{"id":1080,"date":"2020-11-16T22:25:10","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T22:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/?p=1080"},"modified":"2020-11-16T22:25:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T22:25:13","slug":"no-forms-no-spam-no-cold-calls-book-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/16\/no-forms-no-spam-no-cold-calls-book-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls (Book Summary)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls: The next generation of account-based sales and marketing by Latan\u00e9 Conant<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHAPTER 1 A NEW ERA OF SALES AND MARKETING<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  • You\u2019ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.<\/li>
  • AI-based technology can tell us when accounts are in-market \u2014 not inbound. That\u2019s when it\u2019s time to engage. Inbound is too late.<\/li>
  • Here\u2019s how I think about the buying stages
    • Target – How to connect with accounts in the target stage: Don\u2019t.<\/li><\/ul>
      • Awareness – They\u2019re not researching specific brands yet, but they\u2019re searching generic keywords. In the awareness stage, I just want them to be familiar with us and our thought leadership. So I connect them to a relevant episode of our video series, TalkingSense\u2122.<\/li><\/ul>
        • Consideration – How to connect with consideration accounts: Make sure you\u2019re the one they\u2019re learning from. In consideration, I serve them up an ebook \u2014 no gate, no form \u2014 to make sure I\u2019m the one they\u2019re learning from when they search for keywords that are important to them.<\/li><\/ul>
          • 4. Decision – How to connect with people in the decision stage: This is the magic window for business development reps (BDRs) to get involved, initiate call and email sequences, and try to schedule an introductory meeting. In decision, I want to start to engage them and offer proof. So I offer to show them how we can uncover their Dark Funnel.<\/li><\/ul>
            • Purchase – How to connect with people in the purchase stage: The goal here is to further deepen your level of engagement with the account and help them buy from you. In the purchase stage, it\u2019s all about getting that meeting. That\u2019s when we\u2019re encouraging them to schedule a demo<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
            • We do whatever we can to remove friction from the buying process.<\/li>
            • At 6sense, we committed to eliminating all forms for education and product-related content.<\/li>
            • The only times we use forms are when we actually, honestly need a person\u2019s information to do what they want to do:
              • Register for an event or webinar<\/li><\/ul>
                • Use one of our online assessment tools<\/li><\/ul>
                  • Request a demo or ask us to contact them<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                  • We avoid sending an email to a prospect unless we know:
                    • What they care about, based on keyword research<\/li><\/ul>
                      • Key personas in the account \u2014 in other words, who we should be trying to reach<\/li><\/ul>
                        • What stage they\u2019re at in the buying journey<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                        • Boiled down to its purest essence, our email strategy is this: If you know nothing, do nothing.<\/li>
                        • We do not call a prospect unless we know all of the following:
                          • The prospect is \u201c in-market \u201d for our solution<\/li><\/ul>
                            • What the prospect really cares about<\/li><\/ul>
                              • How to articulate the context of why the call is being made<\/li><\/ul>
                                • How to have a meaningful conversation and add value<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                • I\u2019m only giving [sellers] warm accounts to call, and I\u2019m making sure they have all the rich information they need to be able to lead with value and have a meaningful conversation.<\/li>
                                • One of the ways we ensure we\u2019re never calling cold is by creating something called a value card. This card is essentially a matrix, and it includes the top intent keywords and the top personas.<\/li>
                                • We\u2019ve really doubled down and designed our strategy around personalizing for intent keyword and timing. For instance, our new chat bot pops up with communications tailored to persona, intent keyword, and timing.<\/li>
                                • [We have made the] shift from static, updated-once-a-year territories to dynamic territories based on customer intent.
                                  • We\u2019re evaluating and prioritizing these dynamic territories on a daily basis<\/li><\/ul>
                                    • Quarterly we add and remove accounts based on intent and activity. But that doesn\u2019t mean we lose patience for the accounts that are going to take more time. In fact, one-third of our enterprise sellers \u2019 accounts are long-tail, strategic accounts that they\u2019ll continue to work on regardless of daily (or quarterly) shifts.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                      CHAPTER 2 IT\u2019S TIME FOR CMOS TO PLAY OFFENSE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                      • When you put that marketer underneath a revenue officer who\u2019s only ever owned sales, you\u2019re going to double down on the growth thing, and brand and experience are going to go by the wayside.<\/li>
                                      • I\u2019ve seen a few key areas where CMOs can differentiate themselves:
                                        • Strategy<\/li><\/ul>
                                          • Customer Insights<\/li><\/ul>
                                            • Category Design<\/li><\/ul>
                                              • Culture<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                              • [Salesforce\u2019s] V2MOM stands for: Vision; Values; Methods; Obstacles (and\/or Owner); Metrics<\/li>
                                              • At 6sense, we adhere to this schedule:
                                                • Every two weeks: Provide updates on all V2MOMs \u2014 departmental and organizational \u2014 to the whole company on the all-hands call.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                  • Every six months: Do an overall status update on all V2MOMs.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                    • Every year: Create a new V2MOM for the coming year.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                    • We tailor our marketing to the accounts that show intent and engagement and are at the sweet spot in the buying journey.<\/li>
                                                    • Better doesn\u2019t sell; different sells.<\/li>
                                                    • Build a message map: A message map is a tool that makes it easy for everyone in the organization \u2014 from content writers, to sales people, to the CEO \u2014 to anchor their messages around the centralized, consistent themes we\u2019ve determined to be our most effective messaging strategy. Here\u2019s how to create one:
                                                      • State the large industry shift that\u2019s going on and what your solution offers that every potential customer is trying to achieve. This is what you want your top-level message to be, from a brand messaging and positioning standpoint.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                        • Name the ways your customers struggle to evolve to that shift.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                          • List the challenges that your customers face as a result of each of those struggles.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                            • For each listed challenge, identify the ways your solution helps your customers meet the challenge.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                              • Finally, establish what sets your solution apart from others your potential customers could choose from.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                              • Incremental improvement is essential from a product perspective, but it\u2019s tough to get customers and potential customers jazzed about little things. [The book] Play Bigger taught me to decouple the \u201cproduct roadmap\u201d from the marketecture.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                                CHAPTER 3 BUILDING THE CUSTOMER-FIRST TECH STACK<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                                • Make the switch from lead-based marketing to account-based marketing (ABM).<\/li>
                                                                • What we need to do is select accounts based on data \u2014 not opinion and personal preference. Specifically, we need to select accounts based on real buyer intent and activity data that\u2019s in the Dark Funnel\u2122.<\/li>
                                                                • From display to direct mail to BDR cadences to website experience, everything needs to be personalized by account, persona, and, most importantly, timing.<\/li>
                                                                • We need to be tracking and reporting on things that actually matter and affect deal velocity and pipeline acceleration, such as new accounts engaged, new personas engaged, opportunity rate, and account win rates.<\/li>
                                                                • Target your data acquisition budget toward enriching and refreshing data on the right accounts at the right time.<\/li>
                                                                • Employ Dynamic segments by using filters to continually refresh a list of accounts based on any criteria.<\/li>
                                                                • Target ICP accounts in a customized and creative way all the time.<\/li>
                                                                • It\u2019s best to start with more generalized levels of personalization (like industry, company size, buying stage, and location)<\/li>
                                                                • Asking reps to log into the account engagement platform the marketing team uses is almost certain to be met with resistance.<\/li>
                                                                • Our sales team takes it a step further by using AI to recommend the next best action a rep should take to increase engagement with an account. For example, the AI recommends specific contacts for a rep to add to the sales engagement platform and begin outreach, and even offers suggested talking points based on the contact\u2019s interests and behavior. It also recommends new contacts to add to CRM to flesh out the buying center, enabling reps to acquire relevant data with a few clicks.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                                  CHAPTER 4 OUR BOLD NEW VISION IN ACTION<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                                  • A revenue operating model is not an MQL goal or an SQL goal. It\u2019s an in-depth plan that details what you need to achieve at each stage of the marketing, sales, and customer success cycle.<\/li>
                                                                  • Before building out your revenue operating model, you need to look at historical data to determine some key metrics, including your average transaction cycle time, win rate, deal size, and the amount of pipeline you create at each stage in the marketing funnel.<\/li>
                                                                  • The best benchmark is yourself. Start baselining and set your sights to improve.<\/li>
                                                                  • You double your revenue by improving the prospect and customer experience.<\/li>
                                                                  • To increase your sales velocity.
                                                                    • Increase number of new opportunities<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                      • Increase average selling price<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                        • Increase win rate<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                          • Decrease sales cycle length<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                          • Your GTM plan spells out the specific campaigns you\u2019re going to run to achieve the revenue operating model you\u2019ve established.<\/li>
                                                                          • In order to scale campaigns based on complexity, length, and resource needs, it\u2019s helpful to break them into tiers:
                                                                            • Tier 1:  Think the big stuff \u2014 significant product launches, acquisitions, funding, important industry trade shows, your own conference, and so forth. We collaborate closely with sales at every single step of these plays.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                              • Tier 2: Point-in-time projects that are geared toward increasing pipeline or engagement in a focused account segment. Some examples of Tier 2 campaigns are running a competitive takeout, amplifying an event, launching a webinar series, or doing a co-sell with a partner.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                • Tier 3: They\u2019re the ones you run to programmatically, for example, Google retargeting and LinkedIn strategies as well as content syndication.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                • What every campaign has to have
                                                                                  • Business objective<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                    • Tie back to an account segment<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                      • Your budget<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                        • Your content and creative<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                          • Your prospect experience (meaning activation channels like direct mail, email, BDR outreach, events, and special programs)<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                          • There are two key ways we provide a personalized content experience to our website visitors, both based on buying stage and intent.
                                                                                            • The first is with our chatbot, which recognizes the accounts that are visiting our site and pops in with friendly and tailored recommendations.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                              • The second way we provide a customer-first (and more effective) digital experience is with a personalized content hub.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                              • For high-value, qualified opportunities that have shown interest but (for whatever reason) aren\u2019t progressing the way we expect them to, we use a service called Alyce to send a personalized gift designed to grab their attention and re-engage them.<\/li>
                                                                                              • Have a video-First Content Strategy<\/li>
                                                                                              • Sometimes a campaign just needs some small adjustments to yield the results you knew it could have.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                                                                                                CHAPTER 5 ARE YOU READY TO BREAK THROUGH?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
                                                                                                • RevOps difference makers create an environment in which people can have self-serve access to data.<\/li>
                                                                                                • Delivering predictive scores to sellers within the CRM is not enough; you also need to provide the WHY behind the scores.<\/li>
                                                                                                • Sales teams no longer really create demand. Demand is created by prospects in ICP accounts conducting research long before they engage with a salesperson. So digital markers must now uncover that demand and turn it into opportunities<\/li>
                                                                                                • Gartner research reveals that B2B buyers must complete six distinct activities \u2014 or \u201c jobs \u201d \u2014 to successfully complete a purchase today.

                                                                                                  <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n
                                                                                                  • If you don\u2019t offer a friction-free, meaningful experience at every single touch point, visitors will just move to the next result in their search.<\/li>
                                                                                                  • Develop content and tools to help future customers complete essential buying jobs.<\/li>
                                                                                                  • It\u2019s really not about demand generation once you light up your Dark Funnel\u2122 and you can see all the demand in front of you; it\u2019s really about demand capture.<\/li>
                                                                                                  • The game is not about generating more MQLs; it\u2019s about fast tracking in-market accounts and ensuring they\u2019re worked as effectively and efficiently as possible.<\/li>
                                                                                                  • As Demand Generators, we need to be able to track and enhance that buying group engagement so we can pass really high quality accounts to sales.<\/li>
                                                                                                  • Here are some examples of what AI-driven orchestration can look like:
                                                                                                    • If an account is a tier-one target and an executive-level persona registers for a webinar, prompt the AE to send a personalized email offering a demo.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                      • If an account is a strong ICP fit and moves to decision or purchase but then goes silent for 10 days, direct mail a gift to the key persona.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                        • If a director-level persona attends a demo, automatically invite a C-level persona in a specific job function to connect with one of our executives.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                          • If an account moves into the decision or purchase buying stage and is a strong fit for my ICP, automatically acquire missing contacts in the buying center and add key personas to a sales cadence for BDR outreach.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                                          • If you blindly follow the attribution, you\u2019ll end up serving straight tequila shots rather than well-balanced cocktails<\/li>
                                                                                                          • Breakthrough moves for demand generation
                                                                                                            • Focus on in-market accounts.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                              • Co-own the revenue operating model.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                                • Leverage tech and insights to fix cracks.<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                                  • Eliminate time sucks. Implement disqualification and low-touch processes for accounts that aren\u2019t a good fit.<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                                                  • With an account-based approach, the focus shifts to qualified accounts that may consist of several individuals.<\/li>
                                                                                                                  • The event planning aspect of field marketing is a lot of freaking work.<\/li>
                                                                                                                  • 5 Rules for BDR Breakthroughs
                                                                                                                    • Rule # 1: Power outbound sales with personalization<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                                      • Rule # 2: Use a multichannel strategy with a mix of manual and automatic touches<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                                        • Rule # 3: Rely on templates, and personalize them with keywords and persona<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                                          • Rule # 4: Update materials and cadences quarterly<\/li><\/ul>
                                                                                                                            • Rule # 5: Don\u2019t give up on unresponsive prospects<\/li><\/ul><\/li>
                                                                                                                            • If one person on the account wasn\u2019t interested, I wouldn\u2019t stop until I got a no from everyone on the persona map.<\/li>
                                                                                                                            • 50 percent of sales and marketing leaders can\u2019t even agree on which accounts to target<\/li>
                                                                                                                            • Dasha Vasilyeva, our top seller, says she won\u2019t forecast something as a commit if she doesn\u2019t have the entire buying committee engaged.<\/li><\/ul>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                                                                                                                              No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls: The next generation of account-based sales and marketing by Latan\u00e9 Conant CHAPTER 1 A NEW ERA OF SALES AND MARKETING You\u2019ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. AI-based technology can tell us when accounts are in-market \u2014 not inbound. That\u2019s when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sellingsherpa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/NoSpam.png?fit=2142%2C630&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9j2qV-hq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1082,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions\/1082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}