Advice to all managers: Initiate the discussion about the elephant in the room.
Doing so builds trust, shows authenticity, and fosters real dialogue.
Your team desires those things even if they don’t request them verbally.
Author: Grant Duncan
I think B2B influencer marketing is way underrated.
Easy way to get started: collaborate with a YouTube influencer in your space.
And be comfortable that much of the value won’t show up in attribution software but it will in dark social.
How do you discuss annual pricing with an inbound lead:
When you mention the annual price such as $2,000, it’s best to translate that into a per user per month price. For instance, “Our starting package is $2,000 per year with no long-term contract. So that breaks down to $x per user per month.” If this pricing also includes a discount from the month-to-month price, make sure to mention that!
Why do this?
It makes the price seem smaller, so they’re more likely to stay engaged and avoid sticker shock.
I’m not sure who needs to hear this today but don’t be afraid of interviewing in English as a non-native speaker.
The Marketer I interviewed today occasionally forgot how to say certain words or phrases in English. That is no big deal for 95%+ of roles! Especially in this case b/c it was for an international region.
Heck, even native speakers often can’t think of the right word to say to capture a certain sentiment.
Knowing more than 1 language is a huge value; be proud of your roots and your ability to learn new things.
I hope this helps you be confident in your next interview 🙂
The #1 thing I look for in job applicants’ resumes is:
Quantitative results and accomplishments listed
This shows me that they care about the results they achieve and don’t just do work because someone told them to do specific tasks
Here’s a simple way to compare customer acquisition costs from Marketing efforts vs outbound Sales efforts.
NOTE: This doesn’t factor in the long-term benefits that naturally come from Marketing such as brand awareness, dark social, and becoming a thought leader so that people come to you when they are eventually ready to buy.
Calculate the average cost per inbound closed won customer. (Or avg cost per inbound $ of revenue if the deal sizes are different between inbound and outbound.)
Then compare that with the cost per outbound closed won customer.
Depending on your company stage, you’ll get different winners. Just don’t ignore those long-term benefits from Marketing I mentioned earlier 🙂
Fully remote Marketing teams are the future. (And the now for companies like Zingtree.)
Even if the whole company isn’t fully remote, Marketing can be this way. Then you can attract the best talent globally.
Let’s close the pay equity gap! Here’s a radical but simple hiring idea to help do so 💡
Give people the best possible offer you can and then don’t allow negotiating. Why?
Statistically, women and people of color don’t negotiate as much. That means white men will most likely continue to extend their pay above others if negotiating is allowed.
Giving your best offer upfront also speeds up the hiring process.
How? Use the many public or paid data sources about compensation benchmarks, decide what your company’s hiring comp strategy is, and then give the best you got to the candidate.
This is what Zingtree does, and I love it. P.S. We’re hiring 😊
No public pricing on your website? You’re missing out!Â
Here’s why software companies should list actual pricing on their website:
You need it if you want to have a PLG motion. Few people will self-sign-up for something that they don’t how much it will cost.
You automatically filter out people that won’t have enough budget to pay for what you do. Any time spent on these people from Sales is a waste. You can avoid these people who you’ll win at a 0-1% rate by having them self-disqualify.
If you’re worried about competitors copying your pricing or negotiating lower, they probably already know your pricing… Prospects often share competing quotes with another company as a negotiation tactic. So… your competition has probably already seen your quotes. That means you putting it on your website is going to make no difference.
When a company is in the beginning stages of a buying process or they’re trying to put together a business case to get approval to buy your type of software, one of the first things that typically happens is a manager will do some research online to find the pricing ranges for competitors. You might not get thrown in the mix of consideration if they have to request a quote just to get estimated pricing.
You might say that showing pricing doesn’t give Sales the chance to sell the value of the product to make them see that it’s worth the cost. However, if you’re “creating demand” through Marketing, they should be coming in well-educated already.Â
What’s your take? What am I missing?
I was interviewed on the Marketing Trends podcast recently! Click the link below to listen to the whole episode to hear about international marketing, creating demand, and how to scale marketing in a competitive space.