Social audio has become very popular recently with the advent of Clubhouse. According to Edison Research 15% of social media users 18+ say they have used Clubhouse. 

Podcasting is a form of social audio. And, it continues to grow as a content channel. According to Edison Research’s Share of Ear study, which began tracking audio consumption in 2014, podcasting’s share of all audio listening is now 6% of consumption. This level marks an all-time high for podcasting, up from 2% in 2014. 

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have launched or plan to launch social audio functionalities.

I’ve had a love affair with podcasting for nearly 10 years. In fact, I listen to many podcasts. MME is my second podcast. My first podcast ran for 49 episodes. I co-hosted it with a buddy of mine. We bantered about digital marketing topics. The big difference between my first podcast and my second podcast is that I didn’t have a strategy with my first podcast. I had fun recording them. But, there was no strategy. 

We just horsed around, recorded them and published them hoping something good would come of them. In truth, some good did come from the first podcast. But, we all know that hope is not a strategy, right? 

So, what is my B2B podcast strategy?

My strategy is relationship building. I set out to build relationships with marketing executives working at B2B brands.

The method is simple: I provide a platform to feature marketing executives. I interview each guest and share their experience and wisdom with my audience. 

This relationship-building strategy in podcasting has a business benefit.

First, it starts with a human connection. I genuinely try to connect with each of the guests I’ve had on the podcast. I don’t mean just connect on LinkedIn. I mean, I want to make an authentic human connection with each guest. 

So, what’s the benefit of this relationship building? 

Life is all about relationships. People do business with people they know, like and trust and that is relationship-based. Some have become friends. And, some of my guests have become clients of Vengreso.

And, in some cases I was able to offer something of value to my guest in the relationship whether it’s an introduction to someone or an endorsement or whatever. 

The purpose of the MME podcast is for me to build relationships with marketing executives at B2B brands – it’s that simple. And, if you’re thinking this strategy is over simplified, you’re right because it doesn’t need to be more complicated than building authentic relationships with no more agenda than that. 

However, there is something I do behind the scenes that works really well for this relationship-building strategy. Be sure to listen to the whole episode to learn what it is.

This episode is the last one of the MME podcast.

The reason is that I’ve accepted a new opportunity at a different company and the Vengreso leadership team has decided to sunset the MME podcast. 

Vengreso has a sales-centric podcast called the Modern Selling Podcast, hosted by Vengreso’s founder and CEO, MMJr. He’s published more than 175 episodes at the time of this recording. It’s a wildly popular podcast and you and or your sales leader at your company should definitely check it out. 

Additionally, Vengreso has a live show called the Modern Sales Mastery show, which is broadcast live every Friday at 11:30 am ET. 

I tell all about my journey at Vengreso and my next steps in a blog post here.

Finally, I want to thank you, for listening to the MME podcast. I TRULY hope I’ve delivered value to you through the modern marketers I’ve interviewed on this show. It has been a privilege.

B2B influencer marketing is not the same as it is in B2C, where you have celebrities like top athletes and Hollywood actors endorse a brand and post on Instagram about it. B2B marketing leaders can leverage industry influencers in their marketing efforts with a solid plan.

That is the topic of conversation with my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Amisha Gandhi, SVP of Marketing at Tipalti.

Amisha is a groundbreaking B2B innovator with deep marketing and communications expertise across multiple industries and geos. She was recognized in PR Week’s Women to Watch 2020, Top 50 Influence Marketer by Talking Influence and Top Digital Marketer on LinkedIn. Amisha is also an accomplished speaker at multiple industry conferences including Content Marketing World, MarketingProfs B2B Marketing Forum, and many others.

Listen to our conversation to learn how to find and work with B2B influencers.

Influencer marketing is the practice of engaging internal influencers at your company or industry who are experts, analysts, bloggers or public speakers who have active networks of influence. They can influence their audiences to help you achieve your business goals.

“It's about people,” Amisha says, “it's about community. B2B influencers aren't celebrities, but they could be celebrities in the business world. They've written books, some of them are even academics.”

Start by asking yourself:

• Whose audience do you want to reach? 
• Why do you want to reach them?
• What are you trying to convey and what is the outcome that you hope to achieve by working with influencers?

Amisha says there is definitely a process to identifying and selecting influencers. There are specific tools you can use, but you can start by using Google and search for the top influencers in your industry. Then use LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Clubhouse.

“It just depends who you're trying to reach and how you would like to relate to your audience.” Amisha says. “You have to find out where your audience is and who they're listening to and who they’re influenced by. Look at the conferences, third-party associations and other places where people are speaking, you'll start seeing some names popping up.”

Then you have to look deeper at the content these people are sharing and the level of engagement their content has.

Once you have a list of potential influencers, you should assess which ones can help you achieve your goals in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Amisha says you should look at influencer marketing as a holistic practice that you can apply across the entire customer journey. For example, can you get some good top funnel content? Can you create some demand? Can you create a community of advocates?

“Once you find folks that are really influencing your audience, reach out to a couple of influencers, start talking to them, see if they’d like to work with you. Say, ‘we're thinking about doing this upcoming campaign, what do you think?’ And have a conversation, because they may tell you, ‘I don't think that's going to work for my audience.’ That will help you frame up your campaign and make it even better than what it is.”

Start with top of the funnel activities, like a podcast, to create awareness with their audience. Then you can go into demand generation content like co-authored ebooks or a webinar series where people are willing to give you their information.

“There are some influencers who are very speaker heavy and they don't do long form content. They are thought leaders and they do more podcasts. That's why you have a group of influencers. You're going to have some people that are going to do top funnel and events and some people who are great speakers and great on video. There are some people who are great only in voice and folks that do longer form content.”

Over time some influencers can become advocates. This happens when they keep talking about your brand even when not taking part in your marketing campaign, because they consider your content to be of value to their audience.

Listen to episode 299 for specific ideas of what you can do when working with an influencer and some of the pillars and best practices for co-creating content and sponsored content.

Finally, Amisha reminds us that customers can be our best influencers, so we should take care of them.

What drives the success of a sales team today? Knowing how to engage the digitally savvy modern buyer. And modern buyers need modern sellers.

While digital marketing is a mature ecosystem with proven processes and practices, digital selling is still evolving. Many sales organizations were reluctant to implement a digital sales transformation until COVID-19 came and forced everyone into remote selling.

Today, digital selling is more important than ever.

In this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, I talked with Ed Terpening, Industry Analyst at Altimeter Group, who recently released the 2020 State of Digital Selling research report. This survey sought to understand the capabilities and key success factors enabling the digital transformation of selling among B2B businesses.

It was based on a survey of 506 sales professionals across North America, Europe, and China, and it offers a comprehensive view of how B2B sales teams are leveraging digital in their sales processes.

Listen to this episode to learn about the key findings of this report and how you can apply that knowledge to your organization.

Ed provided some great insights on the key findings from the report. Here they are:

The customer is the center of experience in any business. Marketing is the front end of customer experience. They then go through sales and then they go through service and customer success.

So it's really important to connect all of those dots between those organizations and think not just about digital marketing but also digital selling and how they work together and then customer success and service.

“All of the teams that touch the customer must have a consistent view,” Ed says. They have to understand what white papers the customers are reading from marketing, what service problems they're having, what kind of value propositions work in the sales process.”

Their research found that those selling teams that had a well aligned Marketing, Sales and Service teams always did better than others that didn't.

According to the report, a sales team with a strong digital culture will accomplish its objectives and perform better, as sellers trust the value of data and the tech tools they use.

“The technology industry really outperformed other industries when it came to digital selling,” Ed says, “because they have a digital culture, they're in this business and they're actually much more effective in this world and achieve higher results. Making that culture mindset shift is so important.”

The seller's mindset needs to really shift and think about engaging digitally through value. 

Automation in sales has been rapidly growing in the past few years, but Altimeter Group’s research found that it underperforms when compared to other high-touch approaches, such as Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Selling, which are more customer-centric.

Cross-functional teams that partner on key accounts are more effective in achieving revenue and customer success goals than sellers who rely on automation.

“This reinforces the fact that it's not just digital, it’s people teaming together and getting the highest results,” Ed says.

Listen to the episode to learn about the three models of selling they tested and which one performs better.

The fourth key finding was that top sales organizations prioritized customer satisfaction above metrics such as sales quota achievement, recognized and addressed the diversity of B2B buying committees and customized sales approaches by industry vertical. 

“Successful companies are focused on the customer,” Ed says. “Digital sellers that were not as mature were focused on things like revenue growth, rather than leveraging existing customers and really optimizing the value from those customers. Instead, they tended to seek out new customers.”

Part of having the right focus is knowing that the modern B2B buyer expects sellers to understand their industry to the point that they become a trusted partner in their own success.

Digital marketing automation is a mature practice, while sales automation is evolving. Ed provided the analogy of left brain versus right brain to talk about this difference between digital marketing and digital selling. 

“Marketing is sort of the left brain, very analytical, very focused on data to make decisions,” Ed says. “Versus the sales team that might be more about the gut feeling, more relationship-based. They're complimentary, of course, but as sales teams become more digitally mature, they rely more on data analytics technology and AI to guide their next moves.”

Sales must undergo a cultural shift to develop trust in sales automation and data, using sales prospecting tools and sales forecasting software, for example.

Altimeter found there was a very strong correlation between mature digital sellers and less mature sellers regarding their success during the pandemic.

Digitally mature teams have the enablement tools, the digital culture, the data, and the leadership alignment to succeed in a remote selling environment.

The pandemic has laid bare the challenges businesses face as they transition, such as finding cross-functional alignment to achieve seamless customer experience, made possible through leadership alignment. 

Ed’s advice to marketing leaders is to get ready to help your sales teams succeed in embracing digital. Marketers should see themselves as partners of the sales team. 

Don’t miss my conversation with Ed and don’t forget to download The 2020 State of Digital Selling.

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Social selling training is a key part of any modern, successful sales force. The team at SAP recognizes this fact and has put together a world-class social selling training program for their sales teams across the globe. The theme of this episode, number four in our series, “Savvy Social Selling, the SAP Way” is Social Selling Training & Enablement. Bernie speaks with SAP team members, Marco Cai - Global Head of Social Enablement & Training, Marco Argaez - Global Channel Marketing Director and Sales Enabler, Charrelle Robinson-Brown - Head of Global e-Learning & Gamification for Social Selling, and Phil Lurie - VP of Sales Technology.

The SAP sales training team recognizes that there are many sales professionals who don’t understand the concept of social selling. As a result, they likely don’t understand how important or how effective social selling has become. For that reason, a training emphasis is placed on the importance of social selling.

At SAP, social selling training is not talked about in a generic way, it’s tied to the specific situations the team members being trained are dealing with. This focus on relevance makes the importance and specific implementation of social selling come alive.

There’s also an emphasis on the facts about the effectiveness of social selling. Trainees are shown how both markets and customers have changed through an ingenious exercise - they are encouraged to look at the way they typically buy, as consumers themselves. When they recognize how technologies like social media influence their own buyer’s journey, they are better able to see how their own sales practices need to change in order to effectively reach and help their customers.

There are many ways that SAPs sales trainers empower and encourage social selling behaviors within the SAP sales teams. First, trainers help trainees understand the goals of social selling. Next, it’s vital that they are taught how to update their own social profiles professionally. Trainees are equipped to develop a professional personal brand, are provided social advocacy tools and are shown how to use search engines to find customers and build their personal networks.

But SAPs social selling training isn’t only focused on salespeople. Managers are trained to understand the proper role of social selling in the overall sales process. They coach their teams to use social selling as an important tool, but not to neglect the traditional social skills and sales approaches that establish and nurture good customer relationships.

Naturally, even among SAPs sales team, the answer to this question depends on the person, their role, and their background in sales. But generally speaking, it takes 3 to 6 months for a person who is entirely new to social selling to learn the right approach and best practices that enable social selling success.

A key ingredient to successful training is that the trainers recognize the different learning approaches that are typical of the generations within the sales force. For example, Millennials often understand social selling and learn it faster, while those from previous generations are more reticent at first, but once they are convinced of the impact social selling can have on their pipeline, they adapt to social selling very well.

It’s also interesting to point out that salespeople who self-initiate social selling training experience a “deeper” learning of the concepts than some who are required to take the training. Self-initiators already recognize the benefits that social selling can provide to their own sales success and are motivated to learn and apply it to their sales approach.

Hear the details of how SAPs sales trainers equip their teams toward success at social selling, on this episode.

• SAP
• Marco Cai on Twitter: @MarcoCaihua
• Marcio Cai on LinkedIn
• Marco Argaez on Twitter: @Marco_Argaez
• Marco Argaez on LinkedIn
• Charrele Brown on Twitter: @charrele
• Carrele Brown on LinkedIn
• Phil Lurie on Twitter: @PMLurie
• Phil Lurie on LinkedIn

• [0:50] How do you convince your sales team of the importance of social selling?
• [6:24] What steps do you take to encourage behavior change toward social selling?
• [9:16] How do you maintain momentum among those trained for social selling?
• [13:28] Taking the beginning social seller to proficiency
• [20:16] Dealing with the resistance to the idea of social selling
• [21:42] How SAP has become one of the top social selling companies in the world

Be sure to download the case study that accompanies the podcast series - Social Business Journal Volume 11. It weaves together the narrative of social selling success factors at SAP. It’s available for download, ungated here.

• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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The global team at SAP has proven to be successful at social selling, and the sales and marketing alignment they’ve achieved is one of the main reasons why. To highlight how SAP aligns sales and marketing company-wide, Bernie is joined on this episode by Dr. Marcell Vollmer, Chief Digital Officer of SAP Ariba - Niels Hoogkamer, Sr., Field Marketing Manager at Concur, an SAP Company - Matthew Iacoviello, Head of Sales Technology & Support for SAP - and Phil Lurie, Vice President of Sales Technology for SAP. Each of these sales leaders speaks from their unique perspective about why sales and marketing alignment is vital for social selling success and how this mindset shift has been such a significant success factor for their marketing and sales teams to be effective at social selling.

Traditionally, sales and marketing have had very different roles, but the advent of social media has blurred the line between the two. Marketing is doing more of the work sales used to do, and through social selling, the sales department is doing some of the work marketing used to do. That means the marketing and sales organizations have to be very closely aligned, providing the same messages to prospects and customers and working together to move sales conversations into the pipeline seamlessly. In this podcast episode , the SAP team shares how they are successfully making that alignment happen.

These sales leaders have also discovered that the technology pieces involved in the marketing and sales process need to be synced so that the alignment of marketing and sales is smooth. This enables the sales team to focus on sales conversations and customer needs. Attention to these details has made sales and marketing alignment an area of strength for SAP. Hear more of how SAP works to keep the two aligned, on this episode of Social Business Engine.

There is a very definite mindset shift required to move from a traditional sales approach to the adoption of social selling. Part of that shift is realizing it’s not an either/or decision, it’s a both/and commitment. The SAP team has worked overtime to educate and enable their sales and marketing teams to make the transition successfully.

Some of the things that have been done to help their team make this mindset shift include:

• Demonstrating how social is simply a new way of interacting with potential customers, as the phone and email have been
• Showcasing the sales successes coming from social selling activities
• Proving to salespeople that their sales results will improve by utilizing social selling practices

In this episode, the SAP team shares many additional steps they’ve taken to encourage this mindset shift - including social platform and best-practices training, social media interaction skills, and cross-pollination of sales approaches through SAP’s “Sales Academy.”

Though many of us can remember life before smartphones, they are an example of how our culture has shifted. Digital is here to stay. Changes of this nature impact the way we do things, including how companies go about evaluating and selecting enterprise software. Today, many aspects of the buyer’s journey are completely different than in years past. Examples are the ways people comparison-shop, search for product, and make final lists of suppliers before they even consider talking with a sales person. It’s no wonder the role of B2B sales must evolve to engage the modern buyer effectively.

SAP has made the switch, utilizing the platforms and technologies that have come to the forefront of the sales process, yet maintaining the personal touch that always has to be present in any successful sales interaction. SAP is an excellent example of a company that’s effectively aligning marketing and sales for social selling success. You can hear how they are doing it, on this episode.

• www.SAP.com
• Dr. Marcell Vollmer on Twitter: @mvollmer1
• Dr. Marcell Vollmer on LinkedIn
• Neils Hoogkamer on LinkedIn
• Matthew Iacoviello on Twitter: @miacoviello
• Matthew Iacoviello on LinkedIn
• Phil Lurie on LinkedIn
• Phil Lurie on Twitter: @PMLurie

• [0:48] How does SAP see sales and marketing alignment as being so important?
• [9:09] What other departments at SAP should be aligned with social selling.
• [12:48] How the SAP team makes the cultural shift that increases social selling and resources customers
• [25:46] The future of work: How the role of sales is evolving in tech companies like SAP

Be sure to download the case study that accompanies the podcast series - Social Business Journal Volume 11. It weaves together the narrative of social selling success factors at SAP. It’s available for download, ungated here.

• Episode 1: Social Selling Impact: Why Managers Encourage Social Selling at SAP
• Episode 2: Social Selling Best Practices at SAP
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Grab your copy of “Savvy Social Selling the SAP Way”
• In Social Business Journal Volume 10, Lithium’s SVP of Marketing Dayle Hall, drops a ton of wisdom around the top 5 most influential topics in B2B marketing.
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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Even the most seasoned technology sales professionals need to develop social selling best practices - but they can take years to develop. That's what makes conversations like this one so powerful. In this episode, Bernie Borges explores the best practices of some of SAP’s most seasoned and successful sales professionals. You'll hear social selling tips from Account Executive Alex Hunter, Gaston Edreira, Business Development Specialist of SAP Hybris, Neil Howarth, also of SAP Hybris, Digital Sales Demand Manager Georgia Rita, and Phil Lurie, VP of Sales Technology.

The tips and success stories these SAP team members share demonstrate what is possible when good social selling practices are consistently applied. Be sure to listen all the way to the end to hear some of their most encouraging social selling successes.

One of the most practical aspects of the conversations featured on this episode is that Bernie asked each of the participants to share their favorite social selling best practices. As they did, a constant theme that rose to the surface was the power of meaningful social engagement, not the amount of content shared on social media. Their stories illustrate how significant it can be to a future sales opportunity for a sales professional to pay attention to the real needs of those they're trying to reach and make themselves an asset.

This example is one of the outstanding tips these five members of the SAP team share on this episode. Their experience along with the success they have attained demonstrates that the SAP approach to social selling is a model any B2B brand can follow.

When it comes to applying the very best practices in social selling, it begins with a mindset that understands the goal is not, first of all, to secure a sales conversation with a buyer. The first level goal is much more personal than that. The SAP sales team understands that there are real people behind each transaction, individuals who have particular interests, desires, and needs.

That perspective is key to being able to truly add value to the person through social by discovering those needs and making an effort to be helpful. It's that kind of genuine interest that sets the stage for the SAP salesperson to propose business solutions to the prospect down the road. The more relevant and the more personal the salesperson can be in attempts to connect with the prospects they want to meet, the more attention they can get. Learn more insights like this from these outstanding sales professionals from the SAP team, on this podcast episode.

Much of what makes the SAP global sales team successful when it comes to social selling is their implementation of these three principles: consistency, relevance, and value. Let's look at each of those in turn.

Consistently sharing great content in the social feeds of a prospect gives that person time to become familiar with the salesperson and the expertise they possess. When that content is relevant to the prospect, it demonstrates that the salesperson has taken the time to learn about them and to take an interest in the things they are concerned about. That sets the salesperson up to add valuein ways that matter to the prospect.

This triune way of approaching social selling has proven to be a hallmark of the SAP team’s success. You can hear these three principles expressed over and over by the five participants in this conversation, in a variety of ways. Take the time to listen and learn. The insights shared on this episode have many anecdotes to back them up - you can learn the principles and see the proof all in one episode.

• SAP
• Alex Hunter on LinkedIn
• Gaston Edreira on LinkedIn
• Neil Howarth on LinkedIn
• Georgia Rita on LinkedIn
• Phil Lurie on LinkedIn

• [0:48] The top two best-practices in social selling from Alex Hunter
• [3:02] Gaston Edreira’s best-practices for social selling
• [5:19] The best practices for social selling Neil Howarth likes most
• [7:00] Social selling best practices from Georgia Rita
• [7:45] The first things SAP teaches new social sellers on the team
• [8:59] Social allows you to find out information and be a resource first
• [10:52] LinkedIn engagement over time: a powerful social selling best practice
• [12:42] Watch for needs prospects have that you can help to meet
• [15:06] The biggest lessons-learned in using social selling strategies

• Ep 1 in this series: Social Selling Impact! Why Managers Should Encourage Social Selling
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Google Alerts
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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Subscribe to Social Business Engine

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The sales world is changing, and social selling is becoming a powerful tool in today's sales toolbox. This episode of Social Business Engine introduces a multi-part series of podcast episodes we have entitled “Up Close: Savvy Social Selling the SAP Way: Best Practices that Win Customers.” This series of interviews will bring you the insights from some of SAPs most successful leaders and brightest minds.

In this episode, you’ll learn about the role managers play in encouraging social selling among their teams. Featured in this episode are  insights from Marc Havercroft, COO/VP of SAP Success Factors - Enrico Palumbo, HR Director and Member of the Management Board of SAP Switzerland - Shailendra Kumar, Vice President, Chief Evangelist - and Phil Lurie, VP Sales Technology, SAP.

Be sure to download the case study that accompanies the podcast series - Social Business Journal Volume 11. It weaves together the narrative of social selling success factors at SAP. It’s available for download, ungated in the resources below.

The digital age has created many benefits for the consumer, like providing the ability to research and even try out products before they ever talk to a salesperson. That means the traditional approach to sales doesn't work in quite the way it used to. Social selling is the answer to these changes because it enables salespeople to become a trusted resource to potential buyers long before the buyer is willing to make a personal connection with them.

Sales organizations must shift their mindset to implement social selling as a consistent practice. This episode draws out the best practices of leaders from SAP regarding how they train their teams in social selling, how they keep the momentum going after the training, and how they empower and equip them to engage in ways that are genuinely beneficial to potential customers.

This episode highlights four different leaders from the SAP team and their responses to some questions relating to social selling. When asked how they are helping their teams make the shift from analog thinking to digital thinking, these were the points they shared:

Mark Havercroft says he encourages his team to look at the world around them from the perspective of the individuals they want to serve as customers. They need to observe how people engage with the digital world around them and even use their personal consumer journey in the digital world to reflect on what they can do to become a resource to others. The goal is for the salesperson to become part of a network of trusted advisors in advance of the transaction, via social media.

Enrico Palumbo explains that he begins the cultural shift the first day of training with new team members. He helps them understand how the things they post and recommend on social media are a reflection of the company. He desires to help them fine-tune their messaging and sharing practices to improve their personal brand and promote the company in a positive light.

Shailendra Kumar encourages his team members to spend more time on social media, getting used to the platforms and practices so that they can directly communicate with buyers. He says that little things like paying attention to birthdays help his salespeople connect with clients in an informal way that creates a mindset shift in the client and the team member.

Phil Lurie views the final goal of social selling to be the same that it has always been in sales - to become a trusted advisor to future customers. But social offers a distinct advantage: it enables his team to use social media to listen to the things potential customers are concerned about so that they can then position their personal brand as an expert who can answer their concerns. They do that through sharing articles and resources relating to those areas of concern. He says that when team members can learn how to combine effective social listening with helpful resources and messaging, they have found a winning combination.

One of the most important concepts shared on this episode centers around the reality that digital selling is a new and level playing field for everyone. So everyone has the opportunity to shape their position and message on social media to meet the needs of their particular market. But the end goal is not just to sell products; it's to help the buyer make a decision that achieves the outcome they're looking for. Keeping that in mind enables the salesperson to become the expert resource customers are looking for.

Make sure to set aside some time to listen to this episode. It is filled with great insights from some of the best leaders in modern sales.

• Michael Labate on LinkedIn
• Marc Havercroft on LinkedIn
• Enrico Palumbo on LinkedIn
• Shailendra Kumar on LinkedIn
• Phil Lurie on LinkedIn

• [0:12] Bernie’s introduction to this series of interviews, sponsored by SAP
• [1:43] Why Social Selling is so important for the team at SAP
• [4:15] Mark Havercroft: Sales professionals need to view their own consumer journey in the digital world
• [5:47] What the SAP team hears back from customers about their social sales journey
• [7:17] Enrico Palumbo: Making new team members ambassadors of SAP - in real life and on social
• [10:45] The goal in digital sales is the same as it has always been in sales
• [13:27] Transforming mindsets via the “digital dancefloor” approach
• [19:20] Some of the best ways to maintain momentum after social selling training
• [25:30] Mentoring and reverse mentoring approaches to help the shift happen

• Grab your copy of “Savvy Social Selling the SAP Way”
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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Every brand strategy is about gaining attention for the company, but it has to be done in a way that does more than simply talk about what the company is doing. It’s got to engage with real people over issues they truly care about. In other words, it needs to have a relational element to it. That’s exactly what Merck is doing with their highly effective approach.

On this episode, Bernie talks with John Graham, Social & Digital Strategy Lead: Global Talent Acquisition at Merck. You’ll hear how Merck, the global pharmaceutical giant is empowering employees to build their personal brands as part of Merck’s strategy to attract talent. The employees provide the "real life" component of what Merck is sharing on social which naturally attracts like-minded, competent candidates to the open positions available. Learn more on this episode.

It's very common for large companies to hone in on the qualifications and experience of job candidates when trying to fill open positions. But John Graham says even though that is a very important part of the equation, it is still only one part. To neglect the rest of the things that make a person a great fit for the company culture as well as the specific job description is missing things that are vital to company culture and health.

In this conversation, John describes how the brand strategy Merck is using centers around the human elements of what it means to be an enthusiastic and integral part of a team. They not only want the talent they are pursuing to see them as a leader in the pharmaceutical industry, they also want them to feel that Merck is a great place to belong. You will hear John's description of how a Pharma giant is applying its brand strategy through an employee branding approach, on this episode of Social Business Engine.

John has found that his role of locating and recruiting global talent for Merck has required a different sort of approach than corporations typically take. He's come to the realization that the search for talent has shifted to social media. Under his leadership, Merck is making the pivot that enables them to make the most of that trend.

In this conversation, you’ll hear details of the amazing and unusual content strategy Merck has implemented. It uses the stories of their own employees as content pieces that engage with and attract outstanding, talented people to the company. Rather than a cold, "about us page" these stories expose candidates to the culture, values, and purpose of the company in powerful ways. As John is fond of saying, they’re not fighting the war for talent, they’re fighting the war for attention - and Merck’s new brand strategy is securing both. It's a very insightful approach to social media that few corporations the size of Merck understand, much less know how to implement. John's insights will be valuable to your company, so please take the time to listen.

ROI, as it has traditionally been understood, is about the amount of return that comes from the time, energy, and money invested in a particular approach. John says the same approach holds true in the content marketing strategy Merck is implementing, but it's a different ROI. What he is measuring doesn't have to do with dollars and cents, it has to do with relationships. For John, ROI = relationships on investment.

In this episode, you will hear how the Merck team spent over a year planning out and testing their employer brand strategy to highlight open positions, why they decided to use employee stories, and how the team has learned to track engagement from the first social media post all the way to the final interview and hire. As companies like Merck lead the way with this kind of strategy, the talent acquisition landscape is changing for the better. You won’t want to miss this episode.

• John Graham on LinkedIn
• John on Twitter @InstaGraham1906
• John on Instagram @InstaGraham1906
• Merck on Facebook
• Merck Pharmaceuticals Career Page
• Merck’s Beyond the Job Description

• [1:54] Who is John Graham? His role with Merck over social and recruiting
• [3:46] The demand every company has for good talent and how Merck is approaching it
• [5:42] A content strategy to “sell” jobs - what it looks like at Merck
• [8:50] The challenges of a content strategy implemented across the globe
• [13:09] Sourcing stories from employees to include in corporate content strategy
• [16:11] The new ROI: Relationships On Investment
• [18:34] Trends seen in the campaign: from first share to final hire
• [20:36] How John sees the program shifting as it moves forward: snackable & visual
• [29:15] The importance of testing the content marketing strategy prior to launching the employer brand strategy

• LinkedIn Elevate
• In Social Business Journal Volume 10, Lithium’s SVP of Marketing Dayle Hall, drops a ton of wisdom around the top 5 most influential topics in B2B marketing.
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernieborges/
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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This episode is sponsored by Lithium Technologies.

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Every business, large or small could use brand advocates - those customers who trumpet the businesses praise and express their delightful experiences with the company to others. But it’s also vital that a company’s leadership learn to nurture that same attitude among its employees. The benefits of building that kind of culture among a working team can be incredible.

On this episode of Social Business Engine Bernie chats with Andy Malinoski, Manager of Corporation Communications and Government Relations at Frontier Communications. He shares how Frontier Communications, a U.S. provider of residential and commercial broadband, video voice, wireless internet data access and bundled service offerings, is empowering employees to be brand ambassadors in the face of 4 unique types of business challenges.

The value of an ecstatic customer can’t be underestimated. Those are the people who make the business because they happily tell their family and friends about the great experience and feeling they have from dealing with the company. Take that thought and apply it to the interaction customers have with front-line employees of the company and you can easily see why those team members need to be brand advocates par excellence.

What are you doing to help your customer facing employees deal with customer issues and complaints effectively and in a way that delights your customers in spite of the problem? On this episode, Andy Malinoski describes how the Frontier Communications team is equipped with the information needed to answer customer questions, head off problems before they escalate, and disseminate answers to common questions via social media - all for the sake of creating the happy, loyal customers every business wants and needs. You can learn some valuable approaches to fostering an advocate mindset in your team members by hearing what he has to share.

Many times when things go wrong with a company’s services or systems, the biggest problem both customers and the business in question have is communication. Here’s the reality: Customers are usually OK with temporary glitches or outages in service because they know technology is not foolproof. But they need to know what’s going on in order to maintain that calm demeanor.

In this conversation, Bernie and his guest, andy Malinoski of Frontier communications discuss some of the ways the leadership at Frontier has worked to engage employees as part of the response team to system outages or issues. The company has dedicated employees who provide social media content for everyone to use to inform their customers, clear the air, and help everyone rest easy. Think about what the Frontier team does in light of your industry. What can your company do to engage employees as brand advocates? As you listen to the ways Frontier has done it you’ll probably come up with ideas of your own.

When it comes to building an all-star team of employees, from the C-suite all the way to the entry-level position, it’s powerful to remember that high quality people usually run with high quality people. That means equipping your employees to be recruiters on your behalf can enable you to find the people you’re looking for, faster.

This conversation with Andy Malinoski highlights the approach the Frontier Communications team takes to recruiting, particularly as it relates to making existing team members advocates for the company as they relate to those in their networks. Andy explains how all-star teams can be built by making connections through existing employees, so be sure you take the time to listen, learn, and apply what the Frontier team has modeled so well.

• Andy on LinkedIn
• Andy on Twitter
• Frontier Communications

• [1:59] Andy’s role is to favorably connect those in media, politics, etc. with his company
• [3:54] Operational challenges that impact customers are a great opportunity for employee advocacy
• [6:50] Systems the Frontier team uses to communicate to employees about issues needing social media advocacy
• [9:50] Partnerships with other companies to empower customers to be more successful and effective
• [13:19] Creating the tools employees need to educate themselves to meet customer needs and truly be advocates
• [16:38] How and what Frontier is curating for employees to share as brand advocates
• [18:35] Recruiting challenges and how employee advocacy helps find quality people

• In Social Business Journal Volume 10, Lithium’s SVP of Marketing Dayle Hall, drops a ton of wisdom around the top 5 most influential topics in B2B marketing.
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Vengreso CEO, Mario Martinez, Jr

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.facebook.com/bernie.borges
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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***************************

This episode is sponsored by Lithium Technologies.

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The typical MQL (marketing qualified lead) approach to measuring KPIs is fading out. What’s the new approach that’s replacing it? An account-based approach that considered the data that shows people’s propensity to buy.

On this episode, Bernie chats with Diana Eadington Reed, Director of the North America Small & Medium Business (SMB) marketing team for Oracle Cloud. Her team helps high-growth small and medium-sized companies leverage their infrastructure to innovate faster, get to market first, meet customer expectations, and keep costs in line with revenue.

Diana has a front-row seat to the changes that propensity to buy data is enabling in the marketing world. Her lessons-learned, which she shares on this episode, are valuable for any marketing professional to learn from for themselves.

Every business is eager for its marketing department to do its job well - by supplying what we call “marketing qualified leads” (MQL). Diana says that several years ago the sales world would typically look at the volume of MQLs that marketing provided to the sales department as a primary metric of how the marketing department was doing. But that’s all changed.

Diana says her team has come to realize that not all leads are created equal and therefore not all marketing qualified leads are created equal. Some leads are likely coming to you via your website. Those are people who are expressing a greater interest in your solutions and are therefore of greater value as prospects for the sales team. But you may also receive leads through a download of one of your whitepapers from a 3rd party website (for example). Those are qualified leads, to be sure, but are not as ready to buy as the previous example.

In this conversation Diana explains how her team is transitioning from the typical MQL model to a more account-based model based on people’s propensity to buy. It’s a fascinating pivot and a very helpful conversation. Be sure you listen.

The new approach Diana and the marketing team at Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure Solutions are taking is learning that there’s a big difference between what they call a “core lead” and a “non-core lead.” She says their focus now is to try to increase the volume of core leads because they’ve been proven to be bigger contributors to their business success. It’s not that they abandon the non-core leads - they still need to keep the sales funnel full - but they have discovered that there are only a limited number of prospects in their market at any given time who truly ready for a sales conversation.

Diana says it's helpful to think of the approach they are taking along the lines of the 80/20 rule. In a best-case scenario, they believe they can drive 20% of their leads through “core” activity and 80% of their leads through the more broad-scale sources. This is just one example of the insights marketing receives by looking at the propensity to buy data now available to marketers. Diana’s experience in this new approach is valuable for anyone in marketing in sales, so do what you can to make time for this episode.

The advances in data-based technology over the past few years has opened all kinds of doors for marketers that simply didn’t exist even 5 years ago. Marketing professionals can now access intent-based data - also known as predictive data - that enables them to identify certain keyword-based behaviors of people online. Through that data, they can look at the digital behavior of their target market and match themselves with the behaviors that parallel the solutions they are offering.

It goes even further, companies can now use their customer profile, or even company lists that they want to get to know and engage with to identify whether there are people within those lists who are showing digital activity, based on their keyword search behavior, that matches their solution. From that, the marketing department can serve more relevant campaigns to them or do digital retargeting to try to reach those individuals.

Fascinating. And compelling. Take the time to learn how Diana’s team is making it happen - and about the results they are getting.

Diana Eadington Reed says that if you talk to any salesperson, they are not interested in selling a product to an MQL (marketing qualified lead). They're interested to own an account. So, if they want to win 10 new accounts in the coming half or the fiscal year, they're going to be looking at it from an account perspective, not at the MQL perspective. That means if marketing pivots to an account-based strategy (as she’s suggesting through the use of propensity to buy data), it requires marketing to align itself with sales in order to understand who's on that target account list for the year or the upcoming quarter - and who are the most important accounts that sales wants to open the door to. That's how marketing can work hand-in-hand with sales to build engagement and open that door for a conversation with the sales organization.

As you can see, simply by the nature of this propensity to buy model, marketing is better aligned with sales, which drives a more effective and streamlined process. Near the end of this conversation, Diana gives a real-life example of a vendor who helped the Oracle team put together a successful campaign that proves the power of these intent to buy strategies. Listen to what Diana has to share. It is the future of marketing and sales - and the alignment that has to happen to be truly successful.

• Diana Eadington Reed on LinkedIn
• Diana on Twitter
• Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Solutions

• [0:31] Who is Diana Eadington Reed?
• [2:53] Diana’s role at Oracle: to drive demand for Oracle’s cloud-based solutions
• [4:19] The success Diana has been experiencing with traditional inbound marketing
• [9:21] How the Oracle marketing team came to consider “propensity to buy” data
• [14:37] Adapting this new propensity to buy data model to a high volume environment
• [17:10] The technologies that enable this intent to buy approach
• [19:43] How these new technologies help align sales and marketing on a human level
• [22:04] A campaign example that has been a huge success
• [24:45] Diana’s thoughts about the future of this new account-based strategy
• [34:25] Bernie’s biggest takeaway from this episode: propensity to buy data is a powerful way to discover leads that are truly ready for a sales conversation - and the biggest winner is the customer

• Register for Frost and Sullivan’s upcoming Sales Team Alpine Retreat
• Episode 193 with Barbara Giamanco
• Bernie’s episode with Scott Brinker
• MRP Prolytics
• The Selling With Social Podcast with Mario Martinez, Jr.

• https://www.facebook.com/socialbusinessengine/
• https://www.facebook.com/bernie.borges
• https://twitter.com/bernieborges
• https://twitter.com/sbengine

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If you don’t know Barbara Giacomo, she is CEO of Social Centered Selling and globally recognized as a sales leader. She’s the co-author of The New Handshake: Sales Meets Social Media.

Barb is a popular keynote speaker, sales and social media strategist and she is also the host of the popular Razor's Edge podcast, which you’ll hear more about it in this episode. Barb is consistently a Top 25 Influential Leader in Sales, a Top 25 Sales Influencer on Twitter, one of the Top Sales World’s Top 50 Sales and Marketing Influencers and she’s recognized as one of the world's Top 65 Women Business Influencers alongside leaders like Arianna Huffington, Sheryl Sandberg, and Melinda Gates. That’s pretty impressive! Join Bernie and Barbara for a great conversation about how to better align marketing and sales within your organization.

Social media was just starting to develop when Barbara Giamanco retired from Microsoft to start her own business. From that day until today she’s had a passion for people and a passion for technology. Combine that with her love of sales and marketing and you’ll understand why she began experimenting with the early social media tools.

At that time they were clunky - Facebook didn’t exist yet and blogs were typically terrible, but the very next year, Barbara joined LinkedIn and began to feel like there would be more transformation of sales and marketing ahead. She’s come to see that with the rapid pace of changing technologies, if you’re not evolving, you’re dying.

Barbara is one of those individuals who gets sales and marketing but also gets the technology side of things. This conversation is an amazing look at some of the ways sales and marketing can become better aligned, for the success of individuals, the benefit of customers, and the profitability of companies.

In the world we live in today, we have marketing technology at our disposal that enables more potential for alignment between marketing and sales than ever before. Barbara Giamanco says that technology is so much more advanced than it used to be, creating the foundation for a strong sales and marketing strategy. But she’s also aware that sometimes there's an over-reliance on technology to solve the entire problem of misalignment between the sales department and the marketing department.

Not all challenges related to sales and marketing, and certainly not everything having to do with the alignment of those two can be solved by technology alone. It's obviously got to be there but there are other things that are important to make the alignment work. In this conversation, Barbara and Bernie discuss how the C-suite can bring about a greater alignment between marketing and sales, and how a more intentional focus on customer experience can turn the tide. Don’t miss it.

Oftentimes the sales and marketing departments begin to gain some traction but discover that the CEO or other C-suite leaders have not fully bought into the initiative, they really aren’t driving it as they need to be. In that situation, maybe you'll get somewhere, maybe you won't.

But the fact of the matter is this: Sales and marketing alignment starts at the top with a focus on delivering on customer experience. In the end, that means better alignment throughout all the departments not just sales and marketing.

If you are C-suite leader in your company, Barbara and Bernie discuss issues directly related to the role you play in not only aligning marketing and sales for greater productivity but also building a healthier, more vibrant culture that will drive the company forward long term. Don’t miss this great conversation.

Sponsor: Lithium Technologies helps brands navigate the sometimes overwhelming world of social media marketing and management, social customer service, online communities and social analytics. A leader in the space, they're guiding brands to build trust with their clients while delivering top-notch customer experiences. Dayle leads the charge at Lithium Technologies on all strategic marketing initiatives.

• Social Centered Selling - Barbara’s company
• Barbara Giamanco - Barbara’s personal website
• Barbara’s book: The New Handshake: Selling Meets Social Media
• • Barbara on LinkedIn
  • Barbara on Twitter
  • Barbara on Facebook
  • Barbara on Google +
• The Razor’s Edge Podcast - Barbara’s great show
• • Episode with Gavriella Schuster
  • Episode with Lindsay Zwart
• Selling with Social Podcast, with Mario Martinez, Jr.

• [0:31] Barbara Giamco, CEO of Social Centered Selling, Bernie’s guest on this show
• [2:21] How Barbara actively works within the ongoing transformation of sales
• [10:26] What is the role of the C-suite in enabling marketing and sales to align?
• [12:09] Content is vital to sales, which is one reason marketing has to be at the table
• [20:32] How advances in technology provide an opportunity about how to help sales professionals improve their sales skills
• [26:50] Bernie’s summary of the conversation: Key takeaways
• [31:30] Barbara’s final advice about how to view the customer experience - and how sales and marketing working together can make it happen

• Microsoft
• www.Vengreso.com

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• https://www.facebook.com/bernie.borges
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This episode is sponsored by Lithium Technologies.

The Journey to Social Media Innovation and Influence with Mike Stelzner

This episode is an intriguing conversation about social media innovation - what it is and what it takes to truly do it in an increasingly crowded social media space - with none other than Mike Stelzner.

If you don’t know Mike Stelzner, he’s a big name in the social media industry.

Mike is the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner which is the world’s largest social media marketing resource. The website publishes rich, how-to articles daily and has reached more than 60 million people globally. More than 450,000 people are subscribed to Social Media Examiner’s email list.

One of the SME resources many people know and love is their Social Media Marketing Industry report. It’s published annually and is the longest-running study on how marketers use social media that exists.

The Social Media Examiner team also puts on Social Media Marketing World, an annual conference which is now in its 6th year. Bernie has had the honor of speaking at the last 3 SMMW conferences and is speaking again at SMMW 2018. In this episode, you’ll get all the details about how you can attend - February 28 through March 2nd, 2018 - in San Diego, CA.

And, speaking of social media innovation, Mike is going to describe his newest innovative social media venture - an episodic, real-life video documentary called “The Journey.”

Being a selling or marketing professional, you’ve got to be aware that video has taken on a life of its own in 2017. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook - now even LinkedIn is getting in on the act of providing on-demand video tools for users. What does that mean for you as a marketer? You’ve got to learn how to effectively use these incredible new tools that are available.

In this conversation, Mike Stelzner describes how “edutainment” in the form of video can be one of the most innovative and effective ways to use social media. He’s doing it himself by producing a “reality” video series he’s titled “The Journey” and is seeing amazing watch numbers increase right before his eyes.

Find out exactly what Mike’s doing, how he’s doing it, and why he’s doing it - and how his example can serve as a template for becoming more innovative in your social media marketing efforts, on this episode of Social Business Engine.

Mike’s new video show, “The Journey” is a chronicle of his entrepreneurial path. It walks through the real-life, daily issues he faces as a business owner and leader of the amazing team at Social Media Examiner. From hiring and firing contractors, working through strategy and vision, to planning amazing events like Social Media Marketing World, the show documents what it’s really like to lead a successful business.

In his conversation with Bernie on this episode, Mike highlights why he thought the show would be a good way to market SME as a company via social media and explains why marketers need to begin adopting the new video tools available while there’s still time to be on the cutting edge. Mike’s a great example of a person who takes risks for the sake of leading the industry forward. After hearing this conversation (and seeing his new show) you’ll agree, so be sure you listen - and check out “The Journey.”

Steve Paul, Vice President of Sales and Commercial Operations at Breg is the featured guest on episode 191. Breg is a manufacturer of sports rehabilitation products and solutions. Steve is responsible for a global team that drives customer acquisition and retention. My conversation with Steve is focused on a business challenge that all businesses face – winning and keeping customers for long-term sustainable value. We all want to win and retain customers. On this episode, Steve explains how the customer segmentation and customer mapping process have enabled Breg to increase from 50% to 70% of customers being on a retained solution program.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/winning-keeping-customers-long-term-sustainable-value

The year 2020 has brought a lot of pain and confusion due to the pandemic, but also many opportunities for companies to show compassion and generosity. And that willingness to help others can sometimes reap rewards in the marketplace.

That’s exactly the story my guest in this episode of the Modern Marketing Engine, Adriel Sanchez, CMO at Newsela shares.

Newsela provides instructional content to K-12 schools in the United States, serving 35 million children. 

What do they do exactly? They take content from reliable sources around the web and incorporate changes to make it ready for the classroom.

First, they rewrite every piece of content at 5 different reading levels, so in a single class every student can access the content at their own reading level. Then, they surround content with instructional support for teachers, so it would be easy for them to embed the content into their lessons. And finally, Newsela attaches the content to individual grade standards by state (over 130K in the US), through machine learning, algorithms and human intervention.

Newsela is both business-driven (they are a for-profit company) and mission-driven (making education better for as many teachers and students as possible).

This podcast is brought to you by Postal.io. A Sales and marketing engagement platform that generates leads increases sales and improves customer retention. Request a demo to learn how to integrate direct mail and gift into your existing strategy by visiting Postal.io.

Newsela went from one to four products in January, 2020, with great plans of expansion. Then the pandemic hit in mid-March and education was one of the hardest-hit sectors. Most schools around the US closed.

Many teachers and students were unprepared for the shift to remote learning, with some school districts panicking over what to do, as they lacked the resources to implement remote education.

Although Newsela has four stakeholders (Education Administrators, Students and Teachers, Investors, and Newsela employees), they could not serve the immediate interests of all four at the same time during the COVID lockdowns. 

Adriel says they decided to do the right thing for the schools above the business needs. So they provided their entire product portfolio for free to students and teachers. No conditions, no questions asked. All schools had to do was ask for it.

How did they implement the plan? They came up with three phases to their response to the crisis.

1. Provide the product for free and get the word out.

This phase included a message from the CEO and social media outreach. Word got out quickly and in the first 7 days 15,000 schools signed up. At the end of the program, two thirds of US schools (about 90,000) had signed up for some component of Newsela.

1. Make sure the product was adopted.

Adriel says that it wasn’t enough to give away the product. They needed to make sure people were using the platform and getting value. 

During March and April of 2020, virtual classes were new to teachers. So Newsela deployed training 7 days a week and had 1 to 1 coaching for teachers and administrators. A lot of people were exposed to Newsela’s team and people really appreciated the support they provided.

If they provided that kind of support for non paying customers, how would it be if they paid? This focus on customer service paved the way for future sales conversations.

1. Start sales conversations.

By June 2020, Newsela was preparing to turn some of those free users into paid subscribers.

The fact that they had given the product for free, no matter if the schools were open or closed, gave them trust and credibility with their customer base. People really felt supported.

“Timing was very important,” Adriel says. “Start too early and you could be perceived as exploitive. Start too late and you could miss out on budget allocations elsewhere, competitors and other priorities.”

Sellers had to be situationally aware when they started those sales conversations. So the marketing team at Newsela identified 10 criteria to start sales conversations, analyzing macro and micro leading indicators, state by state. Here are some examples of the indicators they used.

Macro leading indicators

• Had states released a budget?
• Were schools closed or still open for in-person sessions?
• How much did states receive from the Federal education budget?

Micro leading indicators

• Had administrators asked about pricing after June 30th when the free period was over?
• Was there a renewal scenario?

All the information was tracked in the system for sales. Sellers were able to track it state by state and account by account, looking for patterns on a weekly basis.

Adriel says the effort was a collaboration between marketing, sales and product. “It was a Marketing-led initiative, who owned market intelligence (stimulus funding, budgets, etc.). But sales ops helped to rollout, track, and adjust as they learned things in the field.”

The CRM tracked two basic metrics:

• Rate of account contact (were schools taking the calls from the sellers?)
• All Systems Go metric (was the account ready for a sales conversation based on the macro and micro criteria?)

Sellers would look for patterns by state in the CRM to see if they were open and ready, so they could be more upfront with their sales conversations.

Although 70% of education companies offered something free during the first few months of the pandemic, only 25% saw an increase in paid subscribers. Newsela was part of that 25% and growth surpassed their expectations, reaching their 2020 revenue goal in August 2020.

They started with the idea of what is the right thing to do for their customers and the hypothesis that the marketplace would reward them for that, was validated.

They now have sales conversations with entire states and school districts that they never had in the past.

Listen to this episode to hear more about Newsela’s story and how showing that you care can result in increased revenue.

Dr. Marcell Vollmer, Chief Digital Officer at SAP Ariba, is the featured guest for episode 190. I met Marcell when he contributed to a five-episode podcast series publishing here soon that features social selling practices at SAP. On this episode, Marcell delivers fascinating insights into digital transformation strategies, particularly in the strategic role of procurement in a business. My conversation with Dr. Marcell Vollmer will open your eyes, as it did mine, in understanding why the procurement function in business is a front-runner in digital transformation to make any business future ready. Listen to the episode to understand why he says, "Uber yourself before you become Kodak."

View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/procurement-front-runner-digital-transformation

Abhishek Shanbhag is Practice Head - Solutions and the Co-Founder of Acuvate, a leader in building and deploying business productivity solutions that leverage AI, data, and analytics to allow employees to work more productively. Abhishek has consulted with clients globally to provide solutions on technologies such as SharePoint, Office 365, and Azure. He has worked with clients across multiple industry domains.

His current focus is artificial intelligence, chatbots, and machine learning, and their applications in the enterprise. Abhishek heads the solutions department, and his team is responsible for research of enterprise bots. This episode is a continuation of the topic of AI-powered conversations. Tune in to explore how chatbots can be developed and deployed in the enterprise.

View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/chatbots-make-life-easier-marketing-sales-employees

Alex Terry, CEO of Conversica is an accomplished and award-winning Internet business veteran with a strong track record of driving results and growth. Conversica, an award-winning SaaS software company, was recently named 2017 Best in Biz Enterprise Product of the Year in the sales software category. This award recognizes how Conversica’s AI-powered sales assistant is revolutionizing how businesses connect with their prospects and customers at scale. Listen to episode 188 to hear more about how Conversica's conversational AI product works at scale.

Brian Shultz is Vice President of Sales & Marketing at ABB, a pioneering tech company that is over 100 years old. Their biggest competitors are GE and Siemens. The two main elements of ABB are electricity and process automation, where Brian's role resides. He leads his teams to optimize business while delivering a premium experience for ABB’s customers and partners. In this podcast episode, we discuss what it takes to deploy a modern CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. The insights Brian provides may change the way you think about CRM systems regarding their value to a business.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/deploying-integrating-modern-crm-system

Anthony Kennada is a B2C marketer trapped in a B2B body. He is CMO of Gainsight and has been with the company since inception. Anthony has a bit of an unconventional marketing background that you'll learn about in the podcast. Marketing was something he hadn't done before starting with Gainsight. On this episode, you’ll discover how Anthony applies a B2C mindset to B2B brand marketing with exceptional results to show for it.

View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/b2b-brand-marketing-drive-growth

Karin Aviles is Senior Manager of Demand Generation & Field Marketing at Direct Energy Business. Previously, she was with Verizon for nine years. In this podcast episode, Karin explains how she's applying everything she learned at Verizon, into her role at Direct Energy Business where she's currently rolling out an employee engagement program.

Direct Energy Business is part of the parent company Centrica Business Solutions, a large power company with four million customers in the United States. Karin leads demand generation and field marketing for North America. Listen to this episode to learn about the incredible success of the program at Verizon and the lessons she learned and is now applying at Direct Energy Business.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/top-down-approach-employee-engagement

Glenn Donovan, Director of Clients at GaggleAMP is the featured guest on episode 184. Glenn and I have a conversation about a topic we are both passionate about, and that’s how the modern buyer needs a modern seller.

Without a modern seller, there’s a disconnect, and, that’s a bad experience for the modern buyer. As you can guess, it’s also a bad situation for the seller too–there won’t be a lot of selling success if he or she isn’t engaging with the modern buyer the way he or she wants to engage.

GaggleAMP is a social media engagement and reach amplification platform that enables brands to get their employees engaged on digital. As Director of Clients, Glenn looks after sales and customer success activities for the entire lifecycle. In his role, it’s very apparent that the modern buyer needs a modern seller. Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by that.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/modern-buyer-needs-modern-seller/

Jorge Solorio is the Industrial Americas Business Manager at Lubrizol Advanced Materials where he is responsible for marketing and sales for their Corzan product line. On this episode, Jorge explains how he led a strategic initiative to launch an online destination centered on one dedicated product within a large company. He also discusses how he is achieving alignment between sales and marketing with the results to prove it.

Lubrizol is a large chemical company that started in 1928. Corzan is their chlorinated polyvinyl chloride or CPVC product. Jorge said it's similar to the PVC you'd buy from a home-improvement retailer, only it's post-chlorinated and can be used with higher temperatures. Listen to this episode to discover how Jorge launched a dedicated website for Corzan and hear about the results they're enjoying.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/global-sales-marketing-team-alignment-strategy

The featured guest on episode 182 is Daniel Burrus. Daniel is recognized as one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and innovation experts. You can tap into his insights by listening to this episode. Another way to absorb his futurist ideas is by reading his seventh and latest book, The Anticipatory Organization.

On this episode, Daniel explains why he wrote his newest book, who it's for, and why brands need to be anticipatory rather than reacting once there's already a problem.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/anticipatory-organization-daniel-burrus

Mike Volpe is the Chief Marketing Officer at Cybereason. I’ve had the privilege of knowing Mike for about ten years, and I consider him to be one of the brightest marketing minds. He combines inbound content, SEO, video, podcast and traditional marketing with account based marketing strategies to support the sales efforts at his current company, Cybereason.

Mike is a very hands-on marketing executive. As a member of the founding team and CMO at HubSpot, he drove their growth from zero to 1,000 employees and 15,000 plus customers, as well as a successful IPO. Mike is also an angel investor, advisor, or board member at more than 25 companies, primarily software startups in Boston. On this episode, we discuss how Cybereason's marketing and sales teams work together leveraging an integrated approach. We even talk a little bit about some offline marketing tactics that you don’t hear a lot about in today’s digital marketing landscape.

View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/marketing-cyber-security-software-through-account-based-marketing

Sales messaging is a vital part of a sales reps’ daily work. It’s how they engage with prospects and it can make a big difference in their results. While the perfect sales message will connect and engage the buyer (eventually leading to a sale), a weak sales message will just be ignored, or worse, will damage the reputation of your company.

In this article and episode of the Modern Marketing Engine podcast, my guest, Mario Martinez Jr., CEO and Founder at Vengreso, discusses what marketing and sales leaders need to know about sales messaging and some actionable tips you can start implementing today. Plus, he announced a new tool Vengreso created to help your sales team deploy a consistent message throughout your sales organization.

Now, it is self-evident that sales messaging is crucial for sellers, but why is sales messaging important for marketers?

Mario says that marketers should be supporting the sales team with all of the right messaging, from the Go-To-Market messaging to the messaging to engage with buyers, including messages for social media and sales enablement content such as playbooks, sales cadences, case studies, ebooks, blogs and the like.

At the end of the day, there is just one type of messaging: messaging designed to attract your buyer, not sales or marketing messaging.

Today, the modern marketer is more integrated in the sales ecosystem than EVER before, so it’s imperative that marketers have a defined sales messaging strategy.

Automation in sales and B2B marketing has made life easier for our teams in many regards. But it also has reduced a lot of the personal touch we used to have in sales messaging.

That’s why at Vengreso, we teach our sellers to leverage personalization and hyper personalization in all their sales messages. In fact, we created a sales methodology with the foundation of hyper-personalization. It’s called the PVC method, which stands for Personalization, Value, and Call to Action.

The PVC Sales Methodology focuses on prospecting, from the “pre-hello” to the “hello.” The purpose of this methodology is to help salespeople who are having a hard time connecting with potential customers, create more conversations with their targeted buyers. 

And the best thing is that the PVC sales methodology can be used in inbound or outbound sales, when writing an email, a text message, a LinkedIn message, or making a phone call or video conference via Zoom. No matter the medium, every effective sales messaging strategy needs to be personalized, valuable and contain the appropriate call to action for the situation.

“Sales messaging should be structured around PVC to attract our buyers, not detract or distract them,” Mario says. “Never before has the buyer been so digitally connected, socially engaged, mobile-attached, and video hungry. And salespeople must be as well, becoming video producers to create engaging video messages.”

Mario says that in the new normal, sellers will be remote 60% of the time. In fact, according to

Gartner’s Future of Sales research, by 2025 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. Why? Because 33% of all buyers desire a seller-free sales experience (44% for millennials).

There is no going back to a sales rep that is 100% of the time in the field. That’s why we must teach sellers social selling skills, including how to personalize their messaging, bring value and add the right CTAs to their sales messages.

At Vengreso, we offer virtual sales training programs in modern selling skills, such as Selling with Video, Selling with LinkedIn and more.

Now, let’s look at the PVC components in more detail.

Let’s talk about each of the components of your sales messaging framework:

P – Personalization

V – Value

C – Call-to-Action

Personalization is more than just using the prospect’s first name. If possible, sellers should take the time to research the prospect’s social networks and find shared experiences or recent events or news related to the prospect’s company that they can mention in the sales prospecting message.

When creating a sales messaging strategy (whether cold calling scripts or video messages) make sure the sales message brings value to the conversation. Adding value may sound like a cliche, but we must realize that each buyer has an individual business pain, and if our messaging speaks to that particular pain, we’ll have a greater chance of getting through.

So, how do you bring value? With content that helps solve their problems, especially related to the solution you are selling. It can be a webinar, a report or a relevant blog article. Provide value instead of just asking for a meeting.

Instead of asking for a meeting, add a call to action that keeps the sales conversation going, such as asking a question for them to respond or inviting them to an event.

What’s the difference between a sales-ready message and a marketing message?

Marketing messaging is generally one-to-many. For example, marketing will create an email drip campaign to take leads, convert them to MQLs, then to SQLs and finally hand them over to the sales organization. 

Sellers do the same thing but instead of one-to-many, they do it one-to-one. That is why sellers have to deliver hyper-personalized messages. Marketing can’t create messages the same way. 

Marketing messaging is focused on the buyer persona, trying to hit the pains of that persona. In sales-ready messaging this can also be the case if the seller doesn’t have enough information to personalize the messages, as in a cold email or cold call. But the ideal sales-ready message is hyper-personalized to the individual, not the buyer persona.

The seller must be able to find out details about the prospect, such as interests, particular needs, and other background information. For example, when Vengreso sellers reach out to sales leaders, they do it through video, holding a whiteboard and writing the prospect’s name on the board.

They find bits of information to use in their sales-ready messages such as an interesting LinkedIn post or a recent promotion. That way, they can personalize their messages with phrases like “I saw that you posted….” or “Congratulations on your recent promotion to…”

Now, who’s responsible for writing these sales messages?

Marketers usually cringe at the idea of a seller writing a message. And, in general, you don’t want salespeople writing messages if they are not writers, as it would take them too long to write and may not be as good as the text from a trained copywriter. 

Mario says that the responsibility for writing these messages falls on the shoulders of the Sales Enablement team -- or if you don't have one, the marketing team. “But the marketing team must be in tune with what is happening in the field before writing. We have our marketing team listen to sales calls weekly so they can structure sales messaging. They must understand the sales process in order to create messaging that attracts buyers and sells more.”

Another important distinction we must make is between a sales message and a product message. In short, while a sales message includes the PVC components discussed above, a product message centers around features and functions.

Product messaging should always reside inside of marketing. The idea is to take the features and what the products do and translate them into benefits, into how they solve real-world problems.

Sellers are usually trained on products to attract a potential customer, but they are sometimes not trained in communicating how the product solves actual problems.

From our experience, if you were to ask 100 sales reps at a company to tell in one sentence what business problem they solve for their customer (the value proposition), 80% would not be able to answer consistently. Marketing must be able to articulate in one sentence the business problem that the company solves and sales leaders should make sure their sellers know it well so that they are all communicating the same message.

For example, at Vengreso we know that VPs of Sales have two common problems: a) they want to increase the number of sales conversations that their sellers are having and b) increase their sales pipeline.

So, a message to that buyer persona (if the seller doesn’t have details to personalize the messaging to the individual) would start by asking if they have one of those two problems. If the answer is “no,” they would just stop reading. If the answer is “yes,” they’ll continue reading. In that case, the sales-ready message should provide value before introducing the solution. 

For example, the sales-ready message could say:

If you have any of those two problems, here are two resources that can help you out:

1. I encourage you to watch this webinar [ADD LINK] with your team in your next one-hour call. It will take you through two things your sellers can do right now to create more sales conversations on LinkedIn.
2. Read this blog article [ADD LINK], which tells you five things you can do to improve your sales video messages.

Do you see what we are doing here? We are providing value, which is what a good sales message will do. Once a conversation is started with the prospect, product messaging comes in. That’s when the seller goes deep to explain the product features and translate those features into business benefits. 

The PVC method will help you develop your sales messaging with the right elements. But how do you deploy those messages so your team can use them?

Usually, the marketing team would create a “42-page document” with the messaging, upload it to a local server or the internet and send the link to the sales team for them to use. The reality is that most sellers will not use that document.

That is why we created a sales productivity and sales messaging tool called FlyMSG.

FlyMSG is a text expander tool under the sales prospecting tools category. This Chrome extension helps marketers and sellers improve their productivity and efficiency by letting them expand pre-written communication templates and messages for use in their daily digital communication. Or as we like to say it: “Type less. Sell more."

FlyMSG solves these three real-life problems:

• Allows sales and marketing professionals to write complete messages, emails, LinkedIn connection requests and more using only a short and simple shortcut (FlyCut), leaving more time to focus on the needs of the customer.
• Increases the reach of sellers in their pipeline, allowing them to focus more on selling and less on administrative tasks.
• Uses a centralized repository of each user’s best, templatized messages (FlyPlates), creating unity in each user’s overall messaging.

A large portion of our PVC Sales Methodology templates are inside of FlyMSG for free to download. FlyMSG is the only text expander tool that allows you to add images, video, rich text format, hyperlinks, as well as categorize your templates.

Mario says that with a corporate account, a marketing team can own the creation and distribution of a company’s sales messaging. “Marketing can write the messages, add the templates to FlyMSG and make them available to all sellers,” Marios says. “Then, all sellers have to do is type the shortcut (FlyCut) and the message will automatically expand, ensuring usage, adoption and consistency in all sales messaging across the sales organization.”

Mario gives the example of a FlyCut he created called -bookameeting which he created to expand automatically to a pre-written sentence inviting someone to book a meeting with him with his calendar link included. It's a huge time saver since he uses it often. 

Episode 180 features Miki Goyal, Chief Technology Officer at TimeTrade. Miki leads TimeTrade’s software engineering organization where his focus is leading the company’s product roadmap for their market-leading cloud appointment scheduling platform. On this episode, we discuss how TimeTrade is enabling automated appointment setting using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities.

In case you're not familiar with TimeTrade, it's a customer engagement platform fueled by AI powered intelligence. They connect people to their customers and prospects making it easy for them to schedule a meeting. Their appointment scheduling platform is used by banks, retailers, service organizations and tech companies to make connecting with customers easier and more efficient.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/creating-online-customer-conversations-ai

On the fifth and final episode of this UpClose Podcast Series with Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing at Lithium Technologies, we discuss the "love story" between marketing and sales. This podcast series showcases The 5 Most Influential Topics for B2B Marketing, and includes one episode each on a data overload, digital customer experience, and the state of social engagement. On this episode, you'll discover what's possible when aligning marketing and sales, leading the two to work superbly together toward common goals.

Get all five episodes in one recording plus Social Business Journal Volume 10 now. 

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/when-marketing-and-sales-get-aligned

The UpClose Podcast Series with Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing at Lithium Technologies continues with episode four. Of The 5 Most Influential Topics for B2B Marketing, so far we've discussed influencer marketing, data overload, and digital customer experience. On episode four we look at the current state of social engagement by reviewing Lithium's "The State of Social Engagement Report." Find out what challenges brands and marketers are facing and learn how you can get more from your digital and social investments.

Get all five episodes in one recording plus Social Business Journal Volume 10 now. 

Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing at Lithium Technologies is back for episode three of this UpClose Podcast Series. So far of The 5 Most Influential Topics for B2B Marketing, we've discussed influencer marketing and data overload. On this episode, we're focusing on digital customer experience. This is a big topic, and we cover as much as we can in this short podcast episode. The statistics we point out further bolster the argument to engage on the digital customer experience (CX) battle ground.

Get all five episodes in one recording plus Social Business Journal Volume 10 now.

Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing at Lithium Technologies is joining me for episode 2 of this UpClose Podcast Series to discuss an issue many marketers are facing — data overload. This five part series covers The 5 Most Influential Topics for B2B Marketing. In the second episode, Dayle explains how B2B marketers can harness all of the data that's available to them.

Get all five episodes in one recording plus Social Business Journal Volume 10 now.

The volume of data available to B2B marketers today can be intimidating. Dayle says to focus on these three elements to get a better hold on your data — people, process, and technology.

1. People: Hire the right talent to get and use data insights. You'll need demand generation professionals and data scientists. Marketing leadership needs to work with business analytics experts to help craft the story.
2. Process: Create a process for gathering, listening, analyzing, and improving your data. Each company as a whole should adopt a performance driven mentality and understand the value of data.
3. Technology: Feed data into your tools and integrate at scale. Marketers should leverage analytics resources to measure traffic and performance. Integrate data into your marketing automation system to optimize campaigns, and tie campaign data to your CRM and active pipeline opportunities to run conversion analysis.

Harnessing the available data in your marketing efforts will improve your relationship with stakeholders. A successful data driven marketer will build trust and rapport with sales, which can eventually lead to sales and marketing alignment.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/data-overload-how-harness-it

Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing at Lithium Technologies, is joining me for this special UpClose Podcast Series. In this five part series, we are looking at The 5 Most Influential Topics for B2B Marketing. In episode one, Dayle explains effective B2B influencer marketing and reviews a few case studies of B2B brands succeeding at influencer marketing.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/b2b-influencer-marketing-dead

I recently sat down with Joe Pulizzi, Founder and CEO of Content Marketing Institute. We discussed his new book Killing Marketing, which is essentially about making marketing a profit center. Don’t believe me? Read on or watch my video conversation with Joe below.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/marketing-profit-center

Episode 173 is a special episode. I joined up with two of my co-founders at Vengreso on a recorded Zoom video call to discuss podcasting. When you listen to the podcast above or watch the video below you'll meet Phil Gerbyshak, Chief Digital Officer at Vengreso, and Mario Martinez, Jr., CEO at Vengreso. Phil and Mario both host their own podcast. Essentially, the Vengreso team has three podcasts. On this episode, we explain what they are, how each is unique, and frankly why we think you might care. You'll also hear why we podcast and how having one helps to build your credibility and influence.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/podcasting-trifecta-sales-leadership-sales-professionals-marketing-practitioners

Raviv Turner is Co-Founder and CEO at CaliberMind. On this episode, he and I discuss the challenges B2B marketers face in understanding the lengthy buyer’s journey. It's long, it’s complex, there are more people involved, and there is a ton of data spread across both structured and unstructured sources.

He explains how CaliberMind uses machine learning techniques to harness data across the broad spectrum of sources, resulting in improved sales pipeline and accelerated close rates. We also discuss why he believes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is overhyped and what marketers need to understand to take advantage of the power and potential of AI. This take-away alone is worth the listen!

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/harnessing-data-through-ai-understand-b2b-buyers-journey

Scott Brinker is Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer at ion interactive inc., a marketing software company that helps with the creation of interactive content. He lives at the intersection of marketing and technology.

On this episode, Scott and I discuss the evolution of marketing technology and how it impacts marketers in their job, career, and overall performance as marketing professionals. You'll also find out why Scott says marketing should be considered an Olympic sport.

View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/evolution-marketing-technology

In recent history, there have been three important events that have led marketing teams to shift their focus and embrace digital marketing transformation. 

The first event was 9/11 in 2001 and how fear and uncertainty gripped the U.S. (and others) which hindered planned marketing activities including travel and events where thousands of people congregated. The second event was the economic crisis of 2008 which had both businesses and consumers concerned about the repercussions that came out of every dollar spent. Third, is how COVID has affected many lives and how we conduct business. 

March 2020 provided the world with a new chapter. Those who accepted and embraced the changes with compassion for each other have figured out ways to conduct business, despite the challenges many businesses have faced. 

My guest this week on the Modern Marketing Engine podcast is Sara Larsen. Sara’s experience and “marketing scars” come from years of marketing leadership roles at organizations such as IBM, SAP, and Dassault Systems. Most recently, Sara was the CMO at Brightcove, the leading online video streaming platform. 

Sara and I spoke about what she describes as the three digital marketing transformation pillars every organization needs in order to become successful in the face of significant change. 

Before I reveal Sara’s three pillars, the word pivot warrants attention. This word is likely on the list of words that marketers didn’t anticipate we would use so much in 2020. The word is commonly used to define a slight change that ensures short term survival. This is exactly what many marketers thought 2020 needed, a slight change in the way we market our businesses. 

But as the events of 2020 unfolded, we continued to see no indications that things would return back to its pre-COVID state. So, the word pivot was not only used to describe short term survival, instead, it was used to describe long term resilience and growth.

Most organizations have already gone through the first part which is ensuring short-term survival. For example, some businesses in B2C have adjusted for the short term such as bakeries pivoting to sell kits to bake at home and alcohol distilleries pivoting to make hand-sanitizers. However, these adjustments or pivots aren’t necessarily sustainable and we now need to think about how we pivot towards long-term resilience and growth.

Many organizations began to experience the reality that some customers didn’t view them as necessary or relevant in the “new normal.” As marketers, we need to understand that buyer’s needs have changed, and we must ask ourselves, is what we’re selling still relevant?

This is where marketers need to be aligned not just with sales but also with your product strategy. Sales can tell you what conversations they’re having with buyers. What are they looking for now? What are their highest priorities and where in their organization does your product fit in? This will help define how imminent a pivot will be from what you were doing before to what you need to be offering now. 

We’ve always seen alignment as important but in the face of digital marketing transformation we see that it is more important than ever. Business continuity is also at an all-time high. For example, video messaging can sometimes substitute for those virtual meetings that your buyers may no longer consider as high-priority. 

Interestingly, many of us can tell you the exact day, hour, and even minute when we realized back in March that our plans for the year were going to be turned upside down. When the COVID-19 outbreak has deemed a pandemic everything changed.

The most notable marketing pivot in 2020 centered around events and event planning. Most events have either been canceled or have gone entirely virtual. These new events have given organizations the need to step up their innovation to keep attendees engaged. 

Though Sara estimates that in-person events are likely to resume after Q2 of 2021, the results from virtual events have been mostly positive. At in-person events, it was tough to keep an attendee engaged for over 20 minutes, but virtual events allow organizations to showcase technology and this is all thanks to video best practices. Social content, podcasts, video content, these are all great platforms for brands to showcase their assets.

We referenced both 9/11 and the 2008 economic crisis earlier in this post. In 2008, similar to this year, everyone was saying that things would resume in 2009, and for the most part, things did. But how are things different this year?

For starters, people’s lives are in play by contrast to 2008, which was an economic-only event. Today, the technology is more advanced, and with so much invested in digital marketing transformation and content marketing, marketers have the ability to pivot to this new normal. Sure, events will come back eventually but we might be looking at hybrid events. 

Sara’s team at Brightcove began to offer free live-streaming video to organizations who could use it to support their community. They offered this service to schools and churches and community theatres. They offered up to 50 free hours and this was not only rewarding but was also a very helpful research opportunity. 

With the information gathered, they began to see what problems organizations were facing during the pandemic in the midst of their digital marketing transformation. It was a good way to learn what problems most organizations were facing and what solutions they needed. 

Marketers often raise the question, what do I need to learn next? Marketing leaders and their teams need to continually keep up with the latest trends to stay competitive. But this year things have been different. It used to be, what would I need to know next year? Today it’s what do I need to know for next week? Trends are changing at an alarming rate. Selling with video and selling with social media used to be a suggestion, today it’s a necessity to stay relevant. 

Sara says that as marketing leaders, we need to know where the world is headed. What does the buyer care about? How do we speak to buyers on their preferred digital channels?

The conventional wisdom that in order to close bigger deals, customers need to meet with salespeople face-to-face is no longer true…That big sales aren’t likely to happen virtually. Sara highlights a recent study conducted by McKinsey that says, over 70% of B2B buyers are open to self-service models of up to $50k. Over 27% said they’d spend over $500k. 

What does this mean? That your buyers understand that the world has gone virtual so you need to adapt as well. 

A study conducted by Gartner in 2020 states that the modern B2B buying committee only spends 17% of its time in their customer journey, talking to suppliers. The rest of the time is spent defining their requirements, looking up websites, competitors, and watching videos and reading reviews. That means, instead of worrying about how much time you spend speaking to prospective buyers, you need to be thinking about what content will appeal to your buyer to be included in their research. This includes all forms of content including video, podcasts and social media posts. 

Many executives are reluctant to invest in online training or peer mentoring because they would rather wait until “things get back to normal.” Sara is an advocate of staying current by keeping talent up to speed on the trends that are needed today. She says that current talent demands include event planning, putting on digital experiences, investing in digital training, and lastly, research. You need to determine whether or not your buyer type is the same or if your product or service is best suited for a different buyer persona. 

I thoroughly enjoy speaking with marketing visionaries who are constantly looking to better themselves and those around them. Sara says that digital marketing transformation isn’t always planned and this year is a clear example of it. We ended the episode on a high note with Sara emphasizing the importance of having empathy for your team, clients, and colleagues while driving our businesses forward. 

This change has affected everyone so as we move out of this pivot and into the long-term resilience and growth, empathy will carry us through and into our next chapter. 

[2:40] Sara Larsen Bio and Introduction

[3:50] 3 digital transformation pillars she wants to talk about

[4:00] Importance of Pivoting towards short term change and long term resilience and growth

[4:30] First Pillar: Are you Relevant? Will your traditional marketing strategies be enough?

[11:00] Second Pillar: The Digital Marketing Mix has Fundamentally Changed

[12:30] When are events coming back? Importance of Digital technology.

[15:45] The difference between this market change and the change in the 2008 economic recession. 

[20:30] Third Pillar: Evolving Talent Needs

[25:40] Invest in Online Training and Peer Mentoring

[27:00] Marketing evolution and continuous need to reassess 

David Meerman Scott is a globe trotting speaker and international best selling author. He is also on the advisory board at Vengreso, where I’m CMO and a co-founder. It’s truly an honor to know David, as I’ve long admired his body of work. David has published ten books on marketing strategy, one of which has become a classic. He's a successful practitioner of the marketing strategies and tactics he references. The case study examples he shares in this podcast will inspire you.

If you ever get a chance to see David Meerman Scott speak, I promise you two things: he’s very high energy, and he will blow your mind with insights, ideas, and examples of real people and real businesses succeeding with the new rules of marketing and PR. In this podcast episode, David and I discuss what's new in the latest edition of this classic The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and he also explains why a lot of his content is ungated.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/new-rules-marketing-fun

Gerhard Gshwandtner is the Founder and CEO of Selling Power Magazine, the leading media property that provides senior sales managers with high-quality content.

On this episode, Gerhard opens up about the three biggest trends in business all leaders must understand on their journey to Sales 3.0.

View the show notes: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/journey-sales-3

Scott Lewis is the Co-Founder and CEO of KickFactory — a personalized engagement platform that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to identify potential sales opportunities on social media.The program finds a potential customer based on social media activities, suggests the best reply for a brand (client), and the best place for a conversion.

Scott shares how KickFactory combines the power of AI with community managers – real people - who confirm the identification of a prospective buyer and confirm the reply message (provided by AI) before sending the message. In other words, it’s AI engaged in sales actions!

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/human-assisted-ai-breeds-social-sales

Nate Skinner, Vice President of Product Marketing at Salesforce, has been in B2B marketing for ten years with a focus on enterprise software, cloud, and mobile technology. Nate is responsible for B2B marketing for Salesforce, Pardot, and Einstein. Nate and I are diving into Salesforce Einstein Accounts Based Marketing (ABM). You’re going to learn what it is, how it’s used, and examples of Salesforce Einstein in action.

If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you’ve noticed that I’m paying quite a bit of attention to artificial intelligence (AI) and how it impacts marketing professionals and the sales process. I believe the lines are blurring between marketing and sales. My conversation with Nate provides more validation that we’re seeing the convergence of marketing and sales, and how AI and account-based marketing play a significant role in this convergence.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/the-rise-of-account-based-marketing-through-ai

On this special episode, I interview my co-founders at Vengreso.

What we’re doing at Vengreso is relevant to the editorial mission of the Social Business Engine podcast. It is my goal that each episode brings you valuable insights from brands, tech companies, authors and analysts that might get you inspired to think differently and take action to improve results in your business or your career.

So, in that context, I’m introducing you to my co-founders at Vengreso. To be clear, I'm NOT pitching you on our company. Rather, I want to share with you a need we recognized in the way that businesses implement digital sales strategies, and how we’re addressing that need through digital sales transformation – aka the digital selling ecosystem.

You will hear how Vengreso addresses the digital sales transformation and hopefully, you'll notice our passion and inspiration for "the movement" that makes up this digital sales ecosystem.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/shattering-the-digital-sales-paradigm

Susan Etlinger, an Industry Analyst at Altimeter, a Prophet company is the featured guest on episode 165. Susan is a globally recognized expert in digital strategy, with a focus on artificial intelligence, big data, analytics and digital ethics. She conducts independent research and has authored a series of reports available for download at Prophet.com. If you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you’ve "met" some of Susan’s colleagues at Altimeter Group including Charlene Li, Brian Solis, and Ed Terpening.

On this episode, Susan and I discuss the evolving role of big data, artificial intelligence, chatbots, and examples of how they’re used in business and where they’re heading. This conversation is grounded in practical reality for marketing and sales professionals to help you understand the impact of the age of the algorithm in 2017. Susan provides a sneak peek of her latest report titled The Conversational Business which is available to download for free.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/why-marketers-should-embrace-the-age-of-the-algorithms

Sandy Adam, Global Manager of Social Media Marketing at ANSYS, returns for her second episode. In case you missed her first appearance on the podcast, let me give you a little background on ANSYS. They're a global leader in engineering simulation software with about 3,000 employees, many of whom have advanced degrees. Their software is used in the creation of rockets, cars, and even smartphones. Sandy is back to update us on how their content – specifically their blog – is moving the needle at ANSYS.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/niche-blogging-moves-the-needle-at-ansys

Back for another appearance on Social Business Engine, David J.P. Fisher joins me for episode 163. David, a.k.a. DFish, is a speaker, writer and author of seven books, a musician, a sales coach, a podcaster, and a salsa dancer - really, I've witnessed it! His books are about selling, networking, and building relationships. DFish's latest book is Hyper-Connected Selling: Winning More Business by Leveraging Digital Influence and Creating Human Connection.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/be-a-sales-sherpa-via-hyper-connected-selling

Over the last couple of years, I've featured multiple guests who were speakers at the Social Media Strategies Summit conferences. Today's guest is the unsung hero behind the scenes of those conferences, Breanna Jacobs. Breanna is the VP of Conference Production at Global Strategic Management Institute (GSMI), a conference and training company.

Breanna works to plan, organize and put on The Social Media Strategies Summit conferences three times a year. They’re delivered in San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Be sure to catch the 15% promo code Breanna provides at the end of this post.

I've had the pleasure and honor of working with Breanna at seven Summits, both as an emcee and a speaker. For this episode, I asked Breanna to share her deep insights into how to get huge value and ROI when you attend a conference. I can’t think of anyone more qualified than Breanna to share these insights with you considering how many conferences she puts on each year. 

View the show notes page: five-ways-get-huge-value-from-attending-conferences/five-ways-get-huge-value-from-attending-conferences

This week's guest is Stacey DePolo, Social Advocacy Manager at GoDaddy.  Stacey has 20 years experience in digital marketing. She's worked with tech brands, authors, entertainers, artists, and non-profits, specializing in brand advocacy, influencer marketing, customer experience and social media. At GoDaddy, Stacey has been focused on turning their brand image around through customer and employee advocacy strategies.

GoDaddy is the world's largest domain registrar with 71 million domains under management. The company is dedicated to small, independent ventures and has more than 16 million customers worldwide. The organization employees more than 7,000 employees with 14 facilities worldwide. On this podcast episode, Stacey reveals how she was able to turn GoDaddy’s brand image around from a hated brand to a respected brand.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/how-godaddy-improved-their-brand-through-an-advocacy-program

What is the most effective way to attract and retain customers if you sell to consumers through distributors? According to Paul Ackah-Sanzah, it’s an Omnichannel marketing strategy.

Paul is VP of Marketing at Phantom Screens and a 20-year marketing veteran. Paul has an impressive career journey at Phantom Screens, starting out as their retail sales manager, moving to brand marketing manager, and has been their VP of marketing for two years. 

In this episode of The Modern Marketing Engine podcast, I dive into what a B2B to C organization does when their target market is both distributors and consumers and how this affects the customer experience.

Listen to this episode to learn about Omnichannel marketing, B2B to C marketing, and how to ensure quality when selling through a wide array of distributors.

Phantom Screens manufactures and sells retractable screens which are installed in residential homes as patios, porches and lanai screens. They offer many useful features including ventilation without the pests and can be rolled into a canister when they’re not in use. These screens allow homeowners to add an accessory to their home that won’t sacrifice the decor and can be added or removed in minutes. 

Phantom Screens has been in business for nearly 30 years and my guest, Paul has been part of their marketing team for two decades. 

The company is in what is known as a B2B to C market which means they sell through a network of over 150 distributors (B2B) and those distributors sell to consumers (B2C) and install the product in the consumer’s home. 

Phantom Screens follows a do-it-for-me mantra which means that with every purchase, consumers are provided with the installation by the distributor from whom they purchased.

Instead of marketing solely to distributors or to the general public (as many organizations do), Phantom Screens has adopted an Omnichannel marketing strategy to get their name out there with both audiences. Given that they aim to be known by the distributors who sell and install the product and the homeowner that ultimately makes the purchase and uses it in their home, the company’s marketing approach is designed to reach both target audiences. 

During 2020, Phantom Screens recognized huge potential to communicate the benefits of their product to the homeowner who found themselves spending more time at home due to the pandemic. However, this opportunity didn’t come without its challenges. 

With their do-it-for-me philosophy, homeowners understandably expressed concern about installers showing up at their home and interacting with them and their families. This created an interesting challenge for Paul and his team of marketers. 

Phantom Screens deployed their Omnichannel marketing plan to reach consumers with videos featured in social media platforms on how installations were being performed and how their engagement with installers was safe. Their CEO, C. Esther D. Wolde was front and center speaking to the end consumer thus impacting the overall customer experience.

They also created videos on the precautions taken by the distributors responsible for installing the screens. Today’s modern buyer wants videos that show authority on a subject matter and don’t want to be restricted to 2,000-word articles describing the precautions taken and the equipment used in their homes with each installation. They want to see (literally) what measures Phantom Screens and their distributors have taken to keep consumers safe and this is best done through video. 

Although it is important for Phantom Screens to build awareness with consumers directly, as described earlier the purchase and installation is completed through their network of 180 distributors. 

Since distributors sell and install Phantom Screens’ products this raises an even bigger question. How does the company ensure that distributors are following brand guidelines when performing installations? The answer is trust.  

Phantom Screens has been in the market for nearly three decades and they view every distributor as a partner. They are teams that need training to provide the best possible customer support. They are the customer-facing ones who ultimately are the brand ambassadors for Phantom Screens. 

Paul and his team are in constant communication with their distributors to ensure that their values are aligned. They provide resources and offer product, corporate sales training and an onboarding process for every new distributor.

It’s difficult enough to market to two different groups (consumers and distributors) but the challenge Paul faces is to make sure the training they provide to their distributors is aligned with the brand messaging provided to the end consumer. Relationships with distributors include the same consumer-centric messaging being provided to their consumers. 

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It was back in 2017 when Vengreso’s Founder and CEO, Mario Martinez Jr. said that it would take five years for the sales profession to go all-in on digital engagement. That sales would embrace social media as an engagement vehicle and that Omnichannel marketing would prevail.

Fast forward only three years and Covid 19 has accelerated Mario’s original timeline. I spoke to Paul about the type of marketing that appeals to the modern buyer and what businesses need to do in order to remain competitive. 

To which Paul replied, “marketing and sales are more aligned than ever before and to ensure your organization is on the right track, sellers need to think like marketers. They need to know where your target audience digitally "hangs-out" and engage with them on their preferred channels.”

Ultimately, Paul ends this episode by saying “if you want to achieve success in your market, instead of considering pivoting from one vehicle to another, it’s important to look at an Omnichannel marketing strategy.”

[2:25] What are retractable screens?

[4:37] Shifting roles after years working for the same organization

[6:09] B2B to C model marketing

[12:20] Phantom Screens Marketing Strategy

[16:30] The marketing impact of 2020

[21:48] 2020 success stories

[26:30] Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

[27:40] Summary

On this episode, I'm joined by Ethan Beute, Vice President of Marketing at BombBomb Digital Video. A masterful communicator, and teacher, Ethan is all about connecting goals to strategies and tactics. During our conversation, he explains how to use video email in a digital sales strategy.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/how-to-integrate-personalized-video-email-into-digital-sales

Melanie Deziel is the former director of creative strategy for Time Inc. and an award-winning branded content consultant, educator, and speaker who travels the world educating marketing, sales, and editorial teams on branded-content best practices. Melanie is also the founder of The Overlap League, a native ad newsletter, and is on the board of the Native Advertising Institute.

You may remember her from episode 91 back in December 2015. Since her last appearance on the Social Business Engine podcast, she's started her own consulting firm. She works with publishers and brands of all sizes, helping them to hone their content strategies across various platforms.

On this episode, we’re going to look at the “why,” and to some extent, the “how” of using Instagram in your social strategy.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/secrets-to-instagram-branded-content

This week's podcast guest is Charlene Li, Principal Analyst at Altimeter, a Prophet Company. Back on episode 94, we discussed key takeaways from her book The Engaged Leader. Charlene has authored five books and is a popular keynote speaker. As an expert in social media and digital technologies, Charlene gives a lot of attention and thought to the disruption of technology on business and how companies need to evolve.

On this episode, we dig into one of Altimeter’s most recent research reports conducted by Charlene, The Transformation of Selling: How Digital Enables Seamless Selling. You'll learn a lot about what's in the report on this podcast, but I strongly encourage you to download it. It's free, and there's just no way we could cover everything in this episode.

Two years ago Charlene realized how significantly social selling is changing. This morphed her focus of the report to include more than just social selling. It now covers the entire sales process. Tune into this episode to hear current research from this report.

View the show notes page: http://www.socialbusinessengine.com/podcasts/the-transformation-of-selling-through-digital-enablement