carry within us an orchard
to carry all of that happiness - the dust and the nectar, to appreciate all of it.
49 Matching Annotations
- Feb 2021
-
outline.com outline.com
-
- Dec 2020
-
-
YamJam and took events on the road.
Highly under-utilized!
-
“No one cares about your features. You have to talk about the larger problem that you're solving and how the world will be different if what you're doing works. Explain the change that you're bringing about in the world and why that's important.”
Define that unique POV and the destination of your epic.
-
Gradually over the last decade or so, the barriers have really come down, to the point where I think most founders see this consumerized approach as probably the best way to develop enterprise software.”
I really thinks this goes hand in hand with the fact that the C-Suite in most enterprises are older and usually are the last group to adopt new technologies. As consumer SaaS products proliferated, the C-Suite became more comfortable adopting B2C type models. As much as we'd like to think these companies are bottoms up, ultimately, IT is still the buyer.
-
Product positioning through category-creation
Build the category, then position the product. Not vice-versa.
-
-
www.instigatorblog.com www.instigatorblog.com
-
But in B2B, where software purchases can be in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, top down rules
It has taken a decade but the tide is shifting rapidly in B2B Enterprise.
-
-
-
Salesforce today does this brilliantly. Salesforce lays out the reality of the connected customer in today’s world.
I would argue that this "Promise Land" picture is pretty weak. 1:1 relationships IS NOT the promise land. What do you get when you have 1:1 relationships? Is it loyalty? Is it advocacy? Is it cross-sells? it is definitely not represented in these icons.
-
#2. Develop a Villain
Salesforce was infamous for this approach. In order to take this approach, you have to have a CEO who embraces making these opposing, antagonistic statements. Benioff and Ellison pulled it off.
If your CEO isn't cut from this cloth, there is also the Promise Land approach Raskin described where the status quo is the enemy and the solution is to take the journey to the promise land.
-
-
-
The Zuora marketing folks ran campaigns and branding around this shift to the subscription economy, and [CEO] Tien [Tzuo] talked it up all the time. All of that was like air cover for my in-person sales ground attack. By the time I arrived, prospects were already convinced they had to act. It was the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to sales nirvana.
And this is epic marketing.
-
features should always be presented in the context of how they help a prospect reach the Promised Land.
To add, they need to be very specific to the problems, challenges and use cases the prospect shared at the beginning of the conversation during discovery. If you can connect a few simple features back to a very relevant use case, it hits just as hard as a success story.
-
Magic Gifts
Andy calls them "Gifts", I call your product the sword your buyer uses to slay their way through the journey there.
-
oncrete criteria
Not only a teaser but sets the stage for the product pitch. These are the REQUIREMENTS, this is the lens in which you need to evaluate your solution.
-
That not doing so will likely result in an unacceptably negative future for the prospect
Many marketers and salespeople usually miss this. It is just as important to describe the promise land as it is to describe how the here and now will be eventually be a wasteland.
-
status quo
This is critical. The cost of "do nothing" has to be very clear which provides the prospect no alternative but to act and act now.
-
subscription economy
The equivalent to building and naming their own category.
I also love the hashtag in the image, driving the point home in the sales deck
-
- Oct 2020
-
www.pardot.com www.pardot.com
-
Now look at your brand from the inside out. What do your sales reps find really resonates during the sales process? What is the vision for your brand? Where do you see your brand going over the next year? The next five years?
kind of a weird question and where this falls apart a bit.
Brand - is who you are. Hard to change this or think of it changing.
Positioning is who you are in relation to your competitors,
-
The Customer Angle
IMO, you have to always start here.
-
-
www.mikesonders.com www.mikesonders.com
-
Make your most compelling pitch in a single page of content on your website.
This should be a one-page summary of your pitch deck.
-
Is this company going to be around for a while?
We found this to be true on every B2B site. All opptys have a person from the buying team visiting "About" before the oppty was created. Mix an "About" visit with an MQL stage, you have a pretty hot lead.
-
show specific examples that your customers have used your solution to solve challenges similar to the ones that your prospect is facing, in similar roles.
This is an important point. It's not just about logos, but you need to be very specific about: 1) What category these customers are in so you can attract more of the same (ie. The Fortune 500, Leading enterprises, smart moms, financial institutions, etc) 2) What exact problems you are solving so get your use case game going. 3) make sure the case studies aren't product one-pagers.
-
Highlighting of big differentiators. What are the handful of big things–that are meaningful to your target customer–that set your solution apart from the competition? Example: Zendesk vs Freshdesk Comparison tables. In many cases, website visitors scan information rather than read. Comparison tables make it easy for them to quickly understand the important differences between you and the competition. Examples: ConvertKit vs Drip, Hubspot vs SalesforceSocial proof. Don’t expect prospects to take your word for it when you’re singing your own praises — back it up with testimonials and reviews from customers. Example: Drift vs IntercomClarity around trade-offs. Everyone knows that every solution has its strengths and weaknesses. (In fact, “[brand] pros and cons” is a pretty common search term among big SaaS companies.) Being transparent about it only gives you more credibility. And gives you a chance to frame the narrative around your perceived weaknesses or “missing” features.
Great points. I would add that this be done in a very saavy way. There is a fine line. The Apple vs Samsung ad wars have shown some very saavy ads and some not-so-saavy ones.
-
Yes, like JIRA, you can have a page on your site that lists your competitors. Why? One, prospective buyers are going to discover your competitors, anyway. Two, when someone is searching for alternatives to your solution, appearing in the search results at least gives you a chance to position yourself relative to your competition. To present your relative strengths and clarify your best-fit customer. Otherwise, you’re letting your competitors or a 3rd-party site like Capterra define your positioning for you.
Love this approach. While I wouldn't make it accessible through main nav or footer, it's a great SEO/SEM strategy for counter-competitive displacement campaigns.
-
To some degree, it simply means there are fewer prospects left in the funnel at that stage seeking that information.
They've already seen and clicked on the trial after being on your site. They are not searching it.
-
his chart paints a clear picture regarding the relative importance of different features, resources, and information SaaS buyers are seeking.
Agree with this being a good stack-ranked list (no brainer). The theory that it also paints the chronological journey (ie pricing -> demo -> reviews -> integrations, etc is a little bit of a stretch).
-
Generally speaking, most buyers start their journey at the top of this list (with pricing) and proceed downward. As buyers fail to find satisfactory information that matches up with their needs, they fall out of the funnel.
Valid theory. Buyers nail down top brand choices first then narrow further with "pricing".
OR
Buyers narrow on pricing throughout the entire consideration phase. In other words, they go back to pricing to make sure it's still within budget because who memorizes prices? Also, pricing pages are probably the most organized and easiest to read pages on the website. Let's face it, most sites poorly describe product capabilities and sell full features without disclosing which plan includes the feature.
-
- Sep 2020
-
-
This equality fosters a dynamic that is much more conducive to candor.
This is an interesting concept. I can identify and validate this in my own consulting engagements with CEO & founders to CMOs and other marketers.
-
Because of the tangled nature of this relationship, a manager may feel conflicted when he decides to hold back a learning opportunity from an employee because another assignment is more expedient for the needs of the organization.
Hmmmm... this is a pretty flawed statement. Managers should be strong enough to communicate, "now is not the right time" and follow up on the learning opportunity.
What's really underlying this challenge is the short term outlook on projects and self-evangelism rather than team development and organizational success.
-
Any career success I've achieved is due at least in part to their interest in my development. They imparted their wisdom to me and undoubtedly left an imprint on my way of viewing the world of business.
This student/mentor journey is wildly missing in today's business world. I wonder if young professionals have the skills to develop mentors and whether experienced leaders are even looking anymore?
-
-
www.entrepreneur.com www.entrepreneur.com
-
But millennials aren’t the only ones doing the job hopping. Gen Xers bounce around almost as much: In 2000, when gen Xers were in the same age range as millennials are today, 60 percent had been at their job for 13 months or more. In 2016, 63 percent of millennials had been at their job for more than 13 months. So, the numbers themselves aren’t so different.
I see this more of a sign of the times rather than a difference in the various generations
-
-
-
Not much.
Disagree - leaders need to connect junior marketers with other marketing leaders. The way to help is to facilitate mentorship with someone you trust if you can't be the mentor yourself.
-
So to be effective and make a real impact on revenue, your junior or mid-level marketing hire will need support — more support than you, the founder, can offer.
Enter the Rockstar Conundrum. A junior marketer, even if able to navigate the growth hacking phase, will ultimately struggle with this and have a high probability of failing because the skills that go into building a team and a revenue organization are very different than the skills that go into building campaigns.
-
Develop high-level strategy and execute (they’ll start out as a one-person team)Build rapport with department leaders and continuously champion and prove the value of marketing (at a product-first startup, this comes with its own unique set of challenges)Experiment and iterate quickly, because they’ll be building demand for a product that may have few customers (and, therefore, little historical data to help inform decisions)Delegate work, hire and manage people, to effectively scale marketing for the company’s growth
To think that a Director of Marketing will be able to do all of this is unreasonable. Good luck.
-
it doesn’t take long to realize that experienced marketers in tech are rare, and expensive
This was a major reason why I launched Averoos.
-
hire a marketer
This is a challenge for most teams. Even marketers have trouble hiring other marketers.
-
tech companies are often founded by people who know very little about marketing
Very true. Most founders, in my experience are either from a product or engineering background. I think this is a good thing. The early stages of startup are about building tech and product. As a marketer, rather than look at this as a negative, marketers need to look at education as a key part of their jobs, not a burden
-
- Aug 2020
-
-
VPM: $0.2m ARR
I'm very surprised with this is the order because in a majority of the SaaS companies I've worked with, the order is VPE,VPP, VPS, VPM
-
-
medium.com medium.com
-
See Twilio investor presentations here
Twilio Investor presentation
-
See full Atlassian investor presentation here
Don't miss this.
-
-
outline.com outline.com
-
Small farmers: +$2.8 trillion market
Wow! This will be interesting to follow over the next decade as the world moves to local, organic produce and dairy.
-
Developer teams: +20M developers globallyIT services teams: +$1 trillion opportunity
Huge increase in startups that service the DevOps community.
-
Understanding how to effectively build and market products to individuals users within the enterprise is a very powerful lever for B2B founders.
Could't have said it any better than this. This is what makes 1st time product CEOs so successful compared to CEOs that come from any other discipline (Engineering, Sales, Operations, Marketing, etc).
-
However, 86% of enterprises expect to have largely shifted to SaaS apps by 2021
Obviously, this is also driven by adoption of SaaS on the consumer side. All of us are more comfortable buying subscription based products now from Netflix to Audible to hair products.
I also get the sense that price points are also getting larger and larger. It would be interesting to see a graph of the average SaaS monthly subscription cost.
-
-
www.instigatorblog.com www.instigatorblog.com
-
Variable Top Down Bottom Up
Great comparison table for Top Down vs Bottoms Up.
-
Bottom up user acquisition models are becoming much more prevalent in B2B software.
Everyone is going SaaS now.
-
“price discrimination”
Never heard of it referred to as "price discrimination". This is simply "pricing" in marketing. How do you extract the optimal amount of money for the value that you're delivering. If you're struggling with this exercise, then perhaps you don't have enough differentiation.
-
-
-
Recently, I was contacted by the blog manager for the Northwest Christian Writers Association (of which I am a member). She’d been browsing my blog, discovered one of my “for reprint” articles, and e-mailed me to request the HTML code for the post, my bio, and my headshot.
sdfadsfsadf
-
If you’ve been blogging for a while and have a nice selection of posts in your archives, consider offering some of them for reprint.
asdffsdf
-
approval
dfdfdf
-
Recently, I was contacted by the blog manager for the Northwest Christian Writers Association (of which I am a member). She’d been browsing my blog, discovered one of my “for reprint” articles, and e-mailed me to request the HTML code for the post, my bio, and my headshot.
this is a test annotation
-