We had a great discussion this week on the Tech Sales Influencers virtual round table. The topic of discussion was “Who is responsible for leads right now, marketing or sales? Should the sales execs be responsible for building their own pipeline?”

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Here is the challenge; the world that is still in semi lockdown, those responsible for purchasing tech are spread across the globe from the same organisation, and fewer people are able to buy than before!! Social media platforms are noisier than ever! How do you get your message to the right people at the right time? And what platform should you be using to do it?

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The discussion was great and, in most part, we agreed that the sales and marketing teams need to work more closely together than ever before. This partnership will be crucial to elevate your business and your voice above your competition. The challenge is to really understand in what form to put your content out to the marketplace, should it be videos or is everyone doing that now? Should it be webinars or has that been over worked during lockdown? It is difficult to know categorically as we have had little time to dip our toe in the water of this new way of selling. We have been pushed in at the deep end and we need to learn how to swim, fast.

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Those who take time to learn how to swim in this new era of selling I’m sure will see great results through the backend of this year and I’m almost certain will see large gains through 2021. Those who chose to only stay afloat and wait for the business world to return to the past could get left behind.

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The real question is what content is going to grab your customer’s attention?

Is now the time we need to understand our potential customer needs more than ever before?

Do we really need to get under the hood of our buyers’ persona and build targeted content towards this?

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Through speaking to over 100 senior sales leaders I think one of the biggest concerns is the lack of patience commonly seen in salespeople. If I do something now, I want to see results tomorrow or the next day, at least this week.That will not be the case with social selling. I have come to learn it takes much more time to see a return on investment and needs consistent care and attention. We need to understand what new wins look like from content marketing and how to measure success from these channels. And it’s imperative that there is and understanding between sales and marketing regarding who is responsible for what and when. I’m a big believer now that personal brand is as important as your company brand if you want to stand out and this will take time to build.

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It was a great discussion which didn’t lead to definitive solutions to the problem but raised more questions we need to find the answers to in order to move us forward as an industry.

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