Eta Consults

Fractional Sales and Marketing

There is no doubt that the innovation that is taking place among start ups and emerging companies today is quite impressive.  Visit any incubator or developmental zone and you'll find a bevy of fascinating platforms, tools and technologies that are capable of solving business problems for clients; problems that many of us don't even know we have yet.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that many of these companies will never get the additional rounds of funding they'll need to become the next Drop Box, Tempo, Uber or Evernote if they don't fundamentally invest in sales and marketing.

VC's and other investment vehicles are becoming increasingly interested in seeing if emerging companies can prove their value in the open market; looking beyond just early adapters into the depth of viable, defendable pipelines that can illustrate that the product that is being pushed has an audience willing to spend money to buy it.  In other words, showing beta clients isn't enough anymore, you have to show that there is true market value for your product.

But sales and marketing costs are expensive and risky.  As a result, many founders take on the task of selling the early client base themselves.  This is fine, but along with product development, fundraising, human resources, financial management and sleeping, sales often takes a backseat to the other more pressing issues.  This is somewhat odd; as what can be more pressing then selling your product to a buyer?  

I recently met with a prospective client who said, "I know I need to get out there and sell, but I can't even return the inbound sales calls we get; let alone prospect and develop a pipeline.  I have investor meetings in the 3rd quarter and I'm worried about not having a pipeline." Additonally, another prospect told me this week, "I have 100 leads in my office, some want us to do RFP's for their business and I can't respond and I don't know how to handle some of these enterprise prospects anyway."

Fractional sales and marketing may be the answer.  Mitigating investment into sales is one of the reasons many start ups avoid the cost center.  They could hire a business development person with a rolodex at $90,000 a year plus 20% benefits and all the costs associated with having an employee and all the risk that comes with that such as:

• The true cost of onboarding a new employee; including training them in your product
• Limited resources that comes with one or two sales employees
• The promise of "tappping" into their networks for new business that has its limitations
• The high cost of founder involvement in sales deals anyway - the CEO is still sitting in on most sales calls and meetings; so where's the scalability?

Fracational sales is the idea of using a firm that has existing sales professionals on staff, a proven sales process for prospecting, deal management and closing deals along with understanding how to take an emerging brand to market.  Often, fractional sales teams will be able to quickly jump start your sales process by partnering with your company to develop many of the elements needed to have a sales operation:

• Marketing collateral
• CRM database management and development
• Lead generation and addressable market identification
• Demo mapping and management
• Pricing matrix development
• Contract development and management

Fractional comes form the very real economic case that firms like Eta Consults can be had for a fraction of the cost of hiring a Business Development rep with the expansive benefits of a deep bench of experienced sales and marketing professionals.  In addition; see math terms again, you get more people working on your behalf based on the budget you can afford. This frees founders up to continue to focus on the product and business development of their company's while the hired sales team is out building your pipeline.

Neglecting sales and marketing in a start up may prove to be the death blow for those businesses that are in the process to coming to market.  At some point; investors are going to want to see progress against their portfolio companies and a fractional sales partner may just be the right way to jump start the process.

Innovate or Not

This year my team and I have been working to help emerging marketing technology companies take their new offerings to market. We are asking for our prospects to consider three things:

1. A new or different technology

2. A new idea on how to do things

3. An investment of time to learn about this and think through how to make it work for them

It's been fascinating watching different companies respond to our offerings. Some have been innovators and risk takers; willing to think of useful ways to consider new ideas. They come from a cross section of companies, some very big, some very small. They have taken on risk and have been willing to invest in the process to learn and modify not only current marketing programs, but to allow the new ideas to percolate. Interestingly, they work with the providers to understand deeply how to measure results. They have been open to new ideas and concepts and have provided invaluable feedback to my clients that not only benefits their new vendor but allows for improvement on the programs they are testing.

We've also seen a number of prospects who've considered the new ideas but are unable to break through preconceptions they have about measuring performance against new concepts. They tend to default to standardized quantifiable set of preconceived notions on their performance expectations. Short term tests versus longer term engagements that often can't yield expected improvements in program performance. Their organizations tend mirror their more risk taking colleagues I wrote about above but their parameters are clearly more limited. While they are taking a calculated risk and testing new things, they are more rigid in their approach and less likely to implement long term additions to their processes. This isn't good or bad, just a way of doing business. They are respected because at least they test.

Additionally, there is a set of prospects that don't test or innovate. They show a deep interest in what we are presenting; what the new ideas are, but they can't or won't pull the trigger. They are either pigeon holed by organization infrastructures that doesn't allow of IT innovation, alterations to the schedule or anything that will risk the existing performance of their current programs. That's the most interesting part of the equation to me. Most of what my firm has focused on has been digital marketing innovations targeting the email databases of our audience. With huge segments of email marketers databases not returning results at all for their owners, why not innovate and test to generate a larger spark of result? There is a fear factor in play when it comes to moving the needle. That resistance sometimes is more powerful then the concern of the continuing challenge marketers face when addressing issues like list attrition.

Marketing by its core definition is testing. Testing, testing, testing. As our firm gets deeper into the new technologies and ideas that are being developed by the next generation of tools, it's clear that new ideas and new ways of doing things in our digital world will continue to change. There's always room to test and there should always be an allocation of resources, both budget and time, to welcome new ideas to your organization.

We have a few superstar clients we are working with, and listening to them talk about why they take on these tests is quite interesting. They speak with confidence and optimism and understand the evolution of the market. They often are approached randomly about these opportunities and welcome the conversation. They see the entire marketing landscape of their businesses and tend to be very well versed not only on their piece of the puzzle but the larger landscape as well. They work with us and our clients to change the the elements of our tests to improve the results...they are looking for them to succeed.

In the marketing world in which we exist today; it's clear to me that to move the needle is moving quickly and innovation is the fuel that feeds growth. Keep an open mind and see where it takes you.

Buying on the Quarter: How to Get Your Best Deal From Any Vendor

As a contributing blogger for Only Influencers, A Private Currated Community for Email Marketers, I get to write about all things ESP sales and marketing.  This month, I took buyers down the path of negotiating a deal as the quarter ends.  What to ask for and what to gain in leveraging the clicking tock that leads to sales pressure in the vendor side.

Take a moment to click through and read the entire posting at Only Influencers, he's an excerpt:

With only a few weeks remaining in the quarter, this may be a great time to assess where you are in the buyers cycle with your potential new vendors. Why? Because if your potential vendor has you on the sales pipeline as a likely client, making a deal is in your favor.

Sales teams use all types of scoring methods to predict the likelihood of winning a client. This is done by assessing the stage of the sales engagement by defining finite activities and associating them with a score and a close date.

As a buyer, understanding where you are in the sales cycle can be of great benefit when it comes to negotiating a deal: most sales folks are under some degree of revenue pressure on a quarterly basis.

Qualifying a prospect and moving them through the pipeline is part science and part art. Not all opportunities are equal. For example; in the ESP space every deal includes a product demo. Up until the actual demo most prospects are not qualified well enough to achieve serious buyer status. Many sales folks will use the demo as a point of review to understand the viability of the deal.

For more on this visit Only Influencers. 

  

You're Being Evaluated Too

As Eta Consults continues to dive deeper into work with our emerging brand businesses, I've been fascinated about the relationship between job "opportunities" and job "challenges." 

The workplace for the skilled has changed and no longer are companies in our space holding all the power when it comes to the hiring process.  Candidates have a variety of options facing them; which makes the recruiting process a bit different.  I'm out of school now for almost 25 years, and looking back on my interviews; both those where I've been a recruit for and those I've been recruiting, I can assure that times have indeed changed.

For one, a company's reputation amongst the pool of applicable clients matters.  In some cases, a candidate may have a longer historical view of the brand than the hiring manager.  If this is the case and you're the hiring manager, be ware.  Your positioning of an "opportunity" may be seen by some candidates as you selling them on something that is less than true.  That great opportunity you're pushing may simple be seen as a huge, daunting challenge that supercedes the gig.  

Here are some other tips when recruiting senior level talent:

• Sell to them.  Senior talent is evaluating you too during the process.  You must sell them on why they should join your team.  And YOU are an important aspect of this. Don't think they are not assessing your skills and management techniques too.
• No platitudes.  After a certain point in the process, partner with them in your conversations.  If you've exposed them to the team they'll manage, have frank discussions about isnights and ideas on where you'll take the business together. Don't talk to them in cliche's or "what ifs," speak to them in present tense.
• Engage them. Respond to emails and thank you messages.  As previously mentioned, you are being reviewed too.  How you interact during the recruitment is likely a good measure of how you manage people. Big timing a candidate is a huge no no and can cost you teir 1 talent.
• Manage the Recruitment.  If you're senior and you're using in house HR to help you, let them do just that, and help you.  But if you turn over all of the communications to them, you will have issues.  Emails that aren't written to convey your message properly are just the tip of the iceberg.  Imagine being the recruit who is trying to develop a raport with the potential boss and then having a level inserted into that relationship.  It speaks to management style and it's a loser.
• Get Everyone on the Same Page.  I know it's popular to have candidates run a gauntlet of people for interviews.  Make sure they are aligned with the same message. This includes long term vision for the business, how much money was or will be invested in the company.  Management styles and corporate culture.  Also consider having the candidate meet with a smaller number of people for longer periods of time.

We are advising our clients on how to identify the right characteristics for their candidates; once you do this, don't allow them to slip through the system because they score you low on their evaluations.  

When You Control the Mail, You Control Information

2013 has been an interesting year.  First, in June we saw Salesforce.com acquire ExactTarget for $2.5 billion, SFDC Presser .  This deal was a big one that saw the coming together of the preeminent CRM SaaS solution with the leading ESP that had started its growth trajectory by catering to the SMB market.  ExactTarget took the leadership position by out maneuvering its competition by investing significant money from two rounds of $70,000,000 each into sales and marketing.  As any salesperson in the email marketing space wehn asked whom they are competing against in every deal, and they'll surely tell you ExactTarget .  

In the traditional enterprise ESP space, Responsys  similarly took a leadership position many years ago by focusing on retail and sizable database clients.  They too invested heavily in sales and marketing and did well with the analysts.  They lacked the direct integation with CRM and database suites.  That all changed on December 20th when Oracle announced they had acquired Responsys for $1.5 billion.  

It's not hard to see what's happening here.  $4 billion has been spent on ESP's in the last 6 months by CRM and database driven companies, as they look to add deployment engines to their solutions.  Effectively, we're seeing the second wave of this as the marketing and omnichannel digital elements are being combined.  Between 2004 and 2009 we saw companies like Bigfoot Interactive, CheetahMail and Digital Impact get acquired by Epsilon, Experian and Acxiom as those data driven companies added email to their other services.  

The goal is simple.  Can any of these companies combine a tool set that will enable their customers who use them for first party data housing and campaign management,  effectively? Is this the right strategy? As Oracle and Salesforce.com fight to own the data and keep the delivery mechanisms in place who else will join the game?  IBM has their own ESP tool but can't sit by and watch Oracle and Salesforce acquire top tier ESP's and do nothing, can they? Teradata? And what will Epsilon, Experian and Acxiom do to respond to this challenge? 

One thing that is constant, is that there will be change.  First party data is the prize and as Newman once famously said on Seinfield, "When you control the mail, you control information."

 

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From the Sales Side. What Makes A Successful Sales Pro

From my work with Only Influencers

http://bit.ly/1bKpwkU

The give and take between buyer and seller has always fascinated me.  For example, those who sell spend a great deal of time trying to navigate the organizations that they are targeting.  Who’s in charge?  What drives them to be interested enough to talk with us?  Who are the key influencers in the deal?  What is the desired outcome for the prospect? 

In the last several years the Corporate Executive Board has conducted extensive research indentifying which sales people were most successful.  They determined the following five sales types that interact with customers:

• The Relationship Builder
• The Problem Solver
•  The Hard Worker
•  The Lone Wolf
• The Challenger

Reading through this list, I’m sure you can think of a few people you’ve worked with that fit into these sales types.  It may shock you to learn that one of these sales types significantly outperforms the others in complex sales, which is exactly what buying email marketing technology is.  In fact, much of the way that you perceive a vendor is generated during the sales process.  Did you realize that?  The sales type that drives highest value in the selling cycle is also the type you may struggle with the most as a buyer.  Let’s see if you agree with the description of the most successful sales type:

• The representative offers unique and valuable perspectives on the marketplace
• The representative helps me navigate alternatives to solving my problem
• The representative helps “me” avoid land mines
• The representative educates me on new issues and new outcomes
• The company they work from is easy to buy from
• The vendor has widespread support from within my organization

The challenge that sales folks face in the email space is differentiating between competitive vendors. It’s hard to do.  It’s made more complex by the fact that many times the buyers don’t do a good enough job of identifying their needs and truly understanding the core variables that each vendor brings to the table.  The reality is that all of the ESP’s can handle sending email and sending it well.  Trying to differentiate between basic features that accomplish this table stakes task isn’t going to yield insight for the buyer. Understanding which sales team is bringing you value, versus the one who is interested in winning the commodity race, can have a huge impact on your decision making.

Read the rest at Only Influencers....

Does Your Business Have a Cultural Problem?

Understanding the how the culture of your workplace is impacting your business is one of the most underestimated; yet, important aspects of running a business.  Whether it is an emerging company or a long time existing business, managing this part of your ever changing landscape can prove to have positive impact on your growth while ignoring it can lead to employee dissatisfaction and employee turnover.

Years ago I joined an emerging company who was just beginning their upward growth mode. Having begun the process of landing new customers outside of the "early adopter's the company began to hire more people to handle the new business and the associated needs.  Yet, there were senior people who were outwardly difficult to all the new hires and verbalized their feelings by expressing themselves.  As an example, I was once scolded for not have endured the struggles of the business when getting payroll for that week was at risk.  Seriously.  a senior executive said to me, "you weren't here when we would sweat out getting paid that week, so you don't understand."  I was shocked she would have said this to me and she was factually correct, I wasn't there then.  But it wasn't my fault as I had recently been hired and was not part of that founding group.  This was something I couldn't change.

Culture impacts how people work.  The level of trust they have in their companies to perform, speak up at meetings, interact with other employees and share ideas.  A strong culture can help a company seek new heights, but be ware of the pitfalls associated with how your company handles new people. Like any living organism a company will morph and change as it evolves, and new employees will be part of that growth.

Here are some tips to follow to help you understand hidden elements about your company's culture:

• Understand how your company's "underground" organization chart works. Are existing employees navigating process differently than new employees? Are new employees being asked to do things that long termers aren't?
• Is the history of your company so strong that it's not allowing itself to see the future? Does the company romanticize the "good old days" or does it think ahead?
• Are new ideas truly embraced or are they just "heard" in meetings to allow people to feel part of the team?  Failure to impliment diminishes the value people feel they are contributing and can lead to churn.
• Have employee cliques developed?  While this isn't high school, companies can certainly behave like that sometimes.  Are there insiders and everyone else?  Think about how that impacts the group.
• Are new managers truly empowerd to run their teams or are long term employees able to circumvent them and bypass process to access other long term managers?
  • This includes allowing them to complain and undermine the newcomers and not respect the company's stated workflow processes and management heiarchy.  

There is no doubt that the culture of a thriving successful company can have a huge impact on the success of the business; as much as a debilitating unwelcoming culture can impact it negatively.  A good statistical place to review whether or not culture is impacting your business is the raw data on employee churn.  If you're exceeding industry norms you may have a bigger cultural problem than just hiring the wrong people to begin with.

 

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Future Proofing ESP RFP's

My latest post with our new partner, www.emailvendorselection.com.

http://bit.ly/19lwmGt

Eta"vations" from the Week Gone By

"Etavations" are random observations from the week gone by,  relative to emerging brands selling and marketing needs.  I apologize in advance for the poor attempt at Eta Consults humor, but hey, it's Friday.

• Everyone needs sales and revenue but some don't understand the concept of cost of sales in their business model.  Ray Kinsella was wrong, "if you build they will come," had more to do with a mythical baseball field then it did with the highly competitive world we live in in real life. The best product doesn't win the race; the best product and sales wins the race. Words to live by.
• Customer service matters.  Just completed a call with Acura Financial Services where they were able to work seamlessly with me on the web and the phone; making my registration process a breeze.  We need more of this with companies out there that seem disconnected from the user experience.
• Knowing your marketplace and why they will buy from you seems basic, but it's amazing how many organizations do not know this.  What you think is the driver may in fact be causing you to miss the mark.  It takes effort to work this through.
• Organizing your "organization" to support revenue growth is critical.  If you miss this, you will not be successful.  Know what your senior management team is thinking on the short term and the long term and keep them focused.  
• Uber and HopSpot are terrific, functionanal and useful aps.  We need more of these types of products in the marketplace.  When I read why startups fail half the time I'm amazed they got funding to begin with.
• The Philadelphia Eagles are now offering free Wifi at home games.  It's a great add to their game experience and is the first of its offering in Philadelphia.  Going to games is more interactive than ever before and allowing fans to connect in a meaningful way is terrific.

And as I advised last week to a friend, never take the road favorite giving over 7 points to a ranked team.  It's bad business.

 

SaaS RFP's from the Customer's Perspective Part 2

This  is the rest of the discussion with Steve Furman on SaaS RFP's and their processes from his perspective as a buyer.

Jason:  Steve, so far the feedback on our conversation has been strong.  There is so much to explore as we try to understand the challenges both buyers and sellers face when they are working on big RFP level deals.  One of the interesting things I've seen in the past is poorly written RFPs that have the same question asked multiple times; a clear indication that various stakeholders have submitted their departmental needs but that they haven't been aligned with the entirety of the organization’s scope requirements.

With that in mind, how do you lead the needs assessment that takes place?  How do you identify the internal owners, and how is that process managed before you even consider engaging vendors?

Steve: Your needs assessment should be informed by your strategy and roadmap.  Well crafted plans should include identifying the capabilities a company will need to build or buy.  The roadmap will tell you when you will need to acquire that capability or skill.  If you have been forward thinking enough to conduct annual performance evaluations of your agency or vendor (“A/V”) then you already have a baseline from internal stakeholders.  If not, you should solicit input from the people in your organization who work directly with the A/V, as well as the people who are directly impacted by the products and services that they provide.

Jason: This is great insight, and actually very useful for existing vendors or agencies that should understand their clients’ needs.  Can you talk a little about some of the challenges you face internally on whether or not to pursue a project?  We often hear that inertia is a huge factor and can have a big impact on the opportunity.  If this is true, how do you navigate through this?

Steve: You have definitely hit on a big challenge.  Unless things are completely out of control with an A/V, there are always switching costs that must be carefully evaluated.  There is also the "grass is always greener" syndrome.  It's not always the case.  As far as projects go, each firm has a way that they scorecard value and prioritize projects.  One has to master that process in order to get their project considered and ultimately approved.

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with inertia.  It's the force that keeps things moving while we sleep, but it is so difficult to overcome when you want to inject change or a fresh perspective. One of the things a sharp sales person can do is demonstrate how they have helped companies through transitions and proactively offer references, without waiting to be asked.

Another thing is to find out what the fear points are and offer solutions for them.  Oftentimes a company is just not ready to take something on.  Every firm is at a different place on the maturity curve.  Understanding where they are is critical for sales people.  Sometimes it means sitting on the sidelines until that time has come. If you play it right you will get the first call.

Jason:  Steve, this is phenomenal information.  Having run teams that sell to decision makers like you for quite some time, the importance of understanding an organization’s needs  cannot be overstated.  But you're right; it extends beyond the tactical solution and into the pain points, organizational challenges, and costs associated with change.  Essentially, it comes down to leveraging consultative selling and exhibiting patience. 

Steve blogs on many topics at Expendiantmeans.com 

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Use the Discovery Process to Customize your Best Deal

Here's the latest entry to Only Influencers on the discovery process being leveraged by buyers.

Sales teams go through a process called discovery.  It’s designed to help the seller understand the needs of the buyer so that the seller can begin to design a solution to fit the buyers’ needs.  While it can feel like an interrogation at times, it is a valuable exercise that will help the buying process along. But buyers can be reluctant to truly open up about their needs and by doing so, they are shooting themselves in the foot. 

Read more: Only Influencers Blog