Hank Barnes
Hank Barnes
Hank Barnes provides research and advisory services on go-to-market strategies--particularly around marketing, positioning, and customer experience--for technology providers. Hank has more than 25 years of high-technology sales and marketing experience in both field and corporate roles, both as an individual contributor and the marketing leader for several startups. He is a long-time proponent of customer-centric marketing and the use of customer experience as a key differentiator for business success. His posts here include content from his days with Adobe, SAP, and now Gartner
Retention, Growth and CX Expectations
In today’s tech markets, with more and more offerings delivered as a service, the focus is increasingly on retention and growth within existing accounts....
B2B Technology Moment of Truth: Transition from Buying Cycle to the Owning Cycle
When I first joined Gartner, one of my first research efforts was focused on trying to define a graphical model that captured how B2B...
Be Wary of Digital Machinists in Your Customer Experience Programs
A few months back, I blogged about a key focus area for Gartner’s Digital Business research around the idea of Digital Humanism. The core...
The Sales Shift from Gatekeeper to Expediter
Yes, I apologize if I am adding yet another post to the mass of content about how sales needs to shift. But I hope...
Caution on the Customer Experience Battlefield
My colleague Jake Sorofman recently shared some results from a Gartner survey on the high level of priority marketing groups have given to customer...
The Call for Humanism in Technology
I just got back from Gartner’s U.S. Symposium in Orlando. It was a great week, meeting with lots of technology providers of all ages...
Does Simplicity Make a Good Brand Promise?
Simplicity was a hot topic last week. SAP emphasized it in their new theme, andwhat is effectively a brand promise, of “Run Simple”. ...
Just-in-Time Advocacy Marketing – A New Trust and Revenue Building Opportunity
Offering Web site visitors the ability to chat—at the time of their choosing–is something that is valuable (But please, don’t have your chat window...
End the Blame Game (Between Marketing and Sales)
My last post focused on the need for sales to step up to meet the needs of more demanding buyers. While that is critical,...
Time for Sales (and the Organizations Behind Them) to Step Up
Is the idea of buyers completing a significant part of their journey without contacting a sales person effectively "The Death of the SalesMan"? It is...
The Impact of Customer Power on Product Marketing
While I often spend time talking about customer experience issues, the real driver for the increased experience expectations is customer power. The...
Big Ideas for Sales In 2013
As 2012 draws to a close, I decided to ask the folks whose posts we feature on this blog to share one big idea...
Addressing the “How to Organize Sales” Question with Technology and Process
For large companies, a big question is how to organize their sales force. Do you have one big sales force that represents all...
Dig Deeper for Customer Insight to Win Deals
Today's sellers are deluged with ideas to help them be more successful. Whether it is social selling, big data, Challenger selling, or some...
Winning at Competitive Sports and Team Selling – Know Your Role
In complex B2B sales, there are often teams involved on both sides of the table. The customer has a group of people all...
Cultivating Advocates
I continue to believe that more emphasis needs to be put on developing independent advocates within your customer community to "sell and support" your...
Using Technology to Help You Sell Smarter
The idea of selling smarter is hard to refute. It is one of those things that everybody wants and everybody talks about. ...
Let’s Be the Same (or maybe not) – Revisiting Differentiation
When introducing new products to the market, great marketing teams spend a lot of energy finding tangible differentiation from competitive alternatives. It is...
Moments of Truth Make Big Differences in Customer Experience
Author Note: This post originally appeared in the Adobe Experience Delivers blog. You can find it here. This version has some updates...
Do You Under-Invest in Advocacy?
Author Note: This post originally appeared in the Adobe Experience Delivers blog. You can find it here. This version has some updates...