Briana Walgenbach, IMPACT's Content and Video Coach and AI Strategic Lead. Briana talks about assignment selling, integrating AI into B2B marketing and sales, and the significance of removing departmental silos for company expansion. Brianna highlights how important it is for CEOs to foster collaboration throughout the company and to be active in the process.
She also reveals methods for implementing successful business plans, including producing instructional content, being upfront about prices, obtaining client information through CRM, and nurturing recurring customers. Continue reading this blog till the end as she debunks myths and answers questions related to RevOps.
Myth: RevOps is just another component of marketing.
Briana criticizes the idea that RevOps is merely a trend in marketing. She gets frustrated because new marketing campaigns are always coming out and seem to change quickly.
RevOps does not aim to introduce new marketing strategies to the team. Rather, the focus should be on encouraging teamwork throughout the entire company.
By working together, they can all concentrate on the consumer, educate them, assist them in determining whether the product or service is a suitable fit, and ultimately complete sales more quickly. It would always be efficient to work together to achieve a common objective.
How can she break the myth, as it is more of an operational matter than a marketing strategy?
RevOps is a major cultural transformation that goes beyond just being a new approach. This breakdown makes it easier for people in the organization to work together.
Departments should work together to comprehend the customer experience fully, and a focus on the customer should not be limited to teams like marketing or content. She believes that having siloed departments slows growth and raises concerns about the openness of the present marketing and content initiatives.
She suggests involving sales in the collaboration and highlighting their firsthand knowledge of customers' inconveniences. She highlights the significance of customer obsession and removing barriers through organizational collaboration for a customer-focused cultural shift.
How does she manage conflicting goals and gain buy-in when encouraging collaboration to address consumer pain points across departments?
She gives an example of a situation in which a content writer promotes a certain product-focused approach, which can conflict with the sales team's requirement for educational materials because of unprepared customers.
This raises the issue of whose plan is better. According to her, the sales and content teams must communicate to resolve this, focusing on the organization's and its customers' success.
If the sales team does not convey their content demands, the content writer can unintentionally produce material not aligned with current priorities. Collaboration is essential to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal.
The content writer would not ignore the salesman's requirements. Rather, he would be eager to comprehend and speak with them. She stresses that marketing and sales should collaborate as a single team, incorporating customer requirements and inquiries into developing content and marketing strategies.
This cooperative strategy is the first step toward true customer dedication, even though it can be challenging to implement.
Why is successful communication between content marketers and salespeople so tricky?
She observes that putting collaboration into practice can be challenging because experienced salesmen often find it difficult to modify their habits, especially when exposed to fresh ideas from their junior colleagues.
She believes the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset hinders development and emphasizes working together to modify strategies in response to changing consumer behavior.
She emphasizes vulnerability, underlines how difficult it can be for self-assured salespeople to adopt new strategies, and urges to remove obstacles to encourage an openness to learning.
She provides assignment selling, a strategy that uses information to educate clients before sales sessions. This strongly emphasizes openness, including price information on the website to improve user experience.
Briana promotes cooperation between the sales and content teams to guarantee that content answers customer inquiries and results in more targeted discussions with qualified leads. She advises providing pre-consultation emails with appropriate content, which will help to focus conversations on their requirements to help clients be ready.
How does a structure like "They Ask, You Answer" contribute in the context of long-term client success?
Briana recognizes the general focus is on bringing in new business at the cost of retaining current clients. The current clients are a lost chance to build lifelong ties.
She emphasizes the target market and the trust previously built with existing consumers, whereas many businesses prioritize new sales and neglect repeat business.
There is a need to go beyond simple strategies like newsletters and promote assignment selling to foster continuing relationships with customers after the first sale.
She draws attention to a business's use of customized content to inform current clients about products and services available after they make their first purchase. Prevent information overload and cooperate between the sales and content teams to comprehend the queries and worries of returning consumers.
She strongly supports asking regular consumers for feedback, establishing connections, finding problem areas, and treating them as partners.
What are some technical challenges that keep her up at night?
AI is becoming increasingly popular for creating content, but Briana still supports human control and ownership. She suggests a specialized content development team needing a single content owner for attention and quality.
She emphasizes the value of data and the necessity of a robust CRM system, such as HubSpot. Comprehending discovered transactions and determining the content requirements for upcoming sales support enables the content team to coordinate with sales activities.
She presents the idea of a Revenue Team Meeting, in which the content team facilitates talks with sales in mind to speed up conversations and enhance lead quality. Briana highlights the need for leadership buy-in where the CEO's active participation in content production guarantees team members' alignment with the company's strategy.
What is the extent of the CEO's involvement in the RevOps function?
She describes Jeffrey's role with Linda Roofing, emphasizing that although he was not directly involved in content development, he was responsible for recruiting Jesse, the content manager. Briana compares CEOs who lose touch with their staff to Jeffrey, whom she admires for his personal touch and work ethic. She believes that for cultural changes to be successful, leaders must see themselves as equals to their staff and ensure everyone is on track.
Jeffrey acts as the company's on-camera talent, showing up whenever needed to gain clients' trust, although he does not write content himself. She stresses that this is an essential first step, but it is not always simple for a busy CEO to prioritize visibility with staff.
Briana Walgenbach suggests integrating content marketing and sales to achieve shared objectives by dismantling departmental silos. Give targeted content a high priority while nurturing loyal customers. Analyse and improve your content strategy based on statistics and user feedback to better serve your audience.
Listen to the full episode here.
