Thought Leadership - Falconry Group Marketing Seattle @TLOTL » Falconry Group Marketing Seattle @TLOTL

I’m pleased to share with TLOTL readers the Focus Experts’ Guide: Sales and Marketing Pipeline and Funnel Models. This collection of 14 one-page funnel visualizations was created by sales and marketing leaders who are active on the Focus network. If you spend any time following thought leaders in this space, you’ll recognize most if not all of the other contributors. I’m truly honored to be sharing pixel space with this distinguished group!

You can download the guide here (PDF).

Below I’ve included some additional links and context:

Here’s the full list of other Experts’ Guide contributors, with links to their blogs (and my sincere wishes that the links boost or at least help maintain their organic search rankings).

Ardath Albee, CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist at Marketing Interactions
Michael Brenner, Director of Online/Social Media at SAP North America
Michael Damphousse, CEO/CMO of Green Leads LLC
Christopher Doran, VP of Marketing at Manticore Technology
Barbra Gago, Social Media Manager of Cloud9 Analytics
Steve Gershik, CEO of 28Marketing
Sue Hay, CEO of BeWhys Marketing Inc.
Matt Heinz, Principal at Heinz Marketing LLC
Carlos Hidalgo, President of The Annuitas Group
Jon Miller, Vice President of Marketing at Marketo
Adam Needles, VP of Demand Generation Strategy at Left Brain Marketing
Matt West, Director of Marketing at Genius.com
Steve Woods, Chief Technology Officer of Eloqua

A link to the Experts’ Guide download page on Focus.com

Craig Rosenberg, the leader of the Focus Expert Network, is currently running a guest post series with each of the contributors on his blog, The Funnelholic.

And lastly — for anyone who may still be reading — here’s the back story on my entry:

I sent my picture to Focus at the end of August, right around the time my daughter attended her first few days of kindergarten. At the time, it occurred to me that I was participating in a kind of show-and-tell for grownups. Just like the objects that kids describe to their classmates, each funnel concept in this guide tells us a story. And the story isn’t just about the funnel as a business process. It’s also about how the storyteller thinks and solves problems.

Prior to submitting my picture, I had white-boarded it twice before for two different prospects. The first prospect said she really appreciated my (impromptu) illustration, as it helped her think differently about her problem. We haven’t done a deal yet, but had we not had that meeting, I probably wouldn’t have drawn my picture.

The second time I drew it was in a meeting with a prospect who – a few weeks prior — had asked me to send him a “brief, high level write-up on how we’d work together.” I wrote out my proposal in text form, and, per his request, kept it really brief – barely over 1 page in length. But as brief as my proposal was, when I met with my prospect, I could see that I had made excessive use of that obscure, incomprehensible, buzzword-laden dialect: consultantese. Even in sanitized form, I’m embarrassed to share that original proposal verbatim. But I ran it through a word cloud generator (thank you Wordle) to show what I mean.

Scearce Market Development proposal wordcloud

Consultantese

Pretty messy isn’t it? The proposal wasn’t much easier to follow.

Once I drew a simple picture on my prospect’s whiteboard, our conversation became simpler, and we ultimately started working together.

No matter how long I work in this business, I still forget sometimes that consultantese has no place in my sales process. Plain English is better. And a simple picture is even better still, especially if it’s something my kindergartner might understand.

[Post #1 in the "Other Voices" series, featuring Bruce Lee of CreativeLee Advertising.]

This week I’ve been doing, with a little help from my friends, a mini-makeover on the TLOTL blog. A few of the changes:

Installed a new WordPress theme. Thank you to Sayontan Sinha for giving us the elegant and simple “Suffusion.” I gladly made a small PayPal donation in support of your excellent work on this theme.
Replaced the mugshot that was taken when I was 38 pounds heavier. Thank you to my wife Heather, to Concept2 Rowing (makers of my Concept2E Indoor Rower), and to my personal trainers at Conscious Body Pilates for supporting my renewed commitment to improved health.
Incorporated the “Tall Poppy” color element from the Scearce Market Development brand palette. Thank you to Penny Laine for your work on the original SMD palette and logo. And thanks to Chirag Mehta for publishing your helpful “Name That Color” lookup tool. The HEX# for that color, C04027, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

I’m throwing shout-outs to these people and companies, some of whom I’ve never met in person, to underscore how much the creative process — in marketing, selling, or anything – is a team game. Which brings me to the fourth change I made to the blog this week: a new tagline.

“Tips, tools, and inspiration from marketing and sales masters.”

I’ve always thought the “Lord of the Leads” concept was about mastery of a process; specifically the process of generating and managing “the leads.” But successful practictioners of the marketing and sales arts understand that real mastery depends on integrating an incredibly diverse range of expertise — strategy, financial, product, creative, technical, analytical, operational — into a compelling buying experience for customers. A marketing leader, in particular, must be highly skilled at eliciting and synthesizing high-value contributions from experts in all of these areas.

So, starting with today’s guest post, I’m turning up the volume (to eleven) on the voices of other experts in the marketing and sales workflow.

First up to bat: Bruce Lee from CreativeLee Advertising. Bruce and I are members of a consultants’ roundtablegroup here in Seattle. Two other similarities: it turns out we live about 1/2 mile apart (98112 baby!), and we both previously worked for companies that were acquired by Best Buy. We are also both self-styled word warriors, though there the differences quickly begin to emerge. Because, quite honestly, I’m Don Quixote to Bruce’s Sun Tzu.

Bruce is contributing “10 simple techniques to improve your advertising and web site copy.”

1.Have someone outside your department read what you’ve written, and ask them if they understand it thoroughly. Chances are you’re using some term that makes sense to you, but not to your intended reader. Someone from outside your fishbowl will catch that.

2.Don’t use acronyms. If it’s important enough to mention, it’s important enough to spell it out.

3.Don’t get cute.Never use any derivation of the Got Milk campaign (for example, “Got Trash?” or “Got Pho?”). Never make any allusion that “size does matter.” Leave humor to the experts.

4. Don’t lie. Exaggeration and hyperbole are lies. Omitting important details, or burying them in the fine print, is a form of lying. Someday soon, credit card companies will pay for this transgression.

5. Proofread it out loud. Then have someone else proofread it out loud while you listen.

6. Say it correctly. “Happens only once a year” is better than “Only happens once a year.” (Only Jack kissed Mary. Jack only kissed Mary. Jack kissed only Mary.) Misuse “it’s/its” or “your/you’re” only if you want the reader to think you’re incompetent.

7. Resist the urge to use an exclamation point. Resist!

8. Unless you’re simply listing a commodity and a price (1 gal. 2% milk, $3) include at least one product benefit. (Chocolate Milk. Builds strong bones and kids love it. 1 gal. $3)

9. Try to find a way to work the word “you” into the headline.

10. Know when to bend the rules. You’re trying to communicate with people using only symbols. But when a person reads, they hear a voice talking in their head. It’s sometimes okay for that voice to start a sentence with a preposition.

There’s a good conversation going on over at Focus.com about whether the sales concept of BANT — Budget Authority Need Timeframe — is no longer valid in light of how the modern B2B buying process works. The question has been asked: “Is BANT dead?”

I commented on the post, and as part of my continuous effort to drive my own personal ”return on contribution” I’ve re-published my answer to the question in this space. But there are lots of great expert opinions from B2B marketing thought leaders in the original post, so hop on over and have a look!

— begin answer —

“BANT is not dead but it is definitely under the weather and needs better care from its primary care physicians (sales and marketing executives).

As a salesperson’s tool for measuring a prospect’s relative readiness to buy, BANT remains valid and useful to the sales process.

However, there are times (too many times, by my observation) that BANT is used as a rigidly applied internal service level agreement between sales and marketing (or between sales and pre-sales lead development). In some environments, BANT is set up such that the sales team literally can’t talk to buyers unless BANT is fully achieved, or until a certain score threshold has been satisfied. This is a good idea when every sales person’s time is fully utilized talking to BANT-qualified prospects. However, most of the time this is not the case. There is always some “excess capacity” in the revenue factory, which can actually be good thing. So to the extent that BANT is ever used to keep a less-than-maxed-out sales person from talking to a buyer who is less-than-fully-BANT-qualified, it’s not a useful metric.

I think BANT is most useful when applied at the level of the individual salesperson, who must prioritize his/her time as if it were money to spent (time is the salesperson’s most valuable currency). As an operational metric, BANT is not flexible enough for practical application, in my opinion.

BTW, marketers have their own version of BANT. It’s called Cost per Lead (CPL). It’s another metric that is useful in a narrow context, but can needlessly limit outcomes if applied too rigidly. For more on the perils of excessive adherence to CPL (and 3 metrics that are better to use), see this post:

http://www.focus.com/ugr/research/marketing/asdf/

— end answer —

Craig Rosenberg, aka the Funnelholic, has compiled — with a few additional contributions from myself, Michael Schmeir, and Chris Jablonski – a great list of 210 B2B marketing tips. The Funnelholic routinely publishes blunt, sometimes irreverent stories from the “trenches” of B2B demand generation. His posts always offer a healthy balance of cheeky/punchy copy and practical insights/wisdom.

Take a look at the tip list here.

BTW, we’re working on another list of 50 “marketing hipster” terms and concepts for imminent publication. Should also be an informative and entertaining read. Stay tuned!

The folks over at ClickDocuments have released a great eBook containing predictions and marketing tips from marketers in the content, B2B, email, and social media categories. Ambal Balakrishnan has put together this crowd-sourced eBook with contributions from thought leaders such as Doug Kessler, Jon Miller, Craig Rosenberg, Steven Woods, Ardath Albee, and 34 others.

Aside from being a valuable collection of marketing prognostications, tips, and resources, the eBook is itself an innovative content delivery vehicle. Take note of the retweet feature on each page which helps contributors maximize their “return on contribution.” Also, all of the links in the eBook open the target page with a StumbleUpon-style toolbar which gives readers the opportunity to learn more about the eBook sponsor, Marketo. I’m impressed with how the eBook was packaged and executed; balancing the needs of the audience, the contributors, and the sponsor.

Have a look at the eBook and please make ample use of that retweet feature!

Get the ClickPredictions eBook!

A picture spares us from a thousand words

Guest post from Bruce Lee: 10 simple techniques to improve your advertising and web site copy.

BANT is just pining for the fjords!

210 Marketing Tips for 2010 from the Funnelholic

ClickPredictions 2010 eBook released!

Flight Plans

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