This is NOT sales' job

Sales takes a lot of credit for “Closed Won”

They get to take home commissions $$$

And I still have the gall to say…..

“Yes, Sales should not be solely responsible for moving deals in the pipeline”

It’s actually marketing’s job

Before you go bonkers on me, hear me out…

This is more like football (the one that Messi plays. You may also call it soccer)

The striker gets credit for hitting a goal

That in no way means that the rest of the team did not contribute

Sales is the striker here

And we (as marketers) have to put the ball into the D (the box)

Sometimes sales hits, sometimes they miss

We got to get up & put the ball into the box over and over again

But why?

So sales can focus on what they do best..

Scoring for the team

How to accelerate deals, then?

We’ve already decided that moving deals in the pipeline isn’t only “THE JOB OF SALES”

Marketing should contribute to pipeline acceleration through Account focussed Marketing (ABM)

For example, say your average sales cycle is about 7 months

Your goal is to bring it down to 5 months

What do you do?

Account Based Marketing, for sure

But what exact steps?

Which ABM activities accelerate deals?

The picture below shows how ABM activities act as accelerators to move deals faster in the sales pipeline

Here are some ABM ideas you can use for pipeline acceleration goals -

• Share relevant educational material. These can be around challenges mentioned by them during interactions.
• Organize roundtable conferences. Use insights to improve quality of your content.
• Host webinars to educate your target account on personalized topic sets.
• Run personalized ad campaigns to improve account engagement.
• Offer 1-1 discussions/consultations with decision makers to help draft their strategies.
• Invite key influencers in target accounts to your podcast. Talk about their industry, strategies and challenges.

Any unique account engagement ideas that helped you move deals faster?