Is lead nature — who the prospect is — that matters in B2B marketing?

Or what I do to keep in touch and build a relationship — lead nurture — that predicts lead value and conversion to sales opportunity?

To get anything done in a B2B complex sale, you’re not just Selling to The Senior Executive Wo/Man.
That’s why it’s complex.
It’s tempting, especially for salespeople, to depend on just a single contact, champion, or coach inside the client company. Giving in to this temptation? Watch for l-o-n-n-n-g sales cycles, clients who [...]

In a world of limited time, finite means, and pressure for results, what not to do?
When marketing is under-resourced, it tends to stop listening to the customer (if it ever did), because listening requires a cessation of action. What happens next? Recycling whatever you said and did in the last campaign. Talking to all [...]

It’s book review time again. Perhaps you’ve heard that sales people have a rant about marketing people (and others) who don’t understand what sales people do. Today’s book is a nice little vaccine against Complete Sales Ignorance.
The Elevator Summary: Most books about selling are of little use in understanding the psychological world of selling. Sandler [...]

Which of these is true for your company? How are you going to fix it?

Your customers are focused on their own issues — and don’t see you as relevant to those concerns. Are you talking to the wrong people or companies? Are you trying to sell too broadly? Do you simply need to better [...]

As a matter of fact, and especially in the B2B world, people CAN buy a product or service from you – and not know you exist. And in any B2B sale I can think of, and also many consumer purchases, awareness is not enough.

Now that we’ve admitted that we aren’t customers, we can progress to step 2: actually talking to a customer.
Ironically, the closest many marketing people come to the sales cycle is the 2-way glass in the focus group facility.
Which is nice. But you’ll learn the most, and fastest, about your customers (in the B2B complex sale) [...]

Book report time again.
The Elevator Summary: The book isn’t santimonious about Six Sigma or process design. It makes rigorous tools and structured thinking readable, and relevant to complex B2B selling and marketing. He’s also clear that process is not a goal.
Standout Moments: These processes began in manufacturing. What the book does brilliantly is give the [...]