Book Insights: ABM is B2B by Sangram Vajre

WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.140 --> 00:00:09.880 welcome back to be to be growth. My name is Dan Sanchez, and today we are 2 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:14.670 continuing this deep dive journey into account based marketing. As you 3 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:18.410 probably already know. I am a marketer that doesn't have too much experience 4 00:00:18.410 --> 00:00:22.310 and b two b yet but much experience with digital marketing, especially in 5 00:00:22.310 --> 00:00:25.640 the B two c in the nonprofit context. Higher ed like I've done a lot of 6 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:30.510 different verticals, but I'm still diving deep into specifically B two B 7 00:00:30.510 --> 00:00:34.360 marketing tactics. And this month we're going deep into account based marketing 8 00:00:34.370 --> 00:00:37.820 for a number of different reasons. If you want to Nome or go back to February 9 00:00:37.820 --> 00:00:42.800 1st episode, and you can learn about why the deep dive that's going on in 10 00:00:42.800 --> 00:00:47.750 the month of February and for this episode I'm diving into a book, the 11 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:52.270 probably the quintessential book on the topic that is, by far the most 12 00:00:52.270 --> 00:00:55.150 recommended that I've seen. It was the first book recommended to me on this 13 00:00:55.150 --> 00:00:59.640 topic, and I actually read this book for almost a year ago as my first kind 14 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:04.680 of taste into this topic of account based marketing. And that is a B M is B 15 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:09.080 two B by Sandra Mevasseret, and I wanted to start with this book because 16 00:01:09.080 --> 00:01:12.940 it is so recommended more than more than any other book that I've seen so 17 00:01:12.940 --> 00:01:16.740 far in the most recognized, partly because it's the only book I've read so 18 00:01:16.740 --> 00:01:19.880 far. So all the other books I'll be reading from now I'll be given to 19 00:01:19.880 --> 00:01:24.890 comparison back to a B M is B two B for you, the reader. So stay tuned form or 20 00:01:24.890 --> 00:01:29.350 episodes Reviewing Different A B M resource is mostly books, so I'm still 21 00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:33.900 looking for some courses and different things to review. So here it is. My 22 00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:38.320 review on A B M is B two b, some of my best takeaways and things you can get 23 00:01:38.320 --> 00:01:41.050 out of the book even without reading it. If you just listen to the podcast, I'm 24 00:01:41.050 --> 00:01:45.620 hoping to give you some insights into a B M that come from this book. So here 25 00:01:45.620 --> 00:01:51.960 are my top takeaways from A B M is B two B. For starters, this book paints a 26 00:01:51.960 --> 00:01:57.510 wonderful picture about why a B M is even necessary by painting the picture 27 00:01:57.510 --> 00:02:03.730 of how inefficient our current systems are. And I'm like, so aware of this and 28 00:02:03.730 --> 00:02:07.360 the B two c space because it just happens all the time and it's there's 29 00:02:07.360 --> 00:02:10.680 nothing you can really do about it. And B to C We all know that we're gonna be 30 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:14.600 marketing the thousands, tens of thousands, millions of people and that 31 00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:18.910 a small fraction of them are actually in the market for what we're selling. 32 00:02:18.920 --> 00:02:24.560 You know, one, maybe 2% right? But there's even Aziz. Narrow as a segment 33 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:28.350 is, you can drive and is is targeted as you could get your ads. There's just 34 00:02:28.350 --> 00:02:32.880 not much you could do about it because you do not know who your advertising to 35 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:37.600 on the other side, and this book does a fantastic job of kind of painting with 36 00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:43.530 a broad strokes. What that looks like and why a B M is why it's time for B 37 00:02:43.530 --> 00:02:46.920 two B marketers to embrace account based marketing because it essentially 38 00:02:46.920 --> 00:02:51.890 flips the funnel. As Sandra would say on its head by, instead of going after 39 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:57.010 the large group of people, you're flipping it and going after the few 40 00:02:57.010 --> 00:03:02.440 people you know are in your demographics, your firm, a graphics, 41 00:03:02.440 --> 00:03:08.370 your psycho graphics and are actually in the market for what you're selling 42 00:03:08.380 --> 00:03:12.270 now. Of course, it's never perfect, but it's a certainly a whole lot closer 43 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:17.280 than it would be if you were just like spraying and praying with ads 44 00:03:17.290 --> 00:03:20.830 everywhere, or as much as you can target or segment that we know. We're 45 00:03:20.830 --> 00:03:25.050 only getting a small fraction of who we hope to get, but that's what you have 46 00:03:25.050 --> 00:03:28.120 to do if you were in the BTC space and what most people are doing in the B two 47 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:34.720 B space and tell a B M. Another thing the book does remarkably well is after 48 00:03:34.720 --> 00:03:38.710 painting the picture of why it's necessary. Doing a good under doing a 49 00:03:38.710 --> 00:03:41.620 good job of painting like what is account based marketing and how does it 50 00:03:41.620 --> 00:03:45.890 work? And while I'll be going into their team framework in a bit. The 51 00:03:45.890 --> 00:03:49.180 reason why it's important as a book to really paint a good picture of what 52 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:52.630 we're actually trying to achieve is because this book isn't just for 53 00:03:52.630 --> 00:03:57.510 marketers. It's equally just for sales because this is one of those marketing 54 00:03:57.510 --> 00:04:01.780 plays. It's just a much a sales play, and I know I have marketers and 55 00:04:01.780 --> 00:04:05.890 salespeople listening to this podcast right now and this account based 56 00:04:05.890 --> 00:04:09.490 marketing approach is one of those things that Sandra will say you have to 57 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:14.560 come together on and be totally aligned and have a clear understanding of what 58 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:17.670 you're trying to achieve together. And if you don't have a clear understanding 59 00:04:17.670 --> 00:04:20.209 of what you're trying to achieve together, then it's just not gonna work. 60 00:04:20.209 --> 00:04:23.000 Well, if marketing thinks they're building this and Sales thinks they're 61 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.440 going after that, then how successful are you going to be if you're not 62 00:04:26.440 --> 00:04:30.240 trying to build the same thing? So that is one great thing about the books. It 63 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:33.270 does paint a clear picture of what it is we're talking about, what we're 64 00:04:33.270 --> 00:04:38.260 going to try to build together and what some success should look like. And that 65 00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:43.850 from there, the thing that he uses to paint the picture is what he calls the 66 00:04:43.850 --> 00:04:51.570 team Framework and Team is an acronym that stands for Target engage, activate 67 00:04:51.590 --> 00:04:56.380 and measure, um, to kind of blend all the kind of necessary steps to do a 68 00:04:56.380 --> 00:05:01.260 good A B M campaign. So let's dive into each one of those to take a look at 69 00:05:01.270 --> 00:05:03.560 what they mean by the team framework. 70 00:05:04.740 --> 00:05:08.930 First, the target is to narrowly define the scope and identify the target 71 00:05:08.930 --> 00:05:14.470 companies that truly align with what you're offering, essentially picking 72 00:05:14.470 --> 00:05:19.670 out your ideal customers, not thousands of them. But what are the ideal? Like 73 00:05:19.670 --> 00:05:24.180 if you could make a list of the 100 best case scenarios or the 100 people 74 00:05:24.180 --> 00:05:27.550 you'd like to work with the most in B two B, it's two companies. What 75 00:05:27.550 --> 00:05:31.440 companies do you wanna work with the most? What companies are those once you 76 00:05:31.440 --> 00:05:37.050 know what those companies are based on, well defined, uh, firma graphics. What? 77 00:05:37.060 --> 00:05:41.080 Who in those companies are going to be the most likely person you're gonna 78 00:05:41.080 --> 00:05:45.690 want to contact first in order to introduce your offering? Thio. Once you 79 00:05:45.690 --> 00:05:50.040 have that, you could go and find that's the to me. That's as a B two c market. 80 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.910 Or it is just remarkable that you could go and find the name email, sometimes 81 00:05:53.910 --> 00:05:58.850 the phone number or linked in profile of the exact people you need to get in 82 00:05:58.850 --> 00:06:02.650 touch with. If you've only done marketing and b two B and haven't done 83 00:06:02.650 --> 00:06:06.900 B two C, then you know like that's just a gold mine and I'm like, man, if we 84 00:06:06.900 --> 00:06:09.790 know exactly who we want to talk to, and we have their contact information. 85 00:06:09.790 --> 00:06:12.970 Then how do we approach that? And that's what a B M is. It's essentially 86 00:06:12.980 --> 00:06:16.780 taking the goodness that is B two B and making the best of it. Since we can 87 00:06:16.780 --> 00:06:21.190 identify the exact person in the exact company that we need to talk to the the 88 00:06:21.190 --> 00:06:25.470 top 100 of them, what do we do from there? So that's targeting is just 89 00:06:25.470 --> 00:06:30.270 narrowly defining that. And then we move into engage in the team framework 90 00:06:30.280 --> 00:06:34.510 E for engage and that is to reach and interact with the target accounts in a 91 00:06:34.510 --> 00:06:40.210 meaningful and personalized ways. Not just like spraying and praying, as I 92 00:06:40.210 --> 00:06:43.970 said before, but actually customizing all your marketing pieces for them 93 00:06:43.980 --> 00:06:48.160 because you know the top 5100 people you wanna work with. And of course, you 94 00:06:48.160 --> 00:06:52.090 could scale it out to 1000 with technology. But because you know who 95 00:06:52.090 --> 00:06:56.260 they are, you don't have to just send a one size fits all brochure. You don't 96 00:06:56.260 --> 00:07:00.120 have to just send a one size fits all advertisement. No, you can customize 97 00:07:00.130 --> 00:07:04.230 every set of ads specifically for the customer. What message do you want to 98 00:07:04.230 --> 00:07:09.290 give to Brian? Who works at Salesforce? If you're trying to sell the Salesforce 99 00:07:09.290 --> 00:07:14.350 is an example. And if you know V P. Ryan, who is the head of procurement at 100 00:07:14.350 --> 00:07:17.990 this specific part of Salesforce on? I'm just making that up. I don't I 101 00:07:17.990 --> 00:07:21.050 don't know who is in charge of procurement at Salesforce, and I just 102 00:07:21.050 --> 00:07:24.810 threw Brian in there. Then what do you want to say to Brian? Because you could 103 00:07:24.810 --> 00:07:28.960 literally get his attention in ah, multitude of different ways. What do 104 00:07:28.960 --> 00:07:33.870 you want to say to him? In what order? In what ways that are meaningful to him 105 00:07:33.880 --> 00:07:39.460 that not only get his attention in a good way but can lead a good like a 106 00:07:39.940 --> 00:07:45.210 bread crumbs to your offering in a way that attracts that away that delights 107 00:07:45.210 --> 00:07:50.710 them in a way that serves them well. So that's kind of what they mean by engage. 108 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:54.420 The next one is activate. How do you activate them? How do you get them from 109 00:07:54.420 --> 00:07:58.300 just engaging with you, toe? Actually be becoming part of your pipeline? How 110 00:07:58.300 --> 00:08:00.930 do you get them to take the steps through the pipeline to becoming an 111 00:08:00.940 --> 00:08:05.280 actual sale and that's what they mean and activate. Since you know exactly 112 00:08:05.280 --> 00:08:07.960 who you wanna work with, how do you prioritize those people in your 113 00:08:07.960 --> 00:08:12.740 pipeline? Um, not just cold leads that are coming in. Who who might have don't 114 00:08:12.740 --> 00:08:17.010 fit your perfect 100 customers? But how do you make sure you're leading those 115 00:08:17.020 --> 00:08:22.760 100 through the pipeline? Well, since you know that they're the best fit and 116 00:08:22.760 --> 00:08:26.900 then lastly, M for measure in the team framework is about setting up a 117 00:08:26.900 --> 00:08:30.120 different way of measuring things. Because let's be honest in the lead 118 00:08:30.130 --> 00:08:34.549 generation, in the inbound marketing approach, the way we measure success is 119 00:08:34.549 --> 00:08:37.480 very different. As a marketer, you're probably measured by the amount of 120 00:08:37.480 --> 00:08:41.570 leads you produce, not the amount of sales I know. There's been many 121 00:08:41.570 --> 00:08:45.660 situations where I've been measured on the amount of leads as my first primary 122 00:08:45.660 --> 00:08:48.840 metric as a marketer. I know I'm successful based on hitting my lead 123 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:52.990 number, you know, in secondary by revenue. But how do we make sure we're 124 00:08:52.990 --> 00:08:58.470 actually measuring the right things? By the amount of by the accuracy and the 125 00:08:58.470 --> 00:09:01.910 targeting by the amount of engagements with the people we targeted by 126 00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:06.620 activating a good percentage of those in there and then the amount of those 127 00:09:06.620 --> 00:09:10.630 targets that become actual revenue. That's kind of how they approach 128 00:09:10.640 --> 00:09:14.680 measuring in a kind of like, very basic way. That's what the funnel now looks 129 00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:18.760 like. If we indeed flip the funnel to go after the few rather than the many, 130 00:09:19.240 --> 00:09:22.540 so that going breaking down that framework in the book was really 131 00:09:22.540 --> 00:09:25.480 helpful for me. Of course, they go into much more detail. If you're new to a B 132 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:29.530 M, then that was probably a helpful kind of intro to the subject. But if 133 00:09:29.530 --> 00:09:32.290 you like that framework, and it provides clarity for you to kind of 134 00:09:32.290 --> 00:09:36.820 break it up into this nice little acronym team, right, then you need to 135 00:09:36.820 --> 00:09:40.640 read this book. It goes into much more detail about it, And one additional 136 00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:44.120 thing that I really loved about this book is that even though Santorum is 137 00:09:44.130 --> 00:09:48.040 the founder of Terminus, which is a company that helps you achieve these 138 00:09:48.050 --> 00:09:52.990 endeavors with technology, he rarely mentions Terminus much or how Terminus 139 00:09:52.990 --> 00:09:58.500 can help you. He's really in this book, championing the methodology of account 140 00:09:58.500 --> 00:10:03.010 based marketing more than he is selling his product which, as a marketer, I 141 00:10:03.010 --> 00:10:06.570 respect at the same time. If somebody throws a right foot hook for their 142 00:10:06.570 --> 00:10:09.830 product, I'm a marketer, so I get it. I'm like, Hey, I got a job and then you 143 00:10:09.830 --> 00:10:14.930 gotta make the ask you right? You got to try to convert their as well. So I 144 00:10:14.940 --> 00:10:19.520 don't really shame marketers for mentioning their product more in books 145 00:10:19.520 --> 00:10:23.130 or even throwing a strong called action at the end. But Santorum doesn't do 146 00:10:23.130 --> 00:10:28.170 that. He's really championing the cause, Um, and the methodology now, for me 147 00:10:28.170 --> 00:10:31.580 personally, there was one thing I didn't like about the book, and that is 148 00:10:31.580 --> 00:10:37.340 the book is fairly long. It is like a 200 plus page book, but it doesn't give 149 00:10:37.340 --> 00:10:42.590 enough specific examples like I love to have specific case studies. I don't 150 00:10:42.590 --> 00:10:48.290 want to just know about the general idea of how to build a target list. I 151 00:10:48.290 --> 00:10:51.960 want to see how if people built it, how did they get the information? What are 152 00:10:51.960 --> 00:10:55.020 some of the measures they've other companies have used to identify their 153 00:10:55.020 --> 00:10:58.630 target account? Did they just keep stacking on, like making up random 154 00:10:58.630 --> 00:11:01.260 firma, graphics or demographics and just narrowing and narrowing it down. 155 00:11:01.260 --> 00:11:05.310 They got down to 100 through certain size lists. That was certain size 156 00:11:05.310 --> 00:11:08.610 companies. Now what are some of the ways they get all the information and 157 00:11:08.610 --> 00:11:12.400 load? Those listen to the CRM is like, I'm I don't know. Maybe it's because 158 00:11:12.400 --> 00:11:15.310 I'm a marketer That's in the weeds so much, and I'm the one who actually has 159 00:11:15.310 --> 00:11:19.310 to go and figure out the details. I love case studies that give me very, 160 00:11:19.310 --> 00:11:23.060 very detailed For some people, it's, like way too much and way too boring. 161 00:11:23.060 --> 00:11:26.060 But I love the details. The thing is, the book was pretty long and it didn't 162 00:11:26.060 --> 00:11:30.570 give those details. So I'm like, I wish the book were like Half is long or were 163 00:11:30.580 --> 00:11:35.660 as long as it was, but with more specific Rick Granular details for each 164 00:11:35.660 --> 00:11:40.210 step. Like I would love to see a dozen different case studies for every single 165 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:44.370 step in the team framework. 15 case studies of how different people 166 00:11:44.370 --> 00:11:48.410 targeted 15 studies of how different people engaged, activated different 167 00:11:48.410 --> 00:11:51.510 ways. They've measured using tools or no tools. You know what are the 168 00:11:51.510 --> 00:11:55.310 different ways we can do this because, you know, some of us like myself have 169 00:11:55.310 --> 00:11:59.090 to actually figure out how to do this themselves with the technology with the 170 00:11:59.090 --> 00:12:02.310 people building, the system's doing some of the outreach, like I have to 171 00:12:02.310 --> 00:12:05.330 figure out how to do this and work with my sales team myself. So I would love 172 00:12:05.330 --> 00:12:09.160 some more specifics. Um, not that I'm afraid of going and figuring it out by 173 00:12:09.160 --> 00:12:12.480 myself, but it certainly is helpful to see how other people have done it. So I 174 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:15.590 could make my own make up my own mind about how I want to try it. Here it 175 00:12:15.590 --> 00:12:20.400 Sweet fish media, though, even though that's the only downfall of the book, I 176 00:12:20.400 --> 00:12:24.780 know that you know there's different strokes for different folks. Different 177 00:12:24.780 --> 00:12:28.990 people like different things out of books. Uh, James Carberry, the founder 178 00:12:28.990 --> 00:12:31.860 of Sweet Fish Media, and I often talk about like we like different things 179 00:12:31.860 --> 00:12:37.120 about books because he likes the broad overview. He likes the big ideas that 180 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:40.680 come out of books, and he gets bored looking at all the tactics and very 181 00:12:40.680 --> 00:12:44.190 granular strategies of how to achieve the thing. He just wants to know about 182 00:12:44.190 --> 00:12:48.870 what's possible and what the big idea is, and that's he's a CEO. That's kind 183 00:12:48.870 --> 00:12:52.540 of how CEO's role and how they should roll. But I'm a marketer. I like to get 184 00:12:52.540 --> 00:12:56.290 down into the nitty gritty. You know, I want to know exactly how it's been done 185 00:12:56.290 --> 00:13:00.190 before because I need to make choices myself and and those things give me a 186 00:13:00.190 --> 00:13:03.170 little bit more guidance and how I could make a choice. I need to see the 187 00:13:03.170 --> 00:13:06.950 footprints of where other people have been in order to take my own steps. So 188 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:11.170 that's probably my own bad thing. I noticed about the book because it took 189 00:13:11.170 --> 00:13:14.050 a long It took much longer to read because it was, honestly, a little too 190 00:13:14.050 --> 00:13:18.440 long without the details I wanted. But at the same time, I know some people 191 00:13:18.450 --> 00:13:23.120 like that, and if you're like me, then just be aware of that going in the book. 192 00:13:23.130 --> 00:13:27.760 And if you're more like James, then you'll love the book just by it, for 193 00:13:27.760 --> 00:13:33.130 sure. So that's kind of my breakdown of this book. Stay tuned for the next 194 00:13:33.140 --> 00:13:37.770 episodes coming on A B M, but specifically the ones on book reviews, 195 00:13:37.770 --> 00:13:41.480 because I will be doing comparisons from this book to the next book I read 196 00:13:41.480 --> 00:13:46.170 on a B M, which I haven't read yet, and we're getting more detail as we unpack 197 00:13:46.170 --> 00:13:49.520 this thing called account based marketing. Thank you so much for 198 00:13:49.520 --> 00:13:56.220 listening. Hey, everybody. Logan was sweet fish here. If you're a regular 199 00:13:56.220 --> 00:14:00.120 listener of B two b growth, you know that I'm one of the co host of the show, 200 00:14:00.130 --> 00:14:04.040 but you may not know that I also head up the sales team here. A sweet fish. 201 00:14:04.050 --> 00:14:08.490 So for those of you in sales or sales ops, I wanted to take a second to share 202 00:14:08.490 --> 00:14:12.630 something that's made us insanely more efficient. Lately, our team has been 203 00:14:12.630 --> 00:14:16.900 using lead I Q for the past few months and what used to take us four hours 204 00:14:16.900 --> 00:14:22.550 gathering Contact data now takes us on Lee. One where 75% more efficient were 205 00:14:22.550 --> 00:14:26.150 able to move faster with outbound prospecting. And organizing our 206 00:14:26.150 --> 00:14:30.980 campaigns is so much easier than before. I'd highly suggest you guys check out 207 00:14:30.990 --> 00:14:37.170 lead I Q. As well. You can check them out at lead. I q dot com That's l e a d 208 00:14:37.180 --> 00:14:43.140 e que dot com Eyes The decision maker for your product or service Abebe 209 00:14:43.140 --> 00:14:46.680 marketer. Are you looking to reach those buyers through the medium of 210 00:14:46.680 --> 00:14:52.060 podcasting? Consider becoming a co host of B two B growth. This show is 211 00:14:52.060 --> 00:14:55.920 consistently ranked as a top 100 podcast in the marketing category of 212 00:14:55.920 --> 00:15:01.550 Apple podcasts, and this show gets more than 130,000 downloads each month. 213 00:15:01.560 --> 00:15:05.290 We've already done the work of building the audience so you can focus on 214 00:15:05.290 --> 00:15:09.770 delivering incredible content to our listeners if you're interested. Email 215 00:15:09.770 --> 00:15:13.460 Logan at sweet fish media dot com.