March 11, 2025 โข 45 mins
In this episode of Fullfunnel Live, we talked about how to handle leadership objections about demand gen & ABM.
๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ฌ๐ผ๐โ๐น๐น ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป:
โข The root reasons behind sales and leadership pushback for demand gen and ABM
โข How to address the most common objections: the data and proof points you need to collect โข How to prepare internal business cases to get a buy-in
๐ก As always, we share real live examples and answer your questions, making this episode a must-watch for marketers and sales professionals alike.
๐ Donโt forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights on ABM, content strategy, and B2B marketing!
RESOURCES
On-Demand B2B Marketing Courses: https://fullfunnel.io/b2b-marketing-courses/
Full-Funnel Insider - A Marketing Newsletter For B2B Marketers: https://fullfunnel.io/marketing-newsletter/
Join our community for B2B marketers - The Trenches: https://trenches.community/
Upcoming events: https://lu.ma/fullfunnel/events
Full-Funnel Marketing Content Hub: https://fullfunnel.io/blog
Vladimir on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladimirblagojevic/
Andrei on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azinkevich/
๐ช๐ต๐ฎ๐ ๐ฌ๐ผ๐โ๐น๐น ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ป:
โข The root reasons behind sales and leadership pushback for demand gen and ABM
โข How to address the most common objections: the data and proof points you need to collect โข How to prepare internal business cases to get a buy-in
๐ก As always, we share real live examples and answer your questions, making this episode a must-watch for marketers and sales professionals alike.
๐ Donโt forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more insights on ABM, content strategy, and B2B marketing!
RESOURCES
On-Demand B2B Marketing Courses: https://fullfunnel.io/b2b-marketing-courses/
Full-Funnel Insider - A Marketing Newsletter For B2B Marketers: https://fullfunnel.io/marketing-newsletter/
Join our community for B2B marketers - The Trenches: https://trenches.community/
Upcoming events: https://lu.ma/fullfunnel/events
Full-Funnel Marketing Content Hub: https://fullfunnel.io/blog
Vladimir on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladimirblagojevic/
Andrei on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azinkevich/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is the Full Funnel B to B Marketing podcast,
brought to you by full Funnel dot io. Let's start here,
Hello everybody, and while waiting for Andrew to join us,
I'd like to kick this off and give you an
intro about what we are going to be talking about today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And today we want to share with you the main
objections that we and our audience has observed when it
comes to introducing new programs such as ABM and demand Generation.
This time we had a lot of people contribute. I
reached out to our network and just us like what
are some of the top objections that you have experienced,
(00:47):
and people overwhelmingly shared really cool insights and a.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Lot of these objections.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Obviously we have seen in the past ourselves, from our clients,
from our prospects, sales, so it's interesting to see these
patterns emerge there. So today what we want to share
with you are the root reason behind the reasons why,
the rout reason behind reason while sales and leadership may
(01:16):
push back against Demand Generation, ABM new programs, and how
to address the most common objections.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
What is the data?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
What are the proof points that you need to collect
so you address this And as always we all share
the real life examples how to prepare as well an
internal business case so that you can get the buy
in from the key stakeholders. And with that said, let's
(01:50):
dive in. But that's always always good to know where
you all are joining us from. As always we are
joining from Valencia and soon they will join also from
ll L, but on our drive up to the north
towards Barcelona, from a city of Valencia where I am.
Let us know where you're journeying from. And you know
(02:11):
what as well, if you have met any objections when
you were suggesting, you know, to introduce an ABM program
or demand generation program, you'll free to share and will
prioritize those and will share exactly how to share how
to address excuse me and those objections? What data do
(02:33):
you need to prepare and present? And I'd like to
kick off as maybe you're thinking and sharing, I'd like
to kick off by sharing some of the root reasons
of why the sales and leadership push back. What is
(02:55):
kind of the root there and some of the root treasons.
Some of the things that we have observed when working
with B to B companies is that with sales there
can be kind of a protective mindset. And what I
mean by that is that, especially when it comes to
account executives, they have the accounts that they're working on,
(03:20):
they have personal investments, you know, their commission and compensation
being dependent on the success in those accounts, and you know,
this is basically kind of their core asset, and they
don't really want to share contacts or make introductions to
(03:45):
their accounts, and they don't maybe if they didn't have
previous successful experience with marketing, they might also not want
you to quote unquote mess up their relationship with those
super important count So I think this is like very
frequently something.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
That we see.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And then especially when marketing doesn't have domain knowledge, and
when we talk to salespeople, what we often hear is
that their perception, at least of marketing is that they
don't really understand the buyer personas they don't really understand
(04:26):
what it takes to sell or in other words, what
are the ways that buyers buy, what are the reasons
why they decide to buy, What are the questions that
I have as they are making that decision, evaluating your product, et.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And this is something that we see very often, especially
when there is that perception that marketing doesn't have the
domain knowledge. Obviously you will experience that pushback as well.
Hi Andre, welcome to your own show. Hello and thanks thanks,
(05:06):
thanks for joining us. I basically gave an intro into
what we're talking and started addressing the root treasons, mentioning
the protective mindset that experienced, especially the account executives, and then
also the lack of domain knowledge, especially.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
When it comes to.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The buying process, the challenges that the buyers have, who
is involved their questions, why do they buy a product?
Your product, your solution, and that so we want to
address the other rud reasons I give you.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I think overall you did create job covering ever acent.
The biggest problem though, is how to handle these objections right.
I feel that the best There are actually two things
that you need to have in mind. You need to
(06:08):
understand the connection right or basically the background of this
challenge aside from the rout reason why. Because let's say
you want to initiate there is a problem in your company,
let's say decrease in marketing source pipeline and marketing is
(06:30):
pushed to generate revenue. Now you start having conversations with
sales and they complain about lack of vendor awareness, et cetera.
You want to introduce demand generation for example, right, but
you start sharing the processes with let's say sales leader
(06:54):
and suddenly you start hearing the objections. That's kind of
make you stuck. I will give you a very practical example.
I remember a conversation with one client that hired and
your sales leader. Right. So with that company, we were
building for nine months ahis of ABM and demand generation motion,
(07:17):
and we were doing one of you webinars for a
set of strategic accounts. A sales leader and your sales
leader king and said, why should we do? Why should
we continue doing these webinars? If people are willing to
listen for suta minutes to our cito, then they would
be willing to have a chat with me like why
(07:38):
edging this actual layer? Anyhow, they come to this webinar
and we want to pitch them, why not just pitching
them immediately? And so obviously you can speak about the
root reasons, right, but you also need to understand another
like the prior of let's say, the background of this
(08:00):
alene I feel and in this case The situation is
that this person over promised to the CEO of the company.
Right next this person was before was running Lee generation agency,
and from that perspectively, you never did any demand generation
or whatever. Right. All his messaging was about like how
(08:24):
to feel in your calendars, like numbers, hundreds of minutest
digital accounts, and the company bought it in, right. That's
so this is the problem. Obviously in this case, you
won't be able to change a lot. The company needs
to learn the lesson the hard way, unfortunately. But when
the company learns that lesson, you need to have the
(08:46):
data around and I think that basically how you can
start handling it. You need to collect the data about
the performance of your current playbox. That could be outbound playbook,
could be paid advertisement, whatever, right, could be tag shows
I know, and then show the progress. Right, so this
(09:09):
is our conversion rate? For example, like we sent a
lot of you know a lot of companies they just
present the stats of their outbound saying, hey, we booked
like one hundred fifty millions last year and that's it.
But nobody makes connection to sales opportunities and to win
rates right out of these meetings. That's the fast problem.
(09:33):
You need to collect this data and then basically present
connected to the revenue targets for this year. So let's
say this year we want to hit whatever like fifty
millions in in revenue. Right, that means if we continue
running our playbook, we need to considering these conversions. We
(09:53):
need to spend whatever like one hundred thousand accounts to
be able to get this kind of number of mediums
that would be converted, and the sales opportunities. That's the
first thing, right, the second one showing the current revenue trajectory.
So let's say it's March already, you've been running this
playbooks for two months, right, what is your current revenue status?
(10:17):
And like if the things would be continuing, because if
you'll continue running these playbooks, well you'll end up this, yeah, right,
by how much you will miss the targets. Because if
you can't make this clear, right, if you want to
make this problem visible and you if you want connect
the dots to the missed revenue targets, it would be
(10:41):
hard to address any objection. Basically, you need to present
the cost of an action, like what if we are
not going to change anything in that company? Right? So
these are the basic things, but then you can, like obviously,
the next step would be presenting solutions, right, well, like
(11:01):
when you get the at least understanding and buy in
for the problem. And that's if you're not going to
solve it, your company will miss the targets. And this
is this is the only metric your CFO and c
see okay about right, So this this is the number
one and when when you make it visible, when they
support it. Next you start presenting your solution. Could the A,
(11:25):
B M, demand generation, investing in toprend whatever doesn't really matter.
And from that perspective, the funny part starts. This is
why you can hear a lot of objections. So what
did a fantastic job reaching out our network and collected
multiple objections when it comes to demand generation to account
(11:49):
based marketing? Uh and I think for like literally they
represent the kind of the objections that entire bit to
the market a community faces every single day. So what
I would I think would be cool to do next
is to go through through these objections and just present
(12:11):
them and discuss how to handle them the best practices.
So let's start with the first one. I would be
I would ask you a lot to share this one
ABM as expensive, and the context behind this objection.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Absolutely I think that a lot of time that a
lot of teams. I mean this is this was one
of the top objections that we heard from our audience.
ABM is expensive, or at least the perception of ABM
is that ABM is expensive. And the reason why a
lot of people believe that is because they believe that
(12:47):
one you need to acquire a very expensive ABM platform
six plus figures, then you need to allocate good amount
of money as well, at least as much on account
based advertising, on personalized gifting to those accounts, et cetera,
(13:12):
et cetera. So they just assume that right out of
the bad they will need to invest a lot of
money before they are even able to start that program.
And then in addition, I would say, and this is
interesting here from I think Praka share this why I
spend so much on a small set of accounts. I
(13:33):
think this is a very interesting insight because what we
see there is that we are there is a perception
that it will cost a lot of money, but also
out but you're only going to focus on a small
number of accounts, So this all spent is not even
going to go after the whole market to boil the ocean,
(13:55):
not going to go after what we are used to,
you know, going after a large amount of leads, etc.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Which is what we did before.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So if you're increasing, the perception is if you're increasing
the budget, but then you're not even going to have
that volume, the perception is even worse. I think this
is kind of like the background to it, and I
think a lot of that perception is just wrong, and
we really need to educate our leaders. Woever is having
(14:24):
that objection that it is possible to run ABM on
a quote unquote shoe string budget, Especially the way that
you're presenting your ABM program is you should present what
you're expecting to get. But then we want to start
(14:47):
with a lean stack. We are not going to invest
more than whatever three hundred bucks a month in our stack.
Maybe the stack that you have is already going to
be enough. We're going to art with a small team.
We're going to start without or with a minimal ad budget,
and we have a lot of case studies where we
(15:10):
can share that this is not only possible, but that
it can be extremely effective. We're sharing here on screen
if somebody is listening. I mean program after program after
program where we didn't spend not even like ten k
over a period three to six months. For example, during
the pilot on paid advertising, in a lot of cases
(15:34):
there was no paid advertising, or when it was there was,
it was, but it was minimal. And where the results were,
you know, different cases millions in pipeline sometimes also a million,
three and a half million revenue in one quarter. So
I think this is really important to explain. Okay, look,
(15:55):
we're going to run this pilot program. We want to
show the results before going to invest more in that.
That's number one. We're not going to acquire a big platform.
We are not going to spend the budget, use the
existing way. If there is an existing paid budget, you
can maybe reroute some of that budget to ABM or not,
(16:20):
it's not so crucial. Then if this works, then we
can decide how and how quickly we want to ramp
it up and then maybe add more spend. But before
even talking about spend, we want to show the ROI. Right,
so if you're generating three and a half million in
a quarter with a five K investment, I don't think
(16:44):
it will be difficult to then say hey, we want
to ramp it up and maybe invest a little bit
more in some some paid activities.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
I feel the biggest problem here is what one of
our customers share. It was us last year, right there
was thinking about ABM. They purchased ABM software immediately, which
kind of puts a rope on their neck. Right, because
when you invest in the like in the technology over
one hundred k, obviously the CFO starts paying much more
(17:19):
attention to this investment and starts asking like for r justification.
So the key point is, don't over promise. Your goal
is to build the proof of concept as fast as possible. Right,
you need to present that what you actually want to
do as fast as possible. Right, you need to share
(17:41):
these results, and for these specific reasons avoid any investments.
I think, like quite often the mistake that that is happening. Oh,
we don't have the resources, let's hire agency, let's build,
let's buy this software, let's do this and that. No,
you just need to do small scope program at earlier
beIN's results and only then you will be able to
(18:03):
get back in. So for any new initiative, right, and
like whenever I hear the objective that something is expensive.
You need to build proof of concept first. Only from
that perspective you will be able to secure most amportant
more money and avoid unnecessary pressure to justify your investment.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And by the way, I mean, it's even from the
perspective of taking your odds in your favor and guaranteeing success.
Implementing a new platform is going to take a lot
of time and a lot of resources. It's going to
also push you in a certain direction, and it's doing
the things in the wrong way. It's putting the card
(18:45):
before the horse, right, So you want to first nail
the processes before implementing technology that will allow you to
skill those right. So it's also going to help you
be more successful. And said remove that pressure that ropeen
around your neck. So the other big objection that came
(19:09):
out is kind of related to that is Abian takes
too long to show the results, right and demandsen as well,
demand gen for sure. And when you said demand gen,
immediately thought of Jonathan Blind who shared that objection as well,
and he said, it takes too long and it's too
(19:32):
risky as well. So and this goes hand in hand
of course, if I have to wait long and I'm
not sure if it's going to work, I'm going to
be even more concerned. And I think I understand that
in a lot of organizations you will have also just
the fact that your executives are kind of impatient. I mean,
(19:54):
it's just a fact. I mean, in terms of getting
their buying, that's like one obstacle to get over, like
if they want to see quick results. But the other
problem as well is if you even start, and even
if you do it properly and you know, align on
the expectations, they may still be impatient. So it's a
(20:18):
very important concern and we need to handle it well.
So how do we handle it well? I think I
think that there are several aspects to this.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I think, like what.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Under shared at the beginning when you are mapping out
how does our programs that we are running right now,
how do they perform? What can we expect right what
is reasonable for us to expect? And are we going
to hit our revenue targets based on what we're doing. Historically,
(20:51):
if there is no problem, you will never get a
buy in for a solution.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
I mean, this is just impossible. So this is a precondition.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And I think like one of the things that you
can do at the very beginning is say, okay, wait
a minute. So if it's starting with the ABM, we're
going to build some sort of an account list, and
these accounts will have certain awareness of our brand that
we can measure somehow that we can establish and some
(21:22):
of them will be buying, but a lot of them
won't be buying. So unless we are able to say, hey,
our brand is so strong and our demand generation is
already so strong that here we can identify whatever fifty
one hundred accounts that are showing strong buying signals and
(21:43):
are showing strong awareness and engagement with our brand, it
is really ridiculous to expect any sort of real results.
So facing the reality right, because what is the actual
reality and a lot of companies is when you do
(22:05):
build a list, I mean you start studying those accounts,
is that you realize that the majority of those accounts
are not even aware of your brand. If they are
not even don't know you, and by the way, you
don't know them, and you don't know if they're even
looking for a product, if they have an active need.
It is ridiculous to expect quick results when your normal
sales cycle with in market buyers can be you know,
(22:30):
three six, nine months, right. So I think it is
important to face that reality and to communicate something that
is realistic, right.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And we have shared this graph on.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Our I believe I posted about it recently also on
a LinkedIn about what is a realistic timeline right and
how you can roll it out? Basically, I think we
need to be looking also at what is the status
right now? Are we how well known is our brand?
(23:07):
We actually have awareness in our target accounts. Very frequently
hear from sales that is not the case, which means
that we need to create that awareness and engagement. We
need to start our program. How long will this stake? Well,
usually takes anywhere between one to two months to start
seeing that initial engagement and that engagement progressing into some
(23:27):
sort of conversations with the salespeople, et cetera. And only
like by the end of the first quarter you can
start expecting to see discovery calls and maybe some in
some cases depending on the stage and the state, I'm
sorry you will luck sometimes you might see the first
(23:48):
initial deals. So I think what's important here is to
first set the expectations, but also think about what are
the meaningful leading indicators and meaningful leading indicators. In a
lot of cases, sales will agree if I'm able to
kind of repeatedly book discovery calls with the right high
(24:08):
value accounts, with the right people there, and I'm having
conversations about their priority in some of them progress into deals,
I think this is a very acceptable early indicator for
them to say, you know, within the quarter, we should
have that. And by the way, we are what we
actually are trying to do here is not book some
(24:28):
discovery calls, because we could also send a ton of
email and hold email and cold calling and just push push, push,
and we'll also get some discovery calls. But what we
are actually trying to do here is to have a
much more effective process. Right, So if before I had
(24:49):
to reach out to one thousand accounts to book let's
say ten meetings, now I want to be able to,
like in one of the key studies that we shared,
reach out to one hundred and thirty accounts and book
repeated meetings, actually engage more than thirty accounts. I think
(25:10):
it was twenty seven percent in repeated multiple meetings and calls,
and some of those obviously progressing to pipeline. So we
are looking at effectiveness and quality. Are we going after
high value accounts? What is the revenue potential of those accounts?
What is our account to pipeline ratio? Maybe initially account
(25:35):
to meeting books and then pipeline ratio. So how many
out of our whatever one hundred fifty hundred target accounts
we're able to end up with a sales qualified opportunity
And then obviously translating that these two so revenue potential
times that percent, how effective can we be? And one
(25:56):
days when the management, when sales se is that they
will actually proactively start to us. This is what happened
a lot of times they become curious again, how are.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You able to engage these kind of accounts?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Are you able to book meetings with you know, the
easy jets of this world and the you know, the
big banks of this world. And then also to have
such an effective process, I want to know shows how
to do it. So yeah, I wanted to I wanted
to give you, give you the verd suory andrep without
any warning, just silent.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
No, that's absolutely fine. So I would say that the
biggest problem here right is.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
The lack of long term vision a lot of companies
they need to present to the investors, right to stakeholders
that that is like an efficient.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Model that UH will help them to achieve revenue targets.
But in reality, all short term solutions they will never work.
That's that's the first problem. That you can just quizz
out jews as maximum as possible this quarter, but then
(27:18):
you'll end up without any future pipeline and with every
ABM program. If you'll take the approach where you segment
all accounts by the likelihood of creating opportunities. Right, if
you know that there are some accounts like we said
that you can that's demands that hit engagement threshold, demonstrated
(27:39):
enough engagement, right, you did the count research, you know
the needs of these accounts. You can sit down together
and work on opportunity generation, on fully personalized offerings for
these accounts, and the opportunity actually can come in one
quarter right with enterprise deals next UH, there would be
accounts that demonstrated some engagement threshold, but you have no
(27:59):
idea about their needs. But historically you know, if you'll
work on personalization and warm up and activation, these opportunities
could be These accounts could be converted into sales opportunities
in the next six to nine months. Right, that's the key,
and when you start presenting it that way, when you
start connecting the dots. And lastly, you'll have accounts that
(28:21):
maybe the majority of your accounts that just fit your
ICP criteria, but they have no idea that you exist,
that your product exists, and you have no idea about
the needs or challenges of these accounts. The simple truth
is that you're not able to sell to them. You
can just measure the efficiency of your outbounds to the
(28:44):
cold accounts, the efficiency of your let's say paid advertisement,
and like we're discussed on the previous point connected to
the revenue targets, you'll clearly see that without creating awareness
inside these accounts, you won't be able to create the
pipeline and from that perspective actually start presenting them the
results look. So this quota realistically, if you'll do the subsegmentation, right,
(29:07):
we have like whatever three accounts that we call active
focus accounts that could be converted into sales opportunity. The
value of these accounts is whatever X, right, we need
as the team to create more of these accounts, right,
So the first goal for like trying to generate with
one of these three accounts sales opportunity. Next, we have
(29:30):
whatever fifteen accounts that hit our engagement threshold. We never
did any account research. We don't know their needs, so
we're going to spend more time on mapping out the
buying committee, engaging with them, running in depth research, trying
to see if there is a feit, and come up
with some personalization. Some of these accounts are likely to engage,
(29:50):
so like in a quota after we expect sales opportunities
and the majority of this, like the rest of the
accounts that fit OURICP right to make as many of
them as possible aware that we exist. But you don't
call it like a random print awareness. Never say hey,
we want to invest in a print, right, and then
(30:12):
come to linked In and say that our SEO doesn't
get marketing. Right. No, you need to come and agree
with them on this engagement threshold and this clear criteria. Right,
what's behavior and account needs to demonstrate So you can
call this account a vendor aware account, right, and from
that perspective you start mapping out the goals and expectations. Right.
(30:36):
So these accounts we want to hit engagement threshold. These
accounts we want to research, build the relationship, engage to
be able in the next quarter work and sales opportunities.
And these accounts that we already know enough information, we
work on full personalization to generate opportunities. You create three
different leads with three different goals, and then you will
(31:00):
be able to prove the results. Yes, you won't be
able to show the revenue, but it's not like any
marketing program is not a silver bullet, right, So this
is how you present the goals, You set up the
expectations and the results will be right. And when people
understand why certain how certain marketing and sales programs doesn't
(31:24):
matter if it's a BM assumtioning different, how these programs
actually impact the account development, the buyer journey, and the
pipeline generation, then you will be able to get buy
in and change their mindsets on the results. Right, that's
the key. Let's move to the next one, difficulty measure
and justifying r OI.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I think there.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's kind of connected to the previous one obviously, so
we need to be able to show the results. But
people are also I think concerned because us, especially when
it comes to for example, demand generation and perception that
may live with people about Okay, we need to ungate
(32:11):
our content and just generate awareness and demand by sharing
information about our product, by sharing valuable content, and then
somehow the opportunities will start to increase and we just
have to be patient. I mean, if that is the perception,
(32:33):
then definitely I can understand why there would be a
lot of pushback.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So this is one specific case, but I think people
are also becoming I mean, if you didn't have a
track record, I mean, this is something that unfortunately is
the reality of a lot of marketing teams who have
experienced after a long time of doing let's say the
(32:59):
MQL kind of place where a lot of budget has
been spent to promote picated PDFs or you know, maybe
some events of revenuers that were kind of mass product
pitches and with this approach generating a lot of mqls
(33:19):
who are not converting into sales. I mean, this is
usually the situation that the marketing leads and the marketing
efforts are not contributing to the to revenue. When you
have that situation, and you probably do have it, you
have a problem that you're solving that's why you're trying
to suggest and introduce a new program to solve the problem. Unfortunately,
(33:42):
that also means that there is lack of trust that
maybe like or the trust is let's say impacted that Okay,
we weren't able to contribute meaningfully to revenue, so we're
not expected to do this in future. So when you
combine this lack of trust the perception it's going to
be difficult to measure, it's going to take a lot
(34:03):
of time. Then it becomes difficult, right, And I think
there are also practical questions, how do we actually measure
impact of ABM, How can we actually measure the impact
of demand generation? And also if you're presenting some forecast,
what are you basing those forecasts on?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Can you even defend them? Right?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So, I think when it comes to measuring, I would
like to share just a big framework and then share
maybe some concrete tips on how to you can address
the objections if you're getting objections like this. So I
think the first thing to understand is that there is
no one size fits all KPI for ABM other than revenue, right,
(34:52):
and we know that it will take time to get
to the revenue. So the question becomes okay, what leading
indicators are actually meaningful and they depend on the goal
of the program. And we know that we can run
ABM for net new revenue. We can run it to
accelerate existing pipeline. We can run it to expand existing
deals or to prevent churn, or to improve contract renewal.
(35:16):
So you will have different metrics depending on the goal
of the program. Obviously, for net new revenue you will
want to measure the net new revenue that you're generating,
the net new pipeline that you're generating, and leading indicators
such as discovery calls, but also your effectiveness in terms
of penetrating new accounts in essentially engagement of the target accounts,
(35:44):
how many what is the present of the accounts that
are meaningful?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Engaging and having back.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And forth conversations with things like that will be meaningful
leading indicators. When it comes to deal acceleration, it is
more about First of all, it will depend on how
you set up your program, but it is obviously kind
of the KPIs will be the sales velocity or the
length of the end, the length of the sales cycle.
(36:13):
Are we able to win more of the accounts and
deals sorry that are currently in the pipeline, are we
able to unblock maybe some of the block deals or
in some cases even win back some of the deals
that when silid or we considered to be lost. And
then for expansion, it will be much more about how
(36:34):
many of the existing accounts where be able to expand
by up sells or by selling to other departments, et cetera,
et cetera. Again, depending on the exact program and the
mechanics and what you will be using there, you might
have different indicators. So just to give one example, not
(36:55):
to go too too much detail. If you are, for example,
expanding by promoting within the existing accounts by partnering up
with your champions and with your power users, and then
maybe promoting their success internally, maybe you're organizing some sort
(37:17):
of an internal event or a webinar where the champion
is going to present together with you to the other stakeholders.
Then you will also measure, for example, the effectiveness of
these specific activities. Right, so that internal webinar, how many
people were you able to engage, et cetera. As leading indicators,
(37:39):
So you will be looking depending on the goal and
depending on these concrete activities. So that's kind of the
general framework for measuring the ABM program. But I think
what is really important here to stress is, again when
it comes to measuring and also justifying the ROI, I
(38:03):
think it's important to look at the effectiveness. Like what
you are much more likely to increase with ABM is
the quality and the effectiveness of those deals. So what
I mean by that is, am I now able to
engage more target accounts? Because if with our outbound and
(38:26):
I think I have here here a table. It's for
another objection, but I think it's a good time to
show if with my outbound I need to reach out
to two thousand accounts and book let's say twenty five goals,
am I here able to have a better account to
pipeline well calls and opportunities. Excuse me, in this case,
(38:50):
am I able to go from let's say one point
twenty five account to pipeline ratio to fifteen? Everybody will
understand that this is going to be a huge improvement
and that this is so much more scalable because how
many times if your total addressable market is ten thousand
(39:10):
icps and you need to reach out to two thousand
to actually end up with twenty five opportunities and then
win twenty percent of them. That's not very scalable, and
you know how many times can you reach out to them?
We know that this is so much more effective if
(39:31):
I can get a higher account to pipeline ratio, but
also things like what is the average ACV of those
accounts because normally the ABM you're going to be focusing
on higher value accounts. Am I able to engage those accounts?
Because what we hear very often, especially as a complaint
from sales, is that if you look at the current
(39:53):
inbound pipeline and marketing pipeline, especially inbound requests very frequent,
these are not the high value, high revenue potential accounts
that you complain that the pipeline is unpredictable. Sometimes we
get more, sometimes we get less. But also these are
(40:13):
not the kind of high value target accounts that we
are after. And so having this okay, now we are
able to engage those types of accounts which end up
as a higher deal, a larger deal, and then obviously
over time measuring the win rates the length of the
sales cycle, and each of them has an impact, like
(40:39):
if you can increase the value of your ACV and
your contract value. If you're able to increase the win
rate and decrease the sales cycle, they all multiply and
can lead to quite significant impact on your bottom line
and revenue. So this is what I would say about
(41:01):
measuring and justifying the ROI. And unless you want it
to give a quick comment about it, we can.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Talk about the next objection only.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
I would just at one thing that to summarize everything.
Before you'll launch any program, just make sure that in
your attribution system you will attribute it to you achieve
The credit shouldn't be going to market and sales client
success or whoever agreed that it should be attributed to
(41:38):
the program that you're going to launch. Would it be
sad leadership? Okay, put it a sad leadership attribution, otherwise
you will have endless debates. Right, So that's that's the key.
Make sure that it's attributed to specific motion. And again
in the beginning, it doesn't really matter, I feel. It's
just what is really funny. It's like divided, you know,
(42:00):
the unkilled bear. So it's you try to discuss who
will get the credit of Sunset that doesn't exist, right,
You have no idea what the results will be there
and if you if we'll come back to the point
that we have discussed earlier, that you need to start
a small scope program. Right. You can't expect tons of results,
so start small with just again this link team, then
(42:25):
present the results and then have this discussion. Can we
make sure that if we're going to scale this program, right,
can we make sure that this would be attributed to
this specific motion or to our achieve right, so that
would be equal contribution of marketing and sales, right, not
marketing against. That's one of the keys that you need
(42:48):
to have in place, which kind of helps you also
to fix the marketing and sales misalignment, unify the goal
set and for the team teams, and making sure that
the teams are working together on the accounts on the motion. Right.
That's that's that's one of the keys. And the next
(43:09):
one is my favorite. We don't have time for this.
Our sales team is busy, right, uh, we have you
can see all the collection of these objections. Why not
just to do more outbound like our SDRs busy with outreach,
(43:30):
they don't have time to allocate account based market and right,
and our SDRs have the same compensation for mid market
and enterprise, and that's why they focus on mid market
since it's fast and easy, and our account executives get
all defensive and asked to you know, post content on
linked In, or do some non sales touch points with
(43:53):
the target accounts or there is one one that I
have seen in the slack community. It's basically our sales
reps busy with outbound. Unless you can prove that would
be opportunities, we can't give you a sales rep. Right,
So where this all comes from. It all comes from
(44:17):
lack of trust to marketing. Right. It's basically means that
marketing doesn't have strong voice in the organization. And if
you can't actually prove that what you are going to
do will help sales with the challenges and will help
them to generate the pipeline, you won't be able to
(44:38):
fix that challenge. From my perspective, I'm just sharing purely
my perspective, right because I spent before moving to marketing,
I spent five years in sales, and I feel very
well the concerns of sales leaders, especially if in the
organization marketing historically operated as arts and crafts department. Right,
(45:00):
it's very hard to change the mindset, right because you
assern that that would won't be any meaningful help right.
So from that perspective, I feel there are a couple
of things we can touch this report that you showed again,
but I would love to share a couple of things. First,
(45:21):
you need to find the friend list to market and
sales rep, a person who is willing to collaborate with marketing.
And if you're thinking that it would be most experienced
person or the most productive sales rep, that's not always
the case. Quite often we see that sales reps that
(45:41):
just joined your company or that are more junior
This is the Full Funnel B to B Marketing podcast,
brought to you by full Funnel dot io. Let's start here,
Hello everybody, and while waiting for Andrew to join us,
I'd like to kick this off and give you an
intro about what we are going to be talking about today.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
And today we want to share with you the main
objections that we and our audience has observed when it
comes to introducing new programs such as ABM and demand Generation.
This time we had a lot of people contribute. I
reached out to our network and just us like what
are some of the top objections that you have experienced,
(00:47):
and people overwhelmingly shared really cool insights and a.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Lot of these objections.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Obviously we have seen in the past ourselves, from our clients,
from our prospects, sales, so it's interesting to see these
patterns emerge there. So today what we want to share
with you are the root reason behind the reasons why,
the rout reason behind reason while sales and leadership may
(01:16):
push back against Demand Generation, ABM new programs, and how
to address the most common objections.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
What is the data?
Speaker 2 (01:27):
What are the proof points that you need to collect
so you address this And as always we all share
the real life examples how to prepare as well an
internal business case so that you can get the buy
in from the key stakeholders. And with that said, let's
(01:50):
dive in. But that's always always good to know where
you all are joining us from. As always we are
joining from Valencia and soon they will join also from
ll L, but on our drive up to the north
towards Barcelona, from a city of Valencia where I am.
Let us know where you're journeying from. And you know
(02:11):
what as well, if you have met any objections when
you were suggesting, you know, to introduce an ABM program
or demand generation program, you'll free to share and will
prioritize those and will share exactly how to share how
to address excuse me and those objections? What data do
(02:33):
you need to prepare and present? And I'd like to
kick off as maybe you're thinking and sharing, I'd like
to kick off by sharing some of the root reasons
of why the sales and leadership push back. What is
(02:55):
kind of the root there and some of the root treasons.
Some of the things that we have observed when working
with B to B companies is that with sales there
can be kind of a protective mindset. And what I
mean by that is that, especially when it comes to
account executives, they have the accounts that they're working on,
(03:20):
they have personal investments, you know, their commission and compensation
being dependent on the success in those accounts, and you know,
this is basically kind of their core asset, and they
don't really want to share contacts or make introductions to
(03:45):
their accounts, and they don't maybe if they didn't have
previous successful experience with marketing, they might also not want
you to quote unquote mess up their relationship with those
super important count So I think this is like very
frequently something.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
That we see.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
And then especially when marketing doesn't have domain knowledge, and
when we talk to salespeople, what we often hear is
that their perception, at least of marketing is that they
don't really understand the buyer personas they don't really understand
(04:26):
what it takes to sell or in other words, what
are the ways that buyers buy, what are the reasons
why they decide to buy, What are the questions that
I have as they are making that decision, evaluating your product, et.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And this is something that we see very often, especially
when there is that perception that marketing doesn't have the
domain knowledge. Obviously you will experience that pushback as well.
Hi Andre, welcome to your own show. Hello and thanks thanks,
(05:06):
thanks for joining us. I basically gave an intro into
what we're talking and started addressing the root treasons, mentioning
the protective mindset that experienced, especially the account executives, and then
also the lack of domain knowledge, especially.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
When it comes to.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
The buying process, the challenges that the buyers have, who
is involved their questions, why do they buy a product?
Your product, your solution, and that so we want to
address the other rud reasons I give you.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I think overall you did create job covering ever acent.
The biggest problem though, is how to handle these objections right.
I feel that the best There are actually two things
that you need to have in mind. You need to
(06:08):
understand the connection right or basically the background of this
challenge aside from the rout reason why. Because let's say
you want to initiate there is a problem in your company,
let's say decrease in marketing source pipeline and marketing is
(06:30):
pushed to generate revenue. Now you start having conversations with
sales and they complain about lack of vendor awareness, et cetera.
You want to introduce demand generation for example, right, but
you start sharing the processes with let's say sales leader
(06:54):
and suddenly you start hearing the objections. That's kind of
make you stuck. I will give you a very practical example.
I remember a conversation with one client that hired and
your sales leader. Right. So with that company, we were
building for nine months ahis of ABM and demand generation motion,
(07:17):
and we were doing one of you webinars for a
set of strategic accounts. A sales leader and your sales
leader king and said, why should we do? Why should
we continue doing these webinars? If people are willing to
listen for suta minutes to our cito, then they would
be willing to have a chat with me like why
(07:38):
edging this actual layer? Anyhow, they come to this webinar
and we want to pitch them, why not just pitching
them immediately? And so obviously you can speak about the
root reasons, right, but you also need to understand another
like the prior of let's say, the background of this
(08:00):
alene I feel and in this case The situation is
that this person over promised to the CEO of the company.
Right next this person was before was running Lee generation agency,
and from that perspectively, you never did any demand generation
or whatever. Right. All his messaging was about like how
(08:24):
to feel in your calendars, like numbers, hundreds of minutest
digital accounts, and the company bought it in, right. That's
so this is the problem. Obviously in this case, you
won't be able to change a lot. The company needs
to learn the lesson the hard way, unfortunately. But when
the company learns that lesson, you need to have the
(08:46):
data around and I think that basically how you can
start handling it. You need to collect the data about
the performance of your current playbox. That could be outbound playbook,
could be paid advertisement, whatever, right, could be tag shows
I know, and then show the progress. Right, so this
(09:09):
is our conversion rate? For example, like we sent a
lot of you know a lot of companies they just
present the stats of their outbound saying, hey, we booked
like one hundred fifty millions last year and that's it.
But nobody makes connection to sales opportunities and to win
rates right out of these meetings. That's the fast problem.
(09:33):
You need to collect this data and then basically present
connected to the revenue targets for this year. So let's
say this year we want to hit whatever like fifty
millions in in revenue. Right, that means if we continue
running our playbook, we need to considering these conversions. We
(09:53):
need to spend whatever like one hundred thousand accounts to
be able to get this kind of number of mediums
that would be converted, and the sales opportunities. That's the
first thing, right, the second one showing the current revenue trajectory.
So let's say it's March already, you've been running this
playbooks for two months, right, what is your current revenue status?
(10:17):
And like if the things would be continuing, because if
you'll continue running these playbooks, well you'll end up this, yeah, right,
by how much you will miss the targets. Because if
you can't make this clear, right, if you want to
make this problem visible and you if you want connect
the dots to the missed revenue targets, it would be
(10:41):
hard to address any objection. Basically, you need to present
the cost of an action, like what if we are
not going to change anything in that company? Right? So
these are the basic things, but then you can, like obviously,
the next step would be presenting solutions, right, well, like
(11:01):
when you get the at least understanding and buy in
for the problem. And that's if you're not going to
solve it, your company will miss the targets. And this
is this is the only metric your CFO and c
see okay about right, So this this is the number
one and when when you make it visible, when they
support it. Next you start presenting your solution. Could the A,
(11:25):
B M, demand generation, investing in toprend whatever doesn't really matter.
And from that perspective, the funny part starts. This is
why you can hear a lot of objections. So what
did a fantastic job reaching out our network and collected
multiple objections when it comes to demand generation to account
(11:49):
based marketing? Uh and I think for like literally they
represent the kind of the objections that entire bit to
the market a community faces every single day. So what
I would I think would be cool to do next
is to go through through these objections and just present
(12:11):
them and discuss how to handle them the best practices.
So let's start with the first one. I would be
I would ask you a lot to share this one
ABM as expensive, and the context behind this objection.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Absolutely I think that a lot of time that a
lot of teams. I mean this is this was one
of the top objections that we heard from our audience.
ABM is expensive, or at least the perception of ABM
is that ABM is expensive. And the reason why a
lot of people believe that is because they believe that
(12:47):
one you need to acquire a very expensive ABM platform
six plus figures, then you need to allocate good amount
of money as well, at least as much on account
based advertising, on personalized gifting to those accounts, et cetera,
(13:12):
et cetera. So they just assume that right out of
the bad they will need to invest a lot of
money before they are even able to start that program.
And then in addition, I would say, and this is
interesting here from I think Praka share this why I
spend so much on a small set of accounts. I
(13:33):
think this is a very interesting insight because what we
see there is that we are there is a perception
that it will cost a lot of money, but also
out but you're only going to focus on a small
number of accounts, So this all spent is not even
going to go after the whole market to boil the ocean,
(13:55):
not going to go after what we are used to,
you know, going after a large amount of leads, etc.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Which is what we did before.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So if you're increasing, the perception is if you're increasing
the budget, but then you're not even going to have
that volume, the perception is even worse. I think this
is kind of like the background to it, and I
think a lot of that perception is just wrong, and
we really need to educate our leaders. Woever is having
(14:24):
that objection that it is possible to run ABM on
a quote unquote shoe string budget, Especially the way that
you're presenting your ABM program is you should present what
you're expecting to get. But then we want to start
(14:47):
with a lean stack. We are not going to invest
more than whatever three hundred bucks a month in our stack.
Maybe the stack that you have is already going to
be enough. We're going to art with a small team.
We're going to start without or with a minimal ad budget,
and we have a lot of case studies where we
(15:10):
can share that this is not only possible, but that
it can be extremely effective. We're sharing here on screen
if somebody is listening. I mean program after program after
program where we didn't spend not even like ten k
over a period three to six months. For example, during
the pilot on paid advertising, in a lot of cases
(15:34):
there was no paid advertising, or when it was there was,
it was, but it was minimal. And where the results were,
you know, different cases millions in pipeline sometimes also a million,
three and a half million revenue in one quarter. So
I think this is really important to explain. Okay, look,
(15:55):
we're going to run this pilot program. We want to
show the results before going to invest more in that.
That's number one. We're not going to acquire a big platform.
We are not going to spend the budget, use the
existing way. If there is an existing paid budget, you
can maybe reroute some of that budget to ABM or not,
(16:20):
it's not so crucial. Then if this works, then we
can decide how and how quickly we want to ramp
it up and then maybe add more spend. But before
even talking about spend, we want to show the ROI. Right,
so if you're generating three and a half million in
a quarter with a five K investment, I don't think
(16:44):
it will be difficult to then say hey, we want
to ramp it up and maybe invest a little bit
more in some some paid activities.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
I feel the biggest problem here is what one of
our customers share. It was us last year, right there
was thinking about ABM. They purchased ABM software immediately, which
kind of puts a rope on their neck. Right, because
when you invest in the like in the technology over
one hundred k, obviously the CFO starts paying much more
(17:19):
attention to this investment and starts asking like for r justification.
So the key point is, don't over promise. Your goal
is to build the proof of concept as fast as possible. Right,
you need to present that what you actually want to
do as fast as possible. Right, you need to share
(17:41):
these results, and for these specific reasons avoid any investments.
I think, like quite often the mistake that that is happening. Oh,
we don't have the resources, let's hire agency, let's build,
let's buy this software, let's do this and that. No,
you just need to do small scope program at earlier
beIN's results and only then you will be able to
(18:03):
get back in. So for any new initiative, right, and
like whenever I hear the objective that something is expensive.
You need to build proof of concept first. Only from
that perspective you will be able to secure most amportant
more money and avoid unnecessary pressure to justify your investment.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
And by the way, I mean, it's even from the
perspective of taking your odds in your favor and guaranteeing success.
Implementing a new platform is going to take a lot
of time and a lot of resources. It's going to
also push you in a certain direction, and it's doing
the things in the wrong way. It's putting the card
(18:45):
before the horse, right, So you want to first nail
the processes before implementing technology that will allow you to
skill those right. So it's also going to help you
be more successful. And said remove that pressure that ropeen
around your neck. So the other big objection that came
(19:09):
out is kind of related to that is Abian takes
too long to show the results, right and demandsen as well,
demand gen for sure. And when you said demand gen,
immediately thought of Jonathan Blind who shared that objection as well,
and he said, it takes too long and it's too
(19:32):
risky as well. So and this goes hand in hand
of course, if I have to wait long and I'm
not sure if it's going to work, I'm going to
be even more concerned. And I think I understand that
in a lot of organizations you will have also just
the fact that your executives are kind of impatient. I mean,
(19:54):
it's just a fact. I mean, in terms of getting
their buying, that's like one obstacle to get over, like
if they want to see quick results. But the other
problem as well is if you even start, and even
if you do it properly and you know, align on
the expectations, they may still be impatient. So it's a
(20:18):
very important concern and we need to handle it well.
So how do we handle it well? I think I
think that there are several aspects to this.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I think, like what.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Under shared at the beginning when you are mapping out
how does our programs that we are running right now,
how do they perform? What can we expect right what
is reasonable for us to expect? And are we going
to hit our revenue targets based on what we're doing. Historically,
(20:51):
if there is no problem, you will never get a
buy in for a solution.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
I mean, this is just impossible. So this is a precondition.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
And I think like one of the things that you
can do at the very beginning is say, okay, wait
a minute. So if it's starting with the ABM, we're
going to build some sort of an account list, and
these accounts will have certain awareness of our brand that
we can measure somehow that we can establish and some
(21:22):
of them will be buying, but a lot of them
won't be buying. So unless we are able to say, hey,
our brand is so strong and our demand generation is
already so strong that here we can identify whatever fifty
one hundred accounts that are showing strong buying signals and
(21:43):
are showing strong awareness and engagement with our brand, it
is really ridiculous to expect any sort of real results.
So facing the reality right, because what is the actual
reality and a lot of companies is when you do
(22:05):
build a list, I mean you start studying those accounts,
is that you realize that the majority of those accounts
are not even aware of your brand. If they are
not even don't know you, and by the way, you
don't know them, and you don't know if they're even
looking for a product, if they have an active need.
It is ridiculous to expect quick results when your normal
sales cycle with in market buyers can be you know,
(22:30):
three six, nine months, right. So I think it is
important to face that reality and to communicate something that
is realistic, right.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
And we have shared this graph on.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Our I believe I posted about it recently also on
a LinkedIn about what is a realistic timeline right and
how you can roll it out? Basically, I think we
need to be looking also at what is the status
right now? Are we how well known is our brand?
(23:07):
We actually have awareness in our target accounts. Very frequently
hear from sales that is not the case, which means
that we need to create that awareness and engagement. We
need to start our program. How long will this stake? Well,
usually takes anywhere between one to two months to start
seeing that initial engagement and that engagement progressing into some
(23:27):
sort of conversations with the salespeople, et cetera. And only
like by the end of the first quarter you can
start expecting to see discovery calls and maybe some in
some cases depending on the stage and the state, I'm
sorry you will luck sometimes you might see the first
(23:48):
initial deals. So I think what's important here is to
first set the expectations, but also think about what are
the meaningful leading indicators and meaningful leading indicators. In a
lot of cases, sales will agree if I'm able to
kind of repeatedly book discovery calls with the right high
(24:08):
value accounts, with the right people there, and I'm having
conversations about their priority in some of them progress into deals,
I think this is a very acceptable early indicator for
them to say, you know, within the quarter, we should
have that. And by the way, we are what we
actually are trying to do here is not book some
(24:28):
discovery calls, because we could also send a ton of
email and hold email and cold calling and just push push, push,
and we'll also get some discovery calls. But what we
are actually trying to do here is to have a
much more effective process. Right, So if before I had
(24:49):
to reach out to one thousand accounts to book let's
say ten meetings, now I want to be able to,
like in one of the key studies that we shared,
reach out to one hundred and thirty accounts and book
repeated meetings, actually engage more than thirty accounts. I think
(25:10):
it was twenty seven percent in repeated multiple meetings and calls,
and some of those obviously progressing to pipeline. So we
are looking at effectiveness and quality. Are we going after
high value accounts? What is the revenue potential of those accounts?
What is our account to pipeline ratio? Maybe initially account
(25:35):
to meeting books and then pipeline ratio. So how many
out of our whatever one hundred fifty hundred target accounts
we're able to end up with a sales qualified opportunity
And then obviously translating that these two so revenue potential
times that percent, how effective can we be? And one
(25:56):
days when the management, when sales se is that they
will actually proactively start to us. This is what happened
a lot of times they become curious again, how are.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
You able to engage these kind of accounts?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Are you able to book meetings with you know, the
easy jets of this world and the you know, the
big banks of this world. And then also to have
such an effective process, I want to know shows how
to do it. So yeah, I wanted to I wanted
to give you, give you the verd suory andrep without
any warning, just silent.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
No, that's absolutely fine. So I would say that the
biggest problem here right is.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
The lack of long term vision a lot of companies
they need to present to the investors, right to stakeholders
that that is like an efficient.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Model that UH will help them to achieve revenue targets.
But in reality, all short term solutions they will never work.
That's that's the first problem. That you can just quizz
out jews as maximum as possible this quarter, but then
(27:18):
you'll end up without any future pipeline and with every
ABM program. If you'll take the approach where you segment
all accounts by the likelihood of creating opportunities. Right, if
you know that there are some accounts like we said
that you can that's demands that hit engagement threshold, demonstrated
(27:39):
enough engagement, right, you did the count research, you know
the needs of these accounts. You can sit down together
and work on opportunity generation, on fully personalized offerings for
these accounts, and the opportunity actually can come in one
quarter right with enterprise deals next UH, there would be
accounts that demonstrated some engagement threshold, but you have no
(27:59):
idea about their needs. But historically you know, if you'll
work on personalization and warm up and activation, these opportunities
could be These accounts could be converted into sales opportunities
in the next six to nine months. Right, that's the key,
and when you start presenting it that way, when you
start connecting the dots. And lastly, you'll have accounts that
(28:21):
maybe the majority of your accounts that just fit your
ICP criteria, but they have no idea that you exist,
that your product exists, and you have no idea about
the needs or challenges of these accounts. The simple truth
is that you're not able to sell to them. You
can just measure the efficiency of your outbounds to the
(28:44):
cold accounts, the efficiency of your let's say paid advertisement,
and like we're discussed on the previous point connected to
the revenue targets, you'll clearly see that without creating awareness
inside these accounts, you won't be able to create the
pipeline and from that perspective actually start presenting them the
results look. So this quota realistically, if you'll do the subsegmentation, right,
(29:07):
we have like whatever three accounts that we call active
focus accounts that could be converted into sales opportunity. The
value of these accounts is whatever X, right, we need
as the team to create more of these accounts, right,
So the first goal for like trying to generate with
one of these three accounts sales opportunity. Next, we have
(29:30):
whatever fifteen accounts that hit our engagement threshold. We never
did any account research. We don't know their needs, so
we're going to spend more time on mapping out the
buying committee, engaging with them, running in depth research, trying
to see if there is a feit, and come up
with some personalization. Some of these accounts are likely to engage,
(29:50):
so like in a quota after we expect sales opportunities
and the majority of this, like the rest of the
accounts that fit OURICP right to make as many of
them as possible aware that we exist. But you don't
call it like a random print awareness. Never say hey,
we want to invest in a print, right, and then
(30:12):
come to linked In and say that our SEO doesn't
get marketing. Right. No, you need to come and agree
with them on this engagement threshold and this clear criteria. Right,
what's behavior and account needs to demonstrate So you can
call this account a vendor aware account, right, and from
that perspective you start mapping out the goals and expectations. Right.
(30:36):
So these accounts we want to hit engagement threshold. These
accounts we want to research, build the relationship, engage to
be able in the next quarter work and sales opportunities.
And these accounts that we already know enough information, we
work on full personalization to generate opportunities. You create three
different leads with three different goals, and then you will
(31:00):
be able to prove the results. Yes, you won't be
able to show the revenue, but it's not like any
marketing program is not a silver bullet, right, So this
is how you present the goals, You set up the
expectations and the results will be right. And when people
understand why certain how certain marketing and sales programs doesn't
(31:24):
matter if it's a BM assumtioning different, how these programs
actually impact the account development, the buyer journey, and the
pipeline generation, then you will be able to get buy
in and change their mindsets on the results. Right, that's
the key. Let's move to the next one, difficulty measure
and justifying r OI.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
I think there.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's kind of connected to the previous one obviously, so
we need to be able to show the results. But
people are also I think concerned because us, especially when
it comes to for example, demand generation and perception that
may live with people about Okay, we need to ungate
(32:11):
our content and just generate awareness and demand by sharing
information about our product, by sharing valuable content, and then
somehow the opportunities will start to increase and we just
have to be patient. I mean, if that is the perception,
(32:33):
then definitely I can understand why there would be a
lot of pushback.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So this is one specific case, but I think people
are also becoming I mean, if you didn't have a
track record, I mean, this is something that unfortunately is
the reality of a lot of marketing teams who have
experienced after a long time of doing let's say the
(32:59):
MQL kind of place where a lot of budget has
been spent to promote picated PDFs or you know, maybe
some events of revenuers that were kind of mass product
pitches and with this approach generating a lot of mqls
(33:19):
who are not converting into sales. I mean, this is
usually the situation that the marketing leads and the marketing
efforts are not contributing to the to revenue. When you
have that situation, and you probably do have it, you
have a problem that you're solving that's why you're trying
to suggest and introduce a new program to solve the problem. Unfortunately,
(33:42):
that also means that there is lack of trust that
maybe like or the trust is let's say impacted that Okay,
we weren't able to contribute meaningfully to revenue, so we're
not expected to do this in future. So when you
combine this lack of trust the perception it's going to
be difficult to measure, it's going to take a lot
(34:03):
of time. Then it becomes difficult, right, And I think
there are also practical questions, how do we actually measure
impact of ABM, How can we actually measure the impact
of demand generation? And also if you're presenting some forecast,
what are you basing those forecasts on?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Can you even defend them? Right?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So, I think when it comes to measuring, I would
like to share just a big framework and then share
maybe some concrete tips on how to you can address
the objections if you're getting objections like this. So I
think the first thing to understand is that there is
no one size fits all KPI for ABM other than revenue, right,
(34:52):
and we know that it will take time to get
to the revenue. So the question becomes okay, what leading
indicators are actually meaningful and they depend on the goal
of the program. And we know that we can run
ABM for net new revenue. We can run it to
accelerate existing pipeline. We can run it to expand existing
deals or to prevent churn, or to improve contract renewal.
(35:16):
So you will have different metrics depending on the goal
of the program. Obviously, for net new revenue you will
want to measure the net new revenue that you're generating,
the net new pipeline that you're generating, and leading indicators
such as discovery calls, but also your effectiveness in terms
of penetrating new accounts in essentially engagement of the target accounts,
(35:44):
how many what is the present of the accounts that
are meaningful?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Engaging and having back.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And forth conversations with things like that will be meaningful
leading indicators. When it comes to deal acceleration, it is
more about First of all, it will depend on how
you set up your program, but it is obviously kind
of the KPIs will be the sales velocity or the
length of the end, the length of the sales cycle.
(36:13):
Are we able to win more of the accounts and
deals sorry that are currently in the pipeline, are we
able to unblock maybe some of the block deals or
in some cases even win back some of the deals
that when silid or we considered to be lost. And
then for expansion, it will be much more about how
(36:34):
many of the existing accounts where be able to expand
by up sells or by selling to other departments, et cetera,
et cetera. Again, depending on the exact program and the
mechanics and what you will be using there, you might
have different indicators. So just to give one example, not
(36:55):
to go too too much detail. If you are, for example,
expanding by promoting within the existing accounts by partnering up
with your champions and with your power users, and then
maybe promoting their success internally, maybe you're organizing some sort
(37:17):
of an internal event or a webinar where the champion
is going to present together with you to the other stakeholders.
Then you will also measure, for example, the effectiveness of
these specific activities. Right, so that internal webinar, how many
people were you able to engage, et cetera. As leading indicators,
(37:39):
So you will be looking depending on the goal and
depending on these concrete activities. So that's kind of the
general framework for measuring the ABM program. But I think
what is really important here to stress is, again when
it comes to measuring and also justifying the ROI, I
(38:03):
think it's important to look at the effectiveness. Like what
you are much more likely to increase with ABM is
the quality and the effectiveness of those deals. So what
I mean by that is, am I now able to
engage more target accounts? Because if with our outbound and
(38:26):
I think I have here here a table. It's for
another objection, but I think it's a good time to
show if with my outbound I need to reach out
to two thousand accounts and book let's say twenty five goals,
am I here able to have a better account to
pipeline well calls and opportunities. Excuse me, in this case,
(38:50):
am I able to go from let's say one point
twenty five account to pipeline ratio to fifteen? Everybody will
understand that this is going to be a huge improvement
and that this is so much more scalable because how
many times if your total addressable market is ten thousand
(39:10):
icps and you need to reach out to two thousand
to actually end up with twenty five opportunities and then
win twenty percent of them. That's not very scalable, and
you know how many times can you reach out to them?
We know that this is so much more effective if
(39:31):
I can get a higher account to pipeline ratio, but
also things like what is the average ACV of those
accounts because normally the ABM you're going to be focusing
on higher value accounts. Am I able to engage those accounts?
Because what we hear very often, especially as a complaint
from sales, is that if you look at the current
(39:53):
inbound pipeline and marketing pipeline, especially inbound requests very frequent,
these are not the high value, high revenue potential accounts
that you complain that the pipeline is unpredictable. Sometimes we
get more, sometimes we get less. But also these are
(40:13):
not the kind of high value target accounts that we
are after. And so having this okay, now we are
able to engage those types of accounts which end up
as a higher deal, a larger deal, and then obviously
over time measuring the win rates the length of the
sales cycle, and each of them has an impact, like
(40:39):
if you can increase the value of your ACV and
your contract value. If you're able to increase the win
rate and decrease the sales cycle, they all multiply and
can lead to quite significant impact on your bottom line
and revenue. So this is what I would say about
(41:01):
measuring and justifying the ROI. And unless you want it
to give a quick comment about it, we can.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Talk about the next objection only.
Speaker 4 (41:15):
I would just at one thing that to summarize everything.
Before you'll launch any program, just make sure that in
your attribution system you will attribute it to you achieve
The credit shouldn't be going to market and sales client
success or whoever agreed that it should be attributed to
(41:38):
the program that you're going to launch. Would it be
sad leadership? Okay, put it a sad leadership attribution, otherwise
you will have endless debates. Right, So that's that's the key.
Make sure that it's attributed to specific motion. And again
in the beginning, it doesn't really matter, I feel. It's
just what is really funny. It's like divided, you know,
(42:00):
the unkilled bear. So it's you try to discuss who
will get the credit of Sunset that doesn't exist, right,
You have no idea what the results will be there
and if you if we'll come back to the point
that we have discussed earlier, that you need to start
a small scope program. Right. You can't expect tons of results,
so start small with just again this link team, then
(42:25):
present the results and then have this discussion. Can we
make sure that if we're going to scale this program, right,
can we make sure that this would be attributed to
this specific motion or to our achieve right, so that
would be equal contribution of marketing and sales, right, not
marketing against. That's one of the keys that you need
(42:48):
to have in place, which kind of helps you also
to fix the marketing and sales misalignment, unify the goal
set and for the team teams, and making sure that
the teams are working together on the accounts on the motion. Right.
That's that's that's one of the keys. And the next
(43:09):
one is my favorite. We don't have time for this.
Our sales team is busy, right, uh, we have you
can see all the collection of these objections. Why not
just to do more outbound like our SDRs busy with outreach,
(43:30):
they don't have time to allocate account based market and right,
and our SDRs have the same compensation for mid market
and enterprise, and that's why they focus on mid market
since it's fast and easy, and our account executives get
all defensive and asked to you know, post content on
linked In, or do some non sales touch points with
(43:53):
the target accounts or there is one one that I
have seen in the slack community. It's basically our sales
reps busy with outbound. Unless you can prove that would
be opportunities, we can't give you a sales rep. Right,
So where this all comes from. It all comes from
(44:17):
lack of trust to marketing. Right. It's basically means that
marketing doesn't have strong voice in the organization. And if
you can't actually prove that what you are going to
do will help sales with the challenges and will help
them to generate the pipeline, you won't be able to
(44:38):
fix that challenge. From my perspective, I'm just sharing purely
my perspective, right because I spent before moving to marketing,
I spent five years in sales, and I feel very
well the concerns of sales leaders, especially if in the
organization marketing historically operated as arts and crafts department. Right,
(45:00):
it's very hard to change the mindset, right because you
assern that that would won't be any meaningful help right.
So from that perspective, I feel there are a couple
of things we can touch this report that you showed again,
but I would love to share a couple of things. First,
(45:21):
you need to find the friend list to market and
sales rep, a person who is willing to collaborate with marketing.
And if you're thinking that it would be most experienced
person or the most productive sales rep, that's not always
the case. Quite often we see that sales reps that
(45:41):
just joined your company or that are more junior
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