The problem with most approaches to marketing automation in B2B settings is that we’ve completely ignored the complexity and centrality of sales interactions to the B2B sales process. Marketing Sherpa released a study earlier this year in which they noted that the average B2B purchase involved 21 people on the buyer’s side. Booz Allen and the American Marketing Association have done very thorough research on the primacy of sales executives in customer minds. According to them, 60-70% of all perceptions are driven by the sales exec, and those human interactions are BY FAR the most important customer experiences that customer’s have with B2B firms. Wow, have you ever heard a “marketing automaton” mention that?

I’ve just read a great article on the habits of successful people which I think highlights aspects of many people’s beliefs about success that simply aren’t true. Many of us believe that talent or skill is somehow innate in people, that they somehow are different from others (or us) in their makeup, but that isn’t [...]

I recently heard tell of a Fortune 1000 company with a sales force in the tens of thousands that discovered its sales representatives were spending too much time in low potential accounts. It is a “repeat” business, and the sales force was spending most of their efforts on either the big buyers of their products [...]