Adam Blitzer, GM & SVP of Salesforce, Pardot
When Marketing and Sales are in lockstep, revenue soars. Unfortunately, many companies still struggle to make Sales and Marketing alignment a reality. Conflicting goals, a history of failed strategy, and lack of technology all too often keep these two departments at each other’s throats. What if you could unite these two teams and sell more effectively than ever before? Adam Blitzer, GM & SVP of Salesforce Pardot, has been on both sides of the fence in Sales and Marketing and will cover best practices for closing the gap with the help of marketing automation.
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Sales & Marketing: B2B’s New Power Couple
1. Sales & Marketing:
B2B’s Newest Power Couple
#B2BSummit
April 29-30, 2015 | AT&T Park, San Francisco, CA
Adam Blitzer
SVP & GM Pardot, Salesforce
@adamblitzer
I want to talk about why we’re all here. We’re trying to align marketing and sales in a better way that what we’re achieving today. That’s why Pardot was built.
The way people are buying has really evolved in recent years. The buyer is in control. They are getting their information from doznes of different sources. Sources that didn’t exist 20 years ago.
They’re using community forums, paid search, natural search, your website, industry websites, social media – plus some tried and true channels like email and references.
This is a lot for a marketer to balance. And frankly, we don’t control many parts of that journey anymore.
The role of the Sales rep has changed, too. People are researching on their own terms. Today we’re seeing that buyers are more than 2/3 of the way through the sales cycle before they engage with a rep (Corporate Executive Board), and that’s only going to increase.
Gartner predicts that number will be as high as 85% by 2020. That means almost the ENTIRE sales cycle is being carried out before your reps get to pitch. That’s a scary prospect.
Source: Gartner Predicts
When you survey buyers though, they don’t want you to be totally hands off. They want a mix of the old way of buying and this new way of buying that has emerged. They want to do some of their own research, but they want a sales rep available instantly when they have a question.
Many companies are struggling to adapt and meet the needs to today’s buyer. Why is that?
1) Sales and Marketing are still operating in silos. They aren’t talking to each other. Their goals aren’t aligned. They don’t have clearly defined process for how leads should flow through the buying cycle and how they can help each other win.
2) Today’s tools aren’t mobile or easy to use. Marketers have marketing automation and reps have the CRM, but companies haven’t successfully connected the dots and they really haven’t armed sales with the tools they need to connect with prospects and customers during the buying journey.
3) They don’t have a good understanding of the prospect. They’re lacking context and the big picture when it comes to each prospect’s unique interests, needs and pain points.
This failure to adapt – failure to align – is costing companies revenue.