On this week’s Weekly Briefing, Jim Benton was joined by Latane Conant, the Chief Market Officer at 6sense.
You read that right: Chief Market Officer.
Leaving off the “ing” is an intentional shift that is the foundation of Latane’s perspective as a CMO.
“One of the things we’ve talked about over the past three years is the role of the CMO,” she said. “It can be quite tactical or it can be highly strategic. It’s up you as the CMO to choose.”
“Tactical is when you focus on the ‘ing’,” she goes on to explain. “Why are we showing up as a Marketing Officer talking about all of our activities? We should be showing up with some authority on the market that we’re in, this is why we’re in this market, this is our next horizon of growth, and how do we shape the market.”
Distinguishing yourself as a leader goes beyond your daily, weekly, quarterly activities. It’s abous making strategic shifts in the market and playing offense.
“It’s the tip of the sphere and something I hope that other CMOs will embrace,” she said.
Median Number of Accounts per Rep in 2020
One of the things you learn as a seller is that the only asset you have is your time.
Amount of Accounts per Rep #
This week, Jim launched into data that revealed the distribution of accounts per rep. Each rep actively works a median of 13 - 14 accounts per month.
This doesn’t include smaller touch points, but it does show how most companies are divvying up their account workload.
And, to broaden the scope a bit, 50% of all companies that we work with are actually between 10 - 15 accounts per rep, per month.
Making sure that our reps are working on the right accounts are paramount.
“One of the things you learn as a seller is that the only asset you have is your time,” said Latane, a self-professed recovering sales person. “And I know marketers feel that sales people aren’t working every opportunity, but they’re being choosey. As a marketer, if you want to drive revenue, your job is to help protect seller’s time. Make sure that you’re giving them the absolute best things to work on. Less is more.”
Based on our data around the amount of accounts each rep is actively working each month, it’s hard to say if the majority of companies are optimizing for working the right accounts.
“If you change to account based models, you’re probably going to have less that you’re putting into the top of the funnel,” said Latane. “This feels uncomfortable at first. But you need to look at your sales veloscity formula. You need to look at various cohorts of what’s coming into the funnel. Conversions, ASPs, and cycle time. If you optimize for that, you’ll make your company a lot of money. If you optimize your company for just putting more in the top, people will run ragged.”
“Finding the Red”
Latane has a process called “Finding the Red”. She looks at each of her conversions. “We’re looking at our conversions, our ASP, and our cycle time.”
She uses this dashboard to project conversions and revenue. “If you’re off, that’s your job as a Chief Market Officer to go run campaigns or shift the market to bridge the gap and address it.”
How many Buying Side contacts are associated with an account?
The Right Lead #
Latane is very prescriptive about their processes. “I want to define what the right lead is,” she said. “The problem with a lead is that it’s one contact. And we know that one person doesn’t buy. Multiple people buy. So that’s the problem with a lead.
As more people engage with you, it becomes a lot less random. If you’re on a typical MQL model, you’ll often disqualify the second lead that comes in. But that’s actually a good indication that you’re on the right track. What we want to look at disqualified accounts.”
Are We Connecting with Intent-Driven Prospects? #
The data across the market shows that Q3 dials are down while connect rates are also slightly down. Latane said that their numbers were slightly different and this excited her.
Here are the four things that Latane uses big data and AI to put their sellers in the best position to win:
1. Fit. Can we sell this account? Can we make this account successful?
2. Personas. “I love interns, but they’re probably not going to buy my software.”
3. Behavior. Looking at frequency and activity.
4. Journey. Where are they at and when are they engaging with the brand?
“If I am a BDR and trying to call on an executive, that can feel intimidating,” she said. “Not only is it determining what accounts to work, but it’s also determining how to work that account. You have to see and know what good looks like.”
Determining what accounts to pursue, however, this is where it can get tricky. Going by the old MQL models can leave you with blind spots into the true intent of your leads. “The problem with intent data is actualizing it,” said Latane.
“We have a living breathing persona map,” said Latane. “And this is how we shape the market.”
Jim and Latane continued their discussion around the predictable pipeline in the era of COVID, how pre-meeting surveys have changed 6sense’s meeting styles, and other actionable insights. Watch the full episode to hear Latane’s take on the market and the way that Revenue orgs can activate their account-based, persona-based, data-based pipeline.
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