Month: January 2010

Content Intelligence? Yet another buzzword? Turns out it is almost as important as Business Intelligence

On January 27, 2010 Marc Seefelder of BizSphere brought up an interesting question in his post ‘3 Reasons why Enterprises need Content Intelligence’:

“[…] huge companies spend so much money on Business Intelligence (think of the Data Warehouses, OLAP tools and executive dashboards etc.), but don´t spend a dime on gaining intelligence on one of the biggest assets in the company – their knowledge inventory.

Fortune 500 companies invest millions of dollars every year to produce up-to-date material for marketing, sales and employee training. Shockingly, less than half of the produced material is used at all […]”

How Registration Forms are Killing B2B Software Marketing

On January 13, 2010 Kim Cornwall Malseed wrote ‘How Registration Forms are Killing B2B Software Marketing’:

“I’ve been reminded once again of what a mistake it is for B2B software companies to force prospective customers to fill out a registration lead capture form in order to view their marketing content.

Over the past week I’ve been researching project management software solutions to better collaborate with clients on marketing and PR projects, and as I was perusing various vendor websites, again and again I was asked to submit my information and “pay” just to read case studies, white papers, watch videos or listen to podcasts so I can potentially buy their product.

Instead of generating leads, these registration forms turn away the very prospects that you need to educate and engage with. Like most busy professionals researching software, I want to have a very good sense that a solution will work for my specific needs before I want to risk being interrupted by phone calls, emails, and direct mailings from people I don’t care to hear from.

That means removing the barriers to your marketing content in order for prospects to learn more about your software and see you as a trustworthy source, which compels them to contact you and willingly engage with your company. This is far more likely to result in a sale than not generating leads at all, or generating low quality leads because they’re still in the research phase of the sales cycle and probably don’t want to talk with you yet.

Survey Says: 75% IT Pros Won’t Register for White Papers

In an interview on the Savvy B2B Marketing blog with Jay Hallberg, VP of Marketing of networking monitoring software provider Spiceworks, he discussed results of a survey of users of their IT white paper community. (And yes, I do find it ironic that they are making people register for survey results report)

The survey found:

  • More than 75% of IT professionals DON’T sign up for white papers requiring registration
  • IT pros want to reach out to the vendor on their terms via their preferred channel, e.g. phone, email, or chat. Prospects don’t want the vendor to contact them. Period. If they want more information or to talk to a rep after they download a paper, they will contact that vendor.
  • Some IT vendors offer “free” white papers but require registration. If the vendor requires contact information, the white paper is far from free.
  • When vendors remove the registration wall, downloads go way up. One white paper that was offered without registration was downloaded 500 times in 3 days.

Lead Capture Forms Make Social Media Sharing Ineffective

One of the project management software vendors I checked out was recommended by someone on LinkedIn who provided a link to a white paper. Unfortunately, the link led to a registration form to download the white paper, which I didn’t do because I didn’t know enough about the vendor or solution yet. If the link had led directly to the white paper itself (or page from which I could download without ‘paying’) then I could quickly and easily have found out if I wanted to contact the vendor and engage with them. If I found the white paper helpful, I would have shared it with others via Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media venues as I know other marketing pros that need similar solutions.

By putting up barriers to your content, you’re missing out on effectively using social media to generate leads.

ReachForce Increases eBook Clickthroughs by 1600%

In a recent test by the marketing team of lead generation software provider ReachForce, they removed the registration form from an eBook they had created, and sent an email to a targeted list promoting the eBook, making sure to highlight that there was no registration required. Clickthroughs to the eBook increased by 1600%, and because ReachForce’s sales team could track who was clicking through, they were still collecting highly valuable information about prospects.

Registration Has Its Time and Place

Lead capture forms are effective and needed for some aspects of marketing, such as requiring prospects to sign up to receive a newsletter or attend an event, as you need their email address to send the content or event information. It is a good idea to offer a ‘bonus’ content piece such as an article, case study, video, etc. that the subscriber receives immediately in order to boost subscription rates, so in this case a registration form is appropriate.

One way to effectively use registration forms is embedding them into your content or placing a lead capture form on the same web page as your content, so prospects can contact your company if they wish, but can still view and share your content without contacting you.

Increase Lead Generation by Creating Quality Content

If you’re continuously creating high-quality content that educates and engages (and entertains in appropriate cases) your prospective customers, instead of an uninvited pest, you’ll be seen as a welcome guest who they look forward to hearing from.”

Sales 2.0 tools that help align Sales and Marketing

11-Jan-2010, sellingpower.com posted ‘Sales 1.0 vs Sales 2.0: Tools That Help Align Sales and Marketing’:

“The seemingly endless turf battle between sales and marketing is among the more useless behaviors in corporate America. Fortunately, Sales 2.0 helps eliminate the conflicts by bringing the activities of the two groups into closer alignment. Here’s how:

Lead Generation

Sales 1.0: Sales and marketing argue about the quality of the leads that marketing passes to sales. Marketing might, for example, attend a trade show and hold some sort of drawing, allowing the company to “harvest” a set of business cards. Unfortunately, such practices require the sales team to weed through numerous contacts in order to find one or two who might actually purchase.

Sales 2.0: Tools such as InsideView, Genius.com, Salesgenie, and Engage B2B help companies capture more and better leads. Leads gathered through lists and trade shows can be enhanced with additional information, including listings of trigger events that might make a company more likely to buy. Current leads can be compared to previous leads to statistically determine which current leads are more likely to close. And leads can be put into a nurture pipeline for additional contacts, emails, and telemarketing. As a result, leads are fully qualified before they’re passed to sales and, when passed, include enough information to help determine which leads are likely to close.

Customer Engagement

Sales 1.0: Sales and marketing argue about the sales team’s ability to close leads. Marketing believes that it’s provided sales with opportunities that should be easy to close, but sales has not followed through. What results is an endless round of finger-pointing, with sales blaming marketing for providing bad leads, even though sales never found out whether the leads were good or not.

Sales 2.0: Such sales-engagement tools as InsideSales and ConnectAndSell make it easier for sales to contact prospects and move opportunities forward. Web-conferencing tools such as Citrix, GoToMeeting, and WebEx, and social-networking tools such as Jigsaw, LinkedIn, and Plaxo provide sales with additional ways to reach prospects.

Similarly, mobile CRM applications and devices, such as the iPhone and RIM Blackberry, help ensure that sales remains in contact with customers as the sale moves forward. Most importantly, because all of these engagement activities are measurable, sales and marketing management can use analytic tools such as Cloud9 and Birst to measure the effectiveness of sales efforts, thereby ending the arguments before they start.

Customer Messaging

Sales 1.0: Sales and marketing argue over which messages should be communicated to prospects and customers. Marketing spends money on materials and advertising, trying to create a consistent brand that will grow in value over time. Meanwhile, sales rewrites and reworks those messages in order to make them more practical as sales tools. Unfortunately, those field messages never make it into the marketing materials, leaving the company with two conflicting messages.

Sales 2.0: Such sales-process tools as Kadient and Brainshark [also see ‘work in progress list of sales enablement vendors‘] create a repository of effective messages and materials while encouraging content creators to communicate with each other about what’s working in the field and what’s falling flat. As a result, sales and marketing begin to collaborate on messaging in a real-time environment, rather than simply argue about which messages make more sense.

Sales Compensation

Sales 1.0: Sales and marketing argue about which opportunities and customers should be pursued and what offerings should be sold. Marketing may wish to build a presence in a new market by developing strategic customers and partnerships or by moving a strategic product into a high-visibility account. Unfortunately, sales may not have such goals or be compensated on accomplishing those strategic goals and therefore remain focused on tactical sales issues.

Sales 2.0: Compensation-management tools such as Xactly allow management to change compensation plans quickly in order to match strategic goals. Because the sales teams are immediately informed of the changes and can determine the impact of their day-to-day activity on their compensation packages, sales can respond far quicker to changes in strategic direction. This aligns a company’s selling behaviors with its strategic marketing goals, thereby avoiding confusion and argument. […]”

Christine Crandell on Sales and Marketing Alignment

12-Jan-2010, blog.marketo.com/blog/ posted ‘Sales and Marketing Alignment: Thought Leadership with Christine Crandell’:

“The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview series is with Christine Crandell, one of the most innovative thinkers I’ve met on the topics of sales and marketing alignment and marketing accountability. Christine sits on several advisory boards including Coupa and SDForum, and has held senior marketing positions at Egenera, Ariba, and many others. Her thoughts on organization and how marketing can earn credibility and “go toe-to-toe” with sales leadership are definitely worth reading.

1. How did you get into B2B marketing?

I got into marketing quite by accident. After I graduated with my Masters in Finance I joined PriceWaterhouse’s consulting group. One of the big projects I led was to analyze the shifts in professional services purchased by large USA businesses and correlate them with macro business trends and service provider skill competences. That started a decades-long fascination with why and how companies buy intangible, big ticket items. I made the official jump to Marketing at SAP when their revenue was under $20 million in the USA. I introduced an analytics-driven approach to demand generation, competitive intelligence and sales enablement which was implemented in USA, UK and Australia subsidiaries. After SAP, I led Oracle’s worldwide strategic marketing for applications. My experience at SAP and Oracle planted the seeds of curiosity as to why sales and marketing can’t seem to work as a team ….and how to fix that. And the rest is, as the saying goes, history.

2. Does sales and marketing alignment impact the Chief Marketing Officer’s role?

Telltale signs of misalignment can be seen in industry statistics for B2B sales: 80 percent of leads passed on to sales are dropped; 90 percent of marketing collateral is unused; and the total cost of winning a net new enterprise customer via direct sales carries a hefty price tag averaging $500,000. Even worse, fully 80 percent of enterprise technology deals won are not influenced by marketing at all. At the root of the alignment problem is the fact that marketing and sales have their own charters, planning time horizons, and compensation models.

The CMO needs to articulate a clear vision, supported by closed loop processes, on how marketing will outperform those industry statistics. This also means finding ways to maintain an equal footing with sales leadership. In many organizations, and with many CEOs, sales have a lot of influence. CMOs need to develop techniques for partnering with sales and have a strong grasp of the overall business in order to successfully go toe-to-toe with sales leadership, if necessary. (Check out the 5 strategies for navigating the new corporate landscape cmo.com/leadership/cmos-five-strategies-navigating-new-corporate-landscape) To achieve this, CMOs should adopt an analytical management model coupled with full transparency and shared performance metrics with sales. Depending on the marketing organization’s core competencies, this can require minor tweaking or a wholesale overhaul of the marketing organization to develop a healthy balance between brand management, revenue generation and market strategy.

3. What steps does a company go through to align sales & marketing?

There are 3 stages of alignment — Ambiguous, Structured, and Aligned — but companies need to first figure out what stage they are in before they can improve their alignment.

Ambiguous is the most conflict-riddled and unaligned stage. Both groups focus on their own tasks and are unaware of what the other is doing or trying to achieve. If there is any collaboration at all, it is ad hoc. To move to the Structured stage, both groups need to understand that theirs is not a zero-sum game. They need to define specific rules of engagement along with hand-off points for key tasks such as sales lead follow-up.

The Structured stage requires establishing the company’s investment rationale and each group’s performance metrics. This becomes easier if the head of sales and marketing are peers in title and reporting hierarchy. In the Structured stage sales and marketing establish precise boundaries and interaction points. Their communication becomes more disciplined with joint staff assignments. While Sales and marketing still focus on their own tasks they collaborate on such key activities such as agreeing on definitions for terms like “qualified lead.”

Before progressing to the Aligned stage, both groups must achieve significant transparency with one another and with the rest of the organization. This means clearly defining when, and with whom, to communicate on key actions. Marketing takes an active role in sales through customer visits, and supports the sales cycle with field marketing, sales enablement and customer advocacy.

4. Is technology an important part of the aligning sales and marketing?

Technology is a key enabler of alignment but it does not, in and of itself, produce alignment. The benefits of technology solutions are a single version of the truth, audit trail of the full life cycle of revenue generating activities and automation of routine activities and analyses. Establishing a single version of the truth removes the common debate between sales and marketing as to whose numbers are correct. Additionally, technology lays bare the ‘games’ both sales and marketing play to manage internal perceptions often to the unintentional detriment of the company and customers. By having a common target market/prospect database, automated lead management system, and SFA/CRM system, to name a few, both groups focus on improving lead quality, velocity, pipeline accuracy and reducing lead leakage. Marketing and sales operations’ analytics, based on data in common systems, provides greater transparency into what is really happening in the company and enables management to manage the business more effectively. That is assuming that the data going into these systems is accurate, processes have been defined and documented beforehand, and the systems are used.

5. Why tie marketing’s compensation to revenue?

Today, most Marketing compensation plans are comprised of a base salary and a performance bonus. However, in well-aligned companies performance bonuses are comprised of two elements; a quantified marketing-generated revenue objective and a longer-term qualitative marketing goal. Marketing team members need to recognize that directly producing revenue is a central part of their job, though not their only responsibilities. The Marketing roles which have the greatest direct impact on revenue are product marketing, sales/channel enablement, demand generation programs, field marketing and channel marketing and their compensation plans should reflect those responsibilities. As a result, performance plans should include metrics specific to that role and to each individual team members’ function in it. The metrics I use in developing performance plans are:

Marketing Role Alignment Metrics
Qtr/Qtr and Yr/Yr
Product marketing
  • Pipeline and close rate by product line
  • Revenue booked
  • Margin by product line
Field marketing
  • New lead follow-up days outstanding by AE and territory
  • Field-produced pipeline production
  • Associated close rate by region
Marketing programs
  • Demand generation conversion ratios
  • Marketing-produced pipeline production
Sales training
  • Percent of sales force current on training
  • Role-based proficiency scores on key soft skills (i.e., discovery, negotiation, etc.)
Sales/field enablement
  • Response time to field requests
  • Sales force satisfaction and effectiveness scores
Customer Advocacy
  • Renewal rates
  • Customer satisfaction scores
  • Percentage of customers serving as references and evangelists

Marketing’s contribution to revenue goals, as reflected in performance bonuses, should be both measurable and time bound. For example: “produce leads that result in $20M in Marketing-generated pipeline each quarter,” or “deliver sales training that shortens the new hire productivity ramp so they close their first sales opportunity within 90 days of hire date”.”

What is Sales 2.0?

I just saw the following article at sales2.com. From a Sales Enablement point of view line item #3 in the table below is particularly noteworthy.

“By Mary Gospe, KickStart Alliance, via New Sales Economy

There’s lots of buzz these days about Sales 2.0. Articles and blogs on the topic are posted daily; webcasts and videos are prevalent and even books are hitting the shelves. However, many of my sales and marketing colleagues are unsure of what Sales 2.0 is all about. In this article I’ll offer definitions and examples that will help answer the question “what is Sales 2.0?”

Sales 2.0 Definitions:

Nigel Edelshain, CEO of Sales 2.0 LLC, coined the term “Sales 2.0” in 2007. He describes the concept as “using Internet tools to boost sales performance” and “taking sales to the next level.” According to Wikipedia “Sales 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications that aim to improve the speed, collaboration, customer engagement and accountability of the sales process.”

In the newly-published book, Sales 2.0 – Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology by Anneke Seley and Brent Holloway, the authors describe Sales 2.0 as “…the use of innovative sales practices focused on creating value for both buyer and seller and enabled by Web 2.0 and next generation technology.” The authors also point out that Sales 2.0 is not just about technology, but about a movement “which centers on a measurable, customer-centric sales process, strong and aligned relationships, and the strategic application of sales resources for maximum profitability”.

Sales 2.0, then, is an approach to selling that leverages Web 2.0 technologies (which enable user-generated content and collaboration) to build long-term, engaging relationships with prospects and customers while driving sales process efficiencies.

Sales 2.0 Benefits Buyers and Sellers

Consumer and B2B buying processes are changing. With the wealth of instant information available on the Internet, buyers are well informed of products and services before engaging with a sales rep. When they do engage, it’s when they are ready and on their terms. Buyers are comfortable with having sales conversations via phone, participating in web-based demos and in many cases making purchase decisions without even meeting a sales rep face-to-face.

Sellers welcome the fact that prospects get educated and self-qualify until they are “sales ready”. This shortens the sales cycle and increases conversion rates. Sellers also benefit from the cost efficiencies of selling via the website and inside sales teams. Field visits can occur only when needed, driving down travel-related expenses and increasing productivity.

One way to get a sense of what Sales 2.0 is about is by comparing it to traditional sales methods, which I’ll call “Sales 1.0”.

 

Final Thoughts

The timing is right for Sales 2.0. Buyers hold the power position these days and want to learn all they can about solutions via the Web and then, when they are ready, engage with sales reps. Sellers are looking for ways to shorten the sales cycle, improve sales productivity, drive down costs and retain customers. In this economy, we all win by building and nurturing trusting relationships and helping each other grow sustainable businesses.”

 

Product marketing teams need to know how their product is fairing and what sales material is driving sales conversations forward

feedback from sales

On January 8, 2010, Ken Knickerbocker wrote ‘Can sales give as good as it gets?’:

“When Joe Galvin of Sirius Decisions wrote “sales enablement is about knowledge transfer” last month, he spoke about how Salespeople need to access and acquire constantly changing information from a variety of internal sources to maintain their state of knowledge readiness and be able transfer that knowledge to their customers.

Joe is right of course, but he only has half of the picture. He should have also included the two-way exchange of knowledge that must exist if a sales and marketing organization is to flourish.

Not only must knowledge in the form of content, insight and data flow to the sales person, but insight, understanding and even raw data must flow back to other sales ecosystem stakeholders supporting the sales as well.

For instance, lead gen groups need up-to-the-minute and accurate knowledge of lead status and campaign effectiveness passed to them to make adjustments in the current campaigns or plan their next initiative or event.

Product marketing teams need to know how their product is fairing and what sales material is driving sales conversations forward.

Finance and legal teams need knowledge of the terms and conditions agreed to and the customers performance against those targets the prior year as they consider pricing on new projects and opportunities with the same client.

The sales operations group needs a damn near perfect knowledge of where each opportunity sits in the pipeline, how likely, for how much and when the deal is to close to generate a forecast executives can take to the street.

Professional services leaders need to see what service level agreements are being extended to ensure the appropriate resources are trained and available when the value promised must be delivered.

C-level executives need knowledge about the strength of the pipeline and current status of strategic opportunities and clients to determine where their time is best applied to drive forecasted results.

Enabling sales people is a first step, but in a world where everyone sells, sales enablement must take on more of a two-way, enterprise wide exchange of information and knowledge.”

I agree with the post above, but I’m wondering which feedback from Sales to Marketing is a task of Sales Enablement applications and which is a task of CRM systems? I can only speak to Sales Enablement applications:

Having a dashboard overview of both your inventory of sales material and its usage lets you track whether a certain sales region or certain products/services/solutions have no material available or whether it is not being looked at.

You will see which type of material your sales people love (Ratings might not tell you a lot but usage data will). This ability is crucial in becoming better and better in focusing your marketing efforts on what will actually help sales to close deals. “IDC research shows that over 40% of all marketing assets handed over to sales are not in use today.” (IDC’s Best Practices in Sales Enablement – Content and Marketing, July 2009)

Why pay someone to create reports every week when you and everybody else, who is interested, could have the kind of dashboard BizSphere calls ‘Content Landscape’ as well as even more detailed usage metrics of the Sales Enablement application; all of it in real-time and sliced and diced as you wish. For presentations to executives, just create a deep link to how you sliced and diced the data and they will get to see the current – as opposed to last week’s – data.

BizSphere is the Sales Enablement application Jeanne Hellman looks at in her case study of “implementing Sales Enablement in a complex, global company”.

Content Landscape

Intranets embrace Mobile Usability and Social Networking

In the following text you can interchange the word Intranet with the term Sales Enablement as many of the leading Sales Enablement vendors are not only embracing but actually pushing Mobile Usability and Social Networking. ‘Top Intranets Embrace Mobile Accessibility and Social Networking’ written by Alex Williams for readwriteweb.com on January 4, 2010:

“Intranets are becoming a higher priority for organizations. Intranet teams are growing in size, and the best of them are embracing new trends such as mobile accessibility [usability] and social networking.

These are some of the findings from Jakob Nielsen’s annual report on the top intranets for 2010. Companies that made the list this year include General Electric, Trend Micro Devices and Walmart.

Nielsen is recognized as one of the world’s foremost usability experts. His findings appear solid, though it is apparent that Intranet development is just on the verge of becoming a central communication environment for enterprise collaboration.

This year, Nielsen says, top companies on the list had a median size of about 6,300 employees, which continues a year-to-year trend toward smaller businesses. He attributes it to the increase in availability of small-company-friendly intranet technology.

In addition, intranet teams are growing, up to 14 people, 27% higher than the average team size in 2006. This is not a big surprise. The need to develop the best possible internal communications environments now cuts across multiple platforms, ranging from the web to mobile devices. More resources are required to keep these platforms synced and accessible to the employees in the organization.

Mobile Intranet Sites

The best intranets had a separate mobile site for their employees. Of the companies polled, only 30% actually had a dedicated mobile site. Expect this to change in the year ahead. People are still getting to know how to use smart phones. It’s still rare for companies to launch application environments for users, but at least one company did: an iPhone web app. Soon, though, users will expect to have access “anytime, anywhere,” to their organization’s network.

Social Features

The social Web is finding its way into intranets. Nielsen cites two trends:

  • social features for employees as individuals
  • workgroup support and other features that encourage work-related connections

He cites Walmart for its discussion and profile pages and Trend Micro’s TrendSpace, which includes the capability for employees to create their own content. Trend Micro goes as far as offering an elaborate system of reward points that accrue to employees when they contribute to the intranet’s community features.

It’s noteworthy that social features are still just emerging in intranet environments, especially with the advent of enterprise collaboration services. Companies still have the chance to be recognized as innovators in this space, especially if they implement real-time update capabilities and mashup environments.

Intranet Design is Maturing

Overall, Nielsen comes to the conclusion that intranet design is maturing. In many respects, the Intranet has come of age.

In the year ahead, intranets will change even more. Mobile usability and social networking features will continue to evolve, especially as teams begin to experiment with the wide variety of enterprise collaboration services now available.”

Chris Johnson left the following comment:

“Also interestingly 1/2 of the winning intranets run on SharePoint. Only more SharePoint goodness to come with the 2010 release too.”

M&A strategies shouldn’t miss the Sales Enablement dimension

On January 5, 2010 Matthias Roebel from MING Labs wrote the post ‘M&A strategies shouldn’t miss the Sales Enablement dimension’:

“I recently had a call with an executive centered around his company’s growth through a M&A strategy. His observation was that with financing for these deals returning and the number of under-valued assets (companies) left in the wake of the recession’s creative destruction, this was for many companies a chance of lifetime. But he qualified this comment with a warning: as long as you know how to do this stuff.

He had me. A bit. “What stuff?”, I asked. He responded that most of all the immediate value used to justify the purchase would be in increased sales through the combining of customers and products (more opportunities to sell more). As we talked further he summed up the pitfalls as:

  • Sellers will instantly have 40%-60% more new products and solutions to sell (that they know little about): Where will sellers get the necessary knowledge or find an expert just-in-time?
  • Customers with trusting relationships will want “what does this mean to us” meetings: Has marketing (or management) given sellers the up to date details?
  • The combined companies will begin a process of choosing what stays, what goes – a complete restructuring of offering portfolio will have to happen: How will you get your sellers on the same page and focused on selling?

We spoke about how these challenges could manifest and about the best ways to address them. Basically, he emphasized that C-level executives recognize that critical nature of communication and collaboration of the selling community (sales reps, expert or support roles, and marketing) to maintain focus on the essential goal of selling. His point was simple: You got to keep selling.

Reflecting on the call, I realized that innovative technology and consulting methods, specifically Sales Enablement solutions, can go a long way to address these needs. I made the following list to send to this executive:

  • Given the rapid nature of combining the teams, being able to provide access to all relevant content (regardless of where it is stored) explaining the new offering portfolio – but within the context of the customer conversations – is the key.
  • Within this newly established enterprise context web 2.0 collaboration methods become very powerful. Sharing content instantly leveraging blog and twitter like functionality across sales teams can boost the effectiveness of communication to the customers.
  • With the virtual doubling of the team’s size, even the guy with the deepest networks will be severely impacted – often sellers need the expert not just the white paper or slide and integrating to unified communications (VoIP / chat / presence information / etc.) would be hugely powerful.

Additionally, I found an article at Forbes.com that was written by McKinsey & Company titled ‘Master sales force integration in a merger’, that explores this topic beyond the technology aspect I cover. […]”

 

Christian Maurer from UltimateSalesExecResource.blogspot.com commented:

“Keeping sales up to speed through a M&A phase is indeed a very challenging task and often neglected, especially when cost benefits are the primary focus of the M&A. It would extend this thought also for companies going into strategic partnerships.”

Job opening – Director, B2B Marketing, Sales Enablement at Yahoo!

Old! Out dated!

Director, B2B Marketing, Sales Enablement

Location: Sunnyvale, US – Sunnyvale

Date Posted: 2009/12/18

Position: Director – B2B Marketing, Sales Enablement

Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Reports to: VP, B2B Marketing

About Yahoo!

Think about impacting 1 out of every 2 people online–in innovative and imaginative ways that are uniquely Yahoo!. We do just that each and every day, and you could too. After all, it’s big thinkers like you who will create the next generation of Internet experiences for consumers and advertisers across the globe. Now’s the time to show the world what you’ve got. Put your ideas to work for over half a billion people.

About the Business Group:

The B2B Marketing team is responsible for positioning and packaging all Yahoo! advertiser products, media solutions, product launches and Yahoo! Search for our sales, advertisers, publishers and reseller audiences. This includes messaging strategy, customer communications and sales materials and website management.

Job Description:

Responsibilities will include defining the strategy and leading the building and deploying of sales enablement programs and artifacts that empower Yahoo’s global sales force at scale to effectively solve customer’s advertising problems and help grow their businesses. This role will partner across B2B marketing, product marketing, communications, and other teams to understand customer needs, collaborate on the vision and story, and package and build outstanding enablement materials. This role will also work closely with the sales training organization to create and execute effective sales training programs and workshops.

Primary Areas of Responsibility:

• Work with Product Marketing and B2B Marketing vertical subject matter experts on understanding customer problems and core messaging for Yahoo! Solutions.

• Create the vision and story from core messaging into a scalable framework of sales artifacts that can be used in externally facing client-meetings and in sales training.

• Create artifacts such as sales presentations, whiteboard demos, video demos, sales guides, testimonials, case studies, research insights, and more.

• Partner with sales training to build effective training programs and workshops to empower the sales organization on working with sales artifacts.

• Plan and implement measurement system for sales enablement activities to quantify impact and success of materials and programs.

• Potentially manage and oversee the work of sales enablement professionals

Basic Qualifications

• 8+ years in Marketing, Product Marketing, Communications, Sales/Marketing Operations

• BS, BA or equivalent experience required

• Very strong communication and writing skills

• Ability to lead and manage a team

• Track record of producing high quality documents on tight deadlines, and being passionate about training others.

• Ability to develop comprehensive strong analysis on market trends and dynamics

• Knowledge of standard sales processes

• Be a self-starter and a team player

• Ability to manage a variety of projects simultaneously

• Excellent organizational skills and ability to prioritize and meet aggressive deadlines

• Resourceful at getting information and able to succeed in a rapidly changing environment

Yahoo! Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.

Job opening – Sales Enablement Manager at Adobe

Old! Out dated!

Sales Enablement Manager

Description

Adobe believes in hiring the very best. We are known for our vibrant, dynamic and rewarding workplace where personal and professional fulfillment and company success go hand in hand. We take pride in creating exceptional work experiences, encouraging innovation and being involved with our employees, customers and communities. We invite you to discover what makes Adobe such a great place to work.

The Sales Enablement Manager will be responsible for assessing field enablement requirements and creating corresponding programs and curriculum to drive sales effectiveness, facilitate performance management, support the sales methodology and reinforce Adobe’s go-to-market strategy. This role requires strong program management skills, knowledge of sales, the ability to build strong relationships, and an understanding of sales training. Specifically, s/he will be responsible for developing programs that provide skills development for existing sales reps, introduce rigor around the sales methodology and account planning process, enable sales managers to more effectively coach their teams, and ensure new hires understand Adobe solutions, business processes and the sales tools required to ramp quickly. Success in this role requires a collaborative approach across sales management, product marketing, and corporate marketing, as well as the unique ability to balance a strategic thinking with the speed and details that accompany program implementation.

Requirements

  • 7-10 years experience in sales, sales training, and program management
  • Strong communication, critical thinking and interpersonal skills
  • Excellent presentations skills and ability to garner support for new ideas and initiatives
  • Proven success scoping, designing and implementing strategic programs
  • Demonstrates a consultative approach
  • In-depth understanding of sales
  • Enterprise experience, preferably in software
  • Strong work ethic and enthusiastic about new challenges
  • Comfortable with ambiguity and a willingness to try new approaches

Adobe’s dynamic working environment is well known – including ten years on FORTUNE magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”, and other, similar accolades. By hiring the very best and brightest, we continue to be a simply better place to work.

Adobe is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. We welcome and encourage diversity in the workplace.

About Adobe United States

Adobe has approximately 4,000 employees in the United States and is headquartered in San Jose, California, with other office locations nationwide.

Job: Sales
Primary Location: Americas-USW-San Jose (Headquarters)

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