The SBI Blog | Sales & Marketing Effectiveness Best Practices

How Brainshark’s CMO Helped Transform their Company

greg.alexander@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Greg Alexander) — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 11:00:00 GMT

We recently sat down with Robin Saitz, the CMO at Brainshark. The topic of discussion was integrating the marketing strategy with the corporate, product and sales strategies. This is no easy task, and one Robin was charged with at her company. Specifically she was brought on to assist during the transformation of her company. How did each functional strategy impact her strategic decisions?

When Your Market Changes Without Permission

christina.dieckmeyer@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Christina Dieckmeyer) — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:00:00 GMT

Not all markets are created equally. Decisions must be made regarding market potential, go-to-market strategies, etc. This is where market segmentation comes into play.

We tackled this topic on one of our recent shows here. I moderate a discussion with Mike Drapeau, Partner at SBI and Kevin Avery, Senior Consultant at SBI. Watch as Mike and Kevin debate how to best divide the broad target market into subsets of buyers. They will answer key questions and concerns surrounding market segmentation.

Case Study: New Insight Into Product and Sales Alignment

greg.alexander@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Greg Alexander) — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 11:00:00 GMT

Are your product and sales strategies aligned? Too often companies miss their number because these teams are not on the same page. Click here to listen to our recent podcast on this topic. It’s an interview with Inna Kuznetsova, the President of Inttra Marketplace. The company offers container booking, shipping instructions, and tracking services via its SaaS offering. 21% of the world’s trade begins at Inttra.

3 Hiring Mistakes to Avoid This Year

ryan.tognazzini@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Ryan Tognazzini) — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 20:00:00 GMT

Hiring the right talent has a large impact on your ability to make your number. The key is to look forward to the strategy of tomorrow. As your strategy continues to evolve, your hiring practices need to keep pace. You’ll have to predict who you’ll need for the future.

What is the best way to do this? You can start by avoiding these 3 common mistakes.

SBI's First Ten Years

greg.alexander@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Greg Alexander) — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 13:00:00 GMT

Welcome to SBI's "First Ten Years." This is a year long photo journalism project commemorating our 10th year in business. Every Sunday morning we will publish a photograph of an SBI'er "in action" which is meant to illustrate how much fun we have working with you.

This project has one purpose: to celebrate you, our clients and followers.

Companies, firms, and fads come and go. But, because of you, SBI, the firm we love, has become a leader and has withstood the test of time. And as a result, smiles have been put on many faces. Thank you.

You can follow the project, and get to know our people, at #SBIFirstTenYears.

The First 90 Days: What New Sales Leaders Need to Know

andrew.urteaga@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Andrew Urteaga) — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 11:00:00 GMT

You were recently promoted to VP of Sales. Congratulations. But, now what? How do you make sure you don’t blow your honeymoon period? My colleague, Drew Kiran, and I address this issue on our newest podcast. You can listen here. During the show, we’ll review the recently released blog post, “5 Keys to Success in Your First 90 Days as VP of Sales at a Start-Up.”

The Myth of the Ideal Hiring Profile

dan.perry@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Dan Perry) — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 11:00:00 GMT

Standardized hiring profiles for sales reps and sales managers are no longer effective.

If you continue to use them, you will hire the wrong people and miss your number.

Case Study: How LegalZoom Designs Campaigns that Drive Results

greg.alexander@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Greg Alexander) — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 11:00:00 GMT

As a marketing leader, it’s your job to fill the pipeline with leads. To do this, you must design campaigns that attract buyers to your products. Sounds simple right? But it’s not. Recently we interviewed Laura Goldberg, CMO at LegalZoom on this very subject. You can watch here. LegalZoom provides an easy-to-use, online service that helps people and businesses create their own legal documents.

4 Questions to Ask When Optimizing Your Channel Strategy

greg.alexander@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Greg Alexander) — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 11:00:00 GMT

Q1 is in full swing. Many sales leaders are now turning their attention to driving revenue growth through channel optimization. You must select, sign and enable partners to secure the greatest share of resource commitments.

You must also align your sales channels with customer demand. When sales channels overlap in functions, both costs and customer frustration increase. How can you best allocate the channel mix to controls costs? And to be sure that customer needs are satisfied?

Why Big Data is Key to Strategic Alignment

scott.gruher@salesbenchmarkindex.com (Scott Gruher) — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 11:00:00 GMT

Big data is a hot topic. So big, that my colleague Ryan Tognazzini and I recently discussed this subject on our show. You can watch here.

Using the right data to gain strategic alignment is mission critical to success. Yet often, leaders struggle to capture the right data and use it to make informed decisions. We will explore why this is the case, and how you can avoid similar mistakes.