60: Andrew Ettinger - Community-led growth in enterprise sales
Jun 2, 2024
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Andrew Ettinger from Appen discusses community-led growth in enterprise sales, emphasizing cross-functional collaboration, AI impact, and evolving sales strategies. Insightful topics include lead scoring, content transformation, and aligning incentives for sales success.
Cross-functional collaboration is vital for successful sales strategies.
High-value content educates prospects for authentic engagement.
Understanding product usage and leveraging data enhance sales interactions.
Deep dives
Building a Groundswell for Sustainable Growth
In the podcast, the importance of building a groundswell underneath traditional sales efforts was highlighted. It was emphasized that the modern sales landscape requires touching more people to secure deals, making it crucial to create a sustainable approach beyond increasing call volumes. By fostering buying and commitment through community-led growth efforts, reps can have their 'aha' moment, similar to customers realizing the value of a product.
Synonymous Collaboration Across Leadership Roles
The discussion delved into the significance of synergy between different leadership roles within a company, especially between Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) and Chief Product Officers (CPOs). Emphasizing the need for CROs to understand marketing strategies, community growth, and product implication, the dialogue stressed the importance of cross-functional collaboration and shared understanding across revenue, product, and marketing functions.
Content, Community, Conversion: The Inbound Lead Journey
The conversation explored the journey from content creation to cultivating a community and achieving conversions. By providing high-value content that educates prospects on problem-solving journeys rather than direct sales pitches, companies can engage prospects authentically. The evolving approach also includes leveraging first-party data to personalize interactions, nurturing leads from initial engagement through informed and collaborative sales conversations, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Understand the Need for Quality Data and Integration of Engineering Expertise
The podcast emphasized the essential role of quality data in AI models and the need for comprehensive content offering frameworks that guide prospects through problem-solving journeys. Additionally, it highlighted the importance of having a deep understanding of product usage and leveraging data points to tailor sales interactions effectively. The discussion also touched on the potential benefits of lead scoring models and the challenges in balancing inbound leads between sales and self-serve channels for optimal efficiency and prospect engagement.
Reimagining Sales Incentives and Presales Teams
The podcast discusses redefining sales incentives to avoid the pitfalls exemplified by 'Gary the Sales Guy', emphasizing the importance of creating the right incentives through bonuses tied to specific outcomes rather than just chasing leads. Additionally, it delves into reshaping presales teams to align with the communities they serve, suggesting a shift towards persona-to-persona interactions to enhance authenticity and better cater to customer needs.
Evolution Towards Product Sales Management and Holistic Approach
The episode explores the concept of 'product sales management', proposing a fusion of sales and product roles led by individuals with sales experience and an understanding of product development. It highlights the need for cross-functional empathy across sales, marketing, and product domains to drive successful outcomes. The discussion centers on leveraging AI advancements and building abstraction layers to increase team efficiency and foster innovation in a rapidly evolving market landscape.
I talked with the amazing Andrew Ettinger from Appen about community-led growth in enterprise sales, the importance of cross-functional understanding, and the transformation of content and community in the sales process.
We are also diving into the impact of AI on the industry and the need for cross-functional understanding and collaboration.
Takeaways
Cross-functional understanding and collaboration between CROs, CPOs, and other leaders is crucial for successful sales strategies.
The evolving role of lead scoring and product usage in sales
The changing nature of sales and product management in the era of AI and automation
Sound Bites
"Fundamentally, it doesn't matter what you sell. The way in which you need to generate demand is by building out content and value added interactions with the personas that your product or service can enable them to have a 10X better life."
"If you provide enough high value and relevant content, what you're actually going to find is your form fills get much more detailed about the project."
"We actually want to talk to all of these people because we learn and we wind up actually doing some projects, even at cost."
Chapters
00:00 Navigating the Challenges of Closing Deals in Modern Sales
05:23 The Role of Community-Led Growth in Enterprise Sales
08:12 Cross-Functional Understanding and Collaboration in Sales Strategies
16:30 Understanding Product-Market Fit in Modern Sales
26:29 The Impact of Data on Sales and Lead Generation
29:43 Evolving Role of Lead Scoring and Product Usage in Sales
31:33 Challenges and Opportunities of Inbound Leads and PLG
32:58 The Importance of Firmographics and Product Usage in Separating Leads
34:21 The Changing Nature of Sales and Product Management in the Era of AI and Automation
42:31 The Need for Cross-Functional Understanding and Collaboration in the Industry
