Chapter 5
Integrating Sales with Thought Leadership
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Business leaders may talk about thought leadership as a sales tool, but the research suggests that salespeople themselves are yet to be convinced by the value of thought leadership content.
One recent survey showed that while 45% of executives say they invited a company to bid on a contract after seeing thought leadership, only 17% of sellers believed that content could lead to requests for proposals. Even though 58% of corporate decision makers say a thought leadership piece has led directly to a contract, only 26% of sales teams said that thought leadership could help them to close a deal.
“We have business development reps on the phone, who tend to be our first contact with people before sales,” says Turner. “We need to get them to understand how to approach and pitch thought leadership, and it’s not by picking up the phone to someone who downloaded a white paper and asking if they want to buy some software. It can be a struggle getting the sales team to have the appropriate high-level business conversation.”
“At the top of the funnel you should be producing two thirds thought leadership to sales content. Because unless your product is radically different to anything else available, people are just not going to be interested.”
Richard Turrell
Head of Marketing, Handle
Addressing this disconnect means educating and training sales teams about the value and nature of thought leadership. It will also require business and thought leadership strategy to align with sales goals and strategy. This ensures that thought leadership is being produced that is more obviously beneficial to sales and marketing teams.
When we consider the model of a sales funnel, thought leadership has most value at the top, before someone is a customer and potentially before they have ever engaged with your organisation. “At the top of the funnel you should be producing two thirds thought leadership to sales content,” advises Turrell. “Because unless your product is radically different to anything else available, people are just not going to be interested.”
Thought leadership can be useful further down the funnel, in some instances. Leforestier says that thought leadership which incorporates more practical advice can be used in the middle and bottom of the funnel. However, this will only work if sales teams are trained to understand, and know how to drive out this content, he adds. “You have to spend time training every single sales rep on that new survey, report and new content that you’ve done. They need to know what conversations to have with their client and why.”
At IBM, the whole organisation understands that thought leadership is a valuable opportunity to demonstrate expertise, says Taylor. “It creates some credibility and a positive perspective around the source of the thought leadership,” she says.
Taylor believes that thought leadership programmes that involve the buy-side are a great way to establish new relationships with experienced senior professionals who are keen to promote change and development. “We call these people champions, and the challenge our sales team has is giving those champions the tools they need to establish wider buy-in from their organisation.”
Moreover, the team does not focus exclusively on these champions. IBM uses a technique known as “mass mapping” to create multiple types of content to engage with multiple people at different levels within a target account. “With digital content, you really can systematically understand all of the points of influencer within an organisation and then seek to influence those,” says Taylor. “It’s all about the narrative that you build, and then packaging it in different ways for different audiences.”
It’s also important to think about what sort of organisation a champion exists in. Moyse points out that if your champion is in a channel organisation, then the type of content they will need will vary from an organisation that markets their own product or service directly. “Many resellers want something product based so they can tick a box, but in reality, it’s about how are they solving problems. Trust the audience that they’re smart enough to click through the link to your website when you provide more indirect content.”
“You have to spend time training every single sales rep on that new survey, report and new content that you’ve done. They need to know what conversations to have with their client and why.”
Ludovic Leforestier
Global Analyst and Influencer Relations Director, Criteo
B2B marketing often struggles in this space because it focuses on product. Instead, salespeople need to incorporate expertise about the industry and trends, says Turrell. “They want you to keep abreast of thought leadership trends, and what’s important in their industry,” he says.
Presenting this type of potential customer with a sales or feature document is likely to be counterproductive, Sursock adds. Good thought leadership demands collaboration between product and marketing teams, to understand the buying cycle, and how to nurture new and existing customer relationships. “When we brought together product and marketing teams to share real customer conversations, we quickly realised that our early podcasts were missing the point, some events we attended were off the mark. That’s pretty hard, but it’s a very good exercise,” Sursock says.
“When we brought together product and marketing teams to share real customer conversations, we quickly realised that our early podcasts were missing the point, some events we attended were off the mark. That’s pretty hard, but it’s a very good exercise,”
Joseph Sursock, Senior Vice-President EMEA, Course5 Intelligence
Thought leadership must be shared at the right point in the buying cycle, and as part of a strategy that Sursock calls “persuasion strategy”. Organisations should not focus on just one part of the sales funnel, advises Sursock. The top, bottom and middle are all important, In addition, analysis then maps potential solutions the company might have to address challenges. These insights can then be used as a basis for creating, sharing and tracking the impact of thought leadership content. “It’s never a single activity, but it’s reaching out to people who look like people you want to be targeting,” Sursock says.
At Course5 Intelligence the key metric for measuring thought leadership is consumption, followed by feedback. If you share some thought leadership then Sursock advises making a space for people to provide feedback. With digital content, the company will also look at open and download rates, comments, likes and shares. “It’s about understanding if we are touching something that’s important to other people,” he says.
The most important thing for Turrell is to ensure the sales team is fully behind thought leadership as a concept. “Every idea that we have will come from a focus group or a cohort where we discuss the challenges of customers and communities. We make sure sales are fully involved throughout the process, educating them rather than parachuting in and assuming they’re going to talk about some thought leadership content.”
“We make sure sales are fully involved throughout the process, educating them rather than parachuting in and assuming they’re going to talk about some thought leadership content.”
Richard Turrell
Head of Marketing, Handle
Top Insights:
Many Lawyers and consultants are not natural salespeople. Thought Leadership allows them to pick the phone up and have better client conversations.
Simon Carlton Rhodes - Director of Thought Leadership at EY, CS, HSF
I have never met a CIO that wants to be sold to. They do not want telemarketers to call them. They do not want aggressive sales email sent to them. All they want is to be able to learn. To position yourself as a trusted advisor, I think is absolutely key. Gareth Case - Chief Marketing Officer at Redstor
Sales should have a human touch and an ability to see sales as a consultative approach. The mantra is to think bigger and inspire clients.
Edward Harries - Brand Partnerships Director at Visualsoft Ltd
We provide client champions with material that is educational and not product/service focused. They can then use this material to evangelise for you at their organisation.
Paul Malyon - Head of Thought Leadership & Data Literacy at Experian