At the risk of sounding like a broken record, We Have Lost Our Way in B2B. Between the Tech Founder Ecosystem and the Content Cabal, there’s way too much GTM nonsense flooding the B2B space.
Remember that the Tech Founders are flush with cash, trying to hawk their wares, and what it takes to land funding is not what it takes to land and keep your customers. Yet they are loud and flashy and overly influential.
What they have in common with the Content Cabal is that they often use shame to denigrate prospects (how does this even work for them yet it does). What you’re doing is terrible or DEAD, what they’re telling you to do is KING and magical.
Here’s what to keep in mind regarding The Content Cabal (including the marketing automation platforms): they are selling to Marketers. Nothing wrong with Marketers, but they have some quirks as a buying function. What has worked for *them* in selling to Marketers will likely work for you, if you’re selling to Marketers. If you’re not, then their advice that they are firehosing in to the market likely won’t be effective in how you market to your different functional areas.
Consequently there’s a whole lotta noise in the market that is, at best, not helpful and at worst it’s harmful. Let’s start addressing the bad stuff head on.
My Top 5 #B2BPetPeeves
1. Worshipping at the altar of Automation & Scale is a fail.
We have completely carved the human out of the equation. Our inboxes are overflowing with nutso sale messaging. We are automating and scaling the worst, most tone-deaf comms. Our comms out aren’t human and the humans we try to engage with agree. It’s why conversion rates are abysmal.
- Gartner’s Hank Barnes has something to say about this in his The Tyranny of More
- And don’t miss KazooHR’s Casey Carey and their rejection of Tonnage Lead Gen
2. (ridiculous questions) Where should Inside Sales report – Marketing or Sales?
Let me take care of this once and for all. Salespeople need to report to proper sales leadership. It’s fundamental to their growth and development.
Full stop: If someone is actually selling they should report to a proper sales leader. Don’t @ me.
3. We Have Failed our Salespeople and Prospects Who Need Us
And any of us that touch, direct, write, or program sales activities, we have failed. We’ve also failed our customers and our prospects; terrific humans who need our solutions but we can’t break through to them with bland, repetitive messages stamped on to soggy bread, hurled at their faces. This has to stop. Here’s a good start: We Have Failed our Salespeople.
4. Can’t keep throwing flawed emerging tech on broken foundation tech.
Look I’m not smart enough to fix this but surely someone else is. And if we can’t fix this in the interim, I’d sure like vendors to be held more responsible and accountable when all the inevitable integration flaws multiply like weeds.
Customers are drowning in productivity debt. We spend countless hours cobbling together data, jumping integration moats between apps, trying to remember where stuff is saved – shall I go on? The foundational tech is flawed and we’re plugging gaps with bandaid-tech-point-solutions. And it’s killing our productivity – but who will solve for this?
5. Prioritizing Searchers over the non Searchers
Yes, yes, SEO is an easy tool for serving folks who are searching. But guess what? IF they’re searching, they know they have pain, they’ve quantified it and they’re looking at a lot of options. That’s not a great place for you, the selling organization to be.
Remember, there’s a whole swath of the market who has pain, doesn’t know it, hasn’t quantified it, and aren’t looking. If you and your team can be first to bubble up that paid for them and how to solve it, if you can get them to think “ugh yes they know us we have exactly that issue and it’s painful,” you are a hero.
My marketing perspective here: Why Prioritizing *Not* Searching Over Searching Is Critical to CRO
Dave Brock’s sales perspective here: What If They Aren’t Looking?
The folks who approach B2B with reason and care are few and far between. Let’s be those people and grow that community. You in?
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