Aligned Podcast – FitzMartin

In this episode of the Centricity podcast, our host, Will Riley, meets with Eddie Yoon, one of the authors of The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different. They talk about the ultimate business strategy - category design - which uses a passion for change and the need to upend the status quo to drive innovation and growth. Category Design - The Ultimate Strategy Instead of competing against other businesses or trying to come out at the top of your field, category design is about competing against the status quo. Companies that subscribe to a “Be Different” mentality grow quickly, but many are too risk-averse to go in this direction. Leaders in these businesses care deeply about their products and believe in what the company produces - they're frustrated by current societal standards and want to create change. Types of Category Designers Accidental designers are those who create something great that explodes but don't know why and can't replicate their success. Serial designers are innovators who consistently create successful products that they support and care about. Resources Reach out to Eddie via email at eddie@eddiewouldgrow.com Follow Eddie on Twitter @eddiewouldgrow The 22 Laws of Category Design by Category Pirates, Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, Katrina Kirsch, Nicolas Cole - pick it up on Amazon

In this episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Will Riley meets with Jeremy Miner, author of The New Model of Selling: Selling to an Unsellable Generation. They discuss meeting new challenges as a seller It's Time For Sellers to Adapt More than ever before, consumers have access to plenty of information about all of the products people are trying to sell to them. They no longer need a salesperson to be their consultant. It's good to learn about foundational elements of sales from older books, but they focus on “transactional selling,” which is less and less relevant. Prospects are used to being sold to. When they hear “salesy” talk, they shut down - sellers need to build actual trust with prospects through tonality and asking the right questions. Moving Beyond Logic When a seller seems aggressive or desperate, prospects shut down. Using different tones and facial expressions, you can open them up. Prospects are predisposed to say “no” when you start selling to them. Ask them questions like, “Are you opposed to discussing this further?” Make the ‘no' work for you! Stay away from surface-level questions if you are interested in deeper answers.  Resources SalesRevolution.pro To dig deeper into these topics and many more, pick up a copy of The New Model of Selling: Selling to an Unsellable Generation by Jeremy Miner and Jerry Acuff on BarnesandNoble.com.

In this episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Will Riley meets with Connor Jeffers, the founder and CEO of Aptitude 8 and hapily. They dig deep into digital systems and get specific about finding a tech stack that finds a balance between sophistication and efficiency. Choosing a Solution Consultative sellers have to understand the pain and needs of the companies they're working with, because buyers may not exactly know the terminology for what they actually want. A8 helps customers create what they want to build, and then they build it. On the other hand, hapily offers standard functionality and if you have needs beyond that, you will need to seek them elsewhere. Independent Software Vendor vs Systems Integrator Aptitude 8, for all intents and purposes, an integrator. While they can create a setup entirely through HubSpot, but they do end up integrating, especially for larger companies. Security-wise, they have access to a lot of data. They have systems in place to ensure that data is safe. When working with big organizations, there is a responsibility to ensure that the new systems work better than the original. There is a lot of risk involved for the organization. Takeaways About Sales/Marketing Learn about relational databases, software models, etc. to ramp up your understanding of what you're selling in general. Get educated on APIs. You don't necessarily need to be a coder to have a basic grasp on what an API is! Resources Connect with Connor Jeffers on LinkedIn Aptitude8.com

In this episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Sean Doyle meets with Cecilia Lang Ree, the Senior Product Manager at Biolinq. They discuss applying behavior science to create more effective, successful marketing strategies.  Why Apply Behavior Science to Marketing? This gives marketing professionals a science-based framework to start from when creating profiles of their prospects rather than relying on trial and error. People are often motivated by unconscious factors – even if you're surveying them and getting responses, they may not be able to tell you a complete picture of what they're experiencing and why. The transtheoretical model maps out how people experience changes in behavior. Marketers need to be familiar with the stages of behavior change in order to have targeted techniques throughout the buyer journey. The Bridge Between Awareness and Action Awareness is not enough to change people's behavior.  Understanding intrinsic motivation can help us develop a step-by-step process that can take someone from knowing about your product to choosing to purchase. Getting Started Get excited about the science. Learn it and teach it to anyone who is interested.  Cecilia lists some of her favorite resources - see below! Resources Connect with Cecilia Lang-Ree on LinkedIn!  What Your Customer Wants and Can't Tell You by Melina Palmer Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut Start at the End by Matt Wallaert  Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska BehavioralScientists.org Irrational Labs

In this episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Sean Doyle sits down with Ian Altman, author of Same Side Selling, to talk through the three most damaging sales tactics. Tune in to hear the importance of understanding and solving the buyer's problems, focusing on results, and building buyer trust through tactful language.   Focusing on Features and Benefits   Lead with exploring the “symptoms” the buyer may be dealing with rather than trying to solve a problem they don't know they have.   Focus on meeting your client's goals and how your product will deliver those results.   BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time Sensitivity)   Focusing on these types of questions creates a “salesy” atmosphere and puts the client in an adversarial position, which causes sellers to lose buyer trust.   It's okay to discuss needs and time sensitivity, but if you start with budget and authority, you've already put your buyer on the defensive.   If you want to talk about budget, instead, try bringing up the costs of NOT addressing the issues your product will solve.    Forgetting the Buyer   Know what problem you solve and present that to your contact at whatever level they're at in the industry.   Align with marketing to understand your buyer and their needs better. If marketing tools aren't useful, let the marketing team know so they can help you!   Resources: http://ianaltman.com   http://samesideselling.com   Pick up Ian's book, Same Side Selling: A Radical Approach to Break Through Sales Barriers, on Amazon!  

In this episode of The Centricity Podcast, our host Will Riley has Joseph Seo back on the podcast to discuss 5 AI you don't know about (yet). Seo is the Principal Co-founder at Visual Lime Creative and Revenue Operations Specialist at Fitzmartin. Listen to their episode, “ChatGPT for B2B”, if you'd like to hear more from Will and Joseph!  Chatbots ChatBots are becoming more intuitive. While they can't replace support teams, they are great for triaging support needs. Fitzmartin uses Chatspot.ai by Hubspot.  Copywriting Support Seo recommends trying ChatGPT-4, Writer, and Jasper. The differences are mostly about UI, so it's worth testing them to see what works for you. Even though these writing tools can't hold a candle to human creativity and writing quality, they are great for getting your process started.  Audio/Video Midjourney has plenty of casual applications, but Seo doesn't use it for business. AdCreative.ai is more business-relevant. Use this for high-quality ads.  Resources Follow Fitzmartin on LinkedIn so you never miss an episode with Joe! For more on AI, listen to Joe and Will's episode “ChatGPT for B2B”

In this episode of The Centricity Podcast, our host Sean Doyle meets with Timothy Hughes to discuss the power of social selling. Hughes is the author of Social Selling: Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers, and he creates regular content for his 32,000 LinkedIn followers. Listen in to hear how social selling can impact your organization and your sales team.  Social Selling Use your presence on social media to build relationships, start conversations, and create commercial interactions. Social selling is NOT predictable pitching! Many buyers are immune to pitching – to them, it's all spam. They are more likely to be interested in connecting and working with the right people. Tim's social selling methods are seeing a 9% response rate from prospects and a 33.6% rate of prospects moving on to the next steps.  Human Content Rather than just using social media to talk about how great your product is, connect with people by creating content that isn't “salesy”. This type of posting will start conversations and make you memorable.  It's not about gaming the algorithm of the platform of your choice, it's about learning to be social on whatever platform your prospect uses.  How to Get Started Create a buyer-centric profile. It's not about you, it's about your customer. Cultivate a wide and varied network.  Provide insightful content your client can't find anywhere else.  Resources Connect with Tim on LinkedIn Get your copy of Tim Hughes' book “Social Selling” on Amazon!

In this episode of The Centricity Podcast, our host Will Riley meets with Joseph Seo for Part 3 of our series on cookies (if you haven't yet, check out Part 1 and Part 2). Seo is a seasoned marketer who brings his expertise and research-driven approach to marketing strategy to this conversation about the end of third-party tracking and the way companies and agencies alike will have to evolve.  Adjusting to a “Cookieless” Future The marketing industry won't collapse, but it will be impacted. One of those impacts has been a boom in programmatic advertising.  Contextual advertising, or advertising on pages relevant to your product, is an effective way to market your product that doesn't rely on cookies. Capture more first-party data from your website, marketing team, and customer service team. Reps will need to gather the data rather than rely on it. Know what kind of data your company uses. If you're relying on Facebook and Google for your advertising, you may face less extreme changes to your strategy than companies that rely primarily on third-party data. Effective Marketing Without Cookies First-party data will produce better results than third-party because consumers who volunteer to participate show a higher level of interest and commitment to your product. Programmatic advertising works well for mobile advertising. As people increasingly use their phones to explore web content, D2C marketing can be effective. Current and Forthcoming Impacts Lower-funnel or late-stage tactics will be impacted first. Industries will now be forced to invest in gathering first-party data. Combining ad testing and brand lift studies will give companies more useful data than cookies, so we will likely see the development of more sophisticated campaigns. If your company is fairly established, consider implementing a data solution like Segment to centralize your data and simplify decision-making. Resources Don't forget to check out Parts 1 and 2 of our series on cookies!  Episode 33 The Death of the Cookie: Understanding Internet Privacy PART 1 Episode 34 The Death of the Cookie: Understanding Internet Privacy PART 2

In today's episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Sean Doyle meets with NYT-bestselling author Jonah Berger to discuss his book Magic Words. They discuss the science behind the impact of words and how we can increase our impact simply by consciously adjusting how we communicate. Language of “Identity” People are more likely to be motivated to do something if they think it reflects who they are or want to become. Berger offers several examples, including one that asked children to “help clean up,” vs. asking them to “be a helper,” and the latter was more effective persuasively. This works for adults, too! “Concrete” Language When most people make a bold claim, they will “hedge”, or add in language of uncertainty. Berger recommends doing away with hedging and focusing on definite, clear terms if you want to exude confidence. Resources Magic Words by Jonah Berger on Amazon For FREE resources on the SPEACC framework, check out Jonah Berger's website, http://jonahberger.com If you'd like to connect with Jonah, you can find him @J1Berger on Twitter, or if you search Jonah Berger on LinkedIn!

In this episode of the Centricity podcast, Sean Doyle meets with Antonia Wade, Global CMO for PwC and the author of Transforming the B2B Buyer Journey: Increase Leads, Maximize Conversion Rates and Build Loyalty. Wade draws on years of experience as a CMO to bring us the truth of what works, even when that flies in the face of what we have been taught.  Moving Beyond the B2B Funnel The “funnel” is an outdated model that doesn't take into account the layers of complexity presently involved in the sales process. Multiple stakeholders, decision-makers, and increasingly technical products make the process less straightforward than in years past. Funnel imagery encourages sellers to move their buyers through the process as quickly as possible without taking time to create relationships, leading to poor customer experiences and low loyalty. The Future of Marketing Don't sacrifice advertising for brand architecture or vice versa. Both are needed to appeal to stakeholders at all levels of the organization. Organize your marketing campaign to make data extraction easy. When you offer valuable information to your customers, the information you get back makes these relationships mutually beneficial.  Resources Pick up Antonia Wade's book, Transforming the B2B Buyer Journey, on Amazon.  

In today's episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Sean Doyle meets with Harvey Nix to take a deep dive into the strategic use of AI to creatively add to your sales processes. Nix shares his screen to show you how to write GPT-4 prompts that will get you great output, so check out the video version of the episode! See the Resources section of the show notes for a FREE Prompt Command Worksheet, CMO Cheat Sheet for ChatGPT, and more! Augmenting the Sales Process Asking ChatGPT to write you a form sales e-mail or phone script does NOT play to the strengths of the technology. Nix has helped teams reach success by implementing clear processes, and he believes AI is best suited to automating processes or making them more efficient, leaving the user more freedom to be creative. ChatGPT WON'T Replace Sellers While ChatGPT-4 is more accurate than previous versions, it is still only capable of regurgitating information. Knowledgeable people still need to fact-check it and provide strong parameters. If you want to use it for shortcuts, AI can help you to an extent. But sellers who can reimagine the selling process using AI will still set themselves apart. Resources If you'd like to connect with Harvey Nix, reach out to him on LinkedIn! What Every CEO Should Know About Generative AI (McKinsey Digital) CMO Cheat Sheet for ChatGPT CMO Training - Prompt Command Work Sheet

In today's episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Sean Doyle sits down with Izach Porter to discuss navigating M&As as a middle-market companies and maximizing outcomes using proven methods.   Preparing to Be Acquired Porter's experience supporting businesses through M&As has shown him that having your business financials in order is one of the most important things you can do to prepare. Buyers are interested in seeing business growth rates, so forecasting and fleshing out growth opportunities will give them the information they want.   Timing Your Partial Exit Being in a growth stage will give you the highest possible valuation. People often sell when the business is in decline, which puts the seller in a position of weakness. If you are not in a growth stage but are looking to sell, learn what needs to be fixed. Connect with buyers who have the necessary skills to make that happen. If you'd like to connect with Izach Porter, you can find him on LinkedIn, or on social media @ecommporter.

In today's episode of the Centricity podcast, our host Will Riley meets with Joseph Seo to talk about ChatGPT and discuss how business executives can utilize it in their business.   Understanding ChatGPT Seo says that if you're afraid of ChatGPT replacing your job, you don't understand how to use it. ChatGPT is an incredible tool that can be utilized by both salespeople and marketers. ChatGPT and similar AIs aren't anything new. Instead, they're simply becoming more mainstream.   Utilizing ChatGPT ChatGPT can't fully replace sales and marketing. However, they can be used to automate more repetitive tasks. Some examples would be creating a presentation, or doing presentation prep. To maximize your potential with ChatGPT, you have to give it the correct prompts. You only get out as much as you put in. If you want to connect with Joseph Seo further, you can find him at the FitzMartin blog.

In today's episode of Centricity, our host Sean Doyle meets with Rom LaPointe to discuss LaPointe's guide to aligning sales and marketing, and why it is important.   Marketing and Sales Alignment If you want your business to be maximally productive, then you have to align sales and marketing. The best way to align sales and marketing is to STOP focusing on sales and marketing. Instead, put the buyer first and make them your central focus. Align sales to the customer, then align marketing to the customer and you'll achieve sales and marketing alignment. Although sales and marketing alignment is important, there's also a key distinction between the two: Sales is focused more on the short term while marketing is focused on the long term. To properly align sales and marketing, this discrepancy has to be recognized. LaPointe recommends a similar approach to Navy SEAL teams. Have small, autonomous groups of people who are proficient at both sales and marketing. At the same time, however, keep overall sales and marketing separate but interconnected. If you want to learn more about culture in the workplace, or just want to connect with LaPointe, you can check out his newsletter or blog on his website www.capricornleadership.com or his LinkedIn profile.

On today's episode of Centricity, our host Sean Doyle sits down with Rom LaPointe, a trusted advisor for CEOs, leadership teams, and boards in achieving ideal performance, cultivating healthy cultures, and attaining results. In part one of this two-part series, Rom shares his insights on creating a healthy company culture and its significance in the workplace. The Significance of Culture Culture-related problems and turnover cause a staggering loss of over 223 billion dollars annually. Despite this, many CEOs remain reluctant to invest in cultivating a healthy and enjoyable work environment. To establish a good work culture, employees and team members must be engaged and enthusiastic about their work. They should derive satisfaction and not consider their paychecks as the only motivating factor. Marketing and culture share many similarities. While marketing focuses on presenting products and services to customers and clients, culture emphasizes presenting stories about employees and what it feels like to work at a particular organization. Since the pandemic, remote work has become increasingly common. 58% of employees believe they can work remotely. Although remote work offers certain advantages, working in person has its own unique benefits. LaPointe has found that a combination of both options leads to the best outcomes. If you wish to learn more about workplace culture or connect with LaPointe, his newsletter and blog can be found on his website  www.capricornleadership.com, or you can check out his LinkedIn profile.

Ian Altman is an esteemed business coach and consultant with a proven track record of elevating companies to billion-dollar valuations. In today's episode of Centricity, our host Sean Doyle sits down with Ian Altman to discuss the fundamentals of Same Side Selling (SSS). SSS Basics Same Side Selling is a unique approach that prioritizes solving client issues instead of directly selling to them. Instead of your buyer viewing you as an adversary, the SSS approach positions you as being on the same side. This approach is effective because buyers are often apprehensive about trusting sellers who only look out for their own interests. However, they are more likely to trust individuals who genuinely help them to solve their problems. Building Trust To implement SSS, the first step is to understand your clients and their problems. This can be achieved by asking relevant questions to gather as much information as possible. Armed with this knowledge, you can then position yourself to provide the best solution to their problems. It is important to note that the focus should not solely be on the sale. Instead, the goal should be to assist your clients in finding a solution that is best suited to their needs.  To learn more about Same Side Selling or to connect with Ian Altman, you can visit his websites at www.samesideselling.com and www.ianaltman.com.

We all know building trust is vital for success as a salesperson and in business. In today's episode of Centricity, our host Sean Doyle meets with Phil Gerbyshak to discuss the importance of trust, how sellers often miss it, and how to utilize “why now?” questions. The Importance of Trust A problem a lot of B2B sellers do is assuming the person they're talking to is the ultimate decision maker. Instead, sellers need to establish trust to ACTUALLY learn who the ultimate decision maker is. Buyers HAVE to trust sellers before they'll deliver the information to the decision maker. To help establish this trust, you have to communicate with the client frequently and utilize case studies. The majority of buyers have said that they're more likely to buy IF there's a review. Asking “Why Now?” Another thing B2B sellers have to focus on is why exactly a buyer is currently looking for a solution. Whatever they're pain point is should take precedence, because solving that pain point is what will help you close the sale.  When you're talking to executive level buyers, the importance of why now conversations grows. Ask the buyer how much they need your product/service by this year or quarter. This builds trust and will help you close the sale. If you want to learn more or get in contact with Phil, you can find him at his website www.philgerby.com or on his LinkedIn profile.

Microcredentials are becoming a lot more prevalent. In today's episode of Centricity, our host Will Riley meets with Kevin Dunn to talk about microcredentials and how they can strengthen both sellers AND businesses. The Value of Microcredentials One of the big appeals of microcredentials is what it proves. People can claim they've learned something, yes, but being certified in it PROVES that they've genuinely learned that topic. Having microcredentials on your resume can also bolster it and give you priority for a position compared to unqualified competitors. However, microcredentials can still be a POWERFUL asset for executives as well as for businesses. Microcredentials For B2B and Executives Instead of viewing microcredentials as a simple badge on your LinkedIn profile, view it as a means of developing yourself professionally. Along with developing yourself professionally, microcredentials help foster BUSINESS growth. When everyone involved with a business's success is fully certified and aware of what they're doing, that business will NATURALLY see better results. Microcredentials also provide sellers with VALUABLE information for buyers and clients. For example, if the client is needing SEO work done, a microcredential can help B2B sellers better meet that buyer's need. Microcredentials can also help you build PARTNERSHIPS. If you or your business are certified in working with a certain platform, then you could partner with that platform. Platforms, as well as buyers, are more likely to trust a CERTIFIED seller instead of an uncertified one. You can get your own microcredentials at www.hubspot.com. If you want to contact Kevin Dunn directly, you can reach out to him on both Twitter and LinkedIn. Dunn also hosts his own podcast, the Agency Unfiltered podcast.

Appealing to the emotional thinking of sellers, executives especially is PARAMOUNT. In today's episode of Centricity, our host Sean Doyle meets with Tim Riesterer to discuss how you can better optimize your sales and marketing teams to more efficiently meet the revenue goals you're trying to meet. How Executive Level Buyers Buy Oftentimes, executive-level buyers won't make a decision on whether or not to buy, or flat-out ghost a seller. Riesterer refers to this as the curse of no decision. Most of the reasons executives will give a seller for not buying are actually LIES. The real reason is: The seller didn't appeal to the executive's emotional thinking. Buyers ultimately make the decision to purchase something based on both logical AND emotional thinking. You HAVE to appeal to both to actually make the sale. Essentially, the process is broken into two steps. The first step is based on logic. The executive will give you reasons WHY they want to change or want their problem solved. But the actual decision to go THROUGH with this is purely emotional. What Executives Look For When sellers were asked to give themselves a rating on their performance, most times they gave themselves around a B. Buyers, however, gave these sellers an F rating. Not only do buyers need to be emotionally aroused, but they also need SOMETHING unique from you as a seller. One of the KEY things that buyers want to know is: What are their competition and others like them doing? Think about it, a seller knows your product incredibly well and has met with several different executives or buyers. Buyers, meanwhile, completely understand their problem but don't know what others like them are doing. They want to know this, however. Executives don't want you to listen to their issues, then repeat their problem back. They already intimately understand their problem. Instead, they want you to point out things that they DIDN'T know, based on what others like them don't know or are doing. One of the most POWERFUL tools in your arsenal as a seller is Voyeurism. When meeting with an executive, set benchmarks. Ask the exec how they think they stack up to others, then actually show them how they perform. Tell them how they can improve their performance. Data Insight Question Another POTENT tool in your arsenal as a seller is data insight questions or DIQ. The data in DIQ highlights the scope of the problem to your seller. Essentially, you're revealing the true extent of their problem and giving them a REASON to buy your product or service. After providing the data, you then offer insights. Offer some insights on WHY the data looks the way it is, or why things are the way they are. Finally, you ask the question. Ask them whether or not they're willing to try your product or service, and transfer ownership of the conversation to the buyer. This gets them INVESTED in the conversation. The Importance of Contrast Buyers come to sellers to address issues they have. However, one of the MAIN factors that determine whether or not a buyer will move through with a sale is: How much will they get out OF the sale? If they get marginally more, or the same, results as they currently are, they WON'T make the sale. You as a seller HAVE to show a noticeable contrast between the buyer's current state, and their state AFTER buying your product or service. If you want to learn more, or get in touch with Tim Riersterer, you can go to the website www.corporatevisions.com or www.b2bdecisionlabs.com. Tim also has a book, The Sales Expansion, available on Amazon.

In the US, 1 TRILLION dollars is lost every year because sales and marketing teams don't coordinate together. In today's episode of Aligned, our host Sean Doyle meets with Tim Parkin to talk about how to optimize your marketing and sales departments. The Unpopular Truth Although people don't enjoy hearing it, as a consultant, the NUMBER ONE thing Parkin tells clients is: Marketing is processing. Creativity and other factors come into play, but the key aspect of marketing is processing. Having reliable and proven processes to follow is CRITICAl for marketing teams. A Common Language Beyond processes, another thing that prevents proper coordination between sales and marketing teams is Communication. Sales teams and marketing teams speak two COMPLETELY different languages from each other. There are three different suggestions Parkin has for bridging the language barrier: Having table stakes meetings, hosting revenue operations, and again, having solid processes. Late Stage Marketing Another issue that prevents marketers from working effectively with sellers is how marketers often step OUT of the process after-sales take over when marketing teams should be involved throughout the ENTIRE sale cycle. In marketing, there's a concept called centricity. Centricity refers to the client being the CENTER of the sales process. Sellers and marketers have to focus on centricity. Marketers can contribute to the sales cycle by reminding buyers of their current issue and how whatever they're thinking of buying can solve their issue. When buyers prepare to buy, they'll often look back on their current situation and avoid making the purchase, because change requires effort. The Monkey Bar Method Parkin utilizes a technique called the Monkey Bar method whenever he's working with different clients. He's seen TREMENDOUS success from it. Essentially, the method focuses on providing buyers with ALL the information they need. Buyers come into sales with a lot of different questions. In one instance, Parkin worked with a trade school that taught students a few different skills. Whenever students would go onto the school's website, they would find different programs. In the pages for the programs, instead of keeping things short, Parkin gave students an extra page discussing career opportunities for different skills. By focusing on centricity, and offering extra information, Parkin saw a SURGE in lead transformation and success. Focus on centricity, and provide ALL the information leads need. 5 Key Attributes of Great Processes Parkin has identified 5 KEY attributes that all of the best marketing processes share. The first attribute is: Being written down. The second attribute is: Having some sort of visual. The third attribute is: Being shared and communicated. The fourth attribute is: Being measurable. The final attribute is: Being regularly evaluated and adjusted. If you want to get in contact with Parkin, you can go to his website or call him at 407-499-0303.

According to LinkedIn, a whopping 1 TRILLION dollars are lost per year because sales teams and marketing teams don't coordinate together. In today's episode of the Aligned Podcast, our host Sean Doyle goes over how you CAN coordinate your sales and marketing teams to avoid losses and improve profits. Generating quality leads: Getting leads for your business is easy. But making sure they're QUALITY is the hard part. One reason why salespeople don't trust marketers is that marketers are just there to get leads INTERESTED in the product. They answer questions and show off a product or service. That will generate leads, however, those leads aren't guaranteed to be good, profitable ones. One scenario mentioned in the episode is a lead already having the product being offered. Imagine if your marketing team generated 100 leads, but 90 of them didn't have any NEED for your product. Your sales reps have just then wasted time that could've been spent finding QUALITY leads. What sales teams want from marketers: The MAIN thing that sales reps want from marketers is Communication. Communication is key in business and in life. If your marketers and sales reps are properly communicating, this prevents any wasted time. Marketers can let the sales team know of potential leads, what they're looking for, what they have, etc. Once proper communication is established, the sales team can focus on quality, profitable leads and discard the ones that they can't sell to. How to align marketing and sales teams: Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. Have your sales and marketing teams actually WORK TOGETHER. Focusing solely on your marketing team will prevent sales from working at maximum efficiency. Focusing solely on your sales team will prevent marketing from working at maximum efficiency. Make sure the needs of both marketing and sales align. Alongside having your marketing and sales teams work together, prioritize COMMUNICATION. As said, communication is key. Too often, marketers are unaware of what leads should be prioritized, leading to wasted time. Flip the conversation. Focus on what the BUYER ACTUALLY WANTS and how to meet their needs. Have sales reps and marketers work together to figure out a.) What a buyer wants and b.) How to best deliver your product or service to them. Making sure that your marketing and sales teams are aligned is CRUCIAL for increasing profitability. One can't function maximally without the other. Utilize these tips, and watch your profit grow. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

In this episode of Aligned Sean and guest Donald Kelly, The Sales Evangelist continue their discussion on how important getting the private commitment is before you can get the public commitment to move your deal forward. Obtaining both private and public commitment will take you on the path to close your deals. Being strategic in obtaining buy-in: Need to ask – “what do you want?” Develop a structure to communicate effectively. Marketing needs to provide the pyramid of the industry and how selling works within that pyramid.  Exercise patience. What is a concise business plan: Should be short and simple. Ask the validation question. Both to you personally and to the enterprise. Case Studies can assist in creating commitment from your prospect. Illustrate what the action plan is and prescribed path. Takeaways: It's all about your prospect and what they want and/or need. Good reviews are helpful in receiving commitment from your prospect. Create a group of raving fans that share the same problems as your prospects. Build a page on your website that defines the journey that past customers have taken to get your prospect's desired result. When prospects make a public commitment – they make the commitment stick. Keep the long game in mind. Be able to define what problem you solve, what happens if you don't solve the problem, and what's the likely outcome. If you want to close more deals, you need to understand that commitment is powerful and has two steps. There is no set time that it takes to go through the process. But there is sequential order. If your prospect is not privately committed then they will never commit publicly.  Connect with Donald on LinkedIn or email him at donald@thesalesevangelist.com.  Submit an inquiry at fitzmartin.com/contact and they'll be happy to answer any questions. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

On today's episode of Aligned, Sean and guest Donald Kelly, The Sales Evangelist discuss the importance of both private and public commitment in the marketing and sales process. When sales and marketing teams work together, your company will see a 36% higher customer retention rate and a 38% higher win rate. Businesses lose deals because they don't act: 40-60% out of 2.5 million recorded sales calls – both transactional and complex deals failed because they intended to act but didn't. Assessing pros and cons of moving forward with the deal. Science states that somebody will not take action until rough six months out. Prospects are looking forward. The “why” of private and public commitment: Always center your efforts on the buyer's needs in the beginning to raise consciousness.  Consciousness awareness is an effective tool early in the process. The needs of the buyers are different as they go through the sales process. Buyers need to make a personal commitment before they make a public commitment. Preparation is a cornerstone from which effective action is built. Takeaways for centricity: A good salesperson knows when to slow down. Need to acknowledge that people are the ones making the decisions. Always have tools that allow you to look forward. Your job is to help the prospect evaluate how your offering will serve them. Create a concise business case to confirm what the buyer's intent is. Resources: Changing For Good; Same Side Selling. Connect with Donald on LinkedIn or email him at donald@thesalesevangelist.com.  Submit inquiry at fitzmartin.com/contact and they'll be happy to answer any questions.

In today's episode of Aligned, our host Sean talks with the Sales Evangelist, Donald Kelly, to discuss late-stage sales, self-help, and five application models that you can apply to late-stage selling. Self-help In any B2B process, you are able to include B2C in the process.  According to Mckinsey 99% of B2B buyers said they are willing to spend $50,000 on self-help. You've got to start implementing self-help in the B2B world.  Make promises around things like service. Remember it's not about the price.  Do a testimonial that is focused on only delivering information that is safe and matters to late-stage prospects.  Give a taste of early access and let your prospects know what it would be like to be your customer.  Utilize consultative selling tools.  Tune in to our past episode with Donald discussing guided help on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and connect with Donald on LinkedIn or at thesalesevaneglist.com for more information and content. To learn more about the transtheoretical theory of behavioral change check out this link. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

In today's episode of Aligned, our host Sean talks with the Sales Evangelist, Donald Kelly, to discuss late stage sales and explore the best practice of building frictionless buyer journeys and understanding the buyers point of view.  Helping relationships The goal is to continue to inspire the prospect to make change. Give them the ability to make a commitment.  Consultative selling is taking off the salesperson hat and becoming a consultant to your prospect - become good at problem-finding and solving problems. A transactional salesperson pushes on closing and focuses on features, benefits and price.  Guided help People need a guide, but if you don't trust your guide it won't work.  Good sales and marketing is about helping other people achieve their goals. If you see sales and marketing as manipulation then this idea won't work for you.  Donald has found massive success in sharing free information and being a guided help to those around him.  Don't be afraid to give people value through providing free information.  There is a whole world of guided help that is another marketing channel.  Tune in to our past episode with Donald discussing reward behaviors on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and connect with Donald on LinkedIn or at thesalesevaneglist.com for more information and content. To learn more about the transtheoretical theory of behavioral change check out this link. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

In today's episode of Aligned, our host Sean continues his conversation with the Sales Evangelist, Donald Kelly, to discuss the centricity model and how limiting bad customer behaviors can help generate more sales for your organization.  The second-best practice in the countering world is the practice of looking back Buyers will continually look back at their own bad behaviors. When a buyer's response to a seller's inquiry is to ask for more information, they're not seriously considering the solution. Flip the looking back ideology to looking forward - equip your sales and marketing teams with a playbook that focuses on the future state. Don't spend time explaining specs on pricing, features, or benefits. Instead, sell the buyer on the future state they'll experience with your proposed solution.  One of the most common mistakes for salespeople during the close is forgetting to remind the buyer of their initial state. Reminding people where they're coming from is powerful.  Fear of change often comes down to the process.  Irrational self-statements Irrational self-statements are rigid reasons why the customer can't move forward. Create a playbook outlining all the common irrational self-statements that your customers have and how you can counter them. Counter their bad behavior with integrity, courage, and kindness. A dose of rationality makes a strong statement.  Customer success Your customers are constantly looking and information is everywhere.  Even though you know you can name a hundred ways that you are better than the competitor, your customer can't.  How are you marketing to your customers who are rethinking? Not just new customers but customers who are 2 or 3 years in.  Create a report card of the success that you are bringing your customers. Don't wait till the end of the contract to communicate with them.  Offer a channel of your marketing budget to market to your own customers.  There is more money to be made by fixing the end of the sales cycle than there is by creating more awareness, improving your brand, and getting more leads. Sell backwards, start at the end.  Tune in to our past episode with Donald discussing reward behaviors on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and connect with Donald on LinkedIn or at thesalesevaneglist.com for more information and content. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

Sales and marketing alignment is critical for middle-market companies to either expand into enterprise territory or increase revenue for long-lasting company success. In today's episode of Aligned, our host Sean is joined by the Sales Evangelist, Donald Kelly, to discuss the centricity model and how limiting bad customer behaviors can help generate more sales for your organization.  RFPs: a bad (but well-intentioned) customer behavior: The centricity model, discussed in prior podcast episodes, helps frame a seller's mindset to better understand buyer behavior (especially bad buyer behavior.) RFPs, or requests for proposals, are standard for many B2B organizations, espeically those connected with governments. While well-intentioned, these can quickly become a systemic problem where the buying organization opts for the cheapest option rather than the one that provides the most value. Don't invent on the fly; build a plan and a model to produce more revenue. Building relationships with the individuals in purchasing companies helps you understand the reasoning behind the RFP instead of piggybacking off of an existing deal. Remember why a company might want to create an RFP: to create the best deal. As a seller and provider of a service, asking practical questions is the key to understanding the actual value an organization needs. If an organization is focused on utilizing the RFP, create options that aren't dependent on a large-scale implementation, like a department or select area of use. RFPs are done with good intent, but why don't they get the best results? Would you hire your lawyer or accountant based on the lowest bid?  In the process of generating bids, the best client is typically never the one willing to undercut every other competitor to win the bid. Overcoming the RFP through countering: Countering is a technical term for substituting an improper path the buyer is currently on with a better one. (If someone is trying to quit smoking, a counter would be to enjoy a lollipop.)  The behavior a buyer is in is the very reason they're seeking a solution. So even if we understand a habit is wrong, it's still a habit and takes effort to correct it.  Countering isn't about ending the bad habit but instead replacing the bad habit with a more constructive one. Centricity informs you where the buyer is.  One of the most common mistakes is a lack of trust. Because sales and marketing are focused on the end objective, we offer end solutions too quickly. As soon as someone doesn't listen or demonstrate listening before offering a solution, the solution likely won't be accepted. In the middle-stage sales cycle, sellers should restate the problem. Especially if the buyer seems hesitant about further pursuing a solution, reminding them about the problem (and mentioning issues they stated experiencing three weeks prior) is a great way to put them back on track. Tune in to our past episode with Donald discussing reward behaviors on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and connect with Donald on LinkedIn or at thesalesevaneglist.com for more information and content. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

When it comes to building relationships between a buyer and seller, gift-giving is a powerful and useful tactic that benefits both parties. But how can we successfully implement gift-giving without excess spending on prospects that don't end up buying? In today's episode of Aligned, Sean wraps up his three-part series with Donald Kelly by discussing proper gift-giving and how any seller can build and maintain relationships with their prospects. Gifts should not be for everyone: Gifts should be mostly reserved for people later into the sales cycle, or at least in the middle. If a seller were to buy gifts for every early-stage prospect, they'll face exorbitant costs while also giving gifts to people who will not place as high a value on it as a buyer with an existing relationship with the seller. Sales should not have control too soon when it comes to gift-giving; the buyer should be at a designated spot within the buying process to warrant gift-giving as an environmental control. Sellers should not have private control over their sales data - if they spend company money to build relationships with clients, that information should be available to the organization that paid for it. Bonus environment control: Use NDAs to help control late-stage deals: In general, it's best to work with an attorney to utilize NDAs properly. NDAs can be signed by both the selling and buying organizations to build comfort and reduce anxiety, especially in industries full of proprietary information (i.e. technology and software.)  It is an olive branch that psychology develops commitment and introduces the notion of finality within the deal that encourages the buyer to close. Aligned Episode Resources: Check out the prior two episodes in this three-part series discussing environmental controls, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more information and content from Donald, visit thesalesevangelist.com or connect with him on LinkedIn. Visit fitzmartin.com for resources, articles, and other information that helps any business leader foster connections between their sales and marketing departments.

Even when a buyer is satisfied with their current provider of a service, 80% will still consider buying elsewhere. How can sellers build value and demonstrate the effectiveness of an organization to late-stage clients? In today's episode of Aligned, Sean continues his three-part series with Donald Kelly discussing how to manage and build effective environmental controls to close more deals. Utilizing cues and interruptions: Cues are essential environmental controls because you can limit bad buyer behaviors with them.   Creating automated cues to encourage a particular action from the buyer builds brand loyalty and a level of trust that would otherwise occur with another company.  Buyer's retreat is a natural (and expected) element of sales: Anything within sales and marketing can be done with integrity and morals, or it can be done with harmful intent. Sellers must make themselves valuable, but not at the expense of the company's control. Limit early-stage spending because the relationship driving the sale has not yet been built. Instead, create an understanding and connection, then supplement that relationship with middle and end-stage buyers. Strategies to prevent buyer's retreat: Tie results to your efforts. This makes buyers infinitely less likely to leave because they know their success is tied to your involvement. Demonstrate your values through gifts, events, and communication to deepen the relationship between the individuals within the organization. Tune in to our past episode with Donald discussing reward behaviors on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and connect with Donald on LinkedIn or at thesalesevaneglist.com for more information and content. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

In the end, the goal of every sales and marketing department is to help their organization close more deals. But did you know six key elements can help manage how a professional relationship operates? In today's episode of Aligned, Sean is joined by sales expert and founder of The Sales Evangelist Donald Kelly in the first of a three-part series to learn how to apply a framework to build and maintain scalable sales pipelines.  Environmental controls dictate the boundaries of the relationship.  Environmental controls have to impact other people beyond the individual buyer. However, you must be buyer-centric and focused primarily on their goals and expectations. Environment management is the key to establishing and maintaining good behavior while limiting and preventing bad behavior. Sellers can't intentionally change many attributes of the conditions surrounding the selling process, but there are some we can exert and influence other elements. Preventing buyer's fatigue:  Throughout the buying process, many buyers grow tired of pushback from teammates, management, and sellers, especially when the status quo is so easy to maintain. If you want to take people through the journey of change, understand how quickly a person is willing to move and scale the journey with the individual. Learn the internal politics within the organization. For example, one person might not want to risk jeopardizing their growth at the company by making the wrong purchase decision. Supply your contact with knowledge as ammunition to reinforce the connection and combat potential objections in-house. Managing different perspectives at different touchpoints within the buying journey: Pain mapping is a powerful tactic because the human desire to avoid pain is incredibly high, whether financial, strategic, or personal. The wrong thing would be to take everyone to golf or dinner and expect everyone to be at the same point in the journey - because they aren't. People don't buy products; they buy the improvement of the business. Marketers and sellers must convince the buyer not about the product's viability, but how purchasing the product will correlate with meeting their business objectives. Constrain the pain - Use social liberation with positive insertions of company collateral in pitches and develop the processes in later-stage opportunities to make the buyer process not only seamless, but designed explicitly for the organization to implement. Environmental changes either add positive or remove negative elements to the deal that convinces the buyer to move forward. Aligned Episode Resources: Read the transtheoretical theorem of behaviors in “Changing for Good” by James Prochaska, John Norcross, and Dr. DiClemente. Check out the Pentateuch, otherwise known as the first five books of the old testament. Tune in to our past episode with Donald discussing reward behaviors on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.  This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

On today's episode of Aligned, Sean is joined by digital marketing devotee Ed Rusch. Ed is passionate about customer experiences and is the current CMO of Blue Ridge. In a three-part series, Ed will articulate his major takeaways from his years of experience in the marketing space. Today's topic? Common myths and misconceptions of executive-level marketing. Ed's marketing origins: Born and raised in Cleveland, his first gigs post-college were hosting various radio (playing adult contemporary and Today's Top 40 hits.) As he's grown and learned more about the industry, Ed is now intrigued by the concept of modern marketing and what that means for professionals today. Primarily a B2B marketer, Ed emphasizes maintaining a learning mindset to understand the challenges and struggles of modern marketing. There is still a disconnect in how marketing is viewed.  A common misconception of marketing is its emphasis on “arts and crafts.” Sure, design plays an integral role in marketing. But that's far from the only thing (or the most important thing) that marketers do. An exciting thing about marketing today is the ability to touch and impact many aspects of the business beyond what traditional marketing could do. But because the possibilities are extensive, it can be difficult for marketers to know where to leverage their influence. A clear marketing goal: make an impact on your company's revenue growth.  Marketing can articulate a value message to the financial community, which is a needle-mover for those equity transitions. There's a need for both short-term success and long-term value creation, which marketing can create and influence. Marketing can be far more than a sales supplement when given the proper support. Ed's past work exemplifies the importance of strategic marketing. Initially viewed as a technology company, Ed's company had a commanding market share of their industry (an amalgamation of technology and construction.) They couldn't grow until they found a new avenue to expand into. And that avenue was connecting suppliers to buyers. Establishing this new avenue involved creating not just a strategy but the story and messaging around their platform. It also involved creating a community between buyers, sellers, and logistics providers (and agree, as an organization, that they were a supply chain platform.) This means both internal and external factors were at play. Marketing adds value in ways beyond its traditional implications. For example, marketing attracts new talent to your purpose and mission. Why do people want to be a part of your organization? Marketing can explain that. From a marketing perspective, the ability to reimagine your story and then leverage that in both employee engagement and the acquisition of new talent pays dividends. Episode Resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth or looking for new levers to pull.  Read more about cognitive marketing on FitzMartin's website. Order Sean's book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  To get in contact with Ed, connect with him on LinkedIn.

Both sellers and marketers can and should use reward-driven behavior to establish rapport and build relationships with potential buyers. In today's episode of Aligned, Sean is joined by the founder and Chief Evangelist of The Sales Evangelist, Donald Kelly, to discuss his take on reward-driven behavior and how marketing and sales departments can implement it into existing methodologies. Failure of the trade show fishbowl: Using rewards to gain something upfront (like an email) is not an effective reward tactic. You don't want people to engage with you purely because of free stuff.  You're giving stuff away without understanding why you're giving stuff away. The same idea holds true for the dinners, the golf games, and the drinks. Don't eliminate rewards. Instead, understand them. The most common mistake in sales and marketing is spending too much money too early in the sales cycle. Close the deals in the existing pipeline before allocating money to people who aren't in the funnel at all. Understanding positive and negative rewards: Rewards can take two forms - positive and negative. A punishment could be removing a certain meeting or adding a certain call to an itinerary. Salespeople are bumblebees - misunderstood creatures. They're crucial to the environment, but other people are scared of them. A punishment could be not having the time to meet with a prospect Positioning gives you power. When a company positions itself in a way where they aren't dependent on specific clients to reach revenue goals, it can afford to make clients walk in line. Rewards can be positive. Rewards from the self - A prospect who, upon achieving a certain milestone, should be coached and guided to get a reward. Rewards from the others - Where sales and marketing can have a more direct input Business plan - late-stage only. If you give stuff away too early, it won't convert the prospects and business leads you to want. Managing Give a verbal or written kudos Encourage someone to consider changing and being self-aware of the weaknesses and the self-reflection that results in accepting change  One of Donald's past clients was moving to Google Suite, and he worked for a document management company. Remind them that going to Google Suite, while challenging while it's happening, is the best case for a long-term growth strategy. It's okay to give a reward for self-evaluation. And, if you're confident with the position, you have the safety to make additional suggestions and comments to help guide those prospects. Contracting Right before a deal is closed, and there is no exchange of relationship, there are informal contracts that can move the decision-making team before a formal agreement takes place. It can be meeting at a restaurant, bringing a cup of coffee, scale the reward up and down depending on the situation If you see someone's house, they have to give you a level of trust. A common practice is an NDA, but use it to get an idea of what the NDA includes. When you give the NDA to a buyer, it's akin to a promise ring. You aren't married yet, but there's a level of commitment. The act of signing is almost the same level that would come if it were an actual agreement. The act of signing a piece of paper connotes the finality that an agreement is in place. Shaping There are lots of micro-wins that we can accomplish, and shaping is making small, incremental changes rather than a large sudden change. Instead of requiring one large bulk purchase, just buy a smaller quantity and work your way up to a larger amount. Shaping will reflect integrity and lower the potential risks that might take place. What's In It For Me? (WIIFM) addresses the emotional and political capital a person might lose or gain from making a particular decision. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

A net promoter score is one of the best market research metrics available. With it, you can determine if a user is a potential promoter of the product, service, or company. In today's episode of Aligned, Sean interviews research professional and founder of Thoughtful Research Erin Sowell and Fitzmartin's Anna Svarney to discuss the utility of a net promoter score and why middle-market leaders should research before making decisions. Research shows areas you could improve. To transform for success, you can't expect perfection. You must bring people to guide you as you make customer-facing company decisions. An NPS question often asks, “have you ever recommended or not recommended a line of research?” but human interactions are not always so cut and dry. An NPS gives more actionable data regarding who is a promoter and who's a detractor. Limitations of an NPS score: NPS, from a performance standpoint, creates bias.  For employee NPS (ENPS), scores determining leadership interactions inherently contain interpersonal bias. The same holds true for service and customer relationships - the customer knows the score will influence the employee. Those happy with your brand should be training for advocacy, whether through a testimonial or follow-up, to understand how they experience your brand. Different testimonials influence people differently depending on where they are in the sales cycle.  Passive consumers and promoter advocates: Passives are people who have a good experience but are not good enough to warrant promoter levels of advocacy.  These consumers don't need to speak positively about their experience, and they're influenced by competitors.  With passives, you want to ask them different questions, learning what experience or change will drive them past passivity. Because they're looking at different competitors, they'll have a specific but essential market perception. What do they think about competitors, and how do they compare? Transactional versus relational loyalty from consumers: Transactional loyalty is using a product or service as long as it meets your needs. Relational loyalty is using a product or service because you like the company and are excited to work with them. Some businesses will function with either model - one is not inherently better than the other. An NPS can indicate which model your company uses but look for a directional trend instead of an absolute number in your NPS score. Research is about meeting customer needs to connect with audiences. Inspire your CEO to take steps to learn through research. Don't let an NPS be your only insight into customers this year - there should always be some level of customer research within your company. For more insights from Erin, contact her at erin.sowell@thoughtfulresearch.com or via her website, thoughtfulresearch.com. You can reach Anna Svarny at anna@fitzmartin.com. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

Today's episode of the Aligned Podcast continues Sean's discussion with guest Ed Rusch, Chief Revenue Officer at Deck Commerce, to understand the best way to construct a high-functioning SDR department. Handling the SDR workload: SDR teams help buyers make private commitments before a public close. If you have one SDR who handles leads they come and just does outbound when they can, what gets dropped first when the workload is too great? The outbound calling. Assuming inbound teams close only 50% of leads, that's an inherent problem. You must have dedicated outbound callers who can ensure the job gets done. Use specific KPIs to understand the language, verticals, and nuances of the selling process. Know the one or two KPIs most important to your audience and accompanying sub-verticals.  Is a conversation a valuable metric? Yes, if it achieves two pieces of qualifying (or disqualifying) information.  There's a cost to everything - from emailing, writing content, and maintenance. Getting disqualifying people off the list is the best way to save money. Outsourcing an SDR team: Outsourcing can be a powerful solution, depending on your circumstances.  Part of Blue Ridge's success is (in part) due to third-party work. However, what you do with an inbound SDR team is not the same as a third-party team.  Outsourced teams can support your company with the right direction and support, but you must mitigate third-party risk by being selective in where you deploy those teams. Using third-party teams to investigate adjacent verticals outside your primary audience is a smart way to gain insight into the viability of the vertical and in situations where having a conversation is better than no conversation at all.  Starting your SDR team from scratch: First, understand that few decisions are permanent. There are ideal and mediocre situations, and most of the ones you make will be somewhere in the middle.  Set expectations and metrics based on where you're at today, in 90 days, and six months. After that period, adjust your KPIs and expectations as the team matures. Don't look for a level of perfection from a new sales team. If you fail to allow growth and outsource, it will likely fail. Work with expectations to understand the journey and what you'll do later to meet expectations. When building an SDR team, start with an internal outbound team that targets low-hanging fruit to secure funding and talent for scalable growth.  For more great content from Ed, connect with him on LinkedIn. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

Today's episode of the Aligned podcast continues into part two of our three-part series featuring Ed Rusch. Ed has served as Chief Marketing Officer for several different companies, and his efforts yielded significant parts of their success. In this series, he and Sean discuss the importance of finding a happy medium between sales and marketing alignment.  Generating leads to fuel company growth: Growing a pipeline can be accomplished through multiple strategies. In general, aiming for a consistent and reliable method might be a better long-term strategy than others. If you have an ambitious 30-50% growth rate, driving growth relies on the sales development reps establishing an effective strategy to move mid-market prospects through the funnel. Developing the SDR team: Senior sellers don't necessarily want to spend their time managing early-stage buyers - no should they. An early-stage seller uses the opportunity as a starting experience. SDRs shouldn't complete sales development work throughout the funnel in a broad capacity.  Instead, an SDR team should be segmented into different areas of specialization and accountability. Inbound SDRs encounter prospects who know what can properly affect their problem and need guided content based on how they enter the conversion. As an outbound, we're reaching out to the people, generating interest based on competitive analyses and market research.  A recent study found that, for the first time, prospects wanted a seller to enter the conversation earlier in the process than in previous years. Be disruptive and spark imagination (professionally.) Ensure your SDR team understands the buyer from their own perspective. You must have the external voice of the customer to be influential. It's essential to see and contemplate the buyer's needs and take action based on those established needs.  There is no shortage of content. So, positioning your brand to put important, need-based content in front of a prospect will make the most headway. Don't speak broadly about “SaaS” content as a SaaS company. Instead, make meaningful specific content that addresses prospects' needs.  Tune in to our next episode for the conclusion of Sean's discussion with Ed. For more great content from Ed, connect with him on LinkedIn. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

Today's episode of the Aligned podcast launches a three-part series featuring Ed Rusch. Ed has served as Chief Marketing Officer for several different companies, and his efforts yielded significant parts of their success. In this series, he and Sean discuss the importance of finding a happy medium between sales and marketing alignment.  Run your business like you want to sell it. Many elements of sales and marketing would work if they were correctly integrated. Unfortunately, and most frequently, the gap between the two is where there isn't enough support. In many ways, the closing game has not changed in its goals. However, the applications of closing are what have changed so rapidly. If you can combine these two facets, you'll find new opportunities. SDRs, or Sales Development Representatives, play a vital role in that process. What would an SDR do? Also known as BDRs (Business Development Representatives), these roles provide many supplemental resources to pursue alignment. Marketing-based leads frequently produce prospects considered “low quality.” However, they aren't low-quality; they're just in the early stages of the sales funnel. Sales professionals like end-funnel leads because they're closer to purchasing. SDRs can take those early-stage leads and nurture them later in the process so a sales professional can close more quickly. This also speaks to the increased ability to act on leads promptly. A company that responds to a form fill within 60 minutes will win almost every time. Frustrations arise when high-quality leads fizzle out.  This issue arises when there's a difference between what they want to hear and what your business communicates.  SDRs keep this from happening by maintaining consumer expectations and aligning those expectations with what sales will bring to the table. Five qualifications Ed uses to define a sales-qualified lead: SDRs should book prospect meetings within 30 days. Have stated sub-verticals you know your business can support and win. Include revenue bands in your ideal consumer profile that automatically qualify if they pass that threshold. Determine if you can serve where they're located.  The situation must be in an area your solution can help solve. Ed's qualifications aren't a silver solution for every business - decide that qualities automatically qualify a lead for your organization. Tune in to the next episode of Aligned to learn more from Ed and Sean as they detail how an SDR can contribute to the lead qualification process.  This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

In today's episode of Aligned, we continue our conversation featuring Fitzmartin's Jessica Jardin and Hubspot's Jordan Benjamin. In this second-part conversation, Jordan discusses the importance of understanding how data-driven decisions and an integrated toolset impact your sales cycle. The evolution of Hubspot: Hubspot has made several strategic changes over its history, culminating with over 120,000 users worldwide. Hubspot's original goal was simply to help people get more leads. They wanted to change the conversation from “Hey, buy my stuff,” to answering questions and aligning with the buyer. Companies use different tools to meet their needs. However, multiple tools and systems made it inefficient to use and operate, especially when extrapolated insights and data are needed in tandem. Initial CRMs were a glorified Rolodex, and Hubspot set out to change that perception.  They expanded their services to include other essential teams to make it a systematic and efficient experience that helps everyone do their jobs. Shifting the executive perception: When aligning teams, Jordan thinks about measurement and analytics. When using several systems, it's challenging to get quality data to understand the customer journey. Can you get the information you need? Yes. Is it more expensive, challenging, and time-consuming? Also yes. Hubspot brought an inter-departmental alignment responsible for driving revenue and limiting excess costs. Hubspot was sold primarily as an inbound marketing tool, and some executives are surprised when they learn that the versatility goes far beyond that limited capacity. Practical applications of Hubspot: You can receive notifications when a lead opens or engages with your email. Coming from a marketing perspective means you can leverage marketing automation to reach out in a way that resonates with the buyer. Companies purchase other solutions for calendar scheduling, but that's already available in Hubspot, meaning marketing can send out emails that include a salesperson's schedule. Focus on what you do best because Hubspot has a thousand developers on standby to refine and evolve the product to fit your needs. For more content from Jordan, follow him on LinkedIn or tune in to his podcast, Peak Performance Selling. This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

Today's episode of Aligned is a section from Fitzmartin's webinar featuring Hubspot's Jordan Benjamin and Fitzmartin's Jessica Jardin to discuss what Presidents, CEOs, and any middle-market leaders need to know when analyzing technology solutions.  Every decision-maker has their own views and motivations.  Regardless of cost or usability, user experience is fundamental to successful technology integration. If people don't use it, what's the point? Moving towards cloud-based software means IT and technical roles need input into the decision-making process.  Make something incredibly easy to adopt because if people don't use it, you aren't moving your business forward. Establish a bottom line of trust between departments: In many cases, IT and marketing teams might find it challenging to establish a software solution that satisfies all teams. A data-driven approach helps establish a solution that drives results. A highly customizable and nuanced solution might sound appealing, but the increased integration costs might make the solution less beneficial than expected. The truth behind CRMs: By definition, a CRM is a customer relationship management tool. However, it is synonymous with a sales platform. Shouldn't relationship management encompass more? Growth is a team sport; it's not just the job of sales, marketing, or any one department. Track touchpoints throughout the relationship to have shared context throughout the customer's buying journey. Remove complexity to scale growth: Simplifying the buying process and the communication model between internal teams makes scaling dramatically simpler. Identifying opportunities to work in alignment fosters a development process that benefits both consumers and your business. A time-to-value system is critical. Value progress over perfection, because taking time to make significant steps means your new system might lose value once integrated. Join us for part two for a more in-depth application of new tech integration. For more content from Jordan, follow him on LinkedIn or tune in to his podcast, Peak Performance Selling. This episode is sponsored in part by FItzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin's Organization and Culture Alignment: Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.) Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.

Outsourcing and hiring new talent is a natural outgrowth of scaling a business. But how can a small or mid-sized company do this process effectively while retaining a full-funnel? In today's episode of Aligned, Sean is joined by the founder of Sales Schema, Dan Englander, to hear his thoughts on the issue.  There is a proper time to hire: With the caveat that his domain space is marketing and advertising, the first order of operations is getting client work off your plate. From there, establish a process for teeing up prospecting opportunities. When accommodating people on your team with defined roles, once a process is in place for getting prospects, invest money in a closer. The skillset required to get a skeptical person to talk to you is numerous: creativity, strategy, systems and operations thinking (and a good amount of hustle and follow-up.)  Dan's philosophy is that it takes more than one person to make the process work. Identifying your value: To lower risks in hiring, figure out where your value lies. Oftentimes an agency has never had to figure that out because they rely solely on the strength of referral. So how do you identify value? Through positioning and experience. Companies frequently outsource something for the partnership to end up failing. Why? Because that company is doing the same repeated action done by different companies. While that still works if you're selling something new, it won't work forever. Use the trust and relationships you've built to grow. Realize when you hire a salesperson, you are now a part-time sales trainer. You can't just give collateral and expect them to succeed. Dunbar's Number is the psychological research that discusses someone's circle of influence informs our outreach. There's a difference between asking for an introduction and manipulating people into giving referrals. Mapping connections and doing it at scale is what leads to success. Clients typically do this anyway, but it's just done somewhat haphazardly. What if you can figure out the people you already know in specific accounts? All sales and marketing is about change. Social liberation elevates and allows someone unaware of a need for change to consider it. Breakthrough Advertising from the 60s is a hard-to-find book, but it addresses the stages of marketing sophistication.  For more great content from Dan, visit salesschema.com, check out his podcast (The Digital Agency Growth Podcast), or email him at dale@salesscema.com. FItzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment: Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can't help but thrive. FitzMartin's Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects.  To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results.  FitzMartin's Innovation and Insights The FitzMartin approach to research is simple: start with data. We use statistical analysis and data visualization to clarify the haze around customer sentiment, behavior, and lifetime value metrics.  Our most recent study helped a financial institution understand a group of new customers, identify their ideal customers and craft a plan to acquire more ideal customers. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to download a free Sales Barrier Analysis Worksheet to find the gaps and barriers in your organization and read for yourself about the values a partnership with FitzMartin can deliver to you.

Today's episode of Aligned continues Sean and guest Will Riley's discussion on internet privacy changes and what it means for your marketing efforts in 2023. As a RevOps expert, Will shares his (inadvertent) first hand experience with terms of use issues and how you, as a marketer or business owner, can protect your company. Will's tragic tale: A client used Google ads as a primary digital advertising platform, and the client had a privacy policy available. However, they did not have a cookie policy. Because of this, that client received an email stating they were losing all Google advertising rights. It wasn't a policy issue; in Will's case, their website policy was acceptable and allowed for paid advertising. However, when you advertise to a specific audience segment, that must be indicated in a privacy clause. And the client's policy didn't reflect that nuance. The takeaway? As platforms like Google and Facebook get pressure from the government to maintain privacy standards, they make updates the users don't necessarily see. Before you place an ad, ensure you comply with the most current policy to ensure your ad will be approved.  2023 will bring a drastic change to privacy: It's not doomsday, just a different day, and putting the correct parameters in place now will help with the initial adjustment. It's not as easy as buying ads. There are now risks and legal implications if you ignore violations. A lot of third-party leverages domains other than your website. So, in some ways, the form of retargeting now will cease to exist. Lookalike targeting will likely stay - finding users similar (based on demographic and psychographic information.) You can buy people who have visited a database of every phone that's entered specific geography. If you've been in a particular NFL stadium, you'll get ads for stuff. People don't know what companies are doing with their data. And that's going to change radically. Takeaways for digital advertising: If you can't use a company like AdRoll to advocate and check the legality of your ads (and choose to go direct-to-market), invest in an expert rep who can guide you through the legality and policies. Invest in a CRM or marketing automation that enables compliance (HubSpot has integrated within its system the ability to enable compliance with GDPR.) Create a simplified tech stack. If you need new platforms or tools, make sure they natively integrate. What you need to do next: Does your marketing team buy any data? If so, what are you doing with it, and where are you purchasing it from?  Using mass lists will no longer be safe, especially if you do not get each user's permission to contact. Before advertising on digital platforms like Facebook and Google, have a privacy policy and cookie policy.  Ensure you have publicly accessible legal documentation that references visitor data tools, intent, and storage. If you need a standard privacy policy or cookie policy to get the ball rolling, contact  Will@fitzmartin.com Start vetting out existing tech and ask if they're in compliance with the data privacy laws. Email Will at will.riley@fitzmartin.com Submit inquiry at fitzmartin.com/contact and they'll be happy to answer any questions.

As the third-party digital cookie begins to crumble, what does that mean for marketing professionals? In today's episode of Aligned, Sean and FitMartin's Revenue Operations Director WIll Riley discuss the implications of upcoming internet privacy changes and outline tactics to maintain effective digital marketing in 2023.  Cookies and Privacy - What's the difference? Privacy involves a company's intent with your data and what it does with that data. In contrast, cookies have been an addendum to privacy policies over the years, dictating what specific data companies store and how that data is used for marketing. The year 2022 will define privacy laws.  We're entering an era of technological responsibility because anyone who visits your website can allow (or disallow) how you aggregate and use their data. Companies now have both a legal liability and a corporate standard they must maintain - not only can a company's data collection be shut down by the government, but the companies who run advertising platforms can as well. Predominantly, digital marketers spend money through Facebook, Instagram, and Google. Because these platforms are all run by just two companies (Meta and Google), you must comply with their standards to maintain website traffic. First-party cookie versus third-party cookie: First-party cookies are stored from a website the user visits directly, like when you search for products on Amazon.  Third-party data is data tracked from another domain. So, if Amazon (hypothetically) sold your data to another company, that would be third-party cookies. Consumers tend to like first-party cookies because they directly benefit the user. With Amazon, it's helpful to see recommended products and recent searches because of the data they collect.  In 2023, Google Chrome (which accounts for 80% of data traffic) will completely phase out third-party cookies. This will bring a fundamental shift in developing digital campaigns. Marketers will have to adjust how they spend digital advertising dollars without precedent to rely on for successful campaigns. Strategies for companies to start implementing: It comes down to where you get your data. Are you collecting data directly from a source or buying it from elsewhere?  If the latter, that decision might no longer be an option. Take practical measures to prepare and stop relying exclusively on third-party data.  Start shifting advertising strategies to pull data directly from consumers. If you invest in the right technology and are upfront with your member base, you're already ahead of the game. Above all, you must focus on a sales and marketing alignment. Buying data is a crutch; marketing moves towards a more authentic experience.  Episode Resources: FitzMartin's standardized compliance policy is an incredible foundation that informs you what you need to include in a privacy policy with these new privacy changes. If you want to be ahead of the game, download our compliance foundation PDF here! Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth and looking for new levers to pull.  Order Sean's book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page. 

Continuing from our last episode, today's episode of Aligned is the second half of Sean's conversation with Taylor on storytelling. Check out the episode to learn how you, as a business executive or marketer, can implement storytelling best practices into your business. (And be sure to check out the previous episode for the entire conversation.) What's one thing people miss when trying to tell stories? In a marketing context, it's a lack of identifying who “the hero” of your story is and the stakes that drive the story forward. People in marketing are scared to show the negative. But that can remove the impact of a story. Great stories always end with some form of transformation. The catalyst of the change is what your story is about. Taylor's top pick for storytelling inspiration: Taylor loves Jaws because of the movie and his experience with the film itself. As a child, he found Jaws terrifying but intriguing. And now, as an adult, he remembers the fear the movie once instilled in him. The movie's filming was riddled with problems, so the ingenuity that arose from desperation made some of the most iconic cinematic scenes of all time. In Jaws, the external problem is the huge shark killing people (that's pretty obvious.) But the internal problem is Matt Hooper. He's new to town, his family doesn't want to be there, and he tries to find his place in the community.  The story of Jaws is about Hooper finding his place while also dealing with the external problem.  Dealing with constrained budgets of nonprofits, churches and ministries: What Taylor's grandmother says is true: you get what you pay for. But you have to be careful what you pay for. Hire the right people who understand who you are and what drives your organization. Some businesses just can't afford professional filmmakers. Taylor dislikes when organizations request professional services with the caveat of, “we're a ministry; you should do things differently.” There's value in storytelling to achieve a purpose. But there is also value in storytelling purely for the aesthetic. Taylor recommends the book Angels in the Architecture. From an aesthetic standpoint, filmmakers and storytellers must operate at the highest level possible. The act of storytelling in marketing is about helping communicate to somebody why they should choose to assign their limited resources to you and your product or service. The foundation of why you should pay more for an aesthetic: beautiful things are effective things. Beautiful things are effective things. Nothing else in marketing has the complexity or capacity to reach, touch, and affect other human beings. More than ever, people can tell when something looks cheap or isn't very good. So why would you ever create something that wasn't going to be as good as you could afford it to be? In post-production, the beauty of powerful storytelling is removing the extraneous components to create the greatest impact with the least material possible. It's a great way to a better piece, and it's better storytelling, Episode Resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth and looking for new levers to pull.  Order Sean's book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  You can find Taylor Robinson's production company at sixfootfive.com and his storytelling organization at arcstories.com.  Save the Cat by Blake Snyder details the steps to a great story, especially on the screen. Taylor created FlyKid to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ through storytelling. Check out the website Flykid.tv to see Taylor's methods and organization to help teach the craft of storytelling.

Storytelling isn't just a way to share your business's stories and information; it's a way to connect with your audience and elicit meaningful emotions on their voyage through their customer journey. In today's episode of Aligned, we're taking a look through the Aligned Archives to relisten to Sean's conversation with commercial film director Taylor Robinson in this two-part episode. The topic? The art of storytelling. Applying storytelling to sales: The difference between bad and good storytelling is the dialogue that allows the viewer to participate. A good story is, above all, relatable to the audience in some way.  Taylor's favorite movie is Jaws, yet he has never been attacked or bitten by a shark.  However, he knows what it's like to be scared. And great storytelling finds the shared link (like an emotion) to make the audience experience the story themselves.   Often, the most challenging hurdle Taylor encounters when working with clients is the initial creative process, and the marketer or professional doesn't know their story. Companies tend to talk about themselves. But the secret is to stop and ask what stories your audience wants to hear. Starting a Successful Story: Start with two things: First, what do you want to accomplish? Second, what information does the audience need to achieve what I want to accomplish? When crafting your story, begin with a hook: an attention-grabbing narrative that establishes the problem. Story structure can be broken down into four parts: the problem, the character, the solution, and the place. Crafting stories to achieve business goals: Your business should always be secondary. If you want to create a powerful video, your true star is the relatable emotion or problem. An essential secret to storytelling? The stakes, or what the main character stands to gain or lose. If you've got a story with no problem, you don't have a story. You have a list of features. What do I do if I see my competitors also telling people stories?  Testimonials are a popular thing, and many businesses rely on them. So how do you make better ones? The good can only be as good as the bad is bad. People want to know what happens next. Even if it's a bad or repetitive story, the journey to the solution is naturally captivating. You want the audience to be the hero, not the business (or the product.) You want the highest possible production value you can afford. If you want your brand to appeal to your target audience, you need to create messages that look valuable. For smaller companies and organizations, you probably don't need to (and can't) spend $2 million on a TV commercial. But companies like Coca-Cola have to because they're selling more than sugar and water; they're selling a brand, lifestyle, and identity. Storytelling is a business tool that can draw more value from your marketplace. Your marketing message should look like the brand you aspire to be, not who you currently are. The customer should be the hero, not your business. By demonstrating what is at stake, you'll keep people invested in the outcome.  But also, just don't overthink it. The art of storytelling is very simple, and if you understand the simple elements of a great story, you'll be successful. Episode Resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth and looking for new levers to pull.  Order Sean's book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  You can find Taylor Robinson's production company at sixfootfive.com and his storytelling organization at arcstories.com.  Save the Cat by Blake Snyder details the steps to a great story, especially on the screen.

On today's episode of Aligned, we're rerunning a fan-favorite episode featuring Sean's interview with Luke Allen, President of OHD, about finding, developing, and retaining A-level employees. As we enter the new year, fostering positive relationships with your team is critical to creating the culture and atmosphere that retains them. The development process begins when you attract people.  In the hiring process, you paint a picture of their future with your company. Onboarding should execute that plan. Luke's company onboarding process begins long before the new employee starts. His company builds a profile for each new employee, so everyone knows the new hire before they walk through the door.  The new hire also receives a mentor, an existing employee, who reaches out to the new hire before they start to answer questions and provide support. The new employee's first week is meticulously scheduled, so they know what they'll be doing and who they'll be with. Marketing is an onboarding key player. Marketing impacts how a new employee perceives the company. Therefore, marketers should create not just customers who are raving fans but also employees.  Employees should want to share company details with their friends and promote the brand they work for. Companies that don't foster these relationships lose top performers because people want to know their value. They want to see that they're important. Marketing should customize their outreach by each person and understand what people employees care about. (It's not always around money.) Overcoming onboarding and hiring challenges: Don't lower expectations for C-level employees. Instead, be clear about the demands and provide encouragement and support to help them move up. When you're attracting talent, share expectations early on. Sales training and consultants can fix ability, but they can't fix culture. You need to ensure people like and want to work in the culture you create.  Many companies find employees who act as lone wolves, operating according to their own set of rules. These employees might get pushed out of success (even if they're successful) due to company culture. Your team will notice if one member isn't held to the same standard as everyone else. As salespeople grow in revenue, they grow in control (and thus fear change.) Executives can be held hostage by that kind of seller. Having multiple candidates eases that pressure because your team will be less likely to push against the process.  Aligned Episode Resources: FitzMartin is all about a sales-first culture and a solid sales culture as well. We want you to find new ways to leverage marketing and sales.  Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives looking for new ways to leverage sales and marketing for more revenue.  To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  You can also connect with Luke Allen on LinkedIn.

B2B professionals often focus exclusively on revenue gain and cost reduction as ways to provide value to customers, overlooking an incredibly useful value proposition: emotional value. In today's episode of Aligned, Sean discusses the importance of delivering value to customers to drive sales, utilizing several frameworks to understand just how you can develop and showcase value as an organization. Value is nuanced. Value seems like a simple concept, but it's remarkably complex. Formulaically, value is simply benefits divided by costs.  However, in application, it's meeting the customer's unmet needs, wants, and demands.  These can be divided into four categories: functional, monetary, social, or psychological. In An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nature, author Adam Smith describes what is now called the paradox of value: “[T]he things that have the greatest value in use frequently have little or no value in exchange. On the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange frequently have little or no value in use.” Water is critical for life but cheap to procure. Conversely, diamonds have little utility but possess a tremendously high exchange value.  The value triad states that there are three ways we can offer value to a customer: revenue gain, cost reduction, and emotional contribution. The untapped benefits of providing emotional value: Revenue gain and cost reduction are more tangible because they translate easily to money, while emotional contribution is subjective.  Emotional contribution, or emotional value, uses the customer's past experiences, brand perception, social power, product packaging, and other aspects to draw unique but definitive value to the individual rather than the company.  We tend to market and sell on revenue gain and cost reduction, making emotional value the most significant place for growth.  For example, we could help purchasers gain visible wins that make them appear more valuable to their company.  If you're late in a deal and the prospect asks you to give more, don't do it by reducing the price. Instead, consider reducing the risk for the buyer.  Episode resources Find FitzMartin at our website, or connect with Sean Doyle on LinkedIn. To learn more about the paradox of value, grab Adam Smith's book, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nature. You can find the Aligned podcast on our website, Spotify, and Apple Podcast.

In today's episode of Aligned, Sean is pulling a fan-favorite episode from the archives: his conversation with Luke Allen about how to attract, develop and retain talent. Luke Allen is the CEO of OHD, an international company specializing in inside sales, outside sales, and sales reps.  The proactive attraction of talent is key. What if you lose someone who is a key player on your team right now? How do you replace that person without it impacting your business? Particularly for sales teams where each member has deep expertise in a topic, just one person's departure can result in a point of failure. Assess your team to determine the different roles and then proactively build a network of other key people who fit your culture and expectations.  Begin the work of finding great people, even if you don't have openings at that time.  Don't wait until you're hiring to begin the search. Stay in touch with people you interviewed but couldn't hire. Develop relationships with them because they can become valuable assets later down the line. By developing relationships with star performers, even if they don't work at your company, you're setting a precedent and company culture that respects and fosters good talent.  Identify the financial, personal, and strategic pains people have, and use those in your hiring. Focusing solely on financial pain is a mistake. People want to know before they sign on how you'll develop them and further their career aspirations, so communicate that upfront.  If your people don't talk to you about their lives, that's a blind spot you can't protect your business from.  By anticipating changes in staffing, you can avoid additional costs, consultancies, and downtime due to vacant positions. While this process will never be perfect, limiting last-minute scenarios is an excellent practice for any company to adopt. “Proactively Seek Great Talent” episode resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth and looking for new levers to pull.  To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  You can connect with Luke Allen on LinkedIn.

The ultimate goal for salespeople is pretty simple - to close more deals. But how do we make that happen? Today's episode of Aligned is a rerun of Sean's guest appearance on The Sales Evangelist Podcast hosted by Donald Kelly. The pair discusses the science-based approach to sales and marketing (and the alignment between the two) that Fitzmartin specializes in to drive revenue for clients.  The idea of a science-based framework: Most of us love superheroes (who today isn't a devout Marvel fan?) As the last touch, salespeople are considered the hero for most clients in the business world.  While a sales team might complain about bad leads, science has a different view. 80% of leads are in some degree of consideration. Behavioral science is the transtheoretical theorem of behavioral change, according to Prochaska & DiClemente: there's more to human behavior than awareness.  Sean's pro tip: When interviewing an ad agency, ask them what the most effective marketing approach is just before closing a deal. A good marketer knows how to impact a deal throughout the sales process. Looking back/looking forward: From a marketing and sales perspective, there are specific ways to help when customers want to move forward.  Scientific research has determined nine processes across all forms of behavioral science that allow people to move forward, but only at specific places. When people are contemplating a purchase, they go to your website. However, just because the prospects haven't bought doesn't mean they forget your company and their needs. Awareness isn't everything; consumers need a later stage process to finalize their decision.  Marketers need to help people move from contemplation to preparation and eventually to action.  Episode resources: Follow Sean M. Doyle on LinkedIn and visit his website.  You can also get his book, Shift, for free by clicking this link.   Speak with Donald directly on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns.  The book Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward by James O. Prochaska talks about the change of behavior applicable to everyone who seeks to change.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and produced by Brightseed and Hill.

On today's episode of Aligned, we're pulling out an all-time favorite episode featuring our first episode with Will Riley that benefits virtually any business owner looking for simple changes that can lead to high impact across your business's performance. The secret? Revenue operations!  LinkedIn did a study last year that found that job titles with “revenue” in the title spiked up to 87 percent last year.  Marketing in the last four decades has probably evolved faster than any other industry, and marketing is having to shift again.  In a 30-year career, the power has shifted from belonging solely to sales so that consumers can go around the sales team now to get information. The consumer has more power.  Marketing evolved from creators of brand and art to integrate more deeply into operations.  Sales will always be what closes deals, but for many years there was no communication between the two elements. Technology stepped in to connect the two and overcome the lack of alignment.  We live in a rich technical environment now, and rev ops seeks to connect all the dots among technology.  Customer success became part of the dialogue. Now, these programs are being innovated more than ever. Businesses are buying more tech to automate systems and processes and make more money, but it isn't enough. It's important to understand how the technology will produce more leads, generate a higher close rate, and continue with upsell and cross-sell opportunities.  Rev ops breaks down silos and helps integrate different departments. Three different departments may have three different goals with three different objectives, and rev ops will apply a new operational framework to outline how they should be performing.  Misalignment has a hidden cost that creates difficulties. It leaves teams working harder than they need to.  Supporting data Fifty percent of sales time is wasted on poor prospects and bad leads.  Sixty-five percent of CMOs can't measure ROI of marketing activities across multiple channels.  Ninety-five percent of buyers buy from someone who gives them content at each stage of the buyers' journey.  Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50 percent more sales-ready leads at 33 percent lower cost. Tightly-aligned companies are achieving revenue growth 24 percent faster and 20 percent faster EBITDA profit growth.  Misalignment between sales and marketing technologies cost B2B companies 20 percent of revenue more per year.  Twelve percent of B2B buyers want to meet in-person with a sales rep but 71 percent start their process with unbranded research. We put all this effort into the sales rep and 12 percent are starting their decision there. Sometimes customers mask their value and hide from salespeople because they aren't ready to talk to them yet. The result is poor lead quality. Rev ops will solve that problem by aligning marketing and sales. Rev ops is marketing, sales, and training and it must have buy-in from all departments. Sometimes it's easier to hire a third-party firm to focus on the areas of current operations, enablement opportunities, future toolset, and areas where you can make more and spend less. Rev ops only work if there's an internal team left behind after the third-party rev ops team departs. Small-to-middle businesses can also elevate their revenues, and data shows that large companies get about a 10 percent lift, and small companies can get about a 20 percent annual growth rate with the integration of rev ops. Smaller businesses are more agile and it's easier to change the culture. As a result, they are better able to leverage this tool. “The Power of Rev Ops for Small-to-Middle Business” episode resources: Download FitzMartin's Cognitive Marketing Framework, which will apply to anybody's sales pipeline.  To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  You can also connect with Will Riley on LinkedIn.  Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies; executives of rapidly growing businesses; and executives who are pursuing growth and looking for new levers to pull. FitzMartin is a sales-first company that is driven by those things, and we want to pursue those things, and we know that you do, too.

We know It goes against the typical belief. So how does structure liberate creativity? For any group of people, whether an acting troupe, a film set, or a marketing department, operating within a framework is the key to creating content that best reaches your set goals. And on today's episode of Aligned, Sean is joined by actor, writer, producer, coach, and speaker Michael Allosso to discuss why structure doesn't limit creativity; it liberates it.  It's one of the most overused phrases in the English language: think outside the box. You need the box, and you need a direction. Otherwise, how will you know when you've accomplished your goals? In 2009, Michael worked on the Pink Panther 2 movie with actor and producer Steve Martin. While Michael was in just three scenes throughout the film, he had to endure five callbacks for the role.  In auditions, the best directors are the ones who provide a structure to act within. The bad ones don't. Boundaries serve as guidelines to give people a space to operate within.  There are many different types of boundaries. Whether it's a physical, mental, or another type of boundary like time, boundaries motivate you to be excellent and find unexpected solutions to problems. We as leaders forget to ask the most crucial question: what is the objective? People in teams might have different objectives, especially across departments. Communicating what needs to be done is a structure necessary for creating what best supports objectives, especially when multiple objectives are in place.  Do not have a meeting if you don't have an objective. If you don't know the objective, how can you properly prepare for a meeting or presentation? Your thinking should've come before you came into the room. If you want better answers in those meetings, give boundaries to your marketing department. It won't constrain the results you get; it expands them. Solving problems doesn't happen in a given moment; it happens organically. Episode Resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth or looking for new levers to pull.  Read more about cognitive marketing on FitzMartin's website. Order Sean's book Shift for practical, business-driven ideas for marketing executives. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  To get in contact with Michael, connect with his website michaelallosso.com. His website details 35 secret weapons that make for a great communicator. He might be bad at doing the dishes, but his website has excellent content. (And we'll count that as a net-positive.)

In the conclusion of Sean's series with Blue Ridge's CMO, Ed Rusch, Ed and Sean discuss the importance of incrementalism. In a field filled with explosive growth, particularly one burgeoning with new technology, tactics, and strategies, finding a route to sustainable but progresive growth is necessary. Consider how customers buy technology today:  The days of multi-million dollar tech implementations and installations are quickly dying. When you look at how people buy software and services today, buying capabilities are specific to what the company needs: rapid deployment. This is indicative of a broader mindset; people want to experience value over time. The number of marketing technology platforms is growing fast, with nearly 10,000 platforms offered to help with different services. How do you break that down? You throw away the technology component and focus on the buyer. When is it okay to apply incrementalism versus just getting it done? You pivot internally for your clients to determine what strategies and platforms would be most effective. So, why wouldn't you do that for yourself? Think along those lines, drive meaningful value, and address acute pains within your organization. (For more information about addressing acute pains, check out the previous episode.) Select the right technology solution for where you're at in this moment. Don't go from 0% to 100% overnight. Instead, pick the solution knowing that it might not be the right solution for you two or three years later. If your success relies on a heavy adoption that needs high degrees of support, you might find yourself asking the same questions you started with (which you definitely don't want.) Make sure the platfrom is something your company is able to implement successfully. Fear in the modern marketplace. Whether it's a recession, a pandemic, or any other factor, there is invariably something injecting fear into the marketplace. (That's just the way life works.) Whatever your role is in your company, do it with confidence and be a genuine business partner for the functions of your organization.  Learn and understand how to hold a conversation that even the finance level, board level, or private equity world would understand.  If you're a marketer and are unsure how to do that, just ask! People will respect you for asking and learning more about what other people do. Ed's final takeaways: COVID forced people to overlook the depth of conversation that would've typically occurred. Leading a company and being unafraid to ask questions will help your company move forward. Have the clarity, passion, and power to impact your organization, and you'll find success. Demand more from your marketing. And to demand more, you must understand what it is that you really should be demanding. Episode Resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth or looking for new levers to pull.  Read more about cognitive marketing on FitzMartin's website. Order Sean's book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  To get in contact with Ed, connect with him on LinkedIn.

Marketing has universal truths that guide how to operate best to marketing initiatives. Today's episode of Aligned is a continuation of our conversation with guest Ed Rusch. He and Sean discuss how these truths, which Ed discovered by working in the supply chain for oil and gas, can be applied for any marketing strategy.  These marketing truths can be applied to everyone. Marketers love to say their industry is different and an exception to the rule. But Ed has yet to find an industry where that is the case. The key is identifying the patterns and seeing how you can successfully apply those principles to the company to inspire evolution and forward movement. A core principle of these truths is macroeconomics - the study of the aggregate of how economics behaves.  The Baltic Dry: As a B2B marketer, Sean follows the Baltic Dry to see some of the nuance and intricacies of modern transoceanic shipping and its effect on the economy. The Baltic Dry Exchange Index is a benchmark for the price of moving major raw materials by sea. Essentially, it's how much stuff is floating around on boats. There are regular spikes and fluctuations (just like anything else) because many companies rely on transoceanic shipping to create, build, or sell their products.  The challenge for marketers is taking this complex process and distilling it into a simple explanation. You want to articulate a journey forward in a way that's done for a business mindset. Pain Mapping - Humans do anything to avoid pain. Everyone has a threshold to manage pain. To sell or convince someone of a particular point, your message (as a marketer) needs to diminish or nullify the actual pain and any transitional pain. Marketers focus on intermittent and chronic pains rather than acute. We as marketers need to be more specific, more focused, and better tailor our macro messaging into something that addresses a specific and acute pain point. Once you solve the acute pain, companies will be more willing to trust you and assist them in solving their chronic and lasting pains that might not be solved as easily. Low-hanging fruit that you can easily solve for your clients: Help a customer be a better supplier or vendor to their customers. If you cannot capture orders, confirm those orders, and provide an Amazon-like experience to alert your customers about the status of a shipment, those are pains you can and should quickly solve. From a financial perspective, demonstrate an increased yield from your materials and equip customers to work with consumers to maximize that yield. It is an acute pain that needs to be solved because it directly impacts your customer's bottom line. Many companies carry excess inventory to avoid production shutdowns, and the problem with that (from a financial perspective) is working capital. The speed at which solutions are solved is integral in the B2B world, and massive corporations (like Amazon) can address those acute pains immediately.  These problems are solved by digital transformation. The main takeaway? Fast is not fast enough. When you look at the normal tempo of B2B businesses, they are highly planned. While it can be beneficial to have a plan for the entire year, is the messaging you planned out nine months ago really the most effective? Episode Resources: Aligned is a podcast for executives of emerging middle-market companies and executives pursuing growth or looking for new levers to pull.  Read more about cognitive marketing on FitzMartin's website. Order Sean's book Shift. To connect with Sean Doyle, find him on LinkedIn, or learn more about FitzMartin on the company web page.  To get in contact with Ed, connect with him on LinkedIn.  Learn more about the Baltic Exchange Dry Index.