In case you couldn’t make it to SiriusDecisions’ Summit 2013 Europe in London, here are some highlights from day two:
Today’s sessions started off with a lively presentation by Andrew Slipper, CMO of Dassault Systemes SA, a global supplier that supports the design of complex engineered products. He shared the journey of building Dassault’s new marketing organization, which is driving a move away from marketing products and toward marketing experiences.
SiriusDecisions co-founder and managing director John Neeson then presented “B-to-B Marketing and Selling: New Roles, New Responsibilities,” reminding the audience that it makes no sense trying to adopt new sales and marketing strategies, processes and tactics using the same old organizational structures. John discussed which b-to-b sales and marketing roles have changed – or are ready to change – and which new roles are emerging, as well as how to combat the current dearth of marketing skills.
Next up, Jonathan Block gave us insight into “Tomorrow’s Sales and Marketing Technology Ecosystem Today.” Jonathan told participants that investment in sales and marketing technologies continues to rise, but few companies view these purchases from an integrated perspective. As a result, organizations end up lacking the strategies, skills and processes required to take maximum advantage of these systems. Jonathan provided a roadmap for building an integrated technology stack, along with the required skill sets and processes to ensure success.
Marisa Kopec presented “Personas: The Most Granular Level of Buyer Knowledge,” explaining that b-to-b marketing and selling effectiveness depends on understanding a range of buyer interaction needs and content preferences throughout the buying process. As organizations strive to “sell higher” in buying organizations, they must pinpoint and tailor content specifically for senior executives who influence and control the decisionmaking process. Marisa outlined a data-driven approach to cataloguing buyer personas within organizations’ sales systems, and discussed how a persona-based audience can be attracted to Web properties and social media channels, driving better inbound marketing results.
After lunch, Lisa Redekop, global head of GSAM Academy – Learning, Development and Sales Enablement with Thomson Reuters' Financial and Risk division, spoke about her company’s sales enablement efforts, which increased the productivity and effectiveness of the organization’s field force.
Shifting focus toward the sales function, Jim Ninivaggi presented “50 Hours: The Aligned Way to Drive B-to-B Sales Productivity.” Why 50 hours? Well, this is the amount of time a typical b-to-b sales rep could be selling each week. Jim asked a simple question: Are your reps achieving maximum results from their 50 hours? If not, sales and marketing had better get working – together – to improve rep yield. Look at sales productivity using SiriusDecisions’ “yield per hour” metric and learn how to leverage marketing's help to minimize the time spent on low-yield tasks. Jim advised that marketing conduct a review to pinpoint how it can impact sales productivity.
In the penultimate session, Laz Gonzalez and Tony Jaros explained that SiriusDecisions’ rearchitected Demand Waterfall isn’t just for use in a direct sales environment; its new stages shine a spotlight on lead management processes in a channel environment. “The Rearchitected Waterfall in the Channel” presentation illustrated how to avoid common pitfalls while increasing lead performance through partners at each critical waterfall stage. Laz and Tony presented the core elements required to develop a lead management framework aligned with different channel partner types and how leading organizations are sharpening their reporting to improve the value of channel marketing efforts.
The final presentation, hosted by Jay Gaines, was “The SiriusDecisions Unified Integration Model,” which merged SiriusDecisions’ marketing, sales and product frameworks – such as the Demand Waterfall, Product Marketing and Management Model, Sales Enablement Framework and Channel TRED Model – to establish a shared understanding of goals, processes, measurements and market perspectives. With a unified view of best-in-class sales and marketing models, Jay was able to wow the audience with practical, consistent and pragmatic models that drive both marketing and sales productivity.
Armed with best-practice experience and advice, our European Summit participants are ready to face the year ahead.
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