marketing

Why It’s OK to Be a Big Ass Failure w/Ashley Zagst, Zagst Consulting

People are often afraid to make mistakes or fail. But no failure means never learning and growing as a person or a professional. In this interview, I talked with Ashley Zagst who is a professional dancer/choreographer turned digital marketer.

Our conversation focused on how Ashley made the career transition from dancer to marketer and what she’s learned along the way about learning from mistakes. She is the former Head of Marketing at Bravado.co, the first digital community exclusively for sales professionals committed to elevating the profession by changing the stigmatized perception.

Key takeaways from the interview:

Everyone has transferable skills! No matter who you are or what you have done in your life, the skills you’ve developed along the way are NOT lost as you move to new phases in your life and career.

Why Ashley decided to transition from a professional career as a dancer and business owner to a digital marketing career in Corporate America. Find out what that transition was like for Ashley and how she achieved her goals.

How Ashley knew she could make the leap from performing arts to working for a tech start-up even though at first glance it might seem an unusual career choice.

When making a career transition, steps you can take to get to the root of your strengths and skill sets.

Why following this “discovery” process can be even more important for women looking to transition in their careers?

Why becoming comfortable with making mistakes and failing big is actually a benefit to our careers.

How feedback delivered in the right way leads to cultivating creativity, not stifling it.

Finally, learn about the connection between creating art(movement) → creating content → serving customers/members → building/being a part of a community → changing an entire profession!

Listen and enjoy the interview with Ashley!

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About Ashley– Connect with her on LinkedIn Explore Bravado and become a member

Ashley Zagst is a professional dancer/choreographer turned digital marketer. She is currently the Founder of Zagst Consutling and the former Head of Marketing at Bravado.co, the first digital community exclusively for sales professionals committed to elevating the profession by changing the stigmatized perception. Prior to working at Bravado, Ashley helped build the brand marketing team at Digital Trends. In between working, dancing, traveling, and spending time with her pup, she also finds time to crush the occasional triathlon.

Feature header blog post photo by Sharon Pittaway on Unsplash

How to be Human in Sales. Bots haven’t taken over yet!

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this interview, I talked with Amy Volas, Founder and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners about why relationships STILL MATTER in selling, and frankly, in life.

I’m known for saying – okay, harping about – that technology only ENABLES process. It doesn’t build people relationships for you. It doesn’t sell for you. Never has. Never will.

Yes, I know. Everyone loves the hacks. Or, the idea of them anyway. People cannot resist the urge to believe in mythical short-cuts, which DO NOT exist in selling. Today, it is even tougher to reach buyers. They are done with the corny pitches, cheesy close lines and lazy messaging that is self-serving adding absolutely no value to their day. And, salespeople wonder why no one wants to talk to them.

You say your sales manager makes you do it?

Your message isn’t researched or well thought out because your boss demands X number of calls made and emails sent? Well, you’ll want to get over that right now! Checking the box so you keep your manager happy isn’t how you own responsibility for your own career and selling success.

YOU are responsible for your own sales success.

If your activity isn’t generating enough sales meetings, it is time to look in the mirror. Your message and approach is likely the culprit. No matter how many prospecting touches you are expected to make, it is up to you to take the reins and change how you present yourself.

If your activity levels drop but you book more sales conversations with qualified buyers, you are in a good position to show your manager that quality FIRST (relationships + value message focused on solving buyer’s problems) + quantity wins out every time!

This is WHY relationships matter!

I don’t know when the chatter started but lately I have heard more than a few people insisting that relationships don’t matter in selling. I beg to differ. I don’t know that I ever met a buyer who bought from someone they didn’t know, trust and like. I suppose if you sell a widget that no one else in the world makes AND the company you are selling too cannot live without that product, okay. You can probably get away with not developing the kind of trusting relationship that leads to a prospect becoming a customer who stays with you for life. I have also heard from experts that prospects don’t have to like you to buy from you. With 25+ years of successful B2B Enterprise, SMB and Mid-Market in a variety of industries, plus Retail, Distribution and Channel Partner selling under my belt, I have to say B.S. to that idea. Do you buy from people you don’t like? I’m not talking about buying a book on Amazon. If you sell B2B, the higher the financial investment a buyer (buying team) needs to make, the more likability, along with trust and relationship matter.

Which is why Amy and I talked about how bots are not going to take over, though they are trying.

In this interview, learn why:

With all the noise becoming louder about AI and bots in selling, the human element and interpersonal relationships matter even more. You’ll hear from Amy why she suggested the topic of our conversation.

Both Amy and I believe that technology simply helps to open the door, if done right. As I already mentioned, in B2B selling, in particular, human beings are a big part of the equation. Amy and I discussed a few of the ways that humans can make an immediate impact on the sales/buying process.

I asked Amy if relationships make a difference depending on the type of account: SMB to enterprise sales. Listen to the interview to find out!

Scale is always a question for sellers managing large geographic patches. Amy shared her perspective on how to scale, build relationships and manage a big territory with high activity numbers.

Given that Amy is in the talent business (people biz for the unenlightened), I asked her about the general thinking with respect to AI and bots in her industry.

Another insightful interview, if I do say so myself. 🙂 Listen and enjoy!

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About Amy:

Amy Volas, Founder and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners. She is a sales fanatic turned entrepreneur, bitten by the startup bug many moons ago and couldn’t imagine spending her time anywhere else. She created Avenue Talent Partners to help with the tremendous task of growing startups through one of their most valuable assets—salespeople. When she’s not working, she’s spending time with her cat, dog, and husband—in that order (jokes). Connect on LinkedIn and Twitter. Website: Talent Avenue Partners

Thanks to our Sponsors!

This podcast is presented by our Elite Sponsor, Microsoft. Corporate Vice President and Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster, along with other female leaders in the company, are driving for change, trying to bring more women into the technology industry. Gavriella and Microsoft are committed to giving “young women better role models and a stronger voice to all women.” You can hear more from Gavriella and other Microsoft leaders, on the Microsoft Partner Network podcast. Or visit partner.microsoft.com

SalesLoft, the leading sales engagement platform. Join them this March in Atlanta for 3 days of learning, networking, and inspiration at their annual Rainmaker conference! With over 100 speakers and 40 track sessions, their annual Women’s Breakfast and a performance from Grammy winning band Blues Traveler, this conference is not one to miss. Get your tickets today at rainmaker.salesloft.com.

Thanks to our Media Sponsor. Women Sales Pros has a vision for more women in B2B sales and sales leadership roles where there are currently male-majority sales teams. We help educate companies on how to do this, and we champion women on what a professional sales career can be. We also showcase the very top women sales experts who are speakers, authors, consultants, trainers and coaches. People can sign up to get updates HERE and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WomenSalesPros

Putting the Customer First

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this interview, I talked with Sydney Sloan, Chief Marketing Officer at SalesLoft. You can meet Sydney personally at the Rainmaker 2019 conference here in Atlanta in March. Haven’t gotten your tickets yet? You still can. REGISTER HERE

Here is what you’ll hear in my conversation with Sydney about why putting the customer first is a significant business advantage.

We started by talking about an incredible book Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales and Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth co-authored by colleague (and good friend of Sydney’s and mine) Tracy Eiler, CMO at InsideView. Given Sydney’s passion is in delivering customer experiences that wow, which includes how sales drives that experience along with marketing & service, we talked about sales/marketing alignment and the improvement opportunities that still exist.

You’ll hear Sydney’s point of view on how to prioritize sales and marketing alignment and some of the tactics she and her team employ at SalesLoft.

One of SalesLoft’s core values IS customer first. And while many companies still think about customer experience as what happens AFTER the sale is closed, Sydney believes that experience – positive or not so positive – happens at interaction with a prospect or customer. We discussed how Sydney and her team keep the value of customer first at the center of their marketing and sales efforts.

I knew before the interview that Sydney had been described – by people who worked with her and for her– as a creative, intelligent marketer who cares deeply about people and doesn’t hesitate to jump in to do the work. She is all about supporting her team members in getting things done. Sydney explains why that is so important to her and how her approach fits with the customer first mantra and vision at SalesLoft.

SalesLoft has grown exponentially in the last few years and was named one of Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 for the second year in a row. Given the growth distinction and accolades SalesLoft has earned, I asked Sydney if there was anything special that SalesLoft’s sales/marketing teams does to make the most of this momentum. You’ll have to listen to the interview to find out what they do!

Finally, you’ll get a sneak preview into what’s happening at SalesLoft’s Rainmaker 2019 sales and sales enablement conference in Atlanta March 11-13. With over 100 speakers and 40 track sessions, their annual Women’s Breakfast and a performance from Grammy winning band Blues Traveler, this conference is not one to miss. Get your tickets TODAY!

Listen to the interview and enjoy!Apple Podcasts – Please subscribe so that you never miss an episode! Write a review for the podcast if you like the interviews.

About Sydney

Sydney Sloan is Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of SalesLoft. As the company’s first CMO, she leads the company’s continued customer-first focus and go-to-market efforts as it continues to scale. She is passionate about SalesLoft’s vision for helping sales organizations deliver better selling experiences for their customers.

An accomplished marketing executive, Sloan has deep expertise across customer experience, product marketing, demand generation, and communications. She brings passion, skill, and a customer-centric focus to drive tangible results. Sloan is a global B2B enterprise marketing leader who previously served as CMO of Alfresco. She held similar leadership positions specializing in customer experience and product marketing roles for Jive Software and Adobe.

Sloan earned multiple business degrees at the University of Southern California, and also studied finance and financial management at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. Outside of work, Sloan can be found cheering for her kids at the soccer field and enjoying time outdoors.

Connect on LinkedIn

Thanks to our Sponsors!

Sales Hacks Are Not Working!!

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in an alternative universe where things seem so glaringly obvious to me but not to others.

I think about the sales and marketing professions a lot. Sales, in particular.

I listen, although that is sometimes hard to do when we have certain factions in the sales training and coaching world arguing with each other about WHO owns the better approach to selling these days. News flash… no one does. Still, the egos rage.

Here’s a tip from me to you…test and refine. Test different sales approaches related to prospecting, social engagement, meeting presentations, writing proposals and more. Figure out what works for you AND DO THAT! Don’t worry about this or that expert trying to convince you that their way is the only way. Just. Not. True.

I make it my business and have for 25+ years to always be learning and adapting. Learners are earners, and frankly, I don’t know of any other way to succeed in sales, business and in life than to keep growing and developing your skills.

As the world continues to change in fast moving ways, you’ve got to keep up and adapt to today’s world. Not the world that existed 5, 10 or more years ago. That world is gone! Some selling strategies never go out of style, of course. But not everything that worked 10 years ago works now.

I think back to when I started selling and how things have evolved since then.

The changes, the improvements, the technology, the opportunities are mind blowing. IF sellers and their leaders are willing to change their mindset.

The tendency is still to go for the hacks, a fancy term for short-cuts, promoted by companies with a clear agenda – sell their service. With all the advances in technology, training methodologies, sales enablement approaches, research about what buyers want from salespeople and more, roughly 50% of salespeople will not achieve quota, which has been true for the past 5 years, according to CSO Insights. Anyone but me think that’s a problem? Isn’t it time to shift your selling approach?

On marketing’s side, their world has shifted dramatically too. There used to be a clear path to leading an interested buyer down the sales/marketing funnel to closed business. Not anymore. Buyers can come into the funnel in multiple ways and from multiple channels. Yet, often, marketers struggle to adapt their marketing approaches to today’s modern buyer. Doing what they’ve always done (just like sales) is easier, though missing the mark on effectiveness. Not only do they need to adapt their marketing campaign approaches, they now must become technology and data experts at the same time. Tough gig!

So, what are sales and marketing teams to do to shift how they approach today’s modern buyer? First, they must work together. If they don’t have an aligned strategy, things do not improve. One group is no more important than the other. Working in silos, approaching buyers in different ways isn’t working. Buyers are looking for great experiences when interacting with sales, marketing or anyone in your company.

Recently, I was one of 9 speakers from The Sales Experts Channel to participate in a sales summit hosted by BrightTALK. My topic? Achieve Account-Based Selling Goals Solving the Alignment Dilemma. In the webinar, I discuss updated research on the challenges and opportunities that sales and marketing must be thinking about.

Listen/watch the on-demand recording HERE. You can also find the presentation deck here on SlideShare.

After checking out the session, I’d love to hear your thoughts? Learn something new? Already undertaking a sales/marketing alignment strategy that is working in your company? Let’s hear it!

BTW – check out one of the best books I’ve read on sales and marketing alignment – Aligned to Achieve

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Aligning Your Go to Market Strategy Around Account-Based Marketing with Shari Johnston, Casetext

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this episode, my guest is Shari Johnston, VP Marketing at Casetext and our topic is Aligning your Go To Market Strategy Around Account-Based Marketing. Account Based Marketing, Account Based Selling and Account Based Everything has been a pretty hot topic for the last two + years.

You might be wondering why I invited a marketing executive to our Conversations with Women in Sales podcast. The reason is that these days it is becoming much more common for marketers to be closely tied to sales to drive revenue results. In Shari’s case, she has also been a huge advocate for women in sales.

What are the benefits of aligning around ABM?

The term Account Based Marketing is a little misleading. Marketing isn’t the only part of the strategy. In fact, ABM is a go to market strategy that includes sales, marketing, product development and customer success.

One big benefit of the ABM approach is the ability to zero in and focus on attracting the right target customers for your business. This approach allows you to better align your dollars and people resources to generate the best-qualified leads and potential sales opportunities for your sales teams. The days of putting salespeople on the phones to call people who may have downloaded a white paper from your website is far less effective these days. Downloading website content, may or may not, be a signal that the person downloading the content is a qualified lead. The person/company may or may not fit your target customer profile. You want to be sure you are not wasting time, money and effort calling on anyone and everyone.

Is ABM just a trend or is it here to stay?

It is here to stay according to Shari. In fact, while ABM has evolved, enterprise sales teams have been following the model for some time, although perhaps not as mature in those days, we knew the approach as “named account” selling.

As more organizations are realizing the benefits of an Account Based Marketing/Account Based Selling approach, the strategies will continue to mature and evolve.

What are some common pitfalls with ABM?

The biggest pitfall from Shari’s point of view is that companies are often just not investing enough in the change management necessary to implement an ABM strategy. Evangelism must happen throughout the organization to train people on what ABM means, why it is important, what’s going to be measured, etc.

Another pitfall is not adopting a change management approach and when that doesn’t happen it then leads people back to focusing on tactical activities. The focus will shift to asking marketing how many marketing qualified leads were generated and if the answer isn’t great, that leads people to assume that ABM doesn’t work. In fact, it does work when it is executed correctly.

Often companies get started but then neglect to have the critical ongoing checkpoints necessary to keep the effort moving forward. It is not a one and done approach.

How do you measure ABM Success?

All stakeholders need to work together to determine how success will be measured. One way to get started is, to begin with, a small pilot to test and measure the activities that you want to drive the revenue and customer success metrics you’ve decided on. Things like increasing your overall pipeline contribution, shrinking the sales cycle and increasing deal profitably are certainly key measures of success.

I asked Shari if when working to implement and execute an ABM strategy if there was resistance from sales. After all, sellers often want to chase any warm body or anyone who expresses some level of interest even if they do not fit the target profile. Shari said that FOMO – fear of missing out – is an obstacle on both the sales and marketing side of the business. This is why approaching the implementation of your strategy requires taking a change management approach.

Everyone – including sales management – needs to understand how much more successful they will be in reaching their goals if you do hone in on the identified (ICP) ideal customer profile. Yes, if buyers come to you proactively with a strong interest to buy, it makes sense to talk to them. The point though is to be sure that the overall focus is on spending the bulk of your time with the targeted accounts you’ve identified. This focus ultimately leads to more profitable business.

It is also very important to onboard salespeople appropriately because they may not be familiar with ABM and the benefits of the approach.

Do you have to start over with your Martech stack for ABM?

The short answer is – no, you don’t need to scrap your entire tech stack to support your ABM strategy.

In can be as simple as taking your core marketing tech stack starting with your CRM and making sure that you’ve tagged your tiered account list. That way you have the alignment on your reporting with regard to how your key accounts are performing. You also want to be sure your key accounts are mapped back to your marketing automation system. This maintains a consistent flow of tracking, especially given that you are likely receiving inbound opportunities also. These things don’t require new technology. You can get to a basic level using what you have, which can take you a long way. Once you see the need to scale, you can look at other technologies to help you do that.

As with all my conversations with execs like Shari, the insights and information shared during our conversation are powerful. Listen to the interview HERE.

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About Shari Johnston

Shari has been a marketing leader in charge of scaling organizations through leading-edge marketing strategy and execution across corporate, product and demand generation marketing functions. Shari led marketing for Radius, led integrated marketing for OpenDNS, which was acquired by Cisco, and was also a key leader in positioning Demandbase as the leader in Account-Based Marketing technology. Shari is on the board of advisors for Martech Advisor and was recently named one of the Top Women in Revenue. Shari lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.

Connect with Shari on LinkedIn and Twitter
Visit Casetext on the web

We’d like to thank our Elite Sponsor, Microsoft. In particular, we thank Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President and Channel Chief at Microsoft, for her dedication to supporting women in technology, and making this podcast possible. Gavriella and Microsoft are committed to giving “young women better role models and a stronger voice to all women.” You can hear more from Gavriella and other Microsoft leaders, on the Microsoft Partner Network podcast. Visit the Microsoft Partner Network.

Thanks to our Media Sponsor. Women Sales Pros has a vision for more women in B2B sales and sales leadership roles where there are currently male-majority sales teams. We help educate companies on how to do this, and we champion women on what a professional sales career can be. We also showcase the very top women sales experts who are speakers, authors, consultants, trainers, and coaches. People can sign up to get updates HERE and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WomenSalesPros

Building a Career as a Lifelong Learner with Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this segment of the Women in Sales Leadership series, I talked with Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President in the One Commercial Partner team at Microsoft where she is responsible for global partner channel management and programs, with a focus on driving digital transformation for partners and customers.

I talked to Gavriella about what it means to build a career as a life long learner, and why you should too.

I asked Gavriella about her different roles with Microsoft, from sales to operations and now as Microsoft’s channel chief. Here’s what she told me is the most important thing for everyone to keep in mind as they build their own careers. It is all about ongoing learning to keep growing your skills and opportunities.

Gavriella shared with me the constants she has noticed throughout changes in her career.

You will love Gavriella’s story about how she took the stage at Microsoft Inspire with tens of thousands of people, both in the arena and watching online, for a keynote address. She shared her major learning from that opportunity.

You’ll also learn what Gavriella feels she has learned in the past year or so. Things like leading teams through ambiguity, start with won’t change, how to create clarity or yourself on how you, personally, can help achieve that outcome, why you should not work in a vacuum and more.

Finally, Gavriella shared her advice for women just getting started on this journey as a lifelong learner.

Enjoy the interview!

About Gavriella:

Gavriella Schuster is a Corporate Vice President in the One Commercial Partner team, Gavriella Schuster is responsible for global partner channel management and programs, with a focus on driving digital transformation for partners and customers. Gavriella’s team is responsible for the high-touch experiences of Managed Service Providers, Hosters, Resellers, Distributors and National/Local SIs. She is also responsible for connecting, enabling, investing in, and rewarding partners through high-touch and low-touch programmatic experiences. She has extensive experience in sales, marketing, product management, and partner development with a strong track record of managing customers, partners, and teams. Over the last 20 years at Microsoft, she has managed sales and marketing teams across the Server and Cloud business, the Windows Client Commercial business, Enterprise Services, licensing sales and marketing, field business development, training initiative development, segment marketing, worldwide partner marketing and training strategies and worldwide operations.

Connect with Gavriella on LinkedIn and Twitter

Right Message, Right Support, Right Sales Content with Jim Burns

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I talked to Jim Burns of Avitage in this podcast about how to support B2B value selling sales teams with the right knowledge, communication support, and situation-ready content.

High-performing content is your First Product and Currency with which you earn attention, interest, engagement — this is the way you create value for buyers. Unfortunately, many executives aren’t aware of strategic imperative of high-performing content and the impact on their business. Since most content tends not to be sales or situation ready, it generally performs poorly, often negatively, which does not reflect well on the salesperson or the company brand.

Jim and I discussed:

How to assess the current state of your current sales content assets.

What Jim believes to be the underlying causes of why content doesn’t perform well.

The primary cases for using sales content:

Knowledge, Shared Learning, Preparation support
Communication Support
Situation-ready

How an organization should go about producing content that is high-quality, high performing and sales-ready.

What Jim recommends in terms of deploying content, or making situation-ready content easier for salespeople to access and use?

And much more.

Enjoy the interview!

About Jim:

Jim Burns is a sales professional with a unique expertise in sales conversation and content. For over 20 years his company Avitage developed sales content and software that improved the way sales professionals differentiated themselves and created value for customers through the way they sold.

B2B selling organizations of all sizes have benefited from breakthrough approaches Avitage provided to capture and incorporate selling knowledge into daily activities. They’ve learned how to create effective communication support and situation-ready content that fuels value selling models.

Avitage no longer produces content. They help organizations capitalize on methodologies and practices that create high-performing content, at scale, without compromise.

Connect with Jim on LinkedIn and Twitter

What’s the Price of Free?

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

But, what do the expert contributors receive in return? For the most part, exposure.

I contribute my expertise, which evidently these companies see as valuable or they wouldn’t ask me and others to contribute our knowledge, but what they offer us in exchange for our contributions is exposure. Oh, it sounds good when the company says they will get your name in front of thousands of people on their list, but the problem with exposure is this… exposure doesn’t pay the bills. There’s also no way of predicting if anyone consuming the content will even try to connect with you to learn more.

That doesn’t mean that exposure isn’t valuable, especially if you are in the early stages of making a name for yourself. At a certain point, though, the exchange should have a lot more value for both sides. I will still make a choice now and again to contribute something without being paid, but only if I’m receiving something else of value that I know makes the investment of my time worth it.

The content is ready, please market to your networks. For free.

As part of the content strategy I’ve described, once the publication is finished, the second ask is for everyone who contributed to the project to market the piece for FREE to their networks. Now the value exchange has become more lopsided. I’ve contributed my advice for free, and now I’m marketing the content for free.

Time has a dollar value.

And that lopsided equation becomes bigger when you factor in the time it takes to write something each time a company asks you to contribute your expertise. Answering your topic questions, writing a blog post, giving you a quote – these things take time. Once the publication is ready, it takes time to cue up and share with my networks or through my newsletter. You might be asking, why bother sharing the content then. Good question. It must have something to do with our human psychology. I suppose because we are “featured” in the content, we naturally want people to know about it.

In only one recent circumstance, has anyone asking for my free advice, free time and free marketing, offered to give me something of higher value than exposure. This one company offered, in exchange for my support, to give me the list of names they collect when running the content campaign. Now, that’s something that makes the exchange much more palatable. More than receiving exposure, I want to be able to actively engage with the people who downloaded the eBook, blog post or white paper I contributed my time to help create.

In the past year, I’ve been saying no more than yes to these requests. More and more of my colleagues are also pushing back. They either say no, present their fee schedule or ask for the list. In other words, we need to earn something for our investment of time, which is a fair exchange.

Pushing back has generated some interesting but not altogether surprising results.

Recently, I had an exchange with the CEO of a technology start-up who approached me – a stranger I might add – and asked me to write a blog post about his company’s technology and then link it back to their website. My audience is his target market and he believed they would be interested in his product. After briefly reviewing his website to learn more, I said I would help him and presented my fee. I told him that I receive too many requests for free, and there must be something in it for me too. A fair request, as far as I’m concerned. His answer was that just like I didn’t believe in doing the work for free, which he said he understood, he also didn’t believe in paying to advertise his product. Wait. What?

Another request came from a marketer who wanted me to contribute to their eBook. I asked if they paid for the contribution or were they providing the contributors a copy of the list of people who registered to download the gated content. No. They don’t pay fees. And, they can’t give the list to contributors because of their email policy that they don’t share emails.

Here’s the problem with all these FREE requests.

It isn’t an equal exchange of value and that’s not cool. When I contribute my expertise to your lead generation projects, I’m helping you put leads in your sales funnel but what are you doing for me beyond giving me exposure? I know this is a common marketing practice, and I think it needs to stop. If you want experts to lend credibility to your projects, projects that you are using to generate leads for your company’s products, you should be willing to give something in return that has tangible value beyond exposure. Free doesn’t cut it!

What's the Price of Free?

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

A common content creation practice involves going to industry influencers to ask them to contribute their thoughts on specific topics that are prettied up and pulled together into an e-book, a Slideshare presentation or maybe a video. The intent of said content vehicles is to amplify the companies message, increase interest and demand, as well as generate leads. The strategy does work. I’ve contributed many times to various campaigns through the years, and I hear from the project organizers about the positive lift that the company gained in new lead opportunities to pursue.
But, what do the expert contributors receive in return? For the most part, exposure.
I contribute my expertise, which evidently these companies see as valuable or they wouldn’t ask me and others to contribute our knowledge, but what they offer us in exchange for our contributions is exposure. Oh, it sounds good when the company says they will get your name in front of thousands of people on their list, but the problem with exposure is this… exposure doesn’t pay the bills. There’s also no way of predicting if anyone consuming the content will even try to connect with you to learn more.
That doesn’t mean that exposure isn’t valuable, especially if you are in the early stages of making a name for yourself. At a certain point, though, the exchange should have a lot more value for both sides. I will still make a choice now and again to contribute something without being paid, but only if I’m receiving something else of value that I know makes the investment of my time worth it.
The content is ready, please market to your networks. For free.
As part of the content strategy I’ve described, once the publication is finished, the second ask is for everyone who contributed to the project to market the piece for FREE to their networks. Now the value exchange has become more lopsided. I’ve contributed my advice for free, and now I’m marketing the content for free.
Time has a dollar value.
And that lopsided equation becomes bigger when you factor in the time it takes to write something each time a company asks you to contribute your expertise. Answering your topic questions, writing a blog post, giving you a quote – these things take time. Once the publication is ready, it takes time to cue up and share with my networks or through my newsletter. You might be asking, why bother sharing the content then. Good question. It must have something to do with our human psychology. I suppose because we are “featured” in the content, we naturally want people to know about it.
In only one recent circumstance, has anyone asking for my free advice, free time and free marketing, offered to give me something of higher value than exposure. This one company offered, in exchange for my support, to give me the list of names they collect when running the content campaign. Now, that’s something that makes the exchange much more palatable. More than receiving exposure, I want to be able to actively engage with the people who downloaded the eBook, blog post or white paper I contributed my time to help create.
In the past year, I’ve been saying no more than yes to these requests. More and more of my colleagues are also pushing back. They either say no, present their fee schedule or ask for the list. In other words, we need to earn something for our investment of time, which is a fair exchange.
Pushing back has generated some interesting but not altogether surprising results.
Recently, I had an exchange with the CEO of a technology start-up who approached me – a stranger I might add – and asked me to write a blog post about his company’s technology and then link it back to their website. My audience is his target market and he believed they would be interested in his product. After briefly reviewing his website to learn more, I said I would help him and presented my fee. I told him that I receive too many requests for free, and there must be something in it for me too. A fair request, as far as I’m concerned. His answer was that just like I didn’t believe in doing the work for free, which he said he understood, he also didn’t believe in paying to advertise his product. Wait. What?
Another request came from a marketer who wanted me to contribute to their eBook. I asked if they paid for the contribution or were they providing the contributors a copy of the list of people who registered to download the gated content. No. They don’t pay fees. And, they can’t give the list to contributors because of their email policy that they don’t share emails.
Here’s the problem with all these FREE requests.
It isn’t an equal exchange of value and that’s not cool. When I contribute my expertise to your lead generation projects, I’m helping you put leads in your sales funnel but what are you doing for me beyond giving me exposure? I know this is a common marketing practice, and I think it needs to stop. If you want experts to lend credibility to your projects, projects that you are using to generate leads for your company’s products, you should be willing to give something in return that has tangible value beyond exposure. Free doesn’t cut it!

Why Partner Leads Are My Favorite with Jen Spencer, Allbound

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this Women in Sales Leadership segment, I talked with Jen Spencer, VP of Sales and Marketing at Allbound about building partner relationships that drive revenue.

As a kicking off point, we talked about how Jen got started in sales and what she loves about the profession. Then we discussed:

Jen’s recommendations for engaging channel partner sales reps to drive qualified sales leads.

Some of the most common challenges sales teams face when the company sells both directly and indirectly.

The revenue benefits of building out a partner program and strategies for making that happen.

Finally, Jen shared her advice for women in sales who would like to move up in the leadership ranks, but aren’t exactly sure how to get started.

This episode is sponsored by Hubspot.

Don’t miss out HubSpot’s annual sales event – Inbound Sales Day – on June 6th! 30 leading sales experts will be sharing their knowledge and expertise. Register now for FREE at hubspot.com/inbound-sales-day

About Jen:

Jen is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Phoenix-based Allbound, an easy-to-use SaaS platform that helps companies accelerate recurring revenue with channel partners. Jen subscribes to the notion that “we’re all in this together,” and great communication leads to great partnership. She loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch.

Connect with Jen on LinkedIn and Twitter

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