Matt Heinz
Three keys to successful sales & marketing alignment
The very idea of creating alignment between sales & marketing is part of the problem. The organizations that have best solved this challenge aren't tackling a sales & marketing alignment problem, but have instead prioritized a proactive, cross-functional approach to customer acquisition overall. They have...
Five common content marketing mistakes (and how to fix them)
Don't overthink your content marketing strategy. It's more important to have a bias for action and get rolling. That said, when getting started with content marketing for your organization or brand, there are a few things to make sure you've thought through up front....
Organize the tribes of lonely prospects
Your prospects are probably lonely. They have plenty of colleagues in their organization, likely too many people telling them what to do and possibly a team of people to help them do it. But they're still lonely. Lonely because nobody else in the organization has...
Business planning is a discipline, not a document
It's one thing to have a plan. It's another thing to assume you know what you're doing before you do it. You aren't likely to convince a VC to fork over millions without a written plan. Your investors, your board, your leadership team and your...
Marketing is a game of inches
It's not good enough to say "we'll email our customers in the morning instead of the afternoon" or "Tuesday is the best day to send our newsletter." That's way too general. What time, precisely, is the best time to send? What specific time Tuesday morning...
How to reach & influence bloggers in your industry
The purpose of PR has never been about influencing press. It's about reaching your target audience through their published channels. And yes, the traditional media still has significant influence and reach worth pursuing. But now more than ever, the "blogosphere" offers an even greater opportunity...
The fastest, easiest way to learn about Google+
You can drive yourself nuts and waste loads of time chasing after every new technology, gadget, productivity tool, social network or other flavor of the week. And if you insist on being the first to try everything and position yourself on the bleeding edge, knock...
10 B2B sales & marketing metrics worth tracking
The fine folks at Focus.com let me do a Webinar on this topic several months ago, but I wanted to summarize what I consider to be 10 fundamental B2B sales & marketing metrics here as well. You can get an on-demand recording of the full...
The difference between publicity and PR
Seth spoke about this at his event in Seattle last week, and it bears repeating. Publicity is very different from PR. They're related, but different in their execution, objectives and value to your brand and organization. Publicity is about getting coverage for yourself. It's about…
Declaring an end to marketing independence
The 4th of July holiday weekend is upon us, and with it (in between hot dog-eating contests and firecracker-induced brushfires) we'll celebrate the anniversary of our great country's birth and independence. The nature of independence, of course, has me thinking about marketing. In most cases...
Would they miss you if you were gone?
How would your customers answer this question? What specifically would they miss if you were gone tomorrow? Perhaps something you offer is unique. If they can't get that product or service anywhere else, what would your customers really miss? What benefit or outcome are they...
Eight more ways to get sales reps back above quota
Based on an earlier post featuring best practices to help sales reps get back above quota, we had a lively discussion on the topic at the American Association for Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP) Seattle chapter meeting earlier this month. Below are eight more best...
Five reasons to walk away from a sale
You've qualified the deal, you've got a decision maker engaged, there's budget to move forward. All signs are positive. Then something happens. The prospect goes dark. Or you start to get a funny feeling that things aren't right. No matter how motivated or focused you…
The fish aren’t going to jump into your boat
With the amount of time, resources and budget devoted to lead generation at B2B organizations nationwide, combined with the pressure sellers are facing to hit their numbers in a continued challenging market, these survey results are scary. In a nutshell, InsideSales.com and Omniture submitted themselves...
The five stages of lead qualification
Everybody wants qualified leads. The right person, at the right company, ready to buy with money to spend. Those may be the leads you want, and the leads that close, but you'll go crazy (and possibly broke) trying to generate exclusively leads that look like...
Who do you let into your network?
I was told recently that the point of social networks was to have the biggest list of contacts or followers possible, so that (and I'm now quoting directly) "you can ask people for things when you need something." First of all, volume isn't important. Quality...
Six ways to drive more sales from LinkedIn
I get asked about this a lot (and addressed it briefly in an earlier post here). Here are six more quick tips (mostly relevant to B2B sellers) for building relationships and finding prospects on LinkedIn. 1. Read the Daily Digest every dayFirst of all, make...
How top salespeople are using social media
Most sales organizations treat social media as a threat, a distraction from selling time, and a set of sites that should be blocked inside the corporate firewall. But many of today's most successful salespeople are using social media strategically to build deeper relationships with prospects...
What non-selling activities do sales pros spend (or waste) time on?
I thought this was a great question on Focus.com this past week. Worth reading through some of the thoughtful responses. I honed in on six things (two good, two neutral, two bad): The Good Networking/Sharing/ConnectingThe most successful sales reps invest time in building their personal…
Just pick one and get started, already…
A great personal organizational system or to-do list isn't going to get the work done. It's still, after all, just a list of work - not actual work done. Problem is, even for well-organized and successful people, lists can be counter-productive. They can be intimidating,...