We held a great CEO dinner this evening on High Velocity Sales & Marketing in SF. In addition to the 25+ CEOs in attendance from top notch companies, we had three terrific panelists – Heather Zynczak, CMO at Domo, Rita Selvaggi, CMO at AlienVault, and Matt Price, VP & GM EMEA at Zendesk. The conversation was lively and the insights were in heavy supply. Here are five of the highlights:
- A great product that is easy to deploy and use is key to a successful high velocity model, BUT you also need tight alignment between Sales, Marketing, Product and Finance. If a link in this chain is broken, the wheel will stop spinning fast and you can’t scale a velocity model.
- Another key to successfully implementing a high velocity approach is developing content to draw prospects to you. Focus on helping people solve problems in your content, not necessarily on the benefits of your product per se.
- Sales people who flourish in high velocity companies need to be willing to re-tool, resisting the impulse to try to super-size every deal, instead attempting to optimize for a rapid sales cycle. This often means smaller deal sizes that can be approved outside of a procurement process. Also, in sales don’t be afraid to hire very junior folks who you can train from scratch.
- When competing with traditional incumbents in larger deals with multiple decision-makers, you can still use the advantages of high velocity DNA. For example, use your product’s ease of use to quickly stand up a live demo or a PoC if applicable. Your competitor wont be able to move at the same speed, accentuating the difference of your product approach.
- Social media can be a very productive source of marketing leads, but you need to be prepared to run tons of customized campaigns to make these programs tenable. Used in this way, LinkedIn and Twitter can both be effective.
Thanks again to our panelists and participants for a great evening.