#111 - Mark Organ, Founder Influitive - On turning customers into your most effective sales force

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to transform the way we can mobilize and leverage the power of advocates, and my guest is Mark Organ, Founder and Executive Chairman at Influitive.

Mark is an entrepreneurial go-to-market specialist; a CEO with a focus on sales, marketing and business development. His greatest professional passions include creating new billion-dollar categories in technology and developing new leaders. Today, he’s helping CEOs achieve their full potential in their businesses and their lives.

Mark founded 6 companies, amongst which Eloqua (acquired by Oracle), raised more than 15 rounds of financing, helped a lot of people realize their dreams, and got specialized in creating cultures that are a competitive advantage. He’s also the author of the book 'The Messenger is the Message'.

In September 2010, he founded Influitive based on the idea that the most successful sales and marketing comes from advocates. That inspired me, and hence I invited Mark to my podcast. We explore the challenge many software businesses have in getting customers to reference them, how that’s driving everyone crazy, and what needs to change approach-wise, to solve that. We also dig deep into Mark’s experience in creating new categories that deliver remarkable impact.

Here are some of his quotes:

“What I realized, working at Eloqua, was how important it was to have your customers doing more of the work for you, more of the sales and marketing work especially.

When you have multiple referrals and references and case studies and all these things, the sales cycle would go down by like +90%. We'd have these deals closing in four days, instead of the usual four months, because there's a ton of advocacy over it.

Sales cycle is critical. Where most of the cash flow is tied up in a software company is in ‘people who are not able to make a decision.’ And the best way to get people to make a decision is to surround them with great relevant people who are all saying how great a company is, how great the product is, and how great the people are.”

During this interview, you will learn three things:

1. How the best innovation is created if you embrace curiosity and dare to bring in ideas and people from totally different domains
2. Why you should fall in love with your target market, instead of your product, in order to create an impact that turns customers into advocates.
3. That focusing your time on turning your advocates into superheroes is the secret that will ultimately turn you into a superhero.