than our personal decisions – for good reason.

Once upon a time, this would have been holiday party season. I think there is reason to believe next year will be better, but until then, enjoy a virtual beverage in your finest holiday sweater!

As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or ask how I can help.

Looking forward,
Rick

Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat

The post Prepping Your Marketing Strategy for the New Year appeared first on Virtual Causeway.