Since we started BT Partners in 2019, we've gotten the opportunity to work with several fast-growing local and regional B2B enterprises in various verticals including software, insurance, edtech, martech, telecoms, and many more.

One interesting thing that I consistently see across these enterprises is how they all do not have a fully-developed marketing team. Sure, they have a marketing consultant engage with them here and there, or perhaps the CEO is familiar with marketing and has decided to take it on as a pet project, or they have a bunch of top tier interns creating marketing proposals - but if you compare it to what many consumer companies have, you'll see the glaring difference in marketing capabilities in these two types of organizations.

As we engaged our clients, one of the first things we try to understand is why they have not developed this marketing competency at all. Sometimes we even get the luxury of being straightforward enough where we can ask what they think marketing is supposed to be that they aren't investing in it. There is a common denominator to the answers we get: "we are a sales (or business) development-led organization".

Aha! There seems to be our first problem as a consultant - the misaligned belief of what it really takes to hit your revenue numbers. This belief that marketing is not critical to sales (business) development and that you can do the latter without the other is what many B2B organizations often trip as they scale or plan to enter new markets. As consultants, we need to uncover this problem early on because the BT Partners' playbook so tightly integrates sales and marketing. In fact, we have a saying that we live by "marketing is just sales at scale".

Here are three truths we've found about why revenue growth is not just about sales anymore.

There is no more information imbalance

To fully understand the importance of marketing in a B2B sales development environment, we must first accept that the information imbalance that we sales reps used to have over our prospects no longer exist today. Our prospects have unlimited access to information that we may or may not know of that can affect their decision process when it comes to availing of our product or service. With the technology making access to information as easy and convenient as ever, our customers have now become more powerful than ever. If we recognize this, we also therefore must recognize that our prospects can so easily check our company name, our client roster, our client testimonials, etc. even before we even open that so well-put-together sales deck. Having understood that, marketing plays an important role in answering this pre-sales conversation question - 'what sort of reputation does your company have online'?

Brand experience before not just after

With ad platforms bombarding our prospects left and right, it is so easy for any brand to claim anything - claims like "the best", "the most effective", "the most used", etc. are a dime a dozen and on their own no longer work to attract quality prospects. What they are looking for is a proof to the brand promise, a holistic and verifiable brand experience that begins not after they become a client but way before. This means that as sales reps, we need to be consultants, teachers, subject matter experts, research analysts, and a lot more to gain our prospect's trust well enough that they would want it in an official engagement i.e. "a signed deal".

Marketing sits at the heart of sales enablement

We believe in a robust sales operation that is strategic, targeted, and accurate when it comes to pipeline management, deal velocity, and deal forecasts. But it would be an incomplete picture if we did not show our clients how marketing initiatives like audience segmentation, buyer personas, stakeholder mapping, value proposition, brand messaging, brand congruence across all channels, marketing promotions and offers - and many other things - support and impact the way sales development effectively works.

So if you're organization is looking for ways to boost its sales effectiveness and push your revenue growth agenda forward, don't just focus on sales and closing deals. Think about the entire customer journey pre-sales conversation and you'll find that there is so much more you can do to prime your prospects for the perfect pitch!

If you're interested to start this growth journey but don't have the expertise just yet, send us a message at partners@btpartners-asia.com and we would love to work with you to build this capability alongside your sales development team.