While more than 2/3 (69%) of ABM programs underperform, during the last 14 years, $1 trillion+ in revenue was generated collectively by clients of both Personal ABM and The Pedowitz Group through a customer-centric, revenue marketing transformation. In the podcast below, Kristina Jaramillo (President of Personal ABM) and Jeff Pedowitz (CEO of The Pedowitz Group) discuss why most ABM organizations are not seeing the results their clients experience.
Here Are the ABM Challenges That Kristina and Jeff Discuss:
- A lack of change management is the biggest reason why ABM programs underperform. ABM should be a major shift. But, most ABM programs are nothing more than targeted demand gen that only impacts the pipeline when ABM should be about getting more tier 1 accounts to revenue and existing accounts to greater revenue growth. Instead of investing in the customer relationship, ABM organizations are still investing in campaigns and “things” to do like retargeted ads, emails, gifting etc. They still see the customer as a transaction. As Jeff mentions, “You have to be able to think differently, ask questions differently, and organize differently to have a successful ABM program – and it needs to start at the executive level as most ABM programs are siloed with marketing.”
- A lack of strategy as too many organizations see ABM tech as a panacea. Too many marketers are just throwing Demandbase, Terminus and 6sense at their ABM programs and challenges and making the tech synonymous with ABM. But the technology needs to fit your ABM program, not the other way around. In her recent article on the CMO Alliance blog, Kristina Jaramillo shares how ABM tech fits a purpose in an ABM program but it does not serve ABM’s purpose.
- Sales and marketing motions and processes are not changing. For example, in many cases, sales teams are not prepared to go in on enablement and orchestration and as a result, ABM programs are severely missing the mark. As Jeff mentions, “ABM is a strategic engagement that involves multiple types of content and interactions across multiple channels and with multiple types of buyers over an extended period of time.
- The customer is not at the center of the ABM program – At the heart of the ABM program are the people inside the accounts you want to win, protect and expand, which is why both the Pedowitz Group and Personal ABM like to take a customer portfolio approach where you invest in building customers for life – and your time, resource and money investment is based on “customer risk” and “profitability.”
- Sales and marketing teams are still thinking in terms of funnels but there is nothing funnelistic about ABM as the focus should be on building customer lifetime value with the 20% of accounts that can deliver 80% of your revenue growth. ABM is not about driving pipeline. We should be using ABM to improve the customer onboarding experience, retain at-risk accounts, and expand the accounts that can provide the greatest returns. Jeff discusses this in greater detail in his book, F the Funnel.
- Teams are still focused on “marketing sourced revenue”. We need to forget attribution and justifying what marketing is doing and focus on helping sales get to their number. If the total number for the year is $100M for sales, then marketing’s number is $100M. Just like companies organize their sales teams into different territories, responsibilities and accounts, you need to organize your marketing team and your activities with existing clients and net new to get that number. It’s a revenue pursuit. It’s about creating a revenue engine vs. a lead engine. Kristina recently talked about this in her rant below:
