Advertise on podcast: What‘s Wrong With Revenue?

I continued the conversation with Matt Sunshine, CEO of the Center for Sales Strategy and Leads G2. In this show, Matt and I debate new buyer journey models and how to use them to help clients get better results from both sales and marketing. Matt has his approach and I have ours, both approaches are eye-opening.

I’m joined by Matt Sunshine, CEO of the Center for Sales Strategy and Leads G2. Matt and I go deep on the changing way B2B buyers make their purchase decisions today and you don’t want to miss it. We sunset the traditional sales funnel created in 1890, and introduce the new Cyclonic Buyer Journey model which illustrates how B2B prospects make purchase decisions today. We talk about how marketing and sales professionals need to adapt their execution to take full advantage of these changes.

Tom Brady, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods all have something in common. They are widely considered the Greatest of All Time in their sport. But they didn’t get there by accident and it wasn’t raw talent that got them there either. It was hard work. A never-ending commitment and an investment of both time and money in their own professional development, training, conditioning, and expertise. They knew that to be the best, they needed to work with the best trainers, the best conditioning experts, the best sports therapists, and the best coaches. Not only that, they needed to invest their time and energy, not only during the season but ALL YEAR long, if they wanted to be the GOAT. You need to consider a similar approach to revenue generation and business growth. There are no shortcuts. There are no easy buttons. You need to work with the best, invest appropriately with both time and money and never, ever stop working to get to your goals. That’s how you grow your business. In this show, we’ll cover What going “all in” means from a time and investment perspective How to make this your company’s top priority and get everyone focused on this one goal. Why your partners/agencies need you to be “all in” because they are already all in for you. How analytics help athletes track progress, the same way analytics can help you track your progress Why asking yourself the hard question is the first step, “Do you want to win the Super Bowl?”

You’ve seen this one million times. You might even be doing it. You land on a website and the only options are to schedule a call, book a demo, or get a quote. But I’m not ready for that step. I don’t want to talk to a sales rep yet. I’m still early in my buyer journey and I don’t know anything about your company other than I might want to do business with you someday. In short, I don’t know, like or trust you YET! Your marketing and specifically your website and educational content have to align with where I am in the buyer journey and it has to be strategically designed to help me get to know, like, and trust your company.  The same goes for your sales process. If you start asking about sending a contract or proposal on your first call, you will get blocked. You have to earn their trust, get to know them and they have to get to know you. They have to like you before they’ll even consider going forward with your sales process. Everything you do should be designed to get them to know, like, and trust you. In this show, we’ll cover How your website and educational content should be designed to get prospects to feel safe How your sales process should be designed to get your prospects to feel safe What exactly your sales reps can be doing to help prospects know, like, and trust you? How to measure whether prospects are feeling safe and how to respond when they’re not How to leverage customers who already feel safe to drive more revenue from current customers

We do this show because marketing isn’t getting easier. Generating revenue month after month isn’t getting easier. Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and it’s about to get even harder yet. At Square 2, we’ve seen it all. We’ve seen clients with quarantined lists, suspended Google accounts, suspended HubSpot accounts, and more. All because their marketing practices violated some of the new privacy and anti-spam-related regulations. A lot of martech companies are trying to get ahead of this and be responsible corporate citizens before the government cracks down and passes federal regulations. A lot of states are already passing their own state regulations. You have to be aware of what’s coming and how to deal with it before it gets here.  In this show, we’ll cover We’ll help you understand exactly what a cookie is and how it works We’ll look at the ways Google is changing its approach and what that means to marketers We’ll help you get ready for the new cookie-less world We’ll talk about how to get your data ready today, so it's easy once this major change takes place We’ll also talk about how a data platform for everything marketing and sales is a critical part of this complicated puzzle

Unfortunately, the world has conspired to make getting in touch with your best prospects much harder than it’s ever been before. You can’t call them because they’re not in their office. You can’t email them because they have spam filters or hidden email addresses. You can reach out to them on social media because their feeds are overrun with spammy outreach. You can get to them with content because they’re peppered with similar messages from similar companies. What do you do? During the show today, we’ll help you figure this out. We’ll break down four different types of campaigns inbound, outbound, demand generation and account-based so you know the pluses and minuses of all four. When do you use Inbound? What should you expect from it? How does it work? Why does it work well and in what situations? The same for outbound, demand generation and account-based campaigns. Interestingly enough, it’s very possible you need all four, used in various situations and deployed correctly. In this show we’ll cover The differences between each of these four campaign types. When to use them, what to expect from them in terms of results, and what the investments need to be to see results. Certain types of companies might fair better with specific types of campaigns, we’ll dig into that too. We’ll look at the data and privacy considerations for all four types of campaigns. You just can’t ignore these anymore. We’ll look at the metrics to track and the results you should expect. How much alignment with sales is required for each different type of campaign?

EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system is used by over 150,000 companies worldwide. Business planning frameworks are even more popular. But EOS and the other planning frameworks only go so far in marketing, sales, and customer service. Most companies have systems for hiring, firing, purchasing, finance, and operations but when it comes to revenue it’s a lot of winging it. No wonder so many companies fail to hit their revenue goals month over month. What’s missing is a Revenue Generation System, like RGS, but it's important to see where systems like EOS stop and where RGS starts and how these two systems work perfectly together to help companies grow faster. In this show, we’ll cover What’s EOS and what is RGS. How companies implement EOS and RGS, there are some differences What kinds of companies are right for EOS and what kinds of companies are right for RGS What should you expect from EOS and what should you expect from RGS The investment for EOS and the investment for RGS

If you’re ready to make your first senior marketing hire, this can be an exciting time for your company. Finally, you’ll bring in someone with some expertise in this very important area.  This makes sense, but not all marketing people are created equally. Some are solid with tactics. Others are more comfortable with strategy and today, there are marketing people whose main focus is technology. Before you pull the trigger make sure you know exactly what you’re looking for and exactly what you want them to do. For example, if you’re running RGS, then you don’t want them to come in and blow everything up, but you’ll want them to come in and slide into the resources part of the system to support how you execute your marketing tactics and campaigns. This can be a major milestone and you want it to go smoothly. In this show we’ll cover What to look for in this first hire? How to set expectations upfront? What you should be planning on paying for them? What tools they should be asking your for Most importantly how to talk to them about your RGS system and their role in helping you execute your system.

Every company has challenges with it comes to revenue. Some companies need more leads. Others have too many leads and not enough sales opportunities. Believe it or not, some companies have a ton of sales opportunities but can’t convert them into new customers. Still, others might have a retention issue and are losing more customers than they can sign. Today, the process of generating revenue is more complex than it’s ever been before and you need a system or process for dealing with all the revenue-related challenges. RGS and it's IDS methodology that is part of every single Revenue Team Meeting helps you work through these challenges and solves them in every meeting. Imagine what it would be like to make 52 upgrades to your revenue effort every single week. RGS delivers that and more. In this show, we’ll cover What is IDS and why is it so effective How does IDS become part of a regular revenue team meeting every single week Who manages the IDS process What are some tricks to make this process highly efficient and even enjoyable for everyone participating What are some examples of revenue-related issues that get solved in the IDS section of a regular Revenue Team Meeting

EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operation System is used by over 150,000 businesses worldwide and it's quickly becoming the go-to system for companies who want to increase traction and scale. But EOS goes very lightly over the revenue generation part of what’s required today and RGS, Square 2’s revenue generation system is specifically designed to plug into EOS to fill in this missing piece. Today’s show features an interview with EOS Implementer Monica Justice. We’ll ask Monica about EOS and her experience helping her clients gain traction. We’ll also discuss the idea of a revenue plug-in like RGS for EOS clients and go deep into how RGS works with EOS. In this show, we’ll cover An explanation of EOS and how companies use it Why revenue generation needs its own system, like RGS How do RGS and EOS work together, what is the shared vocabulary and rhythm Why EOS companies are a good fit for RGS Some experience sharing around what companies are typically dealing with when they chose to use EOS and RGS

A revenue generation system isn’t just about new leads, new sales opportunities, and new customers. It’s about finding revenue wherever it is available and in most companies that includes the current customer base. However, in many businesses, these opportunities are overlooked or under-prioritized. But when you apply a systems approach to revenue you include customer service in the conversation, you build tactics to keep communication and opportunity development going with current customers and you actively market cross-sell, up-sell and ongoing services to the people who already like working with you and your teams. Once installed you can improve retention and drive a significant amount of revenue to help you hit your goals more consistently. In this show, we’ll cover How to include customer service in weekly revenue team meetings How to build programs that help you gain a larger share of wallet from current customers How to project revenue from current customers How to get your customer service reps to start looking for revenue opportunities How to arm them with the tools they need to create a great experience for your customers while continuing to look for new revenue opportunities.

Revenue is a team game. New customers are rarely closed by a single individual these days. Prospects are looking for an experience that makes them feel special, valued, and important. Not to mention that they want to get to know, like, and trust you. So having a single salesperson carry the ball from beginning to end is a bit old-school. So, when we started recommending weekly sales opportunity reviews as part of the weekly Revenue Team Meeting we had a tremendous response. Today, brainstorming ways to get deals over the finish line provides a consistent way to focus your team on closing deals and closing them faster. In addition, these conversations should be focused NOT only on new customer revenue but also on current customer revenue. They should be geared around your sales process and making that remarkable. Adding this section to your weekly Revenue Team Meeting will help you grow revenue much more consistently. In this show, we’ll cover How to lead a revenue review conversation? Who leads this section of the meeting? Who attends this section of the meeting? What are the goals of having a session like this? How detailed do you go and how many opportunities should you review?