#003 The Marketing & Sales Divide – The Value in the GAP

KAMCast - Key Account Management Strategies for Business Leaders

𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘:

In many organisations, the divide between the sales and marketing teams cause real problems. Silo working, a blame culture and all while the business is missing the opportunity to close the gap and add more value for customers and prospects, …ultimately increasing the chances of winning more business.

I talk to Grant Leboff from Sticky Marketing, one the UK’s leading Sales and Marketing experts.

With his 4^th book, Digital Selling, debuting at number 1 on the Amazon charts prior to being published in 2016 Grant went on to publish his latest book, Myths of Marketing, in January 2020.

In a world where technology challenges the ever-changing playing field, I was keen to talk to Grant about:

• How businesses can close the gap between sales and marketing
• What KAMs can be doing to add more value with content to their accounts.
• How to maintain control and consistency with the rise of personal brand on social media

𝗛𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧𝗦 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗦 𝗘𝗣𝗜𝗦𝗢𝗗𝗘:

In my discussion with Grant, we touched on his thoughts and insights on my questions like:

• What role does marketing play in today’s world of key account management?
• For any businesses who experience a divide between sales and marketing, how would Grant recommend they approach closing the gap?
• When we think about sales and account managers as ‘mini marketeers’ what advice would Grant give businesses in ensuring that personal brand stays ‘on brand’ and how should people be leveraging social media to support prospecting?
• Content vs. Value – what advice does Grant have for businesses to ensure that content actually adds value to the customer or prospect?

I really enjoyed talking with Grant and exploring his thoughts on this really important topic, I hope you enjoy listening to it too!

KAM, for us, really is a team sport and with marketing departments challenged with ADDING VALUE through content and engagement, it’s so important that account managers and sales teams work collaboratively towards a shared goal – to grow the business with existing clients.

I loved the simple breakdown of how to plan great content by thinking about the fundamental questions:

• What challenges is the customer facing?
• What is the context?
• Where can we add value? … and
• What do we want out of it?

Sales people really are mini-marketeers who, in today’s world, OWN their own media channels and therefore double up as media personalities. A media channel without content is useless.

𝗞𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗥 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗦𝗘𝗚𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧

In each episode we ask you, our listener, a killer question that is designed to get you reflecting on your business, your KAM Culture and where changes in thinking and behaviour could lead to increased customer success.

In this episode we asked Grant to give us his killer question which was:

𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙗𝙚 𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙚𝙡𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 (𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙨) 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙠𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙠𝙚𝙮 𝙖𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙨?

A big one! How can we use our social media to help support our key account managers to deepen their relationship and add value to their Key Accounts.

𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗗 𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗠𝗬 𝗚𝗨𝗘𝗦𝗧: 𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗧 𝗟𝗘𝗕𝗢𝗙𝗙

You can find out more about Grant on his Sticky Marketing website. Follow him on Facebook & Twitter, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

Grant Leboff is one of the U.K's leading Sales and Marketing experts. His fourth book, ‘Digital Selling’, debuted at #1 on the Amazon charts prior to being published in September 2016. His latest book, ‘Myths of Marketing’ was published in January 2020.

A thought leader in his field, Leboff's main focus is to address the massive changes that are taking place in a world that is constantly being introduced to new technologies and an evolving World Wide Web. He continually challenges Sales & Marketing conventions that become accepted wisdom, but don’t necessarily deliver results.

𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗨𝗣...

In the next episode of KAMCAST I’ll be taking Grant’s thoughts further as we explore how video can maximise sales success. We will be talking to Ed Lawrence from Business Film Booth, a video production specialist who can answer all my questions!

Ed Lawrence is a video marketer who has professionally produced more than 10,000 videos for UK based businesses. He co-founded Business Film Booth with his business partner Dave Foulkes in 2015.

He set a goal in Jan 2019 to release 3 videos a week to the Business Film Booth YouTube channel to teach people how to write, produce, present, promote and edit videos so he can help more people take advantage of video. Today…he is still doing it! Make sure you check it out.

Ed is a video marketing blogger for Social Media Examiner, the world’s largest social media marketing resource blog; and also presents and produces videos and courses for The Influencer Marketing hub, a leading social marketing resource for brands.