Coming from somebody who has consistently sought to promote the value of focus and process in all matters connected with B2B sales and marketing, the above headline may strike you as bordering on the perverse. But bear with me. It’s just that no sales process can be successful unless it is based on a deep appreciation of your prospective customer’s buying process.

I see a growing number of references to the Buyers’ Journey™, and it’s probably worth reminding ourselves that the term was first brought to prominence (and subsequently trademarked by) Hugh Macfarlane back in 2003 in “The Leaky Funnel” - a book that boasts more Post-it® note tabs than any other publication on my bookshelf.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Hugh recently at a FunnelCamp™ accreditation course in Manchester last week. We spent some considerable time reviewing the nature of the B2B buying decision process, and I wanted to share a few of the core concepts with you in this article - the...

I come across many marketing organisations that seem to believe that the more leads they generate, the better they are doing. They may even be measured and rewarded by their management on the basis of the number of leads marketing generates. But I want to show you why why focusing on quantity rather than quality is a really, really bad idea.

Take a simple but all too common example: offering an iPad in a prize draw at a trade show or exhibition in order to encourage the visitors to leave their business cards. Do you know what the single common characteristic of the people that drop their cards in the goldfish bowl is? Do you imagine it indicates any interest in your product or company? No: all you are doing is collecting a list of people who are interested in winning an iPad.

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Malcolm Gladwell, in his book of the same name, pointed out the power of “The Tipping Point”, and sought to demonstrate with a series of examples how little things can make a big difference. Now Lauren Carlson of Software Advice has picked up on the theme in a recent blog, in which she asks whether SFA (and its more widely targeted superset CRM) has passed a tipping point?

Lauren makes some familiar points about the poor reputation associated...

Happy New Year to you all. Let’s be honest - for many of our customers and clients, 2012 is shaping up to be a tough year. A year in which they are going to be reluctant to spend money unless they can see a clear return. And, just as many of us are having to rein back from seasonal over-indulgence by going on a diet, I’m going to suggest that your most important New Year Resolution must be to Fight the Flab in Your Pipeline…

Over time, most sales pipelines progressively clog up with opportunities that are never likely turn into sales. They divert attention and resources from other more valuable opportunities, and they hide the fact that your pipeline isn’t as healthy as it first appears. But you can understand why many sales people are reluctant to remove them from the mix - because it will make the “headline value” of their pipeline seem smaller.

But if those deals are really never likely to convert into sales, they simply serve to...