Want to survive inflation?Empower your team to work smarter — it doesn’t have to be hard
Don’t be a dinosaur of the business world. Create new efficient strategies to ensure the survival and prosperity of your company.
I would like to introduce a dinosaur-mammal analogy that my colleague Gabe Rogol, CEO of Demandbase, likes to use.
For a long time, dinosaurs ruled the earth as big, loud, and most dominant creatures. But then something changed — meteors and cataclysmic climate change — and suddenly they were no longer the most dominant. Instead, it was a new species (mammals) that survived and thrived in this changed world. why? Because they were more adaptable and flexible.
This is similar to what we have seen in business over the past five years. Until recently, the market appreciated the fastest growing, loudest companies and was happy to give them very high marks. Then came COVID, injecting even more money into the economy, amplifying the trend of ludicrous investments in growth.
As a result, all of these companies ended up sitting in multi-billion dollar valuations and incredibly costly structures that could have gone past alpha. , that is, inflation happened and everything changed.
So who will survive and thrive in this world? Again mammals, such as agile and lean tissue. Something that has an efficient cost structure and is growing, but in a rational and steady way. To be this type of company, the go-to-market (for example, the sales and marketing activities that the company uses to acquire, retain, and grow its customers) must be perfectly efficient.
Equip sales with automation and intelligence
The first step to increasing efficiency is enabling your sales team to sell more. This means fewer salespeople are needed to achieve the same goals. To generate more pipelines per SDR, sales development representatives (SDRs) need to be more efficient. Also, for this equation to work in the long run, the customer success team needs to retain more customers.
So how can you make your team more efficient when working with customers and prospects? The answer isn’t just to work harder. Because the reality is that most people already work hard. Instead, we must return to the old philosophy of working smarter. This means giving your team the account intelligence that makes work easier, more efficient, and more rewarding.
Account Intelligence takes existing data trapped in siled systems, cleans and organizes it, enriches it with rich third-party data containing behavioral insights, and makes sense of it with AI.
This process alerts the team to which accounts are most worth their limited time and which accounts will yield the highest returns. Your team can also know what to say to make those accounts relevant without a lot of manual research. When combined with sales engagement tools like Outreach and Salesloft, automation and intelligence drive even greater efficiency.
Related article: 5 best practices for using AI in your CX strategy
Accurate targeting of marketing efforts
Next, focus on enabling your marketing team to generate sufficient pipeline with less investment. (As an aside, I always refer to marketing spending as an investment, not a cost, because marketing is what we invest in, not a cost center. This is especially true during a recession when we are trying to cut centers.)
The first step to making your marketing more efficient is to automate as much as possible. Marketers are being told to do more with less, but they can’t hire new people. Again, efficiency rules and automation get you there. This includes lists, segments, campaign automation, and more.
Another way to get the most out of your marketing investment is to target how you use them. Practice account-based marketing (ABM) and create account-based experiences (ABX) for your buyers. The core of this approach is to narrow your focus and focus your investments on the accounts that matter most. No more “50% of your budget wasted”. Similar to sales, ABM/X tactics must be informed by rich account intelligence to make spending more productive.
Going back to dinosaurs and mammals, how do you make yourself one of the species that is ready to survive in this new world? made it possible to survive. In today’s business environment, making the right investment in account intelligence can be the watering hole for survival and success in the new world. Getting there and drinking is up to you.
