Click 'Read Original' for details. Source: Brand Geometry (ID: brand-vista) Recently, Lucy has been troubled. The marketing manager for one of the countries she oversees has been receiving complaints from both the sales manager and sales director: either marketing materials are not well-supported, or marketing expenses are approved slowly, or promotional activity designs do not meet customer requirements... Facing these complaints, I patiently talked with this marketing manager several times. He also patiently explained various reasons and justifications. As the head of the marketing department, I understand his pain points and know that sales may make unreasonable demands. I suggested he proactively communicate with sales, understand their needs, and quickly resolve issues. But a month later, after returning from a meeting in Germany where I discussed grand digital transformation strategies for the marketing department with headquarters' bosses and the CEO, I had to face reality. Not only was the sales department full of complaints about our marketing manager, but the product department also directly voiced dissatisfaction in meetings. This forced me to have a critical conversation with this subordinate. (Before this conversation, I specifically consulted our HR expert and set the topic as personal career development, aiming to drive him through clear goal setting to become self-motivated and break through.) But when I enthusiastically explained our marketing department's three-step strategic transformation goals—from supporting sales, to influencing sales, to leading sales—he looked troubled and skeptical, asking, "How can we influence sales, let alone lead them?" Then he listed various difficulties: we don't have data, we don't understand the market, we don't understand products and technology, and sales are unwilling to share customer information... My heart sank. I controlled my emotions and said firmly, "This is the goal. As a marketing manager for an important country, you must have this ambition and confidence. From now on, work toward this goal." Then I worked with him to detail three key priorities for short-term goals and followed up with a personal development action plan. At this point, as B2B marketing colleagues, what do you think? Do you think I am too idealistic and autocratic? Do you, like my subordinate, think that the B2B marketing department is just to serve the sales department, giving them whatever they ask for? Why bother being so troublesome and pretentious? Why not just hide behind sales and collect a paycheck, especially in today's economic downturn? Lucy believes that goals drive behavior, and dreams shape the future. In the future, the B2B marketing department will lead the sales department. B2B marketers should have such ambition. If we don't have the strategic goal of leading sales in the future, we will be passively beaten and eventually kicked out because we lack value. So we must have a sense of crisis, especially in this rapidly changing and iterating era. The so-called safe strategy of following and hiding is often the most dangerous, as companies face unprecedented challenges and competition. The layoffs at major companies in early 2019 should have sounded the alarm for us. In a countercurrent, if you don't advance, you retreat. For B2B marketers, this is both the worst and the best of times. We must find ways to achieve a "counterattack" through goal-driven, self-challenging, and continuous improvement. Only then can we achieve greater career benefits in the future, rather than clinging to this dead salary that can be taken away at any time, letting salespeople order us around, letting other departments accuse us of being a money-spending department out of touch with reality, and letting top management ignore the existence and value of the marketing department... B2B marketers across the industry, unite! Let us hold high the great banner of "leading sales" and realize our great dream of achieving personal value, departmental value, and company value. So how do we achieve this? Here, I suggest you find a comfortable seat and listen to this "Chatty Sister" talk about "Marketing Art of War." Recently, Lucy flipped through "The Art of War" given by a friend in the industry and was inspired. In fact, if B2B marketers set the goal of "leading sales," they need to fight a "turnaround battle." How to fight this battle? Just as "The Art of War" mentions the five key elements of war—"Tao," "Heaven," "Earth," "General," and "Method"—I will elaborate from the perspective of B2B marketers: Tao: Establish a clear mission and correct values Throughout history, "those who follow the Tao have many supporters; those who abandon it have few" is an unchanging truth, from nations to companies to departments. For the B2B marketing department, most companies do not have clear departmental values and missions. Most companies only set KPI assessment goals for marketers once a year. Some companies even have only one or two people in the B2B marketing department and don't bother setting goals. But we must have a clear mission in our hearts: for example, helping the company acquire and retain customers; helping sales achieve growth; helping build brand and create competitive differentiation. With a clear mission driving us, we must next establish correct values. Values can better guide our judgment, decisions, and behavior in daily work. Lucy believes that since the goal of the B2B marketing department is to lead sales in the future, this goal cannot be achieved through flattery, scheming, opportunism, or power games. Instead, it should be driven by correct values of continuous learning, self-growth, hard work, proactiveness, and innovation, so as to better understand and assist sales internally, and gain insights and serve customers externally. Having a clear mission and correct values is not enough. We must repeat our mission through various channels and opportunities in the company, just like advertising, to create a positive momentum. Let the sales department, other departments, and bosses and top management be infected by us. For example, I, Lucy, take helping sales growth as the mission of our marketing department. So I emphasize this in my speeches and remarks at company meetings, big and small, and regularly share marketing department reports via monthly emails, while using images and data to prove it. Over time, as we say it more and also do it, they will believe it deeply. Heaven: Leverage the mobile internet and big data era to understand customers Now, with the rapid development of information technology, the way B2B enterprise customers acquire information has changed dramatically. Information transparency and scattered attention have made customers more independent and professional, and they firmly control the purchasing decision. This provides B2B marketers with a unique opportunity to reach customers. "Customer is God" is no longer just a slogan; customer support has become the most critical and scarce corporate resource. That means whoever masters customers will help the company win the future. In the past, most B2B marketing personnel had to wait for sales to provide customer information or only contact customers through annual exhibitions or seminars. So their understanding of customers was superficial or like blind men touching an elephant. Under information asymmetry, the marketing department could only be constrained by the sales department because sales knew customers better and understood what products and solutions they needed. As management guru Drucker said, "The purpose of a business is to create and keep customers." Since the sales department can fulfill the corporate mission, the marketing department can only do odd jobs for sales. This is value-driven, and B2B marketers can only admit defeat. But with the mobile internet and big data, we marketers can reach customers through online media and channels. With data-driven and technology-enabled approaches, we can further obtain potential customer data, refine user profiles, conduct precision marketing, and then extract sales leads to help sales better acquire and convert customers. In many high-tech information industry B2B enterprises, B2B marketers have already "turned over and become masters," standing tall. For example, Dell's marketing department followed the trend, built a customer development data platform (CDP) with 600,000 sales leads over four years, conducted inbound marketing through webinars and WeChat and other social media multi-touchpoints, introduced marketing automation technology, classified and targeted customer data, and achieved a 10% market sales contribution rate. In today's economic winter, achieving growth is already difficult. If a B2B enterprise's marketing department can help the company achieve 10% growth through data marketing, it indeed earns the respect of sales and bosses. Earth: Win the support of company bosses and the sales department through actions Colleagues who have worked in large companies know that no matter how great the dream, it needs to be grounded. The biggest obstacles to achieving the marketing department's mission are boss support and departmental collaboration. After all, the marketing department is not a small startup isolated from the enterprise. Every marketing activity we undertake toward the goal requires boss approval and colleague assistance. Otherwise, we cannot move an inch. I have seen some marketing colleagues in companies have tense relationships with sales, constantly bickering. Especially when sales performance is poor, they blame insufficient marketing support. Some marketing colleagues, unwilling to accept this, simply and crudely accuse sales of being unprofessional and not providing customer data in meetings. I think this is not conducive to achieving the marketing department's goals. On the contrary, I believe the marketing and sales departments should establish a good cooperative relationship like a couple, with achieving sales growth as a common goal, respecting each other, learning from each other, and progressing together. Only then can we win sales support, build trust, and gradually get them to share more customer information and sales projects, and be willing to take us to visit customers and win orders together. So how do we win sales trust and support? First, the marketing department must know sales' problems and pain points. Most B2B sales have two major pain points: 1. They are unwilling and not good at making plans and reports Especially, they hate making PPTs. So every time they need to make a PPT for meeting reports or customer proposals, they scratch their heads. Even if they reluctantly do it, we, as appearance-conscious marketers, feel like crying because it looks ugly, thinking, "Doesn't this affect the company's brand image?" At this time, if we can volunteer to proactively help sales make plans and reports with marketing strategy thinking, it will definitely help sales. When sales win boss appreciation and customer recognition, they will naturally thank the marketing department. 2. Lack of systematic customer information collection and insight Many B2B sales prefer to take sales actions rather than spend time researching customers. But most people, before visiting customers, still go online to understand basic company information and news. However, lacking professional training, the information they focus on may be scattered and unsystematic, or they cannot efficiently and quickly extract valuable information from a large number of articles. They also hope to have high-quality conversations with customers, demonstrate deep understanding of customer business, share industry best practices and unique insights, guide customer needs, and establish competitive advantages. But their energy, effort, and time do not allow it. At this time, a professionally trained marketing department can help sales establish customer management files and a CRM system, use systematic customer insight methods to help sales uncover customer needs, and provide targeted products and solutions. This way, sales' win rate will be higher, and they will naturally be grateful for the marketing department's contribution. General: Cultivate growth-oriented marketing officers with user thinking and data thinking In "The Art of War," the requirements for generals are to achieve "wisdom, trust, benevolence, courage, and strictness." Similarly, in the era of data marketing, the requirements for marketing department leaders who lead sales and drive growth are getting higher. Next, Lucy will share her experience and feelings on the direction B2B marketing leaders should strive for: Wisdom: In the digital marketing era, B2B marketing officers must not only understand marketing, but also users, data, products, design, and strategic planning Among these, the most important is to remember the team goal of growth as the mission, encourage the team to obtain richer user insights through technical means, and then build a "growth hacker" team in the marketing department that is customer-centric, data-driven, and technology-enabled. Frankly, today's CMOs need far more wisdom than ancient strategist Zhuge Liang, but I believe marketing officers who are not afraid of challenges are already prepared to arm ourselves. Trust: B2B marketing officers must firmly believe that the marketing department can help the company create growth and lead sales in the future This must be rooted in your heart. And you must outline the path to achieve this goal in your mind, form a set of marketing persuasion logic, and continuously influence your boss, CEO, team members, sales department, product department, finance department, customers, and service providers... I really like Ma Yun's saying, "Because you believe, you see." Alibaba's success today as a great global e-commerce company is inseparable from Ma's belief and persistence. So we B2B marketing officers must also establish firm beliefs and never waver. Benevolence: The service concept that customers are God, do customer experience marketing well, and treat customers with warmth like spring We must find ways to explore customer purchase journeys and touchpoints, analyze customer pain points and demands, and then continuously approach and understand customers, explore precise and effective marketing methods to create value for customers. So B2B marketing officers should not sit in the office all day talking on paper, but should visit customers with sales and care about customers. Courage: B2B marketing officers must have the courage and boldness to propose their own ideas, promote innovative marketing projects, and take risks Instead of always unconditionally obeying orders from the boss and sales department, at critical moments, they should be brave and tactful in presenting their own proposals and ideas. Even if rejected or questioned, do not retreat. Boldly hypothesize, carefully verify, do more pilots, create models, provide data, and be polite and reasonable. One day, the boss and sales will be moved by your professionalism and performance. Otherwise, a B2B marketing officer is just a money-dispensing ATM, a department store for gifts, an exhibition builder... or a scapegoat for the sales department... Strictness: In marketing activities and campaigns, B2B marketing officers must strictly require team members Through goal setting, let members be self-driven, result-oriented, and develop a tough and efficient work style of timely feedback and rapid iteration. Method: Use all possible methods for marketing innovation Soldiers are not always in formation, and water is not always in a fixed shape. Whether it's "The Art of War" or "The Thirty-Six Stratagems," for the B2B marketing department, we must always remember that our combat methods are dynamically adjusted, and our combat thought is how to use the best methods, the lowest investment, and the most efficient means to help the company achieve growth. So all methods beneficial to growth and customers must be learned, tried, and explored: content marketing, community marketing, marketing technology, etc. These all need to be combined with our industry, competitive landscape, customer situation, company strategy, product technology, and sales strategy, and practiced and summarized through one marketing innovation and activity after another. Okay, having chatted so much, Lucy has been maintaining the state of a revolutionary female soldier and is indeed a bit tired. Time to take a breather. But I sincerely call on all B2B marketers to establish a belief: we will lead sales in the future. Let us enter a "war state," be prepared at all times, and strive to realize our career ideals.