Provocation-Based Selling, Lead To Opportunity Conversion Key Focuses Of Sales 2.0 Conference
- Written by Andrew Gaffney
- Published in Feature Articles
New strategies to integrate marketing and sales processes were a key part of the discussion at the 2009 Sales 2.0 Knowledge Share Conference, held in San Francisco last week. Facing extended sales cycles and being forced to do more with less in the current climate, leading speakers from the event focused on sales-driven marketing goals and closed-loop metrics which help both marketing and sales progress leads to opportunities to closed business.
While attendance at the event in previous years has been dominated by sales executives, organizers estimated marketing titles made up approximately 30% of this year’s attendees, as sessions including Marketing For Sales Success provided insights into how marketers are using the latest tools and processes to drive sales results.
While attendance at the event in previous years has been dominated by sales executives, organizers estimated marketing titles made up approximately 30% of this year’s attendees, as sessions including Marketing For Sales Success provided insights into how marketers are using the latest tools and processes to drive sales results.
Jeremy Cooper, VP of Americas Marketing for Salesforce.com, said his company recently created a Pipeline Counsel, which meets twice a month to gauge the effectiveness of various marketing efforts. “Last year we were focused on leads, this year we are focused on pipeline,” Cooper said.
During the same session, Gail Ennis, Senior VP of Marketing at Omniture, added that rather than simply focusing on leads, Omniture is using SQO (sales qualified opportunities) and MQO (marketing qualified opportunities) as their key metrics. Ennis also pointed out that sharing intelligence on prospect activity in real time across marketing and sales departments has been a core change for the company. “We instantaneously notify sales people about what their web site visitors are doing," she said.
While many BtoB marketers have built strategies around creating dialog with their customers and prospects, Mark Wilson, VP of Marketing at Sybase pointed out that his company recently adopted a new approach called Provocation-Based Selling. This approach, covered in a recent article in The Harvard Business Review, goes beyond consultative or solution-selling approach to seek out current the concerns of customers/prospects in a Q&A dialogue. Wilson explained that the Provocation-Based Selling approach requires more resources upfront, but results in a shorter sales cycle. “It allows you to qualify or disqualify prospects sooner because you get a yes or no response, rather than a maybe.”
As an example of the Provocation-Based Selling approach, Wilson pointed to a recent marketing campaign Sybase created to target the financial services sector, which featured the headline: “Your risk exposure changes by the second, but your data is hours old. Analyze That.”
David Thompson, co-founder of Genius.com and also co-host of the Sales 2.0 event, pointed out that new approaches like Provocation-Based Selling are essential to match the changing behavior of buyers. “The Web has changed buyer's expectations about everything. It's about ease of use and simplicity. The Web requires vendors to re-factor and reformat and drive their products to meet the expectations of the buyer,” Thompson said “Sales 2.0 makes marketing and sales aligned, because the approach is based on the facts. Either enough of leads or there are not. Since all the touch points are measurable – websites, calls, etc. - everything is measurable. Sales 2.0 can't work without marketing at the table.”