Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 581 | The single-buyer myth: why B2B deals are really won by buying groups and AI

Transcript

Ep. 581 | The single-buyer myth: why B2B deals are really won by buying groups and AI · The Prompt

• 0:01
  This is on base, your one stop shop for solving your most
• 0:04
  pressing B to B go to market challenges.
• 0:07
  Each week. Host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson
• 0:09
  talk to sales and marketing leaders to get you in depth
• 0:11
  insights and creative strategies to set your revenue teams up for
• 0:15
  success. Well, hello everyone, and
• 0:19
  welcome back to the latest in the award-winning on Base
• 0:22
  podcast series. I'm your host, Paul Gibson.
• 0:25
  And as you know, we always look for hot topics to discuss and
• 0:28
  today is definitely not an exception to that.
• 0:31
  I'm excited. Today I'm talking with Graham
• 0:33
  Reed, He's Director of Business Creation at Ice Blue Sky, and
• 0:37
  he's with us today to discuss what I think is a really
• 0:39
  relevant topic now, redefining buying groups in the age of AII.
• 0:44
  Think Graham, you've ticked 2 of the biggest topics I talk about
• 0:47
  day in, day out. So welcome to the show and I'm
• 0:50
  looking forward to getting into this with.
• 0:51
  You. Yeah, Thanks Paul.
• 0:52
  Thanks for inviting me on. And yeah, you're right.
• 0:55
  I think that's how we sort of initially picked up.
• 0:57
  I saw you were talking a lot about buying groups within
• 0:59
  demand base, hence sort of our our now association.
• 1:02
  So yeah, looking forward to getting into it today and sort
• 1:05
  of just sharing views and opinions.
• 1:07
  Yeah, it should be a good one. So.
• 1:08
  But before we get into the topic of today's podcast, I like to
• 1:11
  start with, I suppose a simple question.
• 1:14
  Can you tell us a little bit about Ice Blue Sky?
• 1:17
  Walk us through your journey to where you are today and and what
• 1:20
  particularly LED you into the world of B2B buying groups.
• 1:23
  Let me start with Ice Blue Sky. I've been the director now of
• 1:27
  Ice Blue Sky for about 5 years. Prior to that, all my experience
• 1:30
  was in print marketing. And so subsequently, I came late
• 1:34
  to the table with B2B marketing. But, but it's one of those
• 1:37
  things, Paul, when you look back and you think, I wish I'd done
• 1:38
  this all my, all my career, if you know what I mean.
• 1:41
  But we're a specialist strategy, account based marketing lead
• 1:44
  demand generation agency working very much within the tech
• 1:48
  sector. And also as well, we do a lot of
• 1:50
  partner marketing as well. So working within channel to to
• 1:53
  the layman, to people who don't understand the nuances around
• 1:57
  account based marketing, lead my generation, things like that.
• 1:59
  I sometimes say to them, I said we're like the SAS of marketing.
• 2:03
  So that sort of conjures up all those different thoughts,
• 2:05
  doesn't it in your mind when you think that really elite in what
• 2:08
  we do, really specialist, very tactical, very specific.
• 2:12
  So it's not just about doing blanket B to B marketing
• 2:16
  campaigns. It's very, very targeted.
• 2:18
  So obviously strategy, messaging data and then we use all those
• 2:22
  channels that we love to deploy in.
• 2:25
  Now how do we blend all that together in relation to how do
• 2:27
  we get our clients noticed and create that opportunity of what
• 2:31
  we call early stage sales engagement?
• 2:33
  So yeah, that's just a little bit about us really.
• 2:35
  Oh, awesome. Now it's really good.
• 2:36
  So obviously an interesting background there, but was there
• 2:39
  any personal experience or moments that you've had during
• 2:43
  that time that shaped your view that one buyer isn't enough to
• 2:47
  win a deal and you as you know you're speaking to the converted
• 2:50
  or to the converted? Absolutely.
• 2:53
  I think if we look at the nuances of account based
• 2:55
  marketing, so, So what are we doing there?
• 2:57
  So we're marketing to accounts. So whether it's top of funnel
• 3:01
  one to many, but never really did I ever feel that we were
• 3:05
  ever marketing just to 1, one person, especially at that top
• 3:09
  of funnel bit. So you what you're trying to do
• 3:11
  with you're trying at that top of funnel bit, you're trying to
• 3:13
  get engagement and trying to understand where those early
• 3:17
  sort of buying, buying signals. I think in relation to where the
• 3:22
  realization about it wasn't necessarily the realizations we
• 3:25
  should be not just marketed to one buyer, but it's what
• 3:28
  technology is now allowing us to do and what that's now enabling
• 3:32
  us to do, how we interact with those buying groups.
• 3:35
  So I think it's a progression of thinking, it's a maturity,
• 3:38
  whereas ABM is very much within that account.
• 3:41
  And obviously when you get down to the one to few, certainly
• 3:43
  down to the one to one, we are breaking that those nuances of
• 3:46
  conversation, the relevancy of the content we create down to
• 3:50
  different targeted people. So you know, you like to talk to
• 3:53
  C-Suite and we're now even starting to talk to MD's as MD's
• 3:56
  and FD's as FD's and CT OS and CT OS.
• 3:59
  So the distinction of is with all this breakthrough with AI,
• 4:04
  although we were already doing a bit of that anyway, but it's
• 4:07
  accelerated it. And then also as well, I think
• 4:09
  Forrester have come out with some great stats telling us how
• 4:13
  many people are involved in the buying journey.
• 4:15
  So that's amplifying that pool to basically say, right, OK,
• 4:19
  we've now got to bring this into our narrative, our understanding
• 4:22
  and how does that really affect the strategy and the deployment
• 4:25
  of messaging that we undertake. Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:27
  And I think you're right. Technology is, is enabling a lot
• 4:30
  of stuff we couldn't do before. We all agree, I think in the B2B
• 4:34
  world that that one buyer isn't sufficient.
• 4:36
  But also the account based approach that we've all taken
• 4:39
  for so long it it's very broad and probably too broad.
• 4:42
  But the reason we've had to do that is because the technology
• 4:44
  wasn't able to identify that buying group.
• 4:48
  And if it was, it wasn't able to identify what that buying group
• 4:51
  is actually doing. Now, how should I engage with
• 4:54
  them? Do they know our brand?
• 4:55
  Are we nurturing them? Are we giving it to sales to
• 4:57
  chase after? So I think that evolution has
• 5:00
  has really come on leaps and bounds and the last year 18
• 5:03
  months and now I think buying groups is not just something
• 5:06
  people agree with, it's something they can actually do
• 5:09
  properly now. Yes.
• 5:10
  And I suppose on that approach AI, which is a big talking point
• 5:13
  now has started to really get involved in that.
• 5:16
  So what do you think the role AI has in in that transformation
• 5:20
  we're seeing? Well, a couple of points and you
• 5:23
  touched on 111 is the identification of buying groups.
• 5:26
  So typically AI enables us or gives us a head start in looking
• 5:32
  at what the service proposition is that you're trying to put
• 5:35
  into a target account, and then the probability of the people
• 5:38
  within that organization in relation to who would be the,
• 5:41
  the specific departments or other.
• 5:43
  At that point, we don't know who those people are.
• 5:45
  And then obviously then it's about then how do we then use
• 5:48
  technology to go and find those people against those titles?
• 5:51
  So #1 AI is assisting us with that.
• 5:55
  And then we have some great data tools that we can use.
• 5:57
  Cognizum, Apollo, people like that little bit of Zoom info
• 6:00
  maybe, but you know those applications where you can
• 6:04
  enhance your data and then you start to map that out.
• 6:08
  So first of all, AI is helping us with that.
• 6:10
  Secondly, AI in relation to the curation of content.
• 6:14
  So the curation of content at a buyer level.
• 6:17
  So understanding we have a core pillar of service proposition,
• 6:21
  but what does that look like to an MD and what does that look
• 6:24
  like to an MD? And he's particular pain points
• 6:26
  or CEO, same for the CTO, the CFO.
• 6:29
  And then we go down, up another layer into the operational
• 6:32
  infrastructure and then maybe even then down into what we
• 6:35
  would call the influencer level. So people that might be
• 6:38
  undertaking research and things like that.
• 6:40
  So AI enables us to create a core pillar of proposition and
• 6:44
  then curate that content to those people.
• 6:48
  And I think that's the most exciting thing, Paul.
• 6:50
  It's relevancy. AI has given us relevancy of of
• 6:53
  information and how we talk to each other.
• 6:56
  Yeah, absolutely. He picks up at a point that's
• 6:57
  quite an old discussion now, but I always think it's quite
• 7:00
  relevant. Often when you're doing persona
• 7:03
  based marketing, you say, right, I want to go after the CMO and
• 7:07
  that's brilliant. If the CMO is out there looking
• 7:09
  for stuff and you can, they're showing buying signals, but the
• 7:12
  reality is CMOS don't do that. They say to the some of their
• 7:16
  underlings, we call them, go out and find me the three best
• 7:18
  solutions that do XY and Z and then we'll shortlist it and go
• 7:22
  from there. If you're sat there waiting for
• 7:24
  the CMO to make those signals, you're never going to get
• 7:26
  anywhere. So that is a really good point
• 7:29
  to say those influencers and those researchers, it's just as
• 7:32
  important if they're in the right business and they're
• 7:34
  showing the right signals, we must engage with those people as
• 7:37
  well. Yeah.
• 7:38
  I always say, Paul, I always have this like sort of house in
• 7:40
  view that at some point all those people might be in the
• 7:43
  same room. And if they're all in the same
• 7:45
  room talking about a common problem, say for instance, if it
• 7:47
  was demand base for instance and the services you supply, it's
• 7:50
  about they're in the same room. It doesn't matter whether
• 7:52
  they're making that decision. But they've all been touched and
• 7:55
  they've all been shown relevance in relation to the pain points
• 7:58
  within their business. And I think that's where we are
• 8:01
  right now. And that world of real strategic
• 8:03
  targeted marketing, we're in that world where we can talk to
• 8:06
  those people. And we like to think that that
• 8:09
  commonality within the nurture as such is all assisted by what
• 8:13
  AI can give us. Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:15
  So go to the heart of the topic if you like.
• 8:17
  From your perspective, why is focusing on the entire buyer
• 8:21
  group, not just the one or two decision makers so critical to
• 8:25
  winning, you know, these modern B2B deals?
• 8:27
  You sort of touched on it already, but good to expand on.
• 8:31
  Yeah, it's also about understanding, it's
• 8:34
  understanding who's active. So there's an old ad.
• 8:37
  I mean we've I've been in more than enough sort of briefings
• 8:40
  and strategic meetings now to say with sales and sales might
• 8:44
  say, Oh yeah, yeah, I phoned that person and yeah, they've
• 8:47
  they've qualified out. Right.
• 8:48
  OK, so you've qualified out on one call TO11 buy.
• 8:51
  Yeah. OK.
• 8:52
  All right, fine. What about the 15 other people
• 8:55
  that might ever view an opinion slightly different to the one
• 8:58
  that you spoke about? So marketing and sales.
• 9:01
  So let's not talk about that because we spoke earlier about
• 9:04
  marketing and sales alignment. I think it's one of the massive
• 9:07
  challenges and opportunities that's right now for us in the
• 9:09
  market getting that stronger alignment.
• 9:11
  But it's about trying to get the buying signals.
• 9:14
  So identifying various buyers, then the hot topic is about
• 9:18
  within that buying group who are showing the signals.
• 9:21
  And then it's like saying, OK, fine, let's not disregard
• 9:24
  everybody else, but let's go after those three areas and
• 9:28
  those three people that have shown some element of interest,
• 9:32
  whatever it might be. So my view is that you're
• 9:35
  widening the net initially to just see what's the lie of the
• 9:38
  land, what's happening out there, who's showing some
• 9:40
  interest. And then as we all know, Paul,
• 9:42
  just in the nurture then of that once we've got that as some
• 9:45
  intelligence and what do we do next?
• 9:48
  So that's why I think it's so important to widen that.
• 9:51
  But also as well, when we're entering, no, not entering, we
• 9:54
  are in a period of content overload, OK.
• 9:58
  So we've got to make sure that we're talking to those people in
• 10:00
  a very nuanced, very sort of individual way.
• 10:03
  So making sure we've got that content to really resonate and
• 10:06
  hit, but then trying to find the signal.
• 10:08
  So when the sales people, when it is worked over the fence to
• 10:11
  say sales, yeah, they're ready, then they can have a more
• 10:13
  relevant conversation with people that are probably not
• 10:16
  qualifying out. Yeah.
• 10:17
  And I think you've hit on, again another conversation.
• 10:20
  I have probably day in, day out at the moment speaking to sales
• 10:23
  leaders that are losing a little bit of confidence in those
• 10:26
  signals that they're being thrown by marketing, even if
• 10:29
  it's a buyer group, right? Just because you've identified
• 10:32
  that Graham Reed is in that buying group, it doesn't mean to
• 10:36
  say he's in market. He's not shown any buyers.
• 10:38
  He may not even know who the brand is.
• 10:40
  So you can't just say, hey, sales go after Graham.
• 10:43
  You've got to really understand what interest is he showing?
• 10:46
  How engaged is he? And we hear a lot of people
• 10:49
  saying sales leaders saying, well, you know, I get handies
• 10:52
  out to my sales people to your point, they phone up, there's no
• 10:55
  interest at all and they just lose confidence in it.
• 10:58
  And so I think you really, I think I've said this to you
• 11:00
  before. I like the term AI with the Y.
• 11:03
  If you can get someone saying this is where this person is in
• 11:06
  the, in this process at the moment showing really good
• 11:10
  signals, but they've never engaged with our brand, never
• 11:12
  applied to an e-mail, never come to our website, it's way too
• 11:16
  early for sales. Let us get them understanding
• 11:19
  we're a company they should look at, should be working with at
• 11:23
  that point, then I'll introduce sales.
• 11:25
  So I suppose, you know, with your expertise, how can
• 11:28
  organizations nurture that trust from the beginning and get
• 11:32
  credibility across the group long before sales gets involved?
• 11:36
  Yeah, really good question because it's all around.
• 11:39
  We were talking earlier about the tools, isn't it?
• 11:41
  And the way that you work things, you're right about
• 11:43
  sending things into sales too, too soon.
• 11:46
  There has to be that level of qualification and nurture.
• 11:49
  So the people that are showing signals, we continue to nurture
• 11:51
  those people and everybody else as well.
• 11:53
  But specifically to those people, I think it comes down to
• 11:55
  what is your strategy. So we understand once we've
• 11:58
  mapped the buying group and once we've adapted the messaging, the
• 12:01
  core messaging, it's about then saying to sales, right, OK, give
• 12:05
  us and this happens. So we do this as an agency.
• 12:07
  So give us access to your LinkedIn, Mr. Salesman, OK.
• 12:11
  Or might be one or two of them, right.
• 12:13
  We're going to start sending out connection requested requests
• 12:16
  across this company. So we're using LinkedIn as a
• 12:20
  really direct way and if we can get connection requests and we
• 12:22
  see on average about 30 to yeah, about 3035% connection up
• 12:26
  uptakes. So doing a very nurtured cadence
• 12:29
  of interactivity. So what we're trying to do there
• 12:32
  is we're trying to use that strategy for early stage, but
• 12:36
  latter stage as well. So there's an element of when
• 12:38
  the salesperson and there's some credibility maybe between the
• 12:41
  salesperson and the target point.
• 12:43
  OK. So already we're a first
• 12:44
  connection and we can use e-mail, we can use that as a
• 12:47
  sort of a messaging messaging site.
• 12:49
  And then I think it's just about the deployment of that nurture.
• 12:53
  So we struggle with, you know, e-mail marketing is becoming
• 12:56
  more and more of a challenging in marketing nowadays.
• 12:59
  So you know, I don't know whether you run the Fixer AI
• 13:02
  application on your on your e-mail.
• 13:03
  I do on all my marketing emails go into a nice little marketing
• 13:07
  folder and it doesn't get looked at as much as it should really.
• 13:10
  Whereas beforehand it used to be in my inbox and it used to be in
• 13:13
  that cadence of your daily emails that come in goes flying
• 13:15
  off to that folder. So we've got a challenge there.
• 13:18
  How do we continue nurturing? So we've got to be using all the
• 13:22
  tools, tips and tricks to keep relevant with those with those
• 13:25
  people. So that nurturing what I said
• 13:27
  about the, the content and making that specific.
• 13:31
  So it may not be necessary that you're doing that via e-mail,
• 13:35
  that maybe you're using direct mail as an engagement piece.
• 13:38
  And we've had a lot of success with that because it's the
• 13:40
  physicality of it. I could have a whole new podcast
• 13:43
  with you on physicality of print and the engagement side of it,
• 13:46
  but it massively works when you've built up the right head
• 13:49
  of steam to get an interactivity.
• 13:51
  So if we call them to a workshop, for instance, or a
• 13:54
  face to face event or exhibition and things like that, that works
• 13:57
  really, really well as at the same time.
• 13:58
  So hopefully that's, I don't know whether I deviated in my
• 14:01
  answer, that's your question, but hopefully it's.
• 14:04
  Not at all. Not at all.
• 14:05
  I mean that that's the point of this, right?
• 14:06
  You've got lots of expertise. So we're going off in different
• 14:09
  directions is what makes the podcast interesting.
• 14:11
  Yeah, from our perspective, direct mail is is a massive
• 14:15
  increase. It's interesting because you get
• 14:17
  that whole privacy thing right, because still the majority of
• 14:20
  people are working from home and often if you want to send them a
• 14:23
  gift, they've got to give you a home address, which they don't
• 14:25
  like to do. But yeah, definitely there's, I
• 14:28
  think the old fashioned pick up the phone or send something is
• 14:32
  definitely for us the most, probably the most successful
• 14:34
  route an e-mail is they get too many emails.
• 14:37
  Most of it, as I say, just is directed straight into spam.
• 14:40
  So I think you and I obviously are agreed buying groups is is
• 14:44
  something we should all be focused on.
• 14:45
  Other people we speak to agree as well.
• 14:47
  But what do you see the biggest misconceptions teams have about
• 14:51
  the buying group Model I? Haven't hit too much opposition
• 14:54
  to this model so far because I think it's built on
• 14:57
  unquestionable logic. If you are going to give
• 15:00
  organizations the ability to identify key prospects and talk
• 15:05
  to them in a way that's super relevant to them, why wouldn't
• 15:08
  they do? I guess sometimes budget pull
• 15:10
  gets in the way because to do that, it's not a what skews the
• 15:14
  term spray and pray exercise. So it's not like necessarily
• 15:18
  content syndication where we're chucking information out there
• 15:22
  trying to get it downloaded and all of a sudden that's deemed to
• 15:24
  be an MQL. Yeah, really.
• 15:27
  That's that. And people think that's a sales
• 15:30
  signal. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 15:31
  It's, you know, somebody's seen something they're half
• 15:34
  interested in and they downloaded it.
• 15:35
  So I think yeah, sometimes budget people misalign what's
• 15:40
  needed to be spent in talking to these people directly as opposed
• 15:45
  to sort of what I call the more traditional ways of marketing.
• 15:48
  So I think that can be sometime a bit of a challenge.
• 15:50
  But then when you start to look at the ROI figures in relation
• 15:53
  to bio group marketing demand base have got a great case study
• 15:56
  with Palo Alto in relation to using that in combination with
• 15:59
  other strategies. So when you start talking about
• 16:02
  those sort of case studies, I come back to that term
• 16:04
  unquestionable logic is like, well, yeah.
• 16:07
  And selling them has become so much harder, as we know.
• 16:10
  So you've got to be deploying all the right tactics to sort of
• 16:13
  get that engagement. Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:15
  From my perspective, I'll probably have more buying group
• 16:18
  conversations with sales side of a business than marketing
• 16:21
  recently because he you can have a conversation with pretty much
• 16:24
  any sales leader or salesperson around where you ever in that
• 16:27
  scenario where that deal was as good as done and then someone
• 16:30
  you'd never heard of came out of the woodwork and killed it dead.
• 16:33
  Yeah. That's why you need a buying
• 16:35
  group model, right? Because there's always people
• 16:37
  sales know, but there's always people sales don't.
• 16:40
  And if you're not able to engage and nurture them and give them
• 16:43
  the same messaging as you're giving to the people you're
• 16:46
  physically selling to, there's always that risk, right?
• 16:48
  And I think therefore sales are now going into the marketing
• 16:51
  side of the business and saying, hey, we need to focus on the
• 16:55
  buying group of this business. So actually weirdly, it's sales
• 16:58
  in my expectations that we used to drive a lot of deals through
• 17:03
  the marketing, which is an interesting change.
• 17:05
  And going back to your sales and marketing alignment, right, if,
• 17:07
  if they're both doing the same thing, focusing on the same
• 17:10
  deals, guess what, the pipeline gets filled with better quality
• 17:14
  opportunities that sales can close and post sales can renew.
• 17:18
  Yeah, absolutely the best campaigns we run, Paul.
• 17:21
  So when we've got that sales and marketing in the one room,
• 17:24
  understanding the end to end strategy, especially in the
• 17:26
  latter stage deployment as well when we're looking for sales to
• 17:28
  get involved in that interactivity.
• 17:31
  So yeah, I'm a big fan of it. I'm a perpetual salesperson as
• 17:34
  well. So I love getting involved with
• 17:36
  sales. Exactly.
• 17:37
  We use it day in day out, right? I'm a, I'm a demand based user
• 17:41
  as as well as a demand based employee.
• 17:43
  So I see the big benefits of doing it.
• 17:45
  So AIAIAI, everyone I talked to was talking about AI.
• 17:50
  Some of it's relevant. Going back to your point
• 17:52
  earlier, a lot of it isn't. And so people are trying stuff
• 17:55
  and going, Oh yeah, sounded great, but it's not really good
• 17:57
  for us. So from from what you've
• 17:59
  experienced now and what you see coming, how is AI changing the
• 18:03
  way firstly we identify, but then also understand and engage
• 18:07
  these multiple buyers we're talking about?
• 18:09
  Yeah. I mean, I can only talk, you
• 18:11
  know, in relation to the development curve that we're on
• 18:14
  Ice Blue sky and we've sat back and we've watched.
• 18:17
  So we didn't jump too soon. And we've also seen a lot of our
• 18:19
  clients get involved in AI. And it's interesting to see that
• 18:24
  we've had the hype and now we've got the reality.
• 18:27
  Some of the content that has been pushed out there is not
• 18:30
  necessarily getting the responses that people want.
• 18:33
  So as I said, we've got this massive, we've got this massive
• 18:35
  problem right now of, of content overload.
• 18:38
  OK, So from an AI perspective, we looked at that internally and
• 18:43
  said, right, we're not looking necessarily AI mass content
• 18:46
  tool. And there are some people out
• 18:48
  there talking about that. Or we can do what we used to do
• 18:51
  for you for 25% of the price. Ridiculous.
• 18:55
  Because what this industry should be careful not to do is a
• 18:58
  race to the bottom. I still think that there's that
• 19:01
  real value of how do you curate that content.
• 19:04
  And we spoke about it earlier in relation to how valuable is that
• 19:07
  piece of content. So what we did is we've now got
• 19:11
  our own piece of software in relation to prompting.
• 19:14
  And one of the things that we're going to be talking about the
• 19:16
  ABM conference, B2B marketing ABM conference is around the
• 19:20
  accuracy of how do you use AI and how do you prompt it
• 19:23
  correctly to get the right content blocks out to then say,
• 19:29
  right, what are we going to now do that?
• 19:30
  Are we putting that in an infographic?
• 19:31
  Are we putting that in a blog? Are we putting in a report?
• 19:33
  Are we going to put some of that into an animation for engagement
• 19:36
  and things like that. So for us right now, we've been
• 19:39
  using AI, been focusing on that, which is working really well.
• 19:43
  We spoke earlier about that central pillar and then
• 19:45
  obviously the outputs of the content for that in relation to
• 19:48
  buying groups, again, we spoke about that earlier.
• 19:51
  We're helping AI is assisting us in the mapping of that, but I'm
• 19:54
  not not necessarily saying we, we accept all of that.
• 19:57
  So we give some of that to our junior researchers in ice blue
• 20:00
  sky and say, look, this is a framework of a a buying group or
• 20:04
  overlaying or where in the world of these people sort of things
• 20:06
  both from a sort of multi language thing as well.
• 20:09
  And so, but within doing human research after that and those
• 20:12
  two combinations of bringing all that together is greatly
• 20:15
  accelerating the value and the engagement levels that we're
• 20:19
  getting on our campaigns. I'm sorry, all of our listeners
• 20:22
  are getting it and understanding the benefits of doing this and
• 20:25
  if they're not already exploring buying groups and and that sort
• 20:28
  of stuff, I think they will go forward.
• 20:31
  Are you able to share an example of you can all, you don't have
• 20:34
  to mention any names, but how companies that you're working
• 20:37
  with have successfully expanded their reach beyond the primary
• 20:41
  contact and then that's enabled them to win larger, more complex
• 20:45
  deals. Yeah, I won't be specific, but
• 20:47
  I'll give you the structure of of how it's worked and we talk
• 20:51
  about what is right with buying groups.
• 20:53
  Is it net new? Is AI going to assist us with
• 20:56
  that or is it cross sell and upsell?
• 20:57
  I want to write a blog actually soon to say is the new net, new
• 21:01
  cross sell and upsell because so many businesses are engaged with
• 21:04
  clients that they could probably get 20 or 30% more business from
• 21:07
  and it's easier to do that. So one business that we are
• 21:10
  working with on a campaign is cross sell and upsell into
• 21:13
  existing accounts. So we've got that core existing
• 21:17
  client group that basically exists and the client has, the
• 21:22
  vendor has the relationship with that area, but there are several
• 21:25
  other areas that they're not transacting business with and
• 21:28
  they could be transacting business with.
• 21:30
  And so subsequently it's more easier to have the conversation
• 21:33
  with your existing client to say, look, we want to expand our
• 21:37
  network of what we do for you and we'd like to talk to these
• 21:40
  areas of the business. And you've almost got that sort
• 21:42
  of, so you've got the human thing going on.
• 21:44
  You know, people are going to talk to people and they're going
• 21:46
  to share information. So with one client where we're
• 21:50
  broadening that out and with specific targeted content,
• 21:54
  landing pages, interactivity into those areas and one account
• 21:58
  that we've gone live with, I think last week we got something
• 22:01
  like 68% engagement rate across those other buying groups based
• 22:05
  on relevancy, based on how we design the imagery and the
• 22:10
  association that they're already a core client of this vendor.
• 22:14
  So just by having all of that and just being a little bit more
• 22:17
  intelligent about that, we're starting to see really, really
• 22:20
  good levels of engagement. That's a really interesting
• 22:22
  point because I would say about, I think we did a service 5558%
• 22:27
  of demand based clients used demand based for upsell, for
• 22:32
  growth, but also for retention. Because as well as you can
• 22:35
  identify buying signals from a new prospect, you can also
• 22:39
  identify red flags if they're looking at the competition or
• 22:42
  they're disappointed in something.
• 22:44
  Well, actually we can sell something that solves that.
• 22:46
  Yeah. And so I think you're right.
• 22:48
  And I think buying groups is just as important for existing
• 22:51
  customers as it is for new prospects, but probably more so,
• 22:54
  right, because as you say, it's really hard and really expensive
• 22:58
  to find a new prospect. If you've already gone through
• 23:01
  those steps and you've got a client, Let's make sure we're,
• 23:04
  we're getting as much as we can out of them and doing everything
• 23:07
  we can to support them to, to stick with this long term.
• 23:09
  So I think that's that's a really good point.
• 23:12
  Absolutely. I will say to clients you're
• 23:13
  going to spend a lot more rocket fuel getting off the pad on net
• 23:17
  new than you are crossing an upsell.
• 23:18
  And yeah, more and more people are looking at it.
• 23:21
  Yeah, and for most companies are wearing a boat, similar boat
• 23:24
  ourselves. If you don't get beyond year one
• 23:27
  with a client, you actually are losing money on that deal.
• 23:29
  So it's it's important to you know, ensure you're getting as
• 23:32
  most and retaining them for as long as possible.
• 23:34
  So we'll have listeners on the call who probably still operate
• 23:37
  in that single buyer mindset. Oh, there's someone I'm going
• 23:40
  after it. I didn't close it.
• 23:41
  I didn't know those other people were there.
• 23:43
  What would you say is the first step they should take towards
• 23:46
  adopting a buyer group based strategy or outlook?
• 23:50
  Get in a room, map it out, OK, get a whiteboard, OK, Get in a
• 23:55
  room, make it, make it big. Get your sales team in sales and
• 23:58
  marketing, all the people within your business, get influence
• 24:01
  from as many people as possible and get that framework, get that
• 24:05
  map put into place like your blueprint, OK?
• 24:08
  Because then I think once you've identified what you think and
• 24:10
  where those people are from the visual context, you then have
• 24:14
  got a very good idea around, right?
• 24:16
  OK, these, these are the people, you know what I said earlier
• 24:18
  about with the SAS of marketing, you imagine the SAS attacking a
• 24:23
  village or a building or whatever it might be, they'd map
• 24:25
  it out, wouldn't they? And I know we always think about
• 24:27
  we should be using AI digital tools and stuff like this just
• 24:31
  because people are saying, Oh yeah, I dealt with a client and
• 24:33
  they had people in this area and all of a sudden you've got this
• 24:37
  like spider diagram, mind map almost of your buying groups.
• 24:41
  So the first thing I would say if you're looking to expand
• 24:44
  beyond just single buyer engagement is get in a room, get
• 24:47
  a whiteboard, get some black coffee on and thrash it out
• 24:50
  between your team. Yeah, great advice.
• 24:52
  I definitely agree with that one.
• 24:54
  And we talked about alignment already on this podcast and we
• 24:58
  talk about it all day, everyday really.
• 24:59
  But how do you think sales and marketing should collaborate
• 25:03
  more effectively when they're engaging with these multiple
• 25:06
  stakeholders? You and I both know that once
• 25:08
  you go to a sales team and say, look, we're going to elevate the
• 25:11
  opportunity for you to get a conversation with a group of key
• 25:15
  accounts. When we do ideal customer
• 25:17
  profiling with sales, once you've sieved out all the big,
• 25:21
  big logos they think they'd like but don't have any alignment,
• 25:24
  the core proposition, which is always a good exercise.
• 25:28
  So getting sales really excited about the possibility of them
• 25:31
  having good conversations or the possible conversations.
• 25:34
  But that's the first thing for me.
• 25:36
  We get sales excited, but really marketing are the ones that are
• 25:41
  marketing, the ones putting all the strategy together.
• 25:43
  So it's equally so then sales have to appreciate what
• 25:46
  marketing does. And I know marketing sometimes
• 25:49
  get us a bit of a bad rap, but they add real value to the
• 25:52
  process. Insane, right?
• 25:54
  OK, now we know who those accounts are.
• 25:56
  Then we get in the room, then we put all the buying groups and
• 25:58
  sales, as I said earlier, sales need to be involved with that.
• 26:01
  And, and the majority of the times, Paul, we find sales are
• 26:04
  really sort of engaged early on in the process.
• 26:07
  And as someone was saying, how's that campaign going or when's
• 26:10
  the next outreach or And so all of a sudden you've got, you've
• 26:13
  started to get that relationship between the sales and the
• 26:15
  marketing team. It's more it's more
• 26:17
  collaborative and then when marketing do their thing and
• 26:20
  you've got all the prospects and the targets and the messaging,
• 26:22
  then it's just about, you know, as I said earlier, it's about
• 26:25
  making sure that when you're saying right, we think this
• 26:27
  account is now ready for one to one sales engagement holding
• 26:32
  them account to that. And I know this sounds funny,
• 26:34
  but we have what we call sales pods with some of our clients
• 26:37
  where we're almost, they're almost accountable to us as the
• 26:41
  marketing agency. So we bring them in with the
• 26:43
  marketing team, right? OK, here we are.
• 26:45
  So we've got 5 accounts now that have now adopted or have now
• 26:49
  shown early stage sales or buying signals and they're ready
• 26:52
  now for sales interactivity. So if they take it into a
• 26:55
  platform and they're using that, but also as well keep marketing
• 26:58
  at the table. So we always say, Paul,
• 27:00
  marketing, marketing stay longer in the process, whereas
• 27:04
  beforehand, they just used to throw leaves over.
• 27:05
  No, no. Marketing are right there
• 27:07
  shoulder to shoulder because if there's any nuances or things
• 27:10
  coming back in that early stage or as they develop that sales
• 27:14
  conversation is how can marketing support that almost
• 27:17
  like in deal marketing if it gets to that stage.
• 27:20
  Yeah. And although it's something that
• 27:22
  everyone always talks about and has talked about for a long
• 27:24
  time, that alignment is key with with all of the customers that
• 27:27
  we work with. And I think one of the things we
• 27:29
  talk about is ensuring that all of the time, budget and resource
• 27:33
  from a sales and marketing perspective, it's focused only
• 27:36
  on those companies your business can and indeed wants to sell to
• 27:40
  because everything else is a waste, right?
• 27:42
  And once you start getting into conversations and again, maybe
• 27:44
  from a sales approach, you know, our close rates are down, our
• 27:48
  churn rates are going up, it's normally because the deals
• 27:51
  they're going after and closing are the wrong ones.
• 27:53
  So once you can get them understanding that, we're going
• 27:55
  to help you identify the companies you should focus on
• 27:58
  and the buying groups within that.
• 28:00
  And that is in hand with you and marketing, They're the ones
• 28:03
  you're going to go after and no one else.
• 28:06
  You're going to get a pipeline which is full of those
• 28:07
  companies, right? And by the time marketing give
• 28:10
  them to you, the nurture's done, the trust done, as we were
• 28:13
  talking about earlier. So guess what?
• 28:15
  Your close rates are going to go up and because you're closing
• 28:18
  companies that are a good fit, you're going to give value
• 28:20
  better and therefore they're going to renew more often.
• 28:24
  Would you like us to help you and marketing work in that way?
• 28:27
  It's a bit of a no brainer, right?
• 28:28
  And I think that alignment then, but it's critical.
• 28:31
  If you've got one side or other disagreeing and going off with
• 28:34
  non tangents, you're not going to get anywhere.
• 28:36
  Now you can't even put them in separate directions.
• 28:38
  Definitely not. Yeah.
• 28:39
  So we're sort of touching on, you know, don't hand it over at
• 28:42
  the right until it's the right time.
• 28:44
  We've got to get the brand awareness in there, otherwise
• 28:46
  sales are going to go after, well, I don't know who you are,
• 28:48
  why won't I talk to you? So are there any particular
• 28:51
  signals marketing should be looking for so they can
• 28:54
  understand who is it in that group?
• 28:57
  But more importantly, where are they in that buyer journey?
• 29:00
  And therefore, is this an awareness play?
• 29:02
  Is this a nurture? Is this hand it over to sales?
• 29:05
  What sort of signals should they be looking for?
• 29:07
  Yeah, as you said, it all depends where they are and in
• 29:09
  the journey. It's the old adage, isn't it?
• 29:11
  It's about who's opening emails. Is this those signals, those
• 29:16
  forward signals? It's like who's downloading
• 29:18
  content, who's coming along and interacting to if you're having
• 29:22
  events, for instance, if you're from round tables, who are the
• 29:25
  people in that? And so there's no other.
• 29:28
  I'd love to think there was some other rocket science around
• 29:30
  there, Paul, to say that there's some combination of activity
• 29:34
  that's going to that's going to say, yeah, green light go sales.
• 29:38
  I think it's also a gut feel as well.
• 29:40
  What might be happening in market.
• 29:42
  So if there's some something happening for that target
• 29:44
  account and they're showing signals, you can relate what's
• 29:48
  going on in the market to the proposition or the value of what
• 29:51
  you what you have. So I think that's an interesting
• 29:54
  thing to use as a sort of an added engagement tool.
• 29:57
  And usually, as we said earlier, if you're sending something in
• 30:00
  like a really piece of interactive direct mail, you can
• 30:03
  weave in, and we've done this before where you build a
• 30:06
  sentiment tool. So you can actually ask people
• 30:08
  to give themselves a profile in the buying journey.
• 30:10
  We did a bit of this in channel for Cisco and 10 weighted
• 30:14
  questions. Do you agree?
• 30:15
  Neither disagree or agree or agree strongly.
• 30:18
  And then that can give you a bit of a profile of how maturity or
• 30:21
  how the buyer is, is thinking. So you can use those little sort
• 30:25
  of things which assists marketing or sales in relation
• 30:29
  to whoever goes in first or with the marketing.
• 30:31
  You can nurse that more. But I don't believe that there's
• 30:34
  anything out there beyond those combinations of signals that
• 30:37
  we're getting through those traditional engagement routes
• 30:40
  unless you can tell me something that I don't even know about.
• 30:42
  So I'm here to learn. No, but you've hit on something
• 30:46
  really important there. I mean, it's one person from a
• 30:49
  big organization, an HSBC going on your website or opening up an
• 30:53
  e-mail. That's not enough to be classed
• 30:56
  as a buying signal. Hey, go after it.
• 30:58
  But you'd be amazed how many of these black box solutions out
• 31:01
  there do exactly that because you don't know what the
• 31:03
  interaction is. You're just told go after HSBC,
• 31:06
  you get all excited and go after it.
• 31:08
  I think one of the, this is going to sound like a shameless
• 31:10
  plug. I don't mean it like this, but
• 31:12
  one of the big things that I like about demand Basis is that
• 31:15
  it gives you the why behind everything.
• 31:17
  So there are 17 people from that company who looked at this
• 31:21
  particular white paper. Nine of them went to your
• 31:23
  website. They've shown interest here, but
• 31:26
  they've not engaged with sales. So it's way too early for sales.
• 31:28
  We want to do brand awareness. And I think if you're going to
• 31:31
  get buying signals and if you're going to say, right, why do I go
• 31:34
  after that, and is that buying group in market right now, You
• 31:37
  need to have the insight to understand the why.
• 31:40
  So you know what messaging to use, you know what tactics to
• 31:43
  use. And I think there is a danger at
• 31:45
  the moment. There's a lot of black box
• 31:47
  technologies out there that are just simply saying, go after
• 31:50
  that, go after this, go after that.
• 31:52
  And the sales team are going off on wild goose chases.
• 31:54
  They're losing confidence in it. And that whole alignment, which
• 31:57
  we're just talking about how important it is, gets damaged
• 32:00
  because sales start going. Yeah, not interested in hearing
• 32:02
  that anymore. I'm going to do my own thing.
• 32:04
  But yeah, I think it's an exciting time, but we've got to
• 32:07
  be careful. We're not just driving people
• 32:10
  off in the wrong direction because our, our black box AI
• 32:13
  says so, but lots more. If we could cover that one off
• 32:16
  in a whole podcast. So if we, we think about AI and
• 32:19
  I think it is something that's taking over.
• 32:21
  If you, if you think about mapping, who is the buyer group?
• 32:25
  Are there anything you're seeing from AI that's helping us
• 32:28
  predict either buying group, who they are and and what behaviour
• 32:32
  we're likely to see? I can't say that I'm using or
• 32:36
  we're using anything at this moment in time in a tool that's
• 32:39
  giving that. I mean, humantic is quite an
• 32:41
  interesting application where it's given us very good insight
• 32:45
  into individual people. So once we've met the buying
• 32:47
  group and we've identified who those people are, that
• 32:50
  application, for instance, can help us just understand those
• 32:54
  nuances of different people or things that we they may have
• 32:57
  been put out in press releases, for instance, if they're big
• 33:00
  businesses, but nothing more than sort of, I haven't seen
• 33:03
  anything where they give me the names of absolutely everybody.
• 33:05
  So if I said, for instance, right, this is these are all the
• 33:08
  people that I want to talk to and I put it into an AI engine
• 33:11
  and they go, right, all the departments of the buying
• 33:13
  groups. Yeah, these are all the people
• 33:14
  you need sorted. And maybe that's maybe that is
• 33:17
  out there and I'm not just using it yet.
• 33:19
  I mean, maybe some of the big data people have got that, but I
• 33:22
  think certainly that's where AI is going to drive that and the
• 33:25
  greater intelligence we get. Paul, buying groups, the more
• 33:29
  that's going to be out there in the ether and the more
• 33:31
  understanding of that's going to be.
• 33:33
  So in essence mapping of buying groups for tech vendors and
• 33:36
  things like that. He's going to probably come a
• 33:38
  lot more simpler in in the future.
• 33:40
  But I think we're still cutting our teeth on it a little bit.
• 33:42
  Yeah, as with all these trends, there's a lot of people jumping
• 33:45
  on the buying group bandwagon, if you like, and saying, hey, I
• 33:48
  can identify those 30 people in that group.
• 33:50
  There you go. Yeah.
• 33:52
  Great. But are they in market and all
• 33:55
  of that intent that goes behind it is often missing.
• 33:57
  So yeah, I think AI is going to help us massively, right.
• 33:59
  And I've, I've hold it, all these things like AI is going to
• 34:02
  kill sales jobs or AI won't kill sales job, but the people using
• 34:07
  AI will kill the jobs of the people not etcetera, etcetera.
• 34:10
  I think as long as the AI is relevant, but I think it's
• 34:12
  something that will become very useful.
• 34:14
  And if it means that you don't have to manually go and do that
• 34:18
  time consuming task anymore, AI will do it, which will free me
• 34:22
  up to do my creative stuff or my selling stuff or whatever.
• 34:26
  I think there's a huge opportunity there.
• 34:28
  We're all seeing some of these AI e-mail things going out.
• 34:33
  And I'm sure you and I are not alone in thinking, yeah, that's
• 34:36
  AI driven, you can tell. And I think that humanity is.
• 34:39
  We can't lose that. No, not at all.
• 34:41
  And you know, the end of the day, I mean, I like the Gartner
• 34:44
  chart where it says where is the sweet spot of engagement in the
• 34:48
  sales process, whether it's in that problem identification
• 34:50
  solution exploration part of the chart.
• 34:53
  And what we're finding as we all know, a lot of buyers do a lot
• 34:56
  more deep research. But if, if you can be that
• 35:00
  person, that problem identification solution
• 35:02
  exploration expert at that point in the buying journey, you're
• 35:06
  not necessarily close the deal, but you're on that cut.
• 35:10
  You follow that curve around to then vendor consideration,
• 35:13
  vendor vendor specification and then pricing.
• 35:16
  But your your shoulder to shoulder with the buyer in the
• 35:19
  whole that process tried to shape that.
• 35:21
  And from an intent perspective, we all know that if if you
• 35:25
  nurture that you get better, it's statistically proven you
• 35:27
  get better outcomes to that. So, and that's human if you need
• 35:31
  help, if you can be a human to human to say what problem you're
• 35:35
  trying to solve it what's what's your issue?
• 35:37
  And we all know that that's the sweetest point of an engagement
• 35:40
  with anybody. If you could be seen to be an
• 35:42
  overused term sometimes, that trusted advisor almost helping
• 35:45
  people on that journey. Absolutely.
• 35:48
  So you sound like someone who consumes lots of content.
• 35:51
  Is there a particular book, A blog, podcast you'd recommend
• 35:55
  our listeners should check out? We run an event every year
• 35:59
  called the B2B Marketing Symposium and we were very
• 36:02
  privileged this year to have a gentleman by the name of Peter
• 36:05
  Docker come and talk at our event.
• 36:08
  And Peter has worked with Simon Sinek not on the first book but
• 36:11
  on the second work. Find your why?
• 36:13
  And he Co wrote that with David Mead along with Simon Sinek.
• 36:16
  And Peter now has branched out from that and he now has his own
• 36:20
  content called jump seat leadership.
• 36:23
  And Peter came along to our vent and spoke about it and he's
• 36:25
  written a book. So Peter Docker jump seat
• 36:27
  leadership. But it's all about how you
• 36:30
  empower people within your organization, how you put a plan
• 36:33
  together and how you cohesively bring those people on that
• 36:37
  journey and in in how you adhere to that plan.
• 36:40
  And Peter has some really real life experiences about managing
• 36:43
  people, but also as well the development of that plan.
• 36:46
  And we've been working very closely with Peter on that and
• 36:49
  we adopt that methodology within our business.
• 36:52
  So it's not necessarily about technology, it's more around
• 36:55
  mindset and culture and everything within the business.
• 36:59
  And I would you know, I like Peter's content.
• 37:01
  It's sat very well with us and it's part of our strategy moving
• 37:04
  forward as an agency. So we we very much are adopting
• 37:07
  that sort of jump seat leadership sort of approach.
• 37:09
  Awesome. I I'll be checking that one out.
• 37:11
  I'm a sun and cynic fan. I think the way he talks, it's
• 37:14
  very calming, but he always makes some really good points.
• 37:16
  I'll be checking all that for sure.
• 37:18
  Thank you so you've been an awesome guest, Graham.
• 37:20
  I'm sure there's, well, an argument for, I was going to say
• 37:23
  another, but probably multiple sessions.
• 37:25
  We went off in a few tangents, so maybe we'll look at doing
• 37:27
  that in the future. But right now, a cheeky ask if I
• 37:30
  can. Is there anyone else in the
• 37:32
  space that you'd recommend we should bring on the show in the
• 37:34
  future? Yeah, I the first one has been
• 37:37
  somebody that I think Robert Norman suggested you should talk
• 37:40
  to. But there's a lady by the name
• 37:42
  of Marta George and she works for Ping Identity.
• 37:45
  I'm very fortunate to say she's a client of ours and they're a
• 37:48
  great, great client to Ice Blue Sky.
• 37:50
  But she has a really good forward vision on account based
• 37:54
  marketing and by group marketing.
• 37:56
  And I think to get her on would be very relevant if you're going
• 37:59
  to continue this thing marketing.
• 38:02
  I think the other person I would recommend is Barbara Stewart and
• 38:05
  she's an active consultant within the B2B marketing and
• 38:08
  start, don't believe you've heard Barbara talk before.
• 38:11
  She's very much got some great strong content around the buying
• 38:14
  journey. So it's about mapping that out.
• 38:16
  So comes cuts across on this as well buying groups by group
• 38:19
  journey. And the final one, I would say
• 38:21
  probably our CEO Ice blue sky Charlotte.
• 38:23
  She has far more of a depths of marketing than I have.
• 38:27
  She's been in it for many, many years.
• 38:29
  And again, I would say she would be a good guest to sort of
• 38:32
  amplify and emphasize maybe on a few other different degrees of
• 38:35
  things that I've spoken about today.
• 38:37
  Awesome. Appreciate it.
• 38:38
  And hopefully we'll get those those guests on our podcast in
• 38:42
  the future. So appreciate that.
• 38:43
  I'm sure a lot of our listeners here, you've opened up lots of
• 38:46
  cans of worms and there's lots of conversations they'd love to
• 38:49
  have with you. So how would you recommend, if
• 38:51
  you're happy to people get in touch with you after this?
• 38:54
  Yeah. Well, first and foremost because
• 38:56
  you're going to be there as well and we're exhibiting at the B2B
• 38:59
  Marketing ABM conference on the 5th of November.
• 39:01
  So if you're going along to that, we've got to stand.
• 39:04
  We're going to be talking about buying groups and we're going to
• 39:06
  talk about curation of content and things like that.
• 39:08
  So that's what we're going to be talking about.
• 39:10
  So come along to that or you can jump on my LinkedIn, Graham
• 39:14
  Reed, Ice Blue Sky or visit our website because any inquiry that
• 39:18
  comes through to their comes through to my inbox.
• 39:20
  So be happy to engage or embellish or amplify or talk
• 39:23
  about anything we've spoken about further.
• 39:25
  That's awesome, thank you. And I'm sure look out for the
• 39:28
  the rush. I'm sure people will be
• 39:29
  contacted after this. That was a great session,
• 39:32
  Graham. Thank you very much for your
• 39:33
  time. As I say, I'm sure we'll we'll
• 39:35
  be following this up with a with a subsequent 1.
• 39:37
  I hope the listeners you've enjoyed this episode as well.
• 39:40
  And don't forget there's nearly 600 others in the series, so
• 39:43
  make sure you check them out. Thanks everyone for listening.
• 39:45
  Thanks again, Graham for your time.
• 39:47
  Until the next time, Cheerio. Thanks, Paul.
• 39:51
  Thanks for joining us for On Base.
• 39:53
  If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share, rate,
• 39:56
  review and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or wherever you
• 40:00
  get your podcasts. The show is brought to you by
• 40:02
  Demand Base, the only account based experience platform built
• 40:06
  for sales and marketing alignment.