Everyone makes ABM about accounts and better account targeting. But ABM is not really about accounts. It’s about the buyers inside the accounts that you want to land and expand. And it’s about improving the interactions that you have with these buyers and the account experiences that you deliver to them. On the podcast episode below, Andy Monahan (Partner at Yield Group, Boathouse Capital and GTM Pro) joined Eric and Kristina to discuss what it means to be buyer-led – and how you can create a better connection with buying groups and the individual buyers. You’ll also hear conversations that are focused on ICP, Fit and Readiness.
Key Points From This Podcast:
1) Buyer-led marketing means that you’re putting your buyers first. It’s the buyers that sit at the center of your sales and marketing program – not just the account. You’re responding to their needs, to their shifts, to their strategic priorities, to their concerns, to their visions, to their gaps, and what they are missing to accomplish their strategic objectives. So notice what I didn’t say was the word react. Too many teams react to intent and engagement data versus understanding the complete story. They do not understand why there’s intent in the 1st place. When you’re buyer-led, you understand the account story and the buyer stories to respond in a meaningful way. When you’re buyer-led, you focus on the buyer’s struggling moments that sit at the center of every deal. These are the moments that we need to listen to, understand, cater,reframe, and solve.
2) Buyer-led marketing is really about empathy. It’s putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Quite often, buyers are faced with a larger business problem at hand than you alone can solve with your tool, technology, solution, or service. GTM teams have a fundamental lack of understanding of their buyers and their true business problems (not just pain points). This is why teams struggle to meet buyers where they are.
3) Buyer-led marketing and ABM go together because with ABM you should be about coming to each interaction with a point of view about the buyer’s business and a point of view about how it impacts the different buyers within that business.
4) When you are buyer-led with your ABM program, you look beyond the demographic, technographic, and intent-fit ICP definitions you get with 6sense, Demandbase, and other ABM and intent data platforms. You look at buying group fit. You look for buyers and organizations who are aligned with you and your solutions at an operational, executional, and cultural level. You look at if the organization, the buyers and the stakeholders are future-fit for your organization, meaning that they have the greatest probability of landing and expanding with you. And you, look at the readiness of the organization, the buyers and and the stakeholders. This is especially important if you’re selling AI solutions as most organizations are not setup for success with AI.
Your Next Steps:
If you want to go beyond just building pipeline and land/expand more strategic accounts with buyer-led account-based GTM motions, book a time below for a strategy session. We’ll even provide you with a complete report on your GTM gaps, the shifts to make and your next steps to become buyer-led.