OnBase: Smashing Sales and Marketing Misalignments

Spencer talks about the need for better data storytelling and data literacy within the B2B marketplace in this episode.

Serial Salesperson, 3x Multi-Million Dollar Entrepreneur, Author, INVESTOR and expert speaker on sales, marketing and entrepreneurship- Brandon Bornancin joins us on the Sunny Side Up podcast by DemandMatrix to discuss B2B Sales techniques that make a difference! About Brandon Brandon Bornancin is the founder and CEO of SeamlessAi and is known to be a sales obsessed entrepreneur, leader, author & investor! About Seamless.Ai SeamlessAi was started by Brandon Bornancin and a group of award-winning entrepreneurs who are working to disrupt the B2B Sales industry. Key takeaways from the episode “I built Seamless.Ai because I needed to sell faster!” “Seamless.Ai helped me make over 7 figures in sales in a year! And I wanted to help the industry do the same!” “Over a course of a decade I wrote thousands of sales scripts through my roles at IBM and Google. And I always felt, if I don’t let the industry see this or help them lift their sales with this, its not worth it.” “Thousands of SaaS companies have the right software perhaps, but their Sales won’t know what to say and they won’t know how to sell to let’s say thousand people per day!” “My company almost went bankrupt three times! But that led to a new learning curve.” “The first 3-5 years are usually startup hell, but after that, it is all experimentation and expansion. I’m on a mission to build a million dollar company even if it means losing everything I own.” “Pick a niche to get rich when you sell in B2B! Don’t sell to too many people. Sell one thing to one person in an industry at a time.” “Go laser-specific when you need to target or sell something to someone. Write all your sales cold scripts and pitches, ads and case studies aligned to that one persona at a time.” “Persona based outreach will always cut through the noise faster.” “Messaging based on one persona will ensure your audience reacts to you and engages with you more!” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Rick Girard, the Host of the Hire Power Radio show who is also the CEO of Stride Search Inc, (an agency focused on disrupting the Recruiting & Talent Acquisition space) shares interesting hiring tips to help you transform how you hire and shape your Marketing and Sales teams. About Rick Rick is a Talent Acquisition Leader and serves as the CEO of Stride Search. He is also the host of the Hire Power Radio show. About Stride Search Stride Search is on a mission to help startups gain a competitive advantage by formalizing a process to maximize candidate hiring and engagement. Key takeaways from the episode “When it comes to candidate engagement: it’s all about treating people the way they’d like to be treated.” “There’s not enough care and thought that’s put into building an interview process and understanding what it is that your company needs.” “People don’t really know how to interview for a cultural fit, but they know how to interview to identify skills.” “I’m a big believer of hire for culture first and skills second, because skills can be learnt. But you need the people with the right attitude.” “This is especially important for a small set-up or culture.” “As a culture, you want to be able to offer upskilling and augmenting options to your candidates and team. You need to be career-minded of the people you do have.” “When you bring in someone better, they help elevate the success of the entire company.” “You should always be talking to your people to understand what they want and where they want to be fit.” “It is important to try and provide something more than just monetary benefits.” “There’s still talent shortage and you need to go out and be pro active to find the right people.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Jon Ferrara, the pioneer and creator of #CRM solutions and Founder/CEO of Nimble LLC a social CRM service for small businesses joins us on Sunny Side Up to discuss the future of Customer Relationship Management within the B2B segment.  About Jon Jon is a tech entrepreneur best known as the co-founder of Goldmine Software Corp. He is the founder of Nimble which is also his most recent venture. About Nimble Nimble is a smart CRM that works directly inside your Office 365 or G Suite inbox. Top takeaways from the episode “I think my passion was inspired by my youth because our president decided to spend trillions of dollars to send men to the moon and as a young boy growing up watching the Mercury Gemini and Apollo programs do what they did, I wanted to be like that and I saw that the emergence of microcomputers was a way for me to tap into that technical side.” “I believe people sell what they know and they know what they use.” “The way that you build a brand is- you need to tell stories and get people to tell those stories because it’s more powerful when other people talk about you than when you talk about you.” “So the marketing technology stack if you will has to include at its basics some type of marketing automation system that helps you to do lead qualification and you can think of that as the bomber flying over the battlefield that drops bombs to soften up the battlefield, but to win a war you’ve got to put boots on the ground!” “But the thing is that there’s two hundred twenty five million global businesses, less than 1 percent use any CRM. So what does that tell us? That tells us that CRM systems don’t really serve the masses.” “I share content on Twitter Facebook and LinkedIn thought leadership materials on social sales and marketing. And then I listen and engage in order to connect those conversations into mutually beneficial relationships.” “The more digital we get the more human we need to be.  We need to take digital conversations face to face.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Nick Bonfoglio, CEO and Founder of Data Management Platform- Syncari and Former founding CEO of Aptrinsic shares interesting entrepreneurial learnings and takeaways while also discussing his thoughts on the future of the DaaS/SaaS marketplace.  About Nick Prior to starting Syncari and Aptrinsic, Nick was the EVP of Global Products at Marketo where he was responsible for product, engineering, cloud operations, technical support, and security services. Nick has over 25 years of experience working in product development, technology and customer service. About Syncari Syncari is a new Data Management Platform currently in stealth mode. Top ten takeaways from the episode “The trick as an entrepreneur is knowing when to dive deeply into the business during various stages of growth.” “I love to build products that move the needle for users. That’s why I’m an entrepreneur today.” “I really want to build a big successful, public company” “We are nearing a stage in SaaS where features and products are emerging and evolving all the time” “There’s a huge problem in businesses when it comes to data quality and data management, an average company will have 100,000 records but will spend 4M dollars on data quality issues! We want to fix these issues.” “Data quality when you’re doing a Marketing campaign is absolutely critical.” “Marketing teams are once again going through a transformation. Nothing is working like before, I see more multimedia and targeted outbound and Relationship Management becoming more important. At Marketo we called this hyper-personalization with an Account-based focus.” “Data quality and Data Relevancy and Data Consistency is just immensely critical to ensure people are attacking the right things.” “As a new entrepreneur to go slow and make sure that there is an adequate product-market fit is key to driving goals.” “I would resist the urge to raise a lot of money right in the beginning.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Carlos Hidalgo, the author of Driving Demand (2015) and The UnAmerican Dream (2019) and Founder/CEO of Customer Experience agency VisumCX speaks to us today to talk about his journey, his books and how marketing and sales teams can enable better B2B customer experiences.  About Carlos Hidalgo: Carlos is a 25-year business veteran who has held several corporate roles, started his own entrepreneurial ventures and served in non-profits. Carlos is a keynote speaker who regularly discusses topics on marketing, business leadership, B2B customer experiences. About VisumCX: VisumCX is an agency that is focused on working with mid-market companies to enable and deliver better customer experiences. Top ten takeaways from the episode: “My book The UnAmerican Dream is about this hustle that everyone is all about today. It talks about the balance we need between our professional and personal lives.” “There’s a clear difference between customer service and customer experience. Often times , companies can provide stellar customer service because of a bad customer experience.” “Organizations confuse the two, they often feel that because they provide a good customer service, it takes care of the customer experience aspect.” “Customer experience starts long before anybody buys anything.” “If a customer has a bad experience when on the website or when looking for product information, that’s already impacted their perception of your brand!” “It is important to look at the full buying journey to create a better customer experience.” “A good CX starts with a good employee experience as a base. It is important to work up from that level, to understand the mission of the company and the experience that the company wants the customer to feel.” “There’s now a California Gold Rush in the B2B marketing segment- with too much martech! Companies are buying into martech without a clear vision of what they want the tools to do or without a clear understanding of how to fully optimize value from them.” “It is crucial for teams to define their strategy before investing in martech or any tech.” “The fact that people are paying more attention to data and they are looking more at what they can do with it also helps plan interactions with the customer the way they want – thereby creating a better overall customer experience.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Julien Thuy who is an Enterprise Relationship Manager at Glassdoor (UK) shares interesting tips on Account Management and B2B Enterprise Relationship Management to help boost your end results.  About Julien Julien is a seasoned Enterprise Relationship Manager and Account Manager who has worked with leading companies like Blue Jeans Network in the past. About Glassdoor Glassdoor is one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites. Their mission is to help people find a job and a company they love. Glassdoor pairs the latest job listings with information from employees on what it’s like to work at a company, such as company reviews and salary details. Glassdoor helps employers recruit and hire quality talent. Top ten takeaways from the episode: 1. “Finding new strategies for business is always a crucial part of everyday for me!” 2. “Users come to Glassdoor because we have a network of high quality users and employees.” 3. “I like to meet with the right people in a company and find out why they would need a solution like ours before I start a Sales conversation.” 4. “Knowing your customers like the KYC process in the banking industry can actually be useful in B2B!” 5. “You can’t have the same material sent to everyone. Having the right message for the right person is easy to do when you build a good business/enterprise relationship. For this to happen, you need to have the right mindset and not be just a random sales guy!” 6. “Try to think of Account Management as treating your clients like you treat your colleagues!” 7. “I like to build Enterprise Relationships with this in mind: partnering together to achieve goals together.” 8. “You have to have regular reviews to understand changing customer behavior to understand when is the right time to upsell/cross-sell something.” 9. “By talking to clients and partners regularly, it is easier to build a relation and identify upselling/cross-selling triggers.” 10. “Ask the right questions to get the right results!” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Jennifer Pockell Dimas, a marketing leader who was spearheaded business growth in enterprise software companies like Plex, Demandbase before  starting her stint as CMO at Gigster shares interesting techniques to boost your B2B marketing.  About Jennifer  For over 20 years, Jennifer (Jen) has led marketing at high growth enterprise software companies like Plex, Demandbase, Egnyte, Polycom and Hyperion. Currently, as CMO at Gigster, Jen engages with our global customers and prospects about the benefits of digital transformation. She also extends and celebrates the Gigster Talent Network and amplifies the Gigster brand. About Gigster  Gigster provides a quick and easy way to build custom software solutions.   Top ten takeaways from the episode:   1. “How well you create a foundation for a 100% ABM approach is crucial to long-term growth and results.”  2. “You can use various inputs from your data and insights to constantly monitor your prospects and plan appropriate cadence to get better engagement.” 3. “Everyone in marketing needs to work on a very clean and well articulated representation of their brand!”  4. “How can we articulate who we are and what we do uniquely in a concise and powerful way.”  5. “There’s a difference between amplifying a brand and defining a brand!”  6. “A good corporate positioning workshop that represents every function of the business helps in building that aligned brand message.”  7. “If we are evolving our marketing programs all the time, there may not be a post form world anymore because of the tools and digital signals available to us today!”  8. “A form at this point is something we are all comfortable with but I don’t think it is something that is helpful in a buying process!”  9. “A must-have in any marketing campaign – focus on your customer!”   10. “Always think from the perspective of your customer and how you can add value to their work and life!”  About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

Tom Treanor, Global Head of Marketing, Arm Treasure Data discusses everything under the sun when it comes to B2B marketing, from what keeps marketers in this segment up at night to better strategies that drive your ABM results!  About Tom As Arm Treasure Data’s Global Head of Marketing, Tom is responsible for driving the overall marketing strategy for Treasure Data’s CDP (Customer Data Platform) and IoT Data Analytics solutions. About Arm Treasure Data Arm Treasure Data is an Enterprise CDP that integrates and uses marketing data from multiple different platforms. Top ten takeaways from the episode: “Customer data is often optimized around a certain function – it’s important today for marketing teams to integrate all this data before using it to understand the customer.” “Marketing today is now driving the conversation in most B2B companies.” “Generation of Account-based focused marketing from all groups, whether its sales or others is an important trend that needs accurate measurement of results.” “The fundamental of personalizing any campaign starts with understanding all the different aspects of the customer – how they respond to campaigns, etc. If you personalize without understanding this, you will be marketing to prospects who don’t like what you’re saying.” “Quality interactions are crucial in B2B, more than in B2C – that is where a CDP can help B2B marketing teams.” “Because most tools are optimized around a certain function, they don’t provide the raw data that helps all-round understanding of customer behavior.” “It is crucial to have a neutral place to gather all your data, run analysis and activate around it.” “What we say is a trend of companies putting one person in charge to administer customer data.” “The main pain point any CDP solves is aligning disparate data.” “Sometimes, lack of clear ownership of customer data can be a drawback or challenge for teams.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.

In this episode, Founder and CEO of top rated review site TrustRadius- Vinay Bhagat discusses his entrepreneurial journey while also breaking down the future of the SaaS marketplace.   About Vinay and TrustRadius Vinay is a serial entrepreneur who conceived TrustRadius after experiencing challenges when buying enterprise solutions at his last company. Prior to founding TrustRadius and his earlier company – Convio, Vinay served as a Director at Trilogy Software and a Consultant at Bain & Company in London, Hong Kong and Kiev. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, an MS Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University, and a MA Engineering Information Sciences from Cambridge University with First Class Honors. When he’s not working, Vinay loves spending time with his kids, swimming and the occasional squash game. Top ten takeaways from the episode: “The epiphany for TrustRadius came when we were procuring technology to run our own business. In one case, we rolled out a tool that wasn’t the right fit for our team. Without doing sufficient diligence to see how the product would work in our case led to a great degree of buyer’s remorse!” “3 Trillion Dollars are spent on enterprise technology purchase every year. Businesses need trusted buyer reviews to make the right technology choice.” “One of the rules we always follow – Put the Buyer First.” “The SaaS marketplace is proliferating. Software will become more pervasive. And with time, the idea of owning a software will eventually be replaced by subscription-only models.” “The democratization of IT purchasing boosts the demand for trusted buyer review sites like ours.” “When it comes to customer reviews, people come to read them because they are looking for the other side of the coin – they want to understand what the cons are for a particular tech product.” “No longer are people choosing technologies purely on the basis of a brand name anymore.” “We’ve seen a tremendous growth across the board in martech. There are certain categories like Customer Data Platforms that are gaining popularity.” “Having a more systematic way to gather customer feedback will be more and more critical.” “The combination of a very focused advertising campaign teamed with a strong conversion page can be a compelling strategy for any Account-based Marketing strategy.” About the podcast Sunny Side Up is a series of 15-minute podcasts. Leaders and innovators share what they’ve learned in the B2B tech sector on topics related to marketing, product management, sales, and leadership.