Episode 38:
Mark Perone, Business Solution Architect, Author and Speaker
Show Notes:
About Mark Perone of Rethink Revenue
Author of Trusted.Team - A story of Known, Liked, Trusted. Worked for the last 10 years a Business Solution Architect focused on increasing year of year Sales with an emphasis on lead generation. Created a method to support organizational alignment discovering, disrupting and rethinking Marketing and Sales. I believe we make it happen together.
What Mark Does
Mark focuses on CRM with a positive spin. His claim to fame is breaking down marketing and sales into their respective categories then guiding businesses to show how marketing can contribute to sales in Stage 1, Task 1 in the sales process. He's software agnostic as far as marketing, crm, accounting software goes - meaning the current software you're using isn't a factor in working with Mark and his solution. His software is a mechanism to start a conversation with a business.
The CRM the good side of it. What do you mean by that?
CRM has developed over the past 25-30 years. It was originally designed for basic contact information, i.e. rolodex. As platforms developed, it became a weapon for management to monitor the sales team activity. Salespeople are creative people and don’t like to be boxed in. Don’t micro manage – you get more done when you don’t micro manage sales people.
In the last 5 years, there’s been an integrated software solution. Mark works really deep in the manufacturing vertical. They are in the 4.0 iteration of the industrial revolution – the software side of things. Mark has mechanized the work flow for people who don’t want to get mired in mundane day-to-day stuff.
Make customers aware of what’s available in the marketplace. Hard areas and very distinct transitions. Integrate the marketing channel into a lead gen perspective which lands marketing workflow at when it happens at Stage 1, Task 1 in the sales process. Mechanizing that system for the sales person – not the sales manager. That’s the good side of CRM. CRM implementations are listed at 70-90% failure rate on deployment. That’s really high!
Mark goes in and solves the problems and answers the question: Why did we buy this CRM system?.
Mark shares his screen to walk through and show the following images:
Starting ~7:30:00
Framework of the Customer Journey
Marketing Funnel, LinkedIn starting point
What feedback have you received, including before and after, of the new process?
A company is typically mired in conflict when he jumps in. No one wants him there. Everyone has been stifled by the promise of the product sellers. They believe that it’s just a myth and not sure about CRM. It’s very tense and a lot of resistance when Mark goes in. He loves that part though – he knows the outcome. The people that stick around for the success are the people that aren't left behind. It has to do with the flexibility in orientation. If they are willing to accept there could be another way, they move along with this.
Most believe the definition of marketing is completely wrong
They don’t understand there’s a differentiation between marketing and sales. They don’t recognize that marketing is worth the cost. They see it as a money pit. The reason why is they’ve always thrown their money away on haphazard tactical approaches by putting their message on leaflets that they throw out on the highway. And don’t understand why no one is engaging. They are in the wrong environment. The messaging isn’t aligned with the person who might pick up that leaflet.
In the end what he gets is a solid cohesive unit that’s structured and organized. There’s a clarification of process orientation and a relief knowing that at the end of the day whether you are complete or incomplete with the level of activity for the day.
What they do: they align the workflow so it’s sequential so you know you are making progress through your activity. Activity should equal progress. Define what those tasks are and create a series of events that drive forward the lead strategy from a prospect to a Closed 1 opportunity which leads to a customer which leads to a client in a secondary marketing campaign.
He can’t say that IT, accounting and marketing and sales leadership always agree in the end. But when they look at the P&L there’s usually all smiles in the meeting.
Whether a company is 60% through the year or 85% through the year, they know where they are ‘to goal’. And they can see what's influencing the % to go depending on when the leaders jump on board.
My 3 take aways from my conversation with Mark:
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You can leverage your CRM to automate the marketing workflow through the sales hand-off process.
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Mark has mechanized the workflow for sales peoples - not sales managers - who don't need to be micro managed to be high producers.
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The customer journey framework helps businesses identify what activities occur throughout the different stages of the workflow so marketing and sales deliver messaging at the right time and place.
How is Mark Connecting the Dots between Marketing and Sales?
Mark is connecting the dots for his clients through the inside-out approach. He works with business leaders in all departments in order to evaluate an internal process that creates the ideal customer experience.
Connect with Mark:
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