Most of the ABM content and insights being shared on LinkedIn, on podcasts and in webinars are redundant so we challenged Lindsay Baggett (ABM leader at Tanium) to address some hot takes that others haven’t thought about.
Here Are the ABM Hot Takes That Kristina Jaramillo and Lindsay Baggett discussed:
- Most ABM organizations are not ABM ready when they launch their ABM pilot. They don’t know how and why they win and lose so they can’t reverse engineer a close/won.The foundation of an ABM program should be built from the data of where your company has seen the most success (in regards to the key objective of your program – landing large enterprise net new logos, for example).What can we glean from all of the large enterprise net new logos we’ve won in the last year or two? What about the largest deals, or the fastest deals? Are there trends in the initial land deal regarding what they bought, why they bought, why our company, what problems were they trying to solve, what outcomes were they needing, who was on the buying committee, time to close, what objections did they have, what did they engage with throughout the buying journey, etc.This data can help us identify where ABM should focus, identify an ICP, a unique value proposition and narrative (around why change? Why now? Why your company?), and which accounts fit that profile, and build a compelling account buyer journey that is preemptive and proactively addressing the anticipated needs of the buying team and the account team throughout the sales cycle.
Check out these additional resources to help you get ABM ready:
2) ABM is not about better marketing. We need to look at what are we doing differently with ABM that other functions can’t do because they are forced to do things at scale.
3) At the end of the day, customers are the drivers and we’re the pit crew helping buyers get across the finish line. Unfortunately, too many GTM teams leave buyers hanging half-way through their buyers journey. Click the image below to check out our video and case study on how Sumerian (an ITSM firm) accelerated accounts to revenue:
4) You have to score your account-based GTM team that will be part of your ABM program – the same way that you score accounts that you include in the program. We need to score our leadership, sales, marketing, and customer success teams to see if they are ready for ABM and continue to score them to identify ways to continue to develop the team.
5) If you’re doing campaigns and plays – then you’re random acts of ABM. ABM is focused on the unified account experience that’s delivered across the buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle. In another ABM Done Right Podcast, Jillian Gartner (Former Head of Digital Marketing and Demand Gen at Conduent) mentioned that their ABM programs were disjointed as ABM was done in pockets and wasn’t being used across the complete buyer’s journey and customer lifecycle. There was limited account intelligence for the sales team to carry on the conversations that marketing started. Now, the teams are coming together and acting as 1 team that is focused on revenue so sales and marketing can engage contacts in ways that the teams were not able to unlock before.
Click here to listen to the podcast with Jillian Gartner
6) Alignment is not enough—we need integration. We can align on the ICP, account lists, activities, etc., but if we do not have the integration, then accounts are likely to go dark. We need to work together to create the account experience that buyers desire so we can speed up sales cycles, increase deal size, and drive more closed wins. This includes the different functions within marketing.
You have to remember that ABM does not stop after an account is in the pipeline. ABM focuses on the journey a buyer takes from start to finish. Every touchpoint and piece of content (including the website, detailed industry reports, unique digital experiences and peer-to-peer engagement with subject matter experts) forms part of this with the aim of drawing an account through the sales funnel to a closed deal.
Impacting the buyer journey and customer lifecycle requires an account-based marketing alignment and integration across marketing teams. This is often overlooked as most teams focus on sales and marketing alignment.
7) Marketing is often reactive once accounts are in the pipeline — we need to be proactively equipping sellers and GTM teams to move buyers in their journey and keep them from stalling. We need to think about what buyers need right now to get them to the next stage. This is what Lindsay calls ABM-as-a-Service and what we at Personal ABM call account-based enablement.
Check out these additional resources on how marketing should be enabling sales and customer success teams:
- How Moving From a Transactional Sale to a Strategic, Account-Based Enterprise Sale Needs to Start with Marketing
- ABM Done Right Podcast: Increasing ARR, GRR and NRR with Revenue Enablement and ABM
- What’s Part of Personal ABM’s Account-Based Enablement Services
8) ABM teams need to understand approaches like Challenger. ABM is about helping sales and customer success teams win and win big! If you do not know how they play the game – how can you help them win. In most cases, the content, messaging and account experiences create do not support the selling conversations that sales need to have.
9) If you’re letting intent data dictate your account selection process and your ABM program, you are not ready for ABM. Lindsay argues that if you rely on intent, you do not understand your ICP, and if you do not understand your ICP, how can you effectively engage buyers within it?