Nothing Compares 2 U

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, not a rock star, but a CMO and trusted advisor, and in this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of marketing street knowledge that I hope will help unlock the rockstar marketer in you.

Hello, you rock star,

This week, you catch me in mid-prep for recording this week’s podcast with my chum Jeff Clark. Let’s get the first joke out of the way. If you’ve listened to the podcast, yes, we do prep!

We are recording tomorrow, and the topic is how we marketers can help in the battle with the biggest competitor in B2B deals, the dreaded “do nothing”.

Gartner is often quoted as saying that 38% of deals die on this hill, and Forrester state it’s between 25-40%, and while researching the book The Jolt Effect, the authors studied 2.5 million sales calls and concluded that 40% and 60% of deals today are lost due to customer indecision.

Speak to any sales guy worth their commission checks, and they’ll tell you their favorite answer is YES, their second is a fast no, and a slow, drawn-out no that withers a plum of a deal to a prune is like death from a thousand cuts.

So, the question Jeff and I want to answer is, how can marketing help?

I certainly think we can help with getting someone to a fast no, by being a bit more explicit about who we are for, pick a tribe, instead of trying to appeal to the masses and being B2Biege, we can start the qualification at the top of the funnel, rather than handing this job to sales, and signal that no, we are not for you.

But, what about “do nothing”?

This has long been defined as a sales problem, the strategy to create urgency, to highlight the cost of inaction, and all of that is super relevant when a buyer's conversation with vendors starts relatively early in the buying process, and salespeople are seen as a source of category knowledge.

Today, the buyer rocks up to that conversation educated, with a shortlist and a clear idea of the category and how their problem can be solved. A buying behavior that is disrupting many sales models, best practices, and playbooks as the time window with the buyer has narrowed.

With these buyers, sales have reduced influence in coaching a sponsor through procurement when it stalls.

So, we, in marketing, need to start enabling the buyer before they hit the internal challenges, which, as The Jolt Effect shares, is often about risk, or as I paraphrased FOFU, the Fear of Fucking Up, or just an inability to get their collective shit together to make a change.

My advice: we need to understand the needs of the buying group, not just as personas with job titles, who read the Guardian and hang out on LinkedIn.

We need to dig into their relationship with risk, and their concerns about change, what the outcome means for them, and why now?

These are often attributes we can’t simply assign to a job title. For example, CFOs, who we typically consider risk-averse gatekeepers, can be surprisingly gung-ho, keen to be on the cutting edge if the offer promises a quick return or accelerates the company’s growth, and will be arm-in-arm with your sponsor.

Which suggests that the relationship with risk and change could be more important values for grouping your personas and driving your content marketing than job title, as we look to head off the specter of “do nothing”.

And the tune that gives this week’s issue its title - Nothing Compares 2 U, by Prince, but made a hit by Sinead O’Connor, because doing nothing is being compared with whatever you are offering.

Have a splendid week, and if you want to hear what both me and Jeff have to say on this, tune into the podcast on Saturday.

Cheers!

Ian

I know Sinead C’Connor made it famous, but this is the Prince version.