union of sales & marketing

True Togetherness:The Secret to a Successful Marriage

Between Sales and Marketing

Lee LevittVice President, Strategic Accounts

Sales and marketing can work together in peace and harmony.

Here’s the challenge…

Market Segmentation

Lead Generation

Discovery

Solution Creation

Account Management

Negotiation & Close

Cross-Sell/Up-SellClient

Opportunity

Prospect

Suspect

It starts with lead generation

Marketing wants to know which vertical, geography, or segment to target.

Sales wants to know if the guy in this office

has budget and pain to

buy his solution this

quarter.

How do you

bridge the gap?

The truth is…

You don’t have to.You can and should do both.

Gartner tells you software spending is up 4.8% in 2010.

30,000 feet:

CIO Insight tells you virtualization is the largest spending category for large enterprises.

30,000 feet:

This is good, important information.

But if you want to close deals today, you need to

know more.

You also need to know what’s happening at the street level.

Here’s an example:Targeting a large market

Situation: Company wanted to target a large market, but 30,000- and 15,000-feet views were too broad; they weren’t sure where to focus

Action: BAO surveyed 10,000 companies regarding IT initiatives in the next 6 months:

• 91% of the initiatives uncovered existed in 49% of companies

• 51% had fewer than three initiatives

• 31% had ZERO initiatives

Why is this important?

• They needed to know their market – who was buying their solutions, who wasn’t

• They could point sales at accounts that have the highest probability of buying      

• They learned that the right market roadmap equals an effective lead-gen strategy

Let’s get more specific: Targeting virtualization

At street level, you can see the segments that should drive revenue

Segment #1

Already virtualized their desktops

Segment #2

Going to virtualize desktops

Segment #3

No plans to virtualize desktops

Let’s put it in street-level terms:

BAO surveyed 500 companies…

• 230 of them have desktop virtualization

initiatives in the next 12 months, including:

– BB&T

– Bausch & Lomb

– Ball Corp.

– Banner Health

• 230 will not be doing desktop virtualization at all

• 40 of them have already “completely completed”

desktop virtualization

Why is this important?

• Sales knew exactly which companies to target

• Marketing knew exactly which companies to nurture   

• Both sales and marketing knew which companies to avoid wasting time and money on

How do we know this…Let’s step through the process

• Look at the total addressable market

– For virtualization example, we used enterprises with revenues >$750 million

• Develop business rules to identify a Buying Spectrum – ask:

– What are we trying to get to? 

– Whom do we want to go after, and what do we need to know to go after them?

– Which companies have budget / initiatives in place to virtualize their desktops?

– Which companies haven’t virtualized their desktops but plan to?

– Who has already completed desktop virtualization?

– Which companies have no plans for desktop virtualization?

Survey your targets

Create a survey based on micro-markets and start calling targets.

CAUTION: It is critical that this is done by a vendor-agnostic third party.

Create an action plan…

Segment #2

Already virtualized their desktops

ACTION: Active lead generation and nurturing through appointment-setting.

Segment #1

Going to virtualize their desktops

ACTION: ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK! Hot opportunities immediately flagged — high priority on appointment-setting.

Segment #3

No plans to virtualize desktops

ACTION: Low-cost nurturing campaigns

BAO typically sets appointments with 70% of the green market and

50% of the yellow market within weeks.

You can’t find buyers from 30,000 feet alone.

To know who’s buying now, you also gotta hit the street.

A happy sales and marketing marriage…

• Means taking both perspectives – 30,000 feet and street level – into account

• Requires that you map your market the right way

• Gets you to exactly the companies you want to target

• Drives pipeline – and revenue – faster than you ever thought possible

Contact me.

781-323-7018| llevitt@baoinc.com