Just like aquifer diving, just because you can swim under water doesn't mean you can safely explore aquifer's. In case you're wondering, an aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock.
Like sales, marketing and talent acquisition. Just because you've done these things before it doesn't mean you can do them effectively on social in 2023.
Is strength of digital relationship factored into your 2023 B2B Sales and Marketing plan?
The cost of acquiring a customer is often used to understand the health of a business, among many other things like, how cost effective is a new business team at winning new customers or a customer success team and renewing and expanding existing.
After 100’s of thousands of layoffs in the tech space in 2022, and with the economic head-winds blowing a gale, is the cost of acquiring a customer important to you?
As we head closer to 2023 has your sales and marketing budget been approved yet, do you have a clear idea of what needs to be done to hit your objectives in the coming year?
I would put money on the fact that you don’t and if you do, there’s a ton of assumptions, and one thing influencing success the most, outside of your control - and that’s the strength of relationships your revenue facing teams have with your customers, prospects and partners. That alone is the difference between success and failure next year.
The uncertainty related to our economy shouldn’t be your biggest concern. Business is full of uncertainty, I’ve led sales and marketing teams to success through many different times of uncertainty, whether it’s the last recession, the oil crisis in the Middle East, the Military Coup in Turkey, starting a new region from scratch in Australia or UAE, the list is long and there were many reasons why we shouldn’t have been successful in a particular region, but we were.
Businesses that have clarity with their strategy and can adapt quickly will survive times of uncertainty.
The greater concern is the downward trend in B2B Sales and Marketing performance.
I’ve been witnessing this trend develop over the last 12 years. For years now, marketing teams have been told to “do more with less”. Why? …because it’s getting harder to develop new pipeline, buyers do their research and create a short list before reaching out to suppliers, close rates are declining as more deals are lost to the status quo or competition doing a better job at quantifying value. Average order values are falling as it gets harder to align stakeholders on solving the original problem identified in the first place.
I was speaking to a sales and marketing leader from a B2B SalesTech company at a conference in London last week, and he manages a team of 25 sales and marketing folks and the message to his team is; “2023 is going to be tough, you should expect to put 30% more effort in to get 30% less out compared with this year.”
Less people will be buying tech in 2023, decisions will be under more scrutiny than ever before meaning the status quo will continue to be the number one competitor.
Building relationships at scale will provide your business with the greatest advantage.
Events are great and get you in front of your audience, but expensive. Creating your own events are cost effective but again, people only come if they like you and want to spend time with you. Unless the topic, speakers and venue is top notch and again, that’s expensive.
People buy from people they know, like and trust, so what is being done to empower your people to build their personal brand, activate their existing network and create content that stands out from the crowd?
Your best sales and marketing asset is our people, they need help to learn how to walk digital corridors safely and effectively, the one thing unique to every business is their people.
Check out my recent article that goes into more detail about learning how to walk digital corridors being the #1 skill to hire for in 2023: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-1-skill-hire-2023-alex-abbott-f-isp-
93% of the worlds internet population is on social media. Social Marketing and Social Selling (selling on social) does not provide a business the competitive advantage needed to counter the downward trend in performance, and these topics are confused with modern digital selling - these two tactics only add to the downward trend we are seeing as neither of them focus on helping the individual stand out and look attractive to the target audience.
Hiring for this new skill set of Walking Digital Corridors and empowering employees to become micro-influencers and by the nature of it, amplify the company brand, will be a key component of success for businesses in the future.
Our methodology, Social Interaction & Influence is designed to enable employees to walk digital corridors safely and effectively. Providing clarity to your social strategy and what social means to your organisation and empowering your people to build influence and commercial value for your organisation. Whether it’s the Board, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success or HR for talent acquisition, the methodology is applied to any discipline to achieve strategic business growth.
It’s also, the only dedicated digital selling methodology recognised by the Institute of Sales Professionals due to the focus on application of knowledge and together with our partner, DLA Ignite we are developing their first digital selling qualification.
To learn more about how this might apply to your business, drop me a DM on LinkedIn, Twitter @Alex_Supero or Guild, or a WhatsApp if you prefer +44 7951 220113
#B2BSales#DigitalSelling #ValueSelling #WalkingDigitalCorridors #Enablement
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