Speaker 1: This is the Full Funnel B t B Marketing podcast,
Speaker 1: brought to you by full Funnel dot io.
Speaker 2: Let's start well, Elelan and welcome to the new ACA's
Speaker 2: a lot of final life today we are finally a
Speaker 2: hosting it together as flat and first of all, I
Speaker 2: would love to thank everybody for sharing the questions with us.
Speaker 2: After the publishing the article about ABM strategist read that
Speaker 2: zero last Friday on substack. The main question obviously was
Speaker 2: how to implement it, So today we want to focus
Speaker 2: on the implementation part. We'll just briefly remind you guys
Speaker 2: about the kind of the core pillars, what has been
Speaker 2: changed and while we are paying oh let's say, what
Speaker 2: are the core pillars where we're paying a lot of
Speaker 2: attention too, And then we'll share some practical implementation examples.
Speaker 2: As always, you're very welcome to ask any questions and
Speaker 2: let us know where you all join us from today.
Speaker 2: Where again broadcasting from sign and Spain type and the
Speaker 2: chat your city country. Looking forward to see where you
Speaker 2: guys are joining us from, and we can kick it
Speaker 2: up with the presentation of ABM Strategist three that zero.
Speaker 2: Maybe just let's cover this quickly.
Speaker 1: So this is small and we will be small for
Speaker 1: people as well. So let's jump into this. I think
Speaker 1: if you're looking at what has changed, then what as
Speaker 1: we have done a lot of projects with our clients
Speaker 1: realizing what's working today and what's not working today and what.
Speaker 3: Are the keys to success?
Speaker 1: Identify these eight key areas and the first area is
Speaker 1: the cluster based targeting, which is to say that instead
Speaker 1: of developing targeting or developing programs for a specific industry
Speaker 1: or an industry vertical, you want to focus on the
Speaker 1: set of accounts that have a shared challenge. And the
Speaker 1: main idea is that even if the accounts are from
Speaker 1: the same industry on the same vertical, they might still
Speaker 1: have different sets of challenges, that different set of challenges
Speaker 1: different reasons why they buy from you. So even let's
Speaker 1: say you're targeting banks, they may have very different reasons
Speaker 1: for why they might buy a solution like yours, different
Speaker 1: use cases. So instead of doing that, we want to
Speaker 1: focus on a set of accounts that have a shared challenge,
Speaker 1: which is what we call cluster based targeting. Allows you
Speaker 1: to align your messaging and content with those target accounts.
Speaker 1: The second critical success factor has to be in every
Speaker 1: program is having a cross functional team needs to include
Speaker 1: people from sales and marketing. From marketing, the key roles
Speaker 1: include the ABM lead who is there to actually run
Speaker 1: and maintain this program to make sure that these processes
Speaker 1: are being run. This is one of the key missing
Speaker 1: roles that we see that teams don't have somebody who's
Speaker 1: going to be in charge of that program. Without that person,
Speaker 1: the program is not sustainable. The second most important team
Speaker 1: from the role from marketing is dedicated content person. They
Speaker 1: don't have to be one hundred percent time dedicated, but
Speaker 1: having them and a third critical role as a minimum
Speaker 1: is to have sales development rep or somebody who is
Speaker 1: in charge of sales development. Other roles include also subject
Speaker 1: matter expert, a revops person, and potentially also kind of
Speaker 1: a technical assistant, somebody to help with the implementation and
Speaker 1: a design These are kind of supporting roles, but the
Speaker 1: three critical roles are a BM lead, content and sales
Speaker 1: development next. A lot of times we speak to teams
Speaker 1: where they basically believe, okay, you know what we're actually
Speaker 1: running account based marketing, What is so special about what
Speaker 1: you want us to do? And actually, when we look
Speaker 1: at what are the key elements that each account based
Speaker 1: marketing playbook or program needs to contain. We have identified
Speaker 1: these six elements, which we explain using our six A
Speaker 1: framework where we talk about account qualification, account segmentation, prioritization,
Speaker 1: so being able to qualify that accounts actually belong to
Speaker 1: the target account cost cluster and that there are a
Speaker 1: good fit account signed im poritization, prioritizing accounts by the
Speaker 1: chance of creating an opportunity not just based on the tier.
Speaker 1: Then account research, really doing proper research understanding what are
Speaker 1: the what is the information that you need to research
Speaker 1: about that account and how you're going to use that
Speaker 1: information to personalize your marketing and messaging towards that account.
Speaker 1: But also where are you going to store that information
Speaker 1: that we have kind of a three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: degree overview of that account and not have pieces of
Speaker 1: information in different siloed systems. Another key element that is
Speaker 1: often missing is how do you create awareness specifically for
Speaker 1: those accounts and the buying committee members of those accounts
Speaker 1: that are you're targeting. How do you do account development
Speaker 1: and by that we don't mean, you know, sending an
Speaker 1: automated series of emails, mind the messages but actually are
Speaker 1: you going to introduce multiple meaningful touch points to nurture
Speaker 1: those accounts, to do to get some information about them
Speaker 1: from the people who are working there, from the target buyers,
Speaker 1: but also account activation, how are you actually going to
Speaker 1: move from an engaged account and create a sales qualified opportunity.
Speaker 1: Other elements that have to belong that we have identified
Speaker 1: as key elements for the three dot or a BM
Speaker 1: strategy are aligning the playbooks with the long sales cycle.
Speaker 1: So instead of just like I mentioned, maybe marketing doing
Speaker 1: some air cover and sales reaching out with whatever how
Speaker 1: long the sequences, and then giving up if the account
Speaker 1: doesn't respond, actually having a series of always on playbooks
Speaker 1: where you are able to engage those accounts from week
Speaker 1: to week and sometimes in you know, daily and weekly
Speaker 1: activities such as you know, create create a social engagement
Speaker 1: sharing account based content. We also make a difference between
Speaker 1: the always on, time based or program based playbooks that
Speaker 1: are aligned with marketing initiatives such as events, webinars, market research,
Speaker 1: content collaborations, and the third type is the signal based playbooks.
Speaker 1: So all of these activities create signals. We are doing
Speaker 1: the research to uncover third party signals, and we have
Speaker 1: specific playbooks that are triggered by the signals that are
Speaker 1: being discovered. The other element of the marketing account by
Speaker 1: marketing is the center of excellence. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that is the key to scaling any effort. Right,
Speaker 1: so you have done the account based marketing pilot. You
Speaker 1: have implemented it maybe with one with one team in
Speaker 1: one market it on one cluster. Now before you can
Speaker 1: scale it will operationionalize. But before you are able to
Speaker 1: scale this, you need an internal team that is going
Speaker 1: and the best candidates for that team are people who
Speaker 1: have run your successful pilot to become the internal coaches
Speaker 1: and to basically make sure and help all the other
Speaker 1: teams that now like regions or other business units that
Speaker 1: need to implement the company's marketing, to help them with
Speaker 1: that implementation. And there we are always thinking of doing.
Speaker 1: The operationalization of what works is kind of eighty percent
Speaker 1: making sure that the processes are being run being run correctly,
Speaker 1: and twenty percent experimenting with new ways to reach out
Speaker 1: to those accounts in new ways to create awareness, new
Speaker 1: channels and new technologies, introducing technologies, et.
Speaker 3: Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Very important as well, is that if you want to
Speaker 1: now scale your efforts, A lot of people will be
Speaker 1: a lot of teams are looking at AI and how
Speaker 1: to do this with AI and maybe other technology platforms.
Speaker 1: What we found is the key to success there is
Speaker 1: first making sure that you have run these processes manually,
Speaker 1: that you're actually using AI to scale or accelerate the
Speaker 1: process that has been proven. You can't expect technology to
Speaker 1: do it for you have never done it before, right,
Speaker 1: So what you need to have is a proven process,
Speaker 1: very well documented process, because how else would you be
Speaker 1: able to prompt your AI without having clarity on what
Speaker 1: are the steps? Where is the data? Where does the
Speaker 1: AI need to find the data. Let's say you're doing
Speaker 1: account research, Well, okay, what are the points of.
Speaker 3: The data that we need to research?
Speaker 1: Where? What are the places where we can find this information?
Speaker 1: How are we going to use that information? All of
Speaker 1: that needs to be documented based on a proven process
Speaker 1: that you have run and tested manually. And then also
Speaker 1: very important is to have what we call a quality benchmark,
Speaker 1: which is just an example of what good looks like,
Speaker 1: an example of successful of a good result. Because without that, again,
Speaker 1: this is something you can provide to the AI to
Speaker 1: basically show what is how does a good result look like? Right,
Speaker 1: So having that as an enablement along with information about
Speaker 1: your target cluster, case studies, your ICP, and all of
Speaker 1: the information that the AI needs for the context about
Speaker 1: your target market. Without that, any AI implementation will just
Speaker 1: be scaling tactics that are broken.
Speaker 3: To begin with two more to.
Speaker 1: Wrap up the eight pillars. Holistic measurement, especially when you're
Speaker 1: rolling out ABM, you're rolling it out for high value
Speaker 1: accounts with long sale cycles you can't expect and the
Speaker 1: goal obviously is to drive new pipeline and revenue.
Speaker 3: But when you have.
Speaker 1: A sale cycle of let's say eighteen months, you can't
Speaker 1: expect to generate revenue in the first month, second or
Speaker 1: even the third month.
Speaker 3: So it's very.
Speaker 1: Important to measure to introduce also leading indicators, and to
Speaker 1: have holistic reports that includes leading indicators, legging indicators, and
Speaker 1: also the impact that the integrated activities from marketing and
Speaker 1: sales have on pipeline. Not measuring, for example, the awareness
Speaker 1: that we're creating with marketing activities or traffic or any
Speaker 1: of these kind of siloed metrics, but looking at the
Speaker 1: actual impact that we have even if it's early on
Speaker 1: impact that we are having on those target accounts, things
Speaker 1: like account engagement and conversations that we are starting, discovery calls,
Speaker 1: and then obviously also pipeline and revenue and other revenue
Speaker 1: metrics such as win rates, sales cycle length, average average
Speaker 1: deal size, et cetera. And very very important thing that
Speaker 1: we discovered the hard way. If you're implementing a BM,
Speaker 1: to make it work, you need to have this operational
Speaker 1: rhythm that comes from weekly ABM pipeline review meetings where
Speaker 1: together marketing and sales team come together review the accounts
Speaker 1: in the ABM pipeline review the signals decide exactly what
Speaker 1: each of the team members need to do to take
Speaker 1: those accounts to the next step in the ab M pipeline,
Speaker 1: what marketing needs to do, what sales needs to do,
Speaker 1: and also to uncover early any blocking points that the
Speaker 1: team might be facing and proactively address them. So these
Speaker 1: are the things that have emerged after implementing dozens of
Speaker 1: account based marketing programs where some of the things, as
Speaker 1: I said, we learned the hard way, but without these elements,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to actually even claim that you have
Speaker 1: an account based marketing program, if you don't cover these
Speaker 1: key eight pillars, Andre, did I miss something important?
Speaker 3: I know that I was supposed to do it. Shortly,
Speaker 3: try to do my best.
Speaker 2: Now it was good the funnel. Move to the implementation part.
Speaker 2: I would love to quickly answer three questions about the
Speaker 2: let's say the new framework, right, And the first thing
Speaker 2: I will do I will just share a link to
Speaker 2: the detailed breakdown of these pillars that we have published
Speaker 2: on subtects. So guys, if you have missed it, you
Speaker 2: can check. And let me quickly address the first three questions.
Speaker 2: So the first one was if I can pick up
Speaker 2: just a few pillars, what would be the most important?
Speaker 2: The truth is that you can't really do cherry pigeon here.
Speaker 2: They are all really important. And this is the answer
Speaker 2: to the question that Alex asked, what must be true
Speaker 2: for an organization to trustfully say is running a BM
Speaker 2: strategies ree that zero right? So this is these eight components.
Speaker 2: You can use them as a checklist if you want,
Speaker 2: or as a litmus test right to revaliate if the
Speaker 2: companies runing the true A, B, M or all right.
Speaker 2: So these are the most important things. And lastly, just
Speaker 2: to a quick summary, what has been changed from ABM
Speaker 2: strategy to that zero right? Maybe the major shift is
Speaker 2: the targeting for everybody. The let's say, the golden standard
Speaker 2: was doing the vertical or industry based targeting. Right. You
Speaker 2: pick up one specific industry, then you select the accounts,
Speaker 2: then you categorize all accounts in that three tiers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Tier one you're supposed to do fully personalized on one
Speaker 2: to one ABM programs. Then tier two you can do
Speaker 2: one to few, and tier three one too many. Right,
Speaker 2: And for many companies that was the golden standard. You
Speaker 2: run the programs for three months or six months, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But as Flood already has described, the biggest problem was
Speaker 2: that in every vertical you might have accounts with completely
Speaker 2: different use cases, right, and that was the biggest challenge
Speaker 2: for everybody. Then the truth to be set no company.
Speaker 2: We've been talking to multiple even to enterprise organizations. They're
Speaker 2: all complaining about the lack of resources, and the I
Speaker 2: doesn't solve this problem. The teams are scattered, the teams
Speaker 2: are overwhelmed, and nobody honestly has a lot of time
Speaker 2: to do a proper one to one ABM, especially for
Speaker 2: the cold accounts. Right when you need to create awareness.
Speaker 2: First way, you need to identify the buying committee members.
Speaker 2: You need to engage them for the long time. So
Speaker 2: these are the major changes. Right, we shifted to the
Speaker 2: cluster targeting. Were shifted to account prioritization based on the
Speaker 2: likelihood of creating opportunity. This quatter where we're paying attention
Speaker 2: to the level of engagement and relationship with this account.
Speaker 2: Product need evidence and buying signals right and the revenue potential.
Speaker 2: And when we identify the accounts that match this criteria,
Speaker 2: this is where we start investing our time together with
Speaker 2: sales because the likelihood of at least booking the discovery
Speaker 2: call one of the most important metrics that the leadership
Speaker 2: cares about. Right the discovery calls with the strategic accounts.
Speaker 2: This would be the main changes. And with that being said,
Speaker 2: we can move forward to the implementation. We have prepared
Speaker 2: practical examples, so we'll just share the principle and show
Speaker 2: the example. And the first one is where should you
Speaker 2: start right? The first principle is making you always on
Speaker 2: programs account based. I guess and I can bet firmly
Speaker 2: that everybody has a market and plan for the upcoming
Speaker 2: quota right. And the problem is that quite often that
Speaker 2: planning happens in silence. There is simply no joint plan
Speaker 2: between product, between demandsien, between marketing and between sales. Right.
Speaker 2: And we can obviously break it down into smaller functions drs,
Speaker 2: account executives, content teams, et cetera. It's a field marketing,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Right, So everybody is creating the program in silence.
Speaker 2: But the truth is that there is already something that
Speaker 2: has been scheduled and the budget has been allocated. Now
Speaker 2: the question is why not making this activity account based.
Speaker 2: Whatever you're going to do webinars, sought leadership, market research,
Speaker 2: partnership for events, maybe business breakfasts, whatever you're you already
Speaker 2: allocated it. Why not just tailoring it to a specific
Speaker 2: subset of accounts, right. And hence the first principle is
Speaker 2: the classter target, and we need to pick up accounts
Speaker 2: with a similar use case, a similar challenge, and then
Speaker 2: tailor this activity to make it can create. If you
Speaker 2: look at the example from our client from back base, right,
Speaker 2: you can see how they have tailored a specific set
Speaker 2: of webinars to one cluster of accounts. Right, you can
Speaker 2: see that it's all about the wells, right. But then
Speaker 2: they have the webinars for economical bars where they talk
Speaker 2: about improvement and refining and advisors efficiency, leverage and AI
Speaker 2: to deliver differentiating client experiences. Right, set off accounts economical
Speaker 2: bars is the primary buyer persona. Next they have an
Speaker 2: event for the technical buyers. Now it's AI in the
Speaker 2: Wells Management and Implementation road map, right, the same cluster
Speaker 2: Wells management, the same cluster of improving advisory efficiency, but
Speaker 2: targeting completely different bar persona. And the entire change was
Speaker 2: instead of talking about I don't know, like how to
Speaker 2: use AI and banking or think about any broad topic, right,
Speaker 2: they picked up something that is highly relevant or specific
Speaker 2: subset of accounts. It's all about, let's say, improve going
Speaker 2: to advise their efficiency. This is the use case, right,
Speaker 2: and well and just tailor and they're always on programs
Speaker 2: to this specific cluster of accounts. So that's the first
Speaker 2: one and the second principle here, right, which is let's
Speaker 2: call it a subset principle that for every activity that
Speaker 2: you are going to convert into account based activity, right,
Speaker 2: every always, always on activity that you have scheduled, you
Speaker 2: need to define success criteria because later if you don't
Speaker 2: do this right, that could be biased opinions it didn't work,
Speaker 2: or it did work, or I consider that it was successful.
Speaker 2: But just to create a shared definition of success, before
Speaker 2: doing this activity, you need to think about what would
Speaker 2: be our success criteria. Let's say we're doing this webinar right,
Speaker 2: how many target accounts that have signed up for this
Speaker 2: webinar we all can see their success. How many buyers
Speaker 2: from these accounts we all can see their success. And
Speaker 2: then lastly, what we can do as marketing and sales
Speaker 2: together to achieve these targets. And when you have the
Speaker 2: same place, then you can focus your attention on engaging
Speaker 2: specific accounts and hitting up these targets. Right now, you
Speaker 2: move from the random acts of marketing from the let's
Speaker 2: say silot work, to a joint definition of success, joint
Speaker 2: planning and joint executions. Feel free to ask any questions
Speaker 2: as we are happy to cover all of them. But
Speaker 2: for now, let's move to the second plan.
Speaker 1: And the other or the next step. Actually, when you're implementing,
Speaker 1: think about what we call the pos framework or the
Speaker 1: pilot operationalized skill framework.
Speaker 3: What's this all about?
Speaker 1: So instead of trying to immediately implement ABM across your organization,
Speaker 1: involve a lot of people, And we have seen this
Speaker 1: happen in some cases where we had like a very
Speaker 1: ambitious marketer who announced like in a big kind of
Speaker 1: boardlike meeting, involving a lot of people from the organization
Speaker 1: in trying to involve as many salespeople as possible, trying
Speaker 1: to involve also their marketing team. And all he did
Speaker 1: at that time was just draw a lot of attention
Speaker 1: to and a lot of expectations that were maybe not
Speaker 1: as realistic as we wish at that stage. So what's
Speaker 1: really really important is to recognize that you need to
Speaker 1: start small with a small scope pilot, with a small
Speaker 1: team with excuse me, a small team within what we
Speaker 1: call like a pilot ABM program. Right within that pilot
Speaker 1: ABM program, you're going to focus on one account class,
Speaker 1: the one geography. So let's say Andrew was mentioning this,
Speaker 1: So let's say wealth departments are wealth and private banking
Speaker 1: departments of banks in North America with a selected person
Speaker 1: from that US sales team who is focused on those
Speaker 1: target accounts, right with one ABM manager who is going
Speaker 1: to be in charge of that whole program with one
Speaker 1: person from the content team who is going to help
Speaker 1: prepare content for that specific account cluster during the program.
Speaker 1: Forgot to mention very important when we say small scope,
Speaker 1: we mean in terms of the team, we mean in
Speaker 1: terms of the target accounts. The target account cluster. You
Speaker 1: usually advise to only look at up to let's say
Speaker 1: ten accounts per SDR, ten accounts with three buyers per
Speaker 1: account and three months.
Speaker 3: Right, so we.
Speaker 1: Try to develop a program using the six SA framework
Speaker 1: that we mentioned before, so including all these activities from
Speaker 1: awareness through nurturing, two opportunity creation, but within three months.
Speaker 1: When you define a pilot like that, it doesn't require
Speaker 1: additional budget, doesn't require additional technology resources.
Speaker 3: You do this with what you have.
Speaker 1: You do, as under mentioned, you look at everything that
Speaker 1: has been planned that is already on your marketing calendar
Speaker 1: on maybe their sales, has some event that they're going to,
Speaker 1: maybe you have a webinar that you're running, maybe there's
Speaker 1: some content that is going to be published during that period,
Speaker 1: and you look at how you can make it account based,
Speaker 1: how you can leverage what you already have by just
Speaker 1: making it account based. And very importantly it also is
Speaker 1: to define realistic criteria for that pilot.
Speaker 3: Again, I mentioned this before.
Speaker 1: If you have eighteen months sales cycle, it cannot expect
Speaker 1: to generate real sales sales I mean revenue and even
Speaker 1: maybe in some cases not even immediately sales qualified opportunity
Speaker 1: with these enterprise accounts within only three months.
Speaker 3: So you need to.
Speaker 1: Agree with sales and leadership on leading indicators that are
Speaker 1: going to be acceptable.
Speaker 3: So what we usually advise on.
Speaker 1: What we usually do is we first agree that hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, we are not going to be looking
Speaker 1: at big numbers. We are not going to be looking
Speaker 1: at addressing a lot of target accounts. What we are
Speaker 1: looking at is the quality. What we want to be
Speaker 1: able is to create, to engage and create discovery calls
Speaker 1: with our target accounts. So instead of just looking at
Speaker 1: how many let's say meetings are you able to book
Speaker 1: and how much pipeline you're able to generate, we say,
Speaker 1: you know what, if we go and target one hundred
Speaker 1: accounts and in our case we are targeting actually ten
Speaker 1: within a pilot, what is the percent of those accounts
Speaker 1: that you will end up with a meeting and later
Speaker 1: later on sales qualified opportunity. We call this account to
Speaker 1: pipeline ratio. It's essentially a measurement of your conversion, a
Speaker 1: measurement of how efficient your GTM is, and this is
Speaker 1: what we're trying to improve. I think when you start
Speaker 1: talking about, hey, we are going after the biggest these
Speaker 1: best accounts, best of accounts is big banks, for example,
Speaker 1: in the case that Andrew was mentioning, and we are
Speaker 1: trying to engage many, many more of them than today.
Speaker 1: We know that today we need to reach out to
Speaker 1: that many people before we are able to even get
Speaker 1: a single reply. Now we are trying to go and
Speaker 1: let's say, engage thirty forty fifty percent of them and
Speaker 1: end up with something like ten percent of them.
Speaker 3: As a real sales callifil opportunity.
Speaker 1: So I think this is the first aspect of it,
Speaker 1: and the second one is I already mentioned this, but
Speaker 1: just to clarify it, we're looking at leading indicators how
Speaker 1: many of those target accounts are we engaging, how many
Speaker 1: of them are responding to us, how many conversations we're
Speaker 1: able to start, And one leading indicator that very frequently
Speaker 1: is accepted by sales and leadership are the discovery calls
Speaker 1: you're proactively targeting these accounts and you're able to book
Speaker 1: with a high percent of those discovery calls. This is
Speaker 1: usually something that they accept and they know that this
Speaker 1: is anyhow a step that they need to go through
Speaker 1: before they are able to create real pipeline. Finally, very briefly,
Speaker 1: to describe the last two steps. I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time describing that pilot, but it's the most important
Speaker 1: step for a lot of teams. Setting up a proper
Speaker 1: partilet after the pilot is done, before scaling. Especially if
Speaker 1: the pilot was successful, you will have a lot of
Speaker 1: enthusiasm and the leadership will want to do more of that,
Speaker 1: and oh, you had this very successful webinar and you
Speaker 1: did you know, you reach out to these accounts, and
Speaker 1: let's do more of that.
Speaker 3: Let's do more of that every week? Yes, every week, yes,
Speaker 3: every week every week. You first need to take a moment.
Speaker 1: To do the proper retrospect of what work, what didn't work,
Speaker 1: Understand what are the things that you want to improve,
Speaker 1: Document what was working with the real examples and screenshots
Speaker 1: that of the things that you did that you know
Speaker 1: you you've proven that they worked right. And then define
Speaker 1: actually what you advise is within your pedersonalization. That next
Speaker 1: step is to not only document, but also to run
Speaker 1: the second iteration, where you're improving the things that you
Speaker 1: identify during the retrospect that need to.
Speaker 3: Be improved, where you are already.
Speaker 1: Starting to implement AI on the proven processes to make
Speaker 1: sure that they are accelerating and you're starting to form
Speaker 1: your center of excellence, which is what we mentioned already
Speaker 1: is the basis for scaling. And then once you're ready
Speaker 1: to scale, after you have a pressionalized after you have
Speaker 1: moved from a one off success to something that's repeatable,
Speaker 1: and that you have enough support enablement AI enablement materials
Speaker 1: documentation that anybody in the organization can run this same
Speaker 1: process with seventy percent success, then you're ready to start scaling.
Speaker 1: But even then we advise to scale this gradually, not
Speaker 1: immediately share this playbook that you have developed a documentation
Speaker 1: with all the different regions and expect them to just
Speaker 1: do the same, but work as a center of excellence
Speaker 1: as an internal coach, gradually, one by one, working with
Speaker 1: those whatever the structure, internal structure you might have, like regions,
Speaker 1: we often see that regional marketing and sales team, field
Speaker 1: and sales teams or you know, specific business units that
Speaker 1: you want to roll out a BM to work with
Speaker 1: them and gradually adapting the program to their market reality
Speaker 1: in their team and their skill set and their capacity,
Speaker 1: and rolling out the same way, piloting and and and
Speaker 1: then operetializing locally and helping helping that team to to
Speaker 1: roll it out successfully. That is the only way in
Speaker 1: which you can actually change.
Speaker 3: The process and change.
Speaker 1: The go to market processes that these teams are using today,
Speaker 1: because that's what it is. It is fundamentally changing the
Speaker 1: way that these teams work, especially because these teams are
Speaker 1: very frequently not used to work between sales and marketing.
Speaker 1: They're not used to working this way. They're not used
Speaker 1: to be all accountable for the same KPIs right during
Speaker 1: pipeline revenue with those target accounts.
Speaker 3: So there is a lot of change management.
Speaker 1: And that's why you know, doing this in a gredule
Speaker 1: way that we described is the key.
Speaker 2: Good so we can Before we'll move to another principle,
Speaker 2: I just would love to briefly she with you guys
Speaker 2: that we explained in details all three stages and how
Speaker 2: to plement them in our upcommon book that will be
Speaker 2: Life on fifths of me. So if you enjoy our content,
Speaker 2: I guess you'll love the book, and I'm dropping the
Speaker 2: link in the chat where you can preorder it. And
Speaker 2: by the way, also on six of May, we're going
Speaker 2: to run a webinar where I will explain the core
Speaker 2: principles from the book and make a giveaway or for
Speaker 2: everybody who has pre ordered our book, So if you haven't,
Speaker 2: you can do it. But also I'm curious, so let
Speaker 2: us know in the chat if anybody has preorderate it.
Speaker 2: And I'm really curious to see type class or just
Speaker 2: say I have pre ordered.
Speaker 1: Alex, how many blood, sweat and tears went into it, three.
Speaker 2: Years of constant re writing and changing because of all
Speaker 2: the things that we have, all the shift that we
Speaker 2: have noticed. Anyhow, let's come back to the sart principle.
Speaker 2: Blood has sheared the pos framework right, and the part
Speaker 2: of the pilot is the small scope approach. Right For us,
Speaker 2: small scope means picking up maximum ten accounts, and that
Speaker 2: all can if you don't have robust function right, robust motions.
Speaker 2: So when you're just started you pick up ten accounts,
Speaker 2: there's a high likelihood of being converted into sales. Opportunity,
Speaker 2: so at least being converted into discovery calls. Right, So
Speaker 2: what you're going to do next together with sales is
Speaker 2: running in depths account research and preparing an in depth
Speaker 2: account engagement plan. Right, this is the best ABM play
Speaker 2: in NATCHELL that helps you to quickly align together with
Speaker 2: sales and show quick wins. Right when it comes to
Speaker 2: account research. But now a lot of companies don't really
Speaker 2: have an established process. Everybody says, yes, we're doing the
Speaker 2: account research, but the truth to the set every rep
Speaker 2: has owned process. Every app either says this data to
Speaker 2: CRM or maybe to own Google documents or notes or whatever. Right,
Speaker 2: and honestly, there is I have never seen a good
Speaker 2: usage of account research aside from just picking up some
Speaker 2: data points and trying called out bound. Right. I have
Speaker 2: seen you guys are doing this and that let's have
Speaker 2: a discovery. But what is the real goal of the
Speaker 2: account research? First of all, identifying the strategic project This
Speaker 2: company is already invested in money. Because the truth to
Speaker 2: the said, if you if you can't fit your solution
Speaker 2: into where they already put in money, probably you won't
Speaker 2: be able to generate the opportunity. It's just the reality
Speaker 2: of the enterprise buyers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Next, what's happening and these account that is relevant to
Speaker 2: our product? And why? Right? Are they doing any m
Speaker 2: and as are they hiring for specific roles? Do they
Speaker 2: raise money? Whatever is relevant for you? Right that you
Speaker 2: can use and understand better how to fit your product. Next,
Speaker 2: based on all the data that you cannot cover, what
Speaker 2: are the challenges that these accounts are facing, especially when
Speaker 2: it comes to these strategic projects? Right, So what is
Speaker 2: your best guess? Maybe because quite often we're here, but
Speaker 2: we don't really know the challenges because we didn't speak
Speaker 2: to them. That's true, But you need to do your homework.
Speaker 2: Whenever you are engaged on with any account, you need
Speaker 2: to show that A you understand the business and their
Speaker 2: strategic priorities. B you have a solution in place, not
Speaker 2: just let's speak and then figure and we'll figure out
Speaker 2: later what is the best solution for you? Now you
Speaker 2: have an idea of what might be a good solution.
Speaker 2: And then what metrics do we want to influence on
Speaker 2: the account level, because with your product, depending on whom
Speaker 2: you are engaging with rite whom you engage in, that
Speaker 2: could be completely different metrics and Let's say some a
Speaker 2: piece of marketing are still reporting on MTLs. Some piece
Speaker 2: of marketing are reporting on marketing source of marketing influenced revenue,
Speaker 2: some piece of marketing are reporting on pipeline and revenue
Speaker 2: created created together with sales. Right. So, depending on and
Speaker 2: at the same time, you can do this breakdown different
Speaker 2: market and functions, especially in big organizations. Right, depending on
Speaker 2: whom you are engaging, you need to think about what
Speaker 2: would be the most important metric you are going to influence, right,
Speaker 2: that is relevant to the strategic initiatives. And then the
Speaker 2: next step is fixing the account blindness, guess and all interactions,
Speaker 2: all engagements with the accounts that you had. And based
Speaker 2: on this you can identify some non buyers. Right, maybe
Speaker 2: there are some people who are following your company on
Speaker 2: LinkedIn or connected to somebody from your company, some people
Speaker 2: who have attended your webinars, people who are engaging with
Speaker 2: your content, whatever, Right, this helps you to identify the
Speaker 2: non buyers, plus the signals the buying intends, the engagement
Speaker 2: on your website, et cetera. That might give you a
Speaker 2: better understanding of what's going on. What you are going
Speaker 2: to do with all of this with all these data points,
Speaker 2: you create your point of view or account narrative, if
Speaker 2: you will, which means basically, you prepare. This is kind
Speaker 2: of your strategic project. These are the things that are
Speaker 2: happening in your company, I guess, and that these are
Speaker 2: the challenges that you might be facing, and you try
Speaker 2: to fix with this kind of trends that we have
Speaker 2: identified and the signals right that we have seen, and
Speaker 2: this is a potential solution for you. Right, this is
Speaker 2: kind of the entire narrative. The next step, when you
Speaker 2: have the same place, you create a detailed engagement plan
Speaker 2: with every buying committee member. And this is why I
Speaker 2: feel most companies fail at a BM. The best case scenario,
Speaker 2: what we see is the sales outreach cadens with marketing
Speaker 2: air cover, right, But there is no literally planned and
Speaker 2: treatom let's say, list of activities that you as marketing
Speaker 2: and sales go into do every single week with every
Speaker 2: single buyer from a specific account.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That's basically that's the essence of ABM, and that's why
Speaker 2: we mentioned in the beginning and that you need to
Speaker 2: also leverage always on, always on programs. Maybe you're hosting
Speaker 2: the webinar you can invite these people to the webinar
Speaker 2: this specific week you're producing a specific report or an article,
Speaker 2: you can use it and distribute it. And also, uh use,
Speaker 2: let's say such leadership ads to promote it. Whatever. The
Speaker 2: entire point is that you have a constant flow of
Speaker 2: touch points the state top of the mind of your
Speaker 2: strategic buyers. One anecdote that I would love to share.
Speaker 2: I remember months ago I had a conversation with an
Speaker 2: enterprise sales developed development app and we were discussing. I
Speaker 2: was sharing with him a concept of playbooks optimized for
Speaker 2: the long sales cycles, right, and he said, oh, but
Speaker 2: maybe we don't have time to do this. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: fair enough. Let me ask you a question. How many
Speaker 2: touch points per buyer do you make? And he said, well,
Speaker 2: maybe seven to ten? And what are these touch points? Well,
Speaker 2: I send linked and I send connection requests. If they accept,
Speaker 2: I send linked in message, then I send a couple
Speaker 2: of a mail for llaps and I'm asking and what
Speaker 2: happens next If they don't reply, Well, if they don't
Speaker 2: reply after they're seven to ten touch points, then I
Speaker 2: consider them not being in the market, not being interested
Speaker 2: in us, and I just move forward. But my question
Speaker 2: is if you have high average contract well, let's say
Speaker 2: fifty K, sixty K, one hundred k. I'm not even
Speaker 2: talking about millions, right, multimillion deals and let's say started
Speaker 2: from fifty K and you have long sales cycle. How
Speaker 2: many touch points do you need to have?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: If we'll just refer to hockey Stack, which will always
Speaker 2: love to do, right, they share that four deals about
Speaker 2: one hundred k, you need at least four hundred seventeen
Speaker 2: touch points to generate sales apart unity, how can we
Speaker 2: expect that we can generate this opportunity with seven emails
Speaker 2: or messages? So there is a complete mismatch with the
Speaker 2: buying reality, right, the what the data says we need
Speaker 2: to do versus what we are doing. And that's the
Speaker 2: biggest problem honestly in many companies, I would say, but
Speaker 2: it's not blaming anybody, just the reality. In majority of
Speaker 2: companies we have been working with, there is no documented
Speaker 2: plan of engagement strategic buyers week on a weekly basis.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: But the truth is, and the data proves it. If
Speaker 2: we want to generate and it deals with these enterprise accounts,
Speaker 2: we need to narrow down our scope, right, so we're
Speaker 2: making our bets on the accounts that are likely to
Speaker 2: be converted, and then we focus on them. That's the key.
Speaker 2: So that being said, we can move to the most
Speaker 2: popular question about a Yeah, right, and we mentioned this
Speaker 2: principal AI enablement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, thank you. I mentioned this already.
Speaker 1: Essentially, it doesn't make sense to try to just implement
Speaker 1: AI if you don't have a proven process. And that's
Speaker 1: the problem that a lot of companies today are trying
Speaker 1: to optimize, let's say a broken playbook.
Speaker 3: They are running.
Speaker 1: Tactics that are not really working when it comes to
Speaker 1: generating enterprise pipeline revenue, and by then just slapping or
Speaker 1: bolting AI on top of that, it's not going to
Speaker 1: change anything. You're just going to be able to do
Speaker 1: more of that. You're going to be able to create
Speaker 1: more irrelevant content. You're going to be able to reach
Speaker 1: out to more target buyers with the same irrelevant message, or,
Speaker 1: as John Miller put it, with uniquely irrelevant message. Because
Speaker 1: suddenly we have the signals, and AI can kind of
Speaker 1: intern for those signals and can personalize the message. But
Speaker 1: still what we get is, hey, I noticed whatever signal.
Speaker 1: I notice that you're hiring this person, or I notice
Speaker 1: that you know that you just open this new facility
Speaker 1: or whatever the signal is, and then you go and
Speaker 1: then what you see next is a pitch. But the
Speaker 1: pitch is kind of always the same. It's okay, we
Speaker 1: can help companies like yours with one, two, and three.
Speaker 1: How about we book a meeting next week and Monday
Speaker 1: or whatever and discuss and basically trying to book a
Speaker 1: meeting directly with those target buyers. Essentially, that's what I
Speaker 1: think John means by uniquely irrelevant email. It's still irrelevant.
Speaker 1: It's just like personalized here there at the beginning. So
Speaker 1: my point here being is that before actually you have
Speaker 1: proper implementation of AI, you need to have a proper
Speaker 1: pro something that actually works right, otherwise forget about scaling.
Speaker 1: Andred gave a perfect example. He just described what proper
Speaker 1: research account research looks like. If you just go in
Speaker 1: an LLM or Clay or whatever and you just say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, research these target accounts.
Speaker 3: You will get some data. But is this.
Speaker 1: Going to be I mean data nowadays is dime A
Speaker 1: doesn't It's free, It's easy to get. Actually, the problem
Speaker 1: is not that we cannot get the data. The problem
Speaker 1: is the distinguishing signal from noise. Right, So there's just
Speaker 1: so much data that we can easily.
Speaker 3: Get, But what do you do with that data?
Speaker 1: Which of that data is actually relevant, which of this
Speaker 1: data is not relevant? How are you and then next
Speaker 1: how are you going to what are you going to
Speaker 1: do based on this data?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So, for example, you might uncover a buying seat, you know,
Speaker 1: something that you might consider an intens you know, let's
Speaker 1: not call it even a buying signal or a signal
Speaker 1: of what we call the product need evidence, Like is
Speaker 1: there an indication that this account might even have a
Speaker 1: need for our product? And let's say I am selling
Speaker 1: some sort of retail software or service, and I know
Speaker 1: that whenever they open a new retail location, they typically
Speaker 1: is a good buying trigger and they usually have a
Speaker 1: higher need for my product. Right, But first of all,
Speaker 1: looking at that signal in an installation makes no sense.
Speaker 1: You need to look at a complete view, like as
Speaker 1: Andrew mentioned, remove the account blindness. Look at was there
Speaker 1: any previous engagement with that account? Do we have any
Speaker 1: relationship with that with the people who are working in there,
Speaker 1: Do we know if they're using a competitor solution or
Speaker 1: not anything else that might be important for you to
Speaker 1: not only personalize your outreage, but to know that there
Speaker 1: are This is a good moment to reach out and
Speaker 1: connecting these different dots before you do, right, so what
Speaker 1: do you do with that?
Speaker 3: And then also.
Speaker 1: Once you have done this, once you know, okay, what
Speaker 1: is the signal versus noise?
Speaker 3: So what is the data that I want to collect? Next?
Speaker 3: Where can I find this data? Right? So where do
Speaker 3: you typically find this data?
Speaker 1: Okay, so we know that there is like for example,
Speaker 1: every time a retailer opens your locations, they announce it.
Speaker 1: You just go on the website and there is always
Speaker 1: a section with you know, find a store for example. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's how you find the locations. Then next you want
Speaker 1: to know, okay, what is the relevant information that you
Speaker 1: need from that to collect from there, what you need
Speaker 1: to do with that, et cetera. Right, So having clear
Speaker 1: step by step process understanding which data you need and
Speaker 1: how to collect it, what to do with it, and
Speaker 1: then next, as I mentioned already, having a quality benchmark,
Speaker 1: having an example of a count research finished the country
Speaker 1: search from one account where you can show the AI
Speaker 1: what good looks like. Before you run it right. And
Speaker 1: then also important, as we all know, having a person
Speaker 1: in the middle or wherever it's needed, especially the beginning
Speaker 1: understanding what is you know, where there might be a rival,
Speaker 1: because what we see it very often is that, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say we were looking for these new locations. In
Speaker 1: one case, we were looking, for example, for acquisitions recent acquisitions,
Speaker 1: and we were getting alm finding all sorts of acquisitions.
Speaker 1: And although we said very strictly and define the parameters,
Speaker 1: the acquisition has to be within the last twelve months,
Speaker 1: guess what it wasn't like it would very eagerly identify
Speaker 1: acquisitions that happened maybe five years ago, where maybe that
Speaker 1: company was mentioned, but that wasn't relevant for us. I mean,
Speaker 1: these were like old news if we just let to
Speaker 1: then act upon that information, I noticed that you have
Speaker 1: acquired this company, dude, that happened like five years ago
Speaker 1: before my time, Like this is completely irrelevant, right, So
Speaker 1: having that part as well, I think this is something
Speaker 1: that we see very often that are the missing steps
Speaker 1: before basically dropping the AI on that. And then of
Speaker 1: course you can have you might be able not only
Speaker 1: to do more let's say, to research more accounts, not
Speaker 1: only maybe to find more data. But in some cases
Speaker 1: the true value is also that sometimes you're not able
Speaker 1: just to don't have enough time to even do.
Speaker 3: A specific partner the specific process.
Speaker 1: So suddenly you're able to do it and get the
Speaker 1: data and can actually improve the quality of your outreach.
Speaker 1: So definitely, uh, you want to do it. We are
Speaker 1: not against AI. We just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: it comes at the right time and that you're actually
Speaker 1: automating the right processes in the right in the right way.
Speaker 1: So having said that, I'd like to go to the
Speaker 1: next point here about what we described. We develop a
Speaker 1: process first manually, then we implemented with AI. Then we
Speaker 1: need to also train the team because again AI is
Speaker 1: just going to do everything on its own. We mentioned,
Speaker 1: for example, the research as an example. We use the
Speaker 1: research accountry research as an example. So we have what
Speaker 1: are the questions, what is the data? Here's the gold
Speaker 1: standard example, right, And then obviously, like I said, we
Speaker 1: need to know what we are going to do with that.
Speaker 1: The teams might need to use this data in a
Speaker 1: specific context, and the best way to do it is
Speaker 1: you're training not only the AI, but you're also training
Speaker 1: the team and you're also using this in the context
Speaker 1: of we mentioned this already, like in weekly pipeline review meetings.
Speaker 1: We're reviewing the accounts. Okay, this is what the AI
Speaker 1: has found about these accounts. These are new signals, These
Speaker 1: are new insights WAT should marketing basically going back to
Speaker 1: what Andrea was explaining, trying to create then creating the
Speaker 1: actual plan for that account. How are we going to
Speaker 1: engage those buyers, et cetera, et cetera. These are the
Speaker 1: things that the team needs to learn as well, because
Speaker 1: for them it's also going to be new. If you're
Speaker 1: onboarding the new team. That is how you scale it.
Speaker 1: You have a process that is working, you know all
Speaker 1: the details, what good looks like, what are the steps
Speaker 1: you train AI to enable it, to make it repeatable,
Speaker 1: to make some of these things faster or possible.
Speaker 3: Even in some cases.
Speaker 1: Then you also make sure that the teams know how
Speaker 1: to use it because what we have seen is a
Speaker 1: lot of time is we have seen having excellent marketers
Speaker 1: who are really good with AI, who get budgets to
Speaker 1: hire an AI agency, and they build these fantastic sophisticated
Speaker 1: systems with like you know, discovering all these different signals
Speaker 1: and doing all these fantastic research.
Speaker 3: And then nobody's really using that. So and sometimes sales
Speaker 3: might not be even aware that that that this tool exists.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, they see all these data, they see all these signals,
Speaker 1: better not don't know how to use it. This is
Speaker 1: what you want to avoid, just having technology for the
Speaker 1: sake of technology. Uh and and and not actually having
Speaker 1: a process this being run in real teams with real
Speaker 1: accounts by real people. So, Andrea, you want to take
Speaker 1: the next one, how to help the teams with the
Speaker 1: library of content? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we'll cover this one and mod TEL and the
Speaker 2: last two anyhow presented during the presentation of eight PIL
Speaker 2: so we can cover them quickly and then answer some
Speaker 2: of the questions. But the fact I'll share this one.
Speaker 2: Let us know, guys if you would be interested in
Speaker 2: maybe a few workshops about using AI for improving or
Speaker 2: refining ABM processes, because we have been considering and discussing
Speaker 2: this was a lot for quite a lot of time,
Speaker 2: for quite a long time thinking about account based content
Speaker 2: strategy and the count based contents, using AI in the
Speaker 2: sales process, a count research, all of that stuff. If
Speaker 2: that sounds interesting, just type plus in the chat and
Speaker 2: we would love to see how many of you are
Speaker 2: really interested in these topics. So after the book launch
Speaker 2: we can do something. And because we're doing quite a
Speaker 2: lot of implementations, but we just don't post this all
Speaker 2: the time on linked because we really don't spell all
Speaker 2: the weekends in the cloud cut And honestly, the implementation
Speaker 2: is way more easier than the majority of posts that
Speaker 2: we see on linked in. Girls Alexanderta Manley, thank you guys.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's good to hear and to see that
Speaker 2: there is an interest.
Speaker 3: So in May we might.
Speaker 2: Host a few of these workshops. Now, coming back to
Speaker 2: the principal number five, creating class to library of content
Speaker 2: for sales. Uh, that was a great question from him Anderson.
Speaker 2: The best way to get salespeople in front of the
Speaker 2: engaged accounts? And honestly, this is one of the easiest ways,
Speaker 2: right Why because if an account is already in the
Speaker 2: sales process, sales will tell you, okay, leave me alone,
Speaker 2: I know what to do. I will close that deal, right,
Speaker 2: I will just engage that account and my own. But
Speaker 2: if there is an engaged account that is not in
Speaker 2: the pipeline, this is where the things become interested. Right,
Speaker 2: So they can't just again all no, if they will
Speaker 2: just reach out and try to teach problem, nothing will happen.
Speaker 2: We have already discussed. So what is the best way
Speaker 2: to stay top of the mind heaven sumption that is
Speaker 2: that can add value to the existing threats, right, and
Speaker 2: this is the content in any format. So when it
Speaker 2: comes to cluster approach, we often repurpose the existing content
Speaker 2: and define what are the assets that we need to
Speaker 2: create for our sales reps that they would be willing
Speaker 2: to share on linked In, in the communities or in
Speaker 2: let's say private conversations with target accounts. What's some messages, emails,
Speaker 2: any channel you can think about. Right, So this is
Speaker 2: a joint planning process. We always involve sales into it,
Speaker 2: and part of it is created evolved with the existing
Speaker 2: pieces of content. Highlight and Okay, these are the cluster
Speaker 2: challenges of whenever you are doing the why it's helpful
Speaker 2: because if you'll think about this principle that we have
Speaker 2: shared a couple of minutes ago, right, whenever you created
Speaker 2: the trailed account plan and whenever you are doing this
Speaker 2: account research, you can immediately match the existing content to
Speaker 2: the account narrative and account plan that you have created. Right,
Speaker 2: So when sales clearly see the connection between these dots,
Speaker 2: they would be willing to publish it. Right, And then
Speaker 2: the magic happens. If you look again at the example
Speaker 2: of how a client right the same cluster different selles reps. Right,
Speaker 2: you can see three different people, but all of them
Speaker 2: they are not creating the content on their own. They're
Speaker 2: just leveraged and something that are really important and something
Speaker 2: that have been created by marketing so far, and marketing
Speaker 2: helps them to boost this post vise sort leadership ads
Speaker 2: to the set of strategic accounts they are covering. Right.
Speaker 2: The best think about this approach is that later this
Speaker 2: library can be leveraged by any self. The fact let's
Speaker 2: say that Patter has published this post and he is
Speaker 2: located in one region, right, doesn't mean that another person,
Speaker 2: Let's say, I can't just pick up that post and
Speaker 2: publish six months later, five months later, right when I
Speaker 2: would be relevant for them and maybe just telloring it
Speaker 2: a little bit. So this is the easiest process to
Speaker 2: help yourselfs people to get in front of your target accounts.
Speaker 2: They are connected with these people every single day, right,
Speaker 2: This is something that helps them to attract their attention,
Speaker 2: to state up of their mind I mean to stay
Speaker 2: up of the mind of the target prospects right. Something
Speaker 2: that they can use to start or to open the conversation,
Speaker 2: even to get the feedback right on specific pieces, something
Speaker 2: that they can use to facil the existence threat with
Speaker 2: these prospects. And this is our goal as a marketing
Speaker 2: team to prepare this library. Basically it's a part of
Speaker 2: sales and ablement, so they can use it. Our goal
Speaker 2: is just to explain how they can use it and
Speaker 2: how can we help with them and does that being said,
Speaker 2: we have two last principles which I think we can
Speaker 2: just very briefly cover because we're already.
Speaker 1: Share them absolutely. We mentioned the key important thing. One
Speaker 1: of the most important things to make the project execution,
Speaker 1: the pilot project execution and later on an ABM program
Speaker 1: work are the weekly planning in REV team meetings. These
Speaker 1: are or we call them sometimes ABM pipeline REVW meetings
Speaker 1: where you have the complete cross functional team. You have
Speaker 1: represented from sales, from marketing, you have your content person,
Speaker 1: you have the ABM lead, you have people and what
Speaker 1: you do is the first thing is you share the
Speaker 1: accounting science and the account engagement and any other signals
Speaker 1: that you or your AI might have collected. So you
Speaker 1: review those accounts. So what do you do with that information? Well,
Speaker 1: first you say, hey, you know what, let's review these
Speaker 1: accounts that we believed were kind of active focused and
Speaker 1: we should focus on them strongly. But we see that
Speaker 1: they're actually after you know, different trials.
Speaker 3: After a period of.
Speaker 1: Time, they're not engaging. Maybe we should demote them and
Speaker 1: kind of like put them on kind of a nurturing track.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, we are seeing these accounts
Speaker 1: like being more engaged, we are getting more information, so
Speaker 1: maybe we.
Speaker 3: Need to focus more on them.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, is a prioritization is the first step,
Speaker 1: so you never look at the account list as something static.
Speaker 1: It's dynamic and you update it every week. Second is, oh,
Speaker 1: what about those accounts that are engaging? What about those signals?
Speaker 1: What should we do? This is the next step account planning,
Speaker 1: And they give you a really good framework for that.
Speaker 3: About how we should plan.
Speaker 1: But essentially, we'll look at all the information that we have,
Speaker 1: we look at the signals three hundred and sixty you
Speaker 1: all together, and then we decide Okay, what are maybe
Speaker 1: the pieces of content that we could use to engage
Speaker 1: that account.
Speaker 3: Maybe we need to write.
Speaker 1: An account love letter or another piece of content for
Speaker 1: that account. What are the other things that marketing can do?
Speaker 1: Maybe you know there is an upcoming event that we
Speaker 1: can invite those that account or the buyers and that
Speaker 1: account into. Oh we have this market research or this
Speaker 1: content collaboration that we could invite those buyers into. Right,
Speaker 1: so what should sales do? How sales should engage with them?
Speaker 1: So having clarity on what happened with that account and
Speaker 1: what we need to do with the buyers within those accounts,
Speaker 1: Next we review leading indicators so to know the progress
Speaker 1: of the program. Are we, first of all on track?
Speaker 1: Did we do what we plan to do? Are we
Speaker 1: hitting the targets that we set for ourselves in terms
Speaker 1: of the number of accounts that we engaged in terms
Speaker 1: of the things that we said we would do for example,
Speaker 1: since the last week, are we going in the right direction?
Speaker 1: This also gives you an idea about the helps you
Speaker 1: also understand whether there are some blocking points, which is
Speaker 1: kind of the last point where you're retrospective, like what's
Speaker 1: doing well, what's actually maybe blocking us and where does
Speaker 1: the team maybe need some help. This is really important
Speaker 1: to uncover these bottlenecks on time and not wait until
Speaker 1: you know, just seeing the thing not working without actually
Speaker 1: seeing what is causing the team not to be able
Speaker 1: to deliver what they or to create the results that
Speaker 1: they set out to create. And of course reviewing the
Speaker 1: effectiveness of the program with these indicators. Then one last,
Speaker 1: not the least point and if you want to comment
Speaker 1: on that reporting and looking.
Speaker 2: At basically, when it comes to measure and write, you
Speaker 2: need to show the holistic journey and the progress. If
Speaker 2: you can't report on revenue, what metrics can you report
Speaker 2: on the progress you're making with the accounts right? And
Speaker 2: then these are the most important saying. You show the
Speaker 2: leadion indicators, how much afford you are putting it to
Speaker 2: engage specific accounts, right, your activities, the legan indicators. The
Speaker 2: legan indicators could be the discovery calls, book the replies right,
Speaker 2: the sign ups for example for the webinar from specific
Speaker 2: target accounts for the field event that you are running.
Speaker 2: And then this is the prioritization framework that we have
Speaker 2: mentioned in the beginning, which helps us to track account velocity.
Speaker 2: How fast can we move all accounts from being completely
Speaker 2: unaware to accounts we are actively working on creating sales
Speaker 2: opportunity right? CLUSTERICP in other let's say framework means that
Speaker 2: this are the cold accounts that just fit your ICP criteria,
Speaker 2: but they don't know you and you have no idea
Speaker 2: about their product needs. And active focus accounts accounts with
Speaker 2: whom you have the relationship that hit your engagement threshold,
Speaker 2: hit your engagement criteria. You have done the account research,
Speaker 2: you have mapped the buying committee, you have some ongoing conversations,
Speaker 2: and you're working on fully personalized activation to create a
Speaker 2: sales opportunity. Right, this is the best indicator because then
Speaker 2: you can easily measure one and if you'll ask, if
Speaker 2: you'll receive a question, okay, but how can we make
Speaker 2: any of for a cost what we can expect out
Speaker 2: of it? Right later, whenever you'll be doing this program,
Speaker 2: you'll be able to track one specific metric account to
Speaker 2: Pipelin ratio. Right, how many accounts that you were proactively
Speaker 2: targeting became sales opportunities and then it becomes a benchmark.
Speaker 2: You have your average con tract value so you can
Speaker 2: always articulate that. Let's say an our active focus, we
Speaker 2: have let's say eight accounts. Each account. Each account's value
Speaker 2: is two hundred k. So let's say the total set
Speaker 2: is whatever, one million, six one hundred thousand dollars for example,
Speaker 2: and then our account to pipeline ratio is whatever, let's
Speaker 2: say fifteen percent, twenty percent, so we expect one to
Speaker 2: deals coming out of it. So they expected pipeline value
Speaker 2: would be around like six hundred to four hundred k. Right,
Speaker 2: So more or less, this would be the best way
Speaker 2: to connect the dots between your activities and the matrix
Speaker 2: the leadership cares above. So that's that's that's the last principle, right.
Speaker 2: But if you can show that progress, then inevitably you'll
Speaker 2: get a lot of questions, and if you can't explain
Speaker 2: the way how you think about converting rate these activities
Speaker 2: and revenue, inevitably that would be a lot of tough
Speaker 2: and unpleasant conversations. But if you'll create this and if
Speaker 2: once you'll on board the leadership and agree that this
Speaker 2: is the report you're going to track, run and report on,
Speaker 2: then you'll be able to run successful ADIM programs. And
Speaker 2: has that being said again, just wanted to mention that
Speaker 2: most of these things were cow really and structured and
Speaker 2: telled way how to implement them step by step. And
Speaker 2: now a book that will be published on the fifths
Speaker 2: of me So thanks to everybody who has already pre
Speaker 2: ordered it. And yeah, we can answer a couple of questions.
Speaker 2: Feel fit to drop your questions in the chat. One
Speaker 2: of the things, I'm just going through the file with
Speaker 2: the questions that you guys have submitted before these webinars,
Speaker 2: So what maybe you'll you can cover this one from Arthur.
Speaker 2: The question is what is an average ACV or LTV
Speaker 2: of clients that makes sense of ABM. So when ABM
Speaker 2: basically makes sense in terms of unit.
Speaker 1: Economics, absolutely, what we say is you want to have
Speaker 1: a situation where you have at least thirty k ACV.
Speaker 1: I always think about like fifty k plus. A lot
Speaker 1: of our clients have deals that are six figures or larger.
Speaker 1: What you're also looking at is the complexity of the
Speaker 1: buying committee structure. So if you have one buyer, it's
Speaker 1: different than you have multiple buyers that.
Speaker 3: You need to influence.
Speaker 1: Right, that's a good fit for ABM if it is
Speaker 1: a complex and long sale cycle. But this very often
Speaker 1: goes on in hand with the size of the deal.
Speaker 1: And when I say this, it doesn't mean that the
Speaker 1: average of all of your deals over all of everything
Speaker 1: that you sell has to be let's say fifty k.
Speaker 1: It means that maybe you want to apply ABM within
Speaker 1: your enterprise segment where do you have these higher deal sizes. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily it is about applying it in the
Speaker 1: part of your GTM where you have these larger deal sizes.
Speaker 2: And another one, yes, I see one more question that
Speaker 2: we haven't covered on this session. How do you help
Speaker 2: sales teams shipt their mindset from traditional sales to ABM
Speaker 2: question from Anna. Honestly, we're all at the TEL to
Speaker 2: article ABM as a new operational model where we describe
Speaker 2: how to get buy in from sales leaders to credulely
Speaker 2: shift from old school sales to account based motion on substack.
Speaker 2: But I will share a few core principles. First of all,
Speaker 2: you can always lead by data right and look at
Speaker 2: the existent motion. If the existent motion performs well, and
Speaker 2: then hitt on that targets, probably you won't be able
Speaker 2: to do a lot right. Who will be willing to
Speaker 2: change what is working right now? Right? But then if
Speaker 2: you know that the current approach is not working, then
Speaker 2: you need to make a detailed decomposition right of the data.
Speaker 2: You need to do detailed comparison and backed by industry data.
Speaker 2: For example, if you guys have ever seen Pavilions research,
Speaker 2: I remember I once read the research about what was
Speaker 2: called bit to B sales benchmarks. So they shared that
Speaker 2: the performance of traditional sales model dropped across every revenue metric.
Speaker 2: So when rates I just found it, when rates down
Speaker 2: by eighteen percent, gm VEALU is down twenty one percent,
Speaker 2: sales cycles up sixteen percent, nine of reps missed quota.
Speaker 2: Now a few more interesting facts. Another research focused digital
Speaker 2: shows that in complex bit to B sis, the average
Speaker 2: account to pipeline ratio is zero dot zero three percent.
Speaker 2: That means that for every three thousand accounts you touch
Speaker 2: this just standard out bound sequences, you'll be able to
Speaker 2: generate one sales opportunity. Obviously, these are general, this is
Speaker 2: generic and pro data. But anyhow, right, can we see
Speaker 2: the consequence and can we see another layer of proof
Speaker 2: for these data points? I would say yes, because that
Speaker 2: was another research from Emergency Capital and they reported that
Speaker 2: such six percent of five hundred sixty tech B to
Speaker 2: B sas companies actually decrease the BDR or SDR head count,
Speaker 2: and we have seen that there were a lot of
Speaker 2: layoffs among SDRs. Isn't it the best indicator or the
Speaker 2: best proof that sunsms should be changed? Right about the
Speaker 2: way how we're working? So honestly, the entire point is
Speaker 2: you need to bring the data. You need to bring
Speaker 2: your proprietary data about the performance of this playbook, right,
Speaker 2: and then you need to bring the industry data and
Speaker 2: then sit down together and design the small scope pilot. Right,
Speaker 2: just a simple way how we describe it today, picking
Speaker 2: up maybe ten accounts together with VP of sales or
Speaker 2: with anybody from the senior leadership. You can also do
Speaker 2: it with just one sales rep and thinking about what
Speaker 2: are the best accounts that could be really converted into
Speaker 2: sales opportunities?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: What are the common characteristics? What tells us that they
Speaker 2: might be converted into sales opportunities? Okay, cool? Next, what
Speaker 2: can we do what do we need to know about
Speaker 2: these accounts to create a solution for them to create
Speaker 2: a personalized offer? Right? Okay, this becomes the foundation for
Speaker 2: your count research and plastly, how can we leverage existent
Speaker 2: activities to build a relationship to engage the buyers for
Speaker 2: the buying group right of these accounts to create a
Speaker 2: sales opportunities with them. So in natur how that would
Speaker 2: be the simple plan. And then you run your experiment,
Speaker 2: you define the success cretera together over sales right over
Speaker 2: sales leadership, and then you'll have a good data to
Speaker 2: compare against the current motion. So one, yeah, you want
Speaker 2: to pick up.
Speaker 3: No like quick quick two cents? How do you coin sales? Right?
Speaker 3: I think at the end, what is the thing the reality?
Speaker 1: The reality is that sales believes the results.
Speaker 3: I mean it's.
Speaker 1: Whatever we say, whatever story we tell, whatever data we bring,
Speaker 1: they will be at least skeptical. And that's why doing
Speaker 1: this pilot with one we call change agent or champion, right,
Speaker 1: the sales champion somebody who is going to have a
Speaker 1: more open mind, who is more going to be willing
Speaker 1: to try different kinds of attechts, who understands that, you know,
Speaker 1: what they're doing right now is not working and that
Speaker 1: they need to try something different, who understands that the
Speaker 1: buyer process has changed. They're just reaching out is not
Speaker 1: working well. I think this is the key because then
Speaker 1: when you can show because like once you're able to
Speaker 1: run this pilot with that salesperson who is the champion,
Speaker 1: and then show that hey, now that we're doing things differently,
Speaker 1: we are also having better results, then you will have
Speaker 1: also the attention of the rest of the sales So
Speaker 1: that's like a really important piece because just saying things
Speaker 1: and just showing the data won't be enough to convince
Speaker 1: the complete sales team. It's just the reality. But sorry, Andrew,
Speaker 1: you wanted to pick up one more question.
Speaker 2: Now I think we have covered all of them. So
Speaker 2: with that being said, thank you so much guys for
Speaker 2: fantastic questions and hope you found this episode valuable. Next
Speaker 2: week will have an episode with Slomagenhen who was at
Speaker 2: Awa sum and I really enjoy his presentations about B
Speaker 2: to B ads, so stay tuned. Will announce it on Monday.
Speaker 2: Would be really cool, cool episode, and then on week
Speaker 2: of six of May, we'll host a webinar about the
Speaker 2: full final framework. So have a great rest of the
Speaker 2: week and see you ther next episodes. Take care, guys, Cheers,