2017 TRENDS

& TECH GUIDE

FOR B2B SALES
+ MARKETING
TABLE OF CONTENTS

3 Authors

4 Introduction

5 Managing Millennials

9 Account-Based Marketing & Sales Strategies Come of Age

12 The New CMO

17 The Segmented Sales Force

21 Customer Experience: A Unifying Force for Sales & Marketing

24 Personalize Everything: From Messaging to Management

28 The Consolidated Technology Stack

32 The Currency of Trust

36 Machine Learning: Predictive Sales and Marketing

AUTHORS

Prezi
Prezi is the cloud-based presentation software that helps you connect
powerfully with your audience. Unlike slides, Prezi’s zoomable canvas
shows relationships between the big picture and fine details, putting ideas
into context and engaging viewers in a unique and visually exciting way.
Prezi is in the business of making presenters great.

Contributors: Adam Wooley, Director of B2B Marketing. Chelsi Nakano,

B2B Content Strategy & Development. Bogdan Zlatkov, Content
Marketing Manager.

Ambition
Ambition is a Harvard Business Review-endorsed performance tracking,
management and motivation platform built specifically for client-facing
teams in sales, support, marketing and account management. PwC,
Lyft, MemSQL, Filemaker, FiveStars, UPS, and Outreach use Ambition to
enhance their culture and revenue. Accolades: #1 Sales Management Tool
for 2016 (Docurated); #1 Sales Tool You Should Be Using (Datanyze);
#1 Service Provider for Sales Gamification & Recognition (AA-ISP); and
#2 Category Leader in Sales Performance Management (G2 Crowd).

Contributors: Jared Houghton, Chief Sales Officer. Brian Trautschold,

Chief Operations Officer. Jeremy Boudinet, Director of Marketing.

LeadGenius
LeadGenius is an Account-Based Marketing and lead generation platform.
LeadGenius uses a unique combination of machine learning and human
intelligence to help B2B marketing and sales teams find and connect with
decision makers at their ideal accounts.

Contributors: William Wickey, Content and Media Strategy.

INTRODUCTION

To evaluate, and ultimately purchase, the right technologies for your

business, it’s important to understand the landscape of available
solutions. Making purchase decisions based on what’s going on in
your company and in your industry—in terms of people, processes and
products—can keep you from making the costly mistake of selecting the
wrong software.

This thoughtful guide will help you connect identifiable business needs
to the technologies that can best meet them. Ideal for leaders in B2B
sales, marketing, customer and technical support, operations, and data
analytics, it contains valuable insights into what’s happening in various
industries, what emerging technologies are rapidly gaining popularity, and
how you can use innovative platforms to extend the power of your people
and products.

Each chapter in this ebook explains a trend, identifies the needs relevant Please submit feedback about our
to that trend, and provides 10–15 product solutions—along with original selections and writeups to Jeremy
Boudinet or Will Wickey. Feel free
analyses of product features and functionality—to meet those needs.
to cross-reference each product
And since we know that every company, department, and role operates with recommendations, insights,
differently, the 100+ platforms reviewed here span every budget size and and reviews from G2 Crowd and
serve a variety of job functions and seniority levels. similar industry lists.

From all of us at Prezi, Ambition, and LeadGenius we hope you enjoy the
2017 Trends and Tech Guide for B2B Sales + Marketing.

Happy hunting!
CHAPTER 1

Managing Millennials
The Trend

In 2015, millennials surpassed Gen X-ers to make up the largest portion of the
American workforce—one in every three workers is a Millennial (Pew Research).
These demographic changes bring with them changes in the way that businesses
and teams work together.

M illennials have very different expectations from the generations

that came before them. Per a recent study by PwC, Gen-Y
The Needs

“desires a workplace environment that emphasizes teamwork and a
sense of community” and “value transparency” at higher rates than
their non-Millennial colleagues. As Millennials have graduated and
moved into the professional world, they’ve brought their modern
expectations and favorite tools with them. An environment that for
decades has largely been ruled by Microsoft is suddenly fractured,
full of new-world alternatives like Slack, Salesforce, and Trello, all of
which reward openness and collaboration over hierarchy and siloed
information. We will be looking at three different categories of tools
that Millennials are bringing into the workplace: communication
tools, tools that promote transparency, and visualization tools.
1. Millennials are visually driven
80% of people remember what they see, compared
to 20% who remember what they read. The average
millennial attention span is 8 seconds. Visual
learners now comprise 65% of the total population.
(Neoman Studies)
2. Millennials are constantly connected
88% of millennials prefer a collaborative work
environment over a competitive one. (Forbes)

3. Millennials want constant feedback

79% of millennials want their boss to serve more as
a coach or mentor. (Forbes)

5
The Tools
Ambition
ambition.com
Best for: Growth, mid-market and enterprise front office teams
with a rhythmic daily workflow, competitive employees, and high-
energy culture.
Cost: $$–$$$
Ambition’s acclaimed employee productivity platform gives
360° visibility into individual and team performance. Create
accountability and recognition with live performance data from
any data source. Track and broadcast key metrics to personalized
dashboards and office TVs. Put holistic goals right in front of your
reps. Compare activity level and goal attainment across teams to
see how hard and how smart your reps are working. Benchmark
success for teams, roles and individuals, then drive results via
automated scorecards, contests, recognition and reporting.
Perfect for front office teams that value performance-driven
culture and transparent operations.
Google G-Suite
gsuite.google.com
Best for: Early-stage SMBs that lack G-Suite’s essential
functionality and uniformity in their current operations.
Cost: $
Google G-Suite gives you everything your team needs: email,
calendar, chat, analytics, content templates, analytics, and tons
of storage. Each piece seamlessly integrates across your entire
company for maximum sharing, efficiency, and transparency.
Slack
slack.com
Best for: Teams that want to communicate easily and often, keep
project conversations organized and simple to search, and have
fun while doing it.
Cost: $
Slack is one of the best ways to get your team off email. It includes
internal messaging, emoji, and a millennial-worthy .gif library to
boot. Users can drag and drop any documents, links, or visuals into
direct messages between specific individuals or groups.
Dropbox
dropbox.com
Best for: SMB, growth and mid-market teams that need a central
location for their digital assets.
Cost: $–$$
Dropbox has been around for more than a decade and is still the
surefire solution for cloud-based team storage. It’s dependable,
trusted, and a great way to share information between teams.
Evernote
evernote.com
Best for: Business leaders seeking to improve overall team
organization, workflow, and record-keeping.
Cost: $–$$$
A powerhouse in organizational communication, Evernote is
an essential tool for obsessive note-takers. It allows you to
easily create and share notes, reminders, and to-do lists with
your entire team and even indexes all your notes to make them
easily searchable.
6
Basecamp
basecamp.com
Best for: Newcomers to project management, whose marketing
personnel skew heavy on the creative side but light on process.
Cost: $$
Basecamp is a great way to manage projects thanks to its
appealing interface and custom collaboration settings. Perfect
for design and marketing professionals, Basecamp is the ideal
starting point for companies making their first foray into project
management software.
Quip
quip.com
Best for: Any company of any size that lacks a unified document
collaboration platform.
Cost: $
Quip turns word documents, spreadsheets, and checkpoints into
collaborative entities that serve a variety of purposes. Whether
you’re working on a collaborative strategy session, monthly
budget, or tracking progress towards project completion, Quip
creates a seamless collaboration experience.
Huddle
huddle.com
Best for: Companies with complex, cross-functional initiatives that
require maximum coordination and supervision.
Cost: $$
Huddle is built for maximum utility and functionality for every
major department of your company. If you’re looking to go bigger
with project management and truly scale team collaboration
initiatives, Huddle is the solution for you.
Box
box.com
Best for: Teams that want functionality without the frills.
Cost: $
This spartan platform helps users create branded sales assets,
business plans, meeting notes, and other documents in your
everyday business operations. Box is a great entry point to
the world of modern content management and business
collaboration.
HipChat
hipchat.com
Best for: Mature mid-market and enterprise teams or SMBs on an
ultra-tight budget.
Cost: $
HipChat is team communication software with unbeatable
pricing, simple and intuitive functionality, and high customization
potential. HipChat is great for teams looking for a simple
alternative to email without any frills.
Trello
trello.com
Best for: Outbound teams that struggle with ambiguity and
inconsistency in their daily workflow, and that love a good sprint.
Cost: $
Trello has become one of the most popular task management
solutions for outbound teams and is ideal for agile practitioners.
Using boards, lists, and cards allows users to create easy-to-follow
workflows to keep projects on track.
7
Asana
asana.com

Best for: Pretty much everyone who works in a front office

position.

Cost: $

Asana easily owns the title of “Most Agile” in the business

collaboration space. Simple interfaces let teams build transparent
tasks, projects, and analytics programs that seamlessly integrate
with existing data sources. Worth noting: Asana’s premium plan
comes at a sub-$10 monthly price point per user.

Breeze
breeze.pm

Best Best for: Disorganized teams, siloed departments, and

people who appreciate accountability.

Cost: $$

A highly-affordable and pain-free task management workspace

built perfectly for large sales and marketing teams, Breeze lets you
establish strategies, deadlines, to-do lists, scheduled tasks, and
progress benchmarks. A product that lives by its name.

Wrike
wrike.com

Best Best for: Creative and design-oriented marketing teams that

need next-level project management support.

Cost: $–$$

An enterprise-grade project management platform for marketing,

Wrike’s most striking feature is how it keeps your creative
processes, KPIs, and collaborative efforts all under one umbrella.
A great prescription for overextended teams having trouble
meeting deadlines, sharing workloads, or executing projects.

8
CHAPTER 2

Account-Based Marketing &

Sales Strategies Come of Age
The Trend

Account-based everything is everywhere. As a B2B marketing and sales leader, you’ve

heard it from every angle: Account-Based Marketing (ABM), Account-Based Sales,
Account-Based Lead Generation, Account-Based Sales Development, Account-Based
Customer Success. The list goes on.

T he noise behind ABM has been deafening at times, but the buzz
has been building for good reason: when used correctly, account
The Needs

based tactics can shorten the buying cycle, increase lead-to-
opportunity conversion rates, decrease Customer Acquisition Cost
(CAC), and reduce churn. Again, the list goes on. A well-run account
based strategy can have a positive impact on most marketing and
sales Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
At its core, an account-based strategy is a holistic business-to-
business strategy that enables companies to more effectively sell
into a targeted list of accounts. Highly-personalized messaging,
through a variety of channels, is used to target to multiple decision
makers to help speed the buying process along. The idea is to no
longer have a massive, wide open marketing funnel, but rather to
channel efforts efficiently and strategically.
1. Personalized-messaging to multiple
decision makers in a scalable way
The number of people involved in a large tech
purchase has increased from 5–7. (IDC via
Salesforce)
2. A shorter sales cycle
The majority of organizations that do not conduct
ABM have sales and marketing cycles exceeding
120 days. The majority that do use ABM: 90 days
or less. (Bizible)

So how is Account-Based Marketing different than “Enterprise 3. Maximize efforts across revenue
Sales?” The difference is scale. An account-based strategy can be generating departments
used to target a company of any size. Instead of messaging only to 91% of those with an ABM program in place said
decision makers within a company, all revenue generating teams they were “tightly” or “somewhat or moderately”
(Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, Product, etc.) work together to aligned with sales. (Sirius Decisions via eMarketer)
simultaneously target multiple decision makers, with different roles
and responsibilities. The concept involves leveraging dynamics of
group psychology to close an account. New technology is making
the tried-and-true personal approach approach of enterprise sales
scalable and cost-effective for targeting SMBs.

2016 ushered in a great deal of discussion around account based

strategy—much of it high-level and aspirational. In 2017, more B2B
companies will put account based theory into practice.

9
The Tools

LeadGenius Datanyze
leadgenius.com datanyze.com

Best for: Sales and marketing teams that want to function as Best for: Hard-hitting sales organizations that are ready to fight the
two limbs of the same organism, supporting each other’s goals, competition using hyper-targeted information and gutsy tactics.
evolving together, and perfecting the buyer journey.
Cost: $$–$$$
Cost: $$–$$$$
Datanyze is like a secret sales agent that really wants to get to know
As your target database begins to grow, LeadGenius helps you. Use it for unparalleled competitor analysis, building and vetting
you prune prospects, cultivate customers, and zero-in on prospects, and organizing key targets—plus, see tough-to-find info,
company decision-makers. Use it to ditch bad leads, unearth such as which targets have adopted or dropped competitors.
new stakeholders and decision-makers, and scale your best-
performing campaigns with A/B test-ready email outreach
capabilities. Plus you get unlimited users, so you can scale up
without scraping the bottom of your budget barrel.

DataFox
datafox.com

Best for: Sales and marketing organizations frustrated by dirty and

DiscoverOrg missing prospect data.
discoverorg.com Cost: $$

Best for: Mid-market-enterprise teams selling complex deals to

DataFox assesses the overall health and quality of your data,
accounts with multiple decision makers.
identifies and resolves discrepancies, and enables you to quickly
Cost: $$$–$$$$ discover and add targeted accounts and prospects on the fly. For
good measure, DataFox also has a Company Signals feature that
DiscoverOrg is the most robust solution in sales and marketing adds continuous value and insight to your prospecting efforts.
intelligence on the planet. Get full contact lists that auto-update (in
your CRM!) as prospect and account information changes. Email,
phone, and social information is included.

ZenProspect
zenprospect.com

Best for: B2B sales and marketing teams who want to

synchronize, streamline, and spruce up their prospecting process.

Cost: $$–$$$

ZenProspect is the only complete, all-in-one sales intelligence and

automation tool on the market. You can import current leads and
run outbound email and call campaigns complete with scheduling,
segmentation, messaging analytics, and A/B testing, all from a
single interface.

10
LeanData Terminus
leandatainc.com terminus.com

Best for: Sales organizations that lack coordination and insight Best for: Entry-level account-based marketing teams using
into sales lead management. Salesforce.

Cost: $$ Cost: $$–$$$

LeanData focuses exclusively on all things lead management. Get Terminus brings an amazing 3-step level of simplicity to B2B
total transparency on attribution, routing, workflow, and sales cycle marketing leaders. If you’re new to ABM and need a platform that
progression with drag-and-drop self-serve interfaces and visually can show you the ropes while you see your strategy through to
compelling real-time reporting. completion, Terminus is a great option.

InsideView Demandbase
insideview.com demandbase.com

Best for: Account-based teams and challenger sales organizations Best for: Mid-market and enterprise B2B companies leveraging an
with complex sales cycles. account-based marketing strategy.

Cost: $$–$$$ Cost: $$–$$$

InsideView embeds relevant targeting intelligence throughout your Demandbase is built to tackle all four corners of an account-based
workflow and funnel by using key data points for prospects and marketing strategy, offering robust solutions for identifying target
contacts, real-time insights from social and press sources, and a accounts, running tailored advertising campaigns, routing insights
view into your connected network within each account. to sales, and analyzing your sales funnel through an ABM lens.

Engagio
engagio.com

Best for: Companies that are running account-based anything.

Cost: $$–$$$

Engagio is leading the account-based movement by equipping

marketing, sales, and customer success with account-centric
analytics and orchestrated outbound interactions. Account
insights range from who to target, who’s engaged, and who is
getting touched by marketing and sales.

11
CHAPTER 3

The New CMO

The Trend

Operations and revenue. Add those skills to the laundry list. As the roles and
responsibilities of the B2B marketing organization evolve, so too do those of their
chief officer. Marketing organizations are being given increased responsibility for
revenue and marketing operations. These new demands require an updated skill set
from marketing leadership.

F or “The New CMO,” the scope of the role is rapidly expanding

beyond brand vision, people management, creative development,
The Needs

market research, advertising, agency management, and being
the voice of the customer in the organization. The baseline has
shifted. The modern CMO now leads a full-funnel marketing team,
responsible for driving not just acquisition, but customer success.
In many B2B companies, product marketing, retention, upselling,
customer happiness, and even user experience now fall under the
CMO’s purview.
Technological savviness in 2017 isn’t about digital channels, social
media, or interactive experiences. It’s about wrenching accurate
and actionable insights from an often unwieldy and complex
technology stack. It’s about having the confidence and capability
to go beyond steering “marketing strategy” and towards steering
“business strategy.” The technology landscape is evolving so quickly
that many senior marketers have never touched key tools in their
stack—especially when it comes to analytics and reporting. Having a
rich understanding of the character and capabilities, the nuance and
nature, of new technology is critical for today’s CMO.
The New CMO doesn’t have to get their hands dirty, necessarily, but
they need to be able to work a pivot table, and work it well. He or she
cannot command a siloed department, but must be a unifying voice
on the executive team. Finally, the new CMO must savvily handle
data—lots of it.
1. Optimize marketing-sales alignment
• Aligned companies earned 208% more revenue via
marketing. (MarketingProfs via HubSpot)
• When sales and marketing are in sync, 67%
increase in closed deals. (Marketo via HubSpot)
2. Reporting on pipeline performance
68% of B2B organizations have not identified their
funnel. (MarketingSherpa via HubSpot)
3. Supply sales with educational
content and assets
• 82% of buyers viewed 5+ pieces of content from
winning vendor. (Forrester via HubSpot)
• 95% of buyers chose a solution provider that
“Provided them with ample content to help
navigate through each stage of the buying
process.” (DemandGen Report via HubSpot)
4. Manage full-funnel marketing teams
64% of CMOs have an informal/no process for
managing marketing automation. (HubSpot via
Thought Process Enterprises)

12
The Tools
Prezi Business
prezi.com/business
Best for: Businesses that want to stand above the competition
with engaging presentations and real-time analytics.
Cost: $–$$
Prezi Business is an entire suite of presentation and analytics
tools for those wishing to break through the noise of their slide-
wielding competitors. Unlike slides, Prezi Business lets users
navigate between topics at will, following the natural flow of
discussion. “Conversational presenting” feels more personal,
more relevant, and better-prepared for your specific target than
traditional one-way slide shows. And when you’re done, powerful
analytics let you see who’s viewing your materials and which parts
they find most interesting.
Marketo
marketo.com
Best for: Experienced marketing automation users with an
extensive library of existing content, a complex sales cycle,
multiple decision makers, and varied ICPs.
Cost: $$$–$$$$
Marketo is heavy machinery when it comes to marketing
automation. Under the right circumstances, it’s the most powerful
weapon a marketing team can own, as it provides the most
complete suite of features that high-growth and mid-market
companies need.
HubSpot
hubspot.com
Best for: Any marketing or sales team that wants to get started
the right way or make what they’re already doing the very best it
can be.
Cost: $–$$$
HubSpot is king of the content marketing universe. It’s an all-
in-one tool that has everything you need to start a successful
marketing program—including marketing automation, templates,
email campaigns, and landing pages. Plus it has endless content
explaining how to be a blogging and social media superstar.
Oracle Eloqua
eloqua.com
Best for: Large marketing teams with equally large budgets,
complex operations, and plentiful marketing automation
experience.
Cost: $$$$
In terms of sheer functionality, Eloqua is without equal. A
sophisticated, enterprise-grade platform that covers every inch
of the field for modern digital marketing operations, Eloqua is
built for big-time companies with Ph.D-level digital marketing
practitioners at the helm.
13
Pardot
pardot.com
Best for: Mid-Market and Enterprise companies running robust
sales operations via Salesforce.
Cost: $$$–$$$$
Pardot has all the functionality your team needs to smarten
and segment inbound lead generation, outbound nurturing, and
sales-marketing alignment. The prospect segmentation features
are especially impressive, allowing you to run complex segment
analytics on your entire prospect database in less than sixty
seconds.
Act-On
act-on.com
Best for: Businesses in growth-mode who count customer
satisfaction as a competitive edge.
Cost: $$–$$$
Act-On distinguishes itself among marketing automation
platforms with its nonexistent ramp time and affordable pricing.
For newcomers to marketing automation who’d prefer to get
a quality platform up-and-running as quickly and painlessly as
possible, Act-On is a solid choice.
Mailchimp
mailchimp.com
Best for: Marketing teams light in existing marketing automation
and budget. Client Success teams in larger organizations looking
to send product newsletters and alerts to existing customers on a
separate, standalone platform.
Cost: $–$$
Mailchimp has one of the most passionate fanbases in all of sales
and marketing software. It’s a godsend to newly-minted startups
and SMBs that can use its email templates, drag-and-drop builder,
mass distribution capabilities and analytics with up to 2000
people—free of charge.
Emma
myemma.com
Best for: Sophisticated marketing teams with a dedicated email
marketing role.
Cost: $$–$$$
Emma delivers the most granular email automation experience
you’ll find. Its segmentation, design, and reporting capabilities
allow for customization and insights that drill down to a practically
molecular level. Integrations with Salesforce, Litmus, and other
key software providers make Emma a great option for the
committed email marketer.
SumoMe
sumome.com
Best for: Small, growing, and mid-market businesses that need an
affordable, lightweight website enhancer.
Cost: $–$$
If you’re looking to optimize your website on a budget, SumoMe
offers a suite of affordable solutions that are dead-simple to
set up and help you start driving immediate results. SumoMe’s
ease-of-use and measurable impacts on conversion rate and
shareability are nothing short of guaranteed.
Optimizely
optimizely.com
Best for: Marketing leaders with high ICP variation and a
dedicated inbound strategy.
Cost: $$–$$$
Optimizely is a pure website optimization tool that includes
features like A/B testing, site conversion analytics, traffic flow
visualization, and mobile toggling. Optimizely’s personalization
capabilities enable companies to create variables of each page
that appeal most directly to site visitors based on handpicked
data points.
14
Unbounce
unbounce.com
Best for: Marketing leaders looking to aggressively ramp up
inbound leads in 2017.
Cost: $$–$$$
Unbounce developed a pure landing page creation and
optimization platform for the coding-challenged marketing team
to help tackle the problem of high bounce rates. With Unbounce
you can build self-serve hosted sites, design landing pages, and
execute A/B testing and analytics with ease.
Hootsuite
hootsuite.com
Best for: Experienced social media gurus who have a core strategy
in place, but need a simple way to track, execute, and report.
Cost: $–$$
HootSuite helps you streamline, organize, and schedule posts
across all of your social channels. Track keywords, measure the
ROI of your team’s social media efforts, and generate detailed
reports that demonstrate your share of voice.
Buffer
buffer.com
Best for: Companies that derive value from a strong social
presence.
Cost: $–$$
Buffer is beloved by marketing managers and social sellers for
its intuitive publishing and scheduling functionality across social
media channels. The ability to repurpose and analyze prior posts
across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram in a single click
is worth the price of admission by itself.
Sprout Social
sproutsocial.com
Best for: SMB and mid-market companies with strong, unique
content and buyer demographics that include younger targets.
Cost: $–$$$
SproutSocial helps you significantly amplify your social media
voice through synched company and individual accounts. Schedule,
publish, and analyze posts across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and
other social channels using a single, powerful platform.
Canva
canva.com
Best for: Companies with limited design resources, but creative
people with a vision to realize.
Cost: $
Canva is an intuitive, user-friendly design platform to create slick
assets for your brand, marketing, and sales materials. No need for
experience designing banners and infographics—Canva has tons
of pre-made templates and makes it easy to share new creations
with the rest of your team.
Infogram
infogr.am
Best for: Companies with limited design resources but that need
professional, sophisticated visuals to help them close bigger
deals.
Cost: $–$$
Infogram is an essential tool for marketing and sales teams that
don’t have access to design resources, but that need a quick,
easy way to create professional-looking charts, infographics, and
reports.
15
Screenflow
telestream.net/screenflow

Best for: Companies that want to create beautiful, shareable

software demos and presentations without worrying if everyone
will be able to see them.

Cost: $–$$

Screenflow makes it possible to easily edit, improve, and add

to your screencasts. You can also instantly download or share
recordings in a variety of ways through several different platforms.

16
CHAPTER 4

The Segmented Sales Force

The Trend

A surprise to no one, specialization and division of labor has become the norm for the
modern B2B sales force.

S ales is about numbers: revenue, conversion rates, retention,

renewals. As a result, leaders in this organization are especially
The Needs

practical—they want to know what’s working so they can push it 1. Data storage on prospects and
further. They also want to know what’s not working, so they can
accounts
eliminate it at the root.
5.4 people now have to formally sign off on each
This highly logical approach makes optimization key. It’s necessary to purchase decision for complex enterprise sales.
fully understand how complex processes function, and how various (CEB via HubSpot)
elements of those processes work together, in order to drive action.
Leaders who want to do that effectively know that it all comes down 2. Coordinate, communicate and de-
to people.
silo across all roles
It’s people that define the roles that make up B2B sales organizations. 88% of missed opportunities were caused because
From inbound and outbound SDRs, to AEs, inside sales reps, field sales couldn’t find or leverage internal resources.
sales managers, and more, it’s the individuals who grow and learn in (Qvidian via HubSpot)
these positions that are a business’s direct line to the consumer. They
are invaluable resources for information, and are ideally positioned to 3. Maximize efficiency via automation
gain the most intimate understanding of markets and buyer personas.
and concentrated activity
But in reality, it’s rare that B2B sales organizations and the markets
Only 33% of inside sales rep time is spent actively
they serve are as neatly segmented as they appear to be on paper.
selling. (CSO Insights via HubSpot)
This means that collaboration between different segments of the
B2B sales org is critical. It is the only way for different roles to adapt, 4. Turn data analytics into insights that
optimize, organize, and coordinate their actions for maximum
optimize your attack
impact. The “qualified sales process” has split B2B sales teams
Only 44% of companies are using any kind of lead
down into lean, purpose-driven units. Because of this, it’s now more
scoring system. (DecisionTree via HubSpot)
important than ever that sales leaders keep track of all of the moving
parts while they’re in motion.

17
The Tools

Ambition Close.io
ambition.com close.io

Best for: Growth, mid-market and enterprise front office teams Best for: Growing sales organizations that do it all, from
with a rhythmic daily workflow, competitive employees, and high- prospecting to process management to customer service and
energy culture. beyond.

Cost: $$–$$$ Cost: $$–$$$

Ambition’s acclaimed employee productivity platform gives Close.io features an all-in-one sales acceleration package
360° visibility into individual and team performance. Create wrapped up with a proprietary phone system. Perfect for growing
accountability and recognition with live performance data from sales teams and sales leaders obsessed with streamlining
any data source. Track and broadcast key metrics to personalized operations, creating the perfect conditions for scaling, and
dashboards and office TVs. Put holistic goals right in front of your pushing for massive growth.
reps. Compare activity level and goal attainment across teams to
see how hard and how smart your reps are working. Benchmark
success for teams, roles and individuals, then drive results via
automated scorecards, contests, recognition and reporting.
Perfect for front office teams that value performance-driven
culture and transparent operations. Base
getbase.com

Best for: Sales orgs that are data-obsessed and want to ramp up
response time, lead capture, and profits from a single CRM hub.

Cost: $$

Salesforce Considered by many to be the most prolific up-and-coming

salesforce.com challenger to Salesforce, Base includes analytics that encourage
a deeper, broader understanding of sales performance that goes
Best for: Sales organizations with multiple tiers, international well beyond leads and revenue, but that still makes sense to folks
targets, and legions of fractured verticals to handle. without data-heavy backgrounds.

Cost: $$–$$$$

Salesforce is the kingpin of inside sales software. This platform

has it all—millions of users, a phenomenal pedigree, and an App
Exchange with thousands of plugins that help make your sales Pipedrive
operation a well-oiled machine. pipedrive.com

Best for: Small and growing sales organizations that need

to swiftly adapt and scale for new customers, markets, and
verticals—but still need to keep costs down.

Cost: $

More affordable than almost every other comparable CRM on the

market, Pipedrive offers everything you need to get your sales
team up and running. It’s a perfect CRM for early-stage startups
and is amazingly robust for its price.
18
Microsoft Dynamics 365
microsoft.com/dynamics-365
Best for: Sales orgs that are new to the automation game, but
want to ramp up quickly and be prepared to scale.
Cost: $$
Dynamics comes at a price-point that’s slightly better than
Salesforce, but doesn’t quite offer the resources, plugins, or
community of SFDC. It includes expansive apps integration
capabilities and a buffet of tools that allows you to pick and
choose how you use it as your needs evolve.
Outreach
outreach.io
Best for: Any sales team entering the new year with a quota and a
CRM.
Cost: $$–$$$
Outreach lets managers establish workflow, analyze effectiveness,
and keep segmented teams in sync. The value for reps is
spectacular, enabling individual team members to absolutely
manhandle daily workflow with coordinated, multi-channel
prospect communication.
Velocify
velocify.com
Best for: Heavy Salesforce users who hit the phones like it’s still
the 1980s.
Cost: $$–$$$
Velocify is an all-purpose sales acceleration platform with
three major product suites. Use Pulse for process enforcement,
LeadManager for prospecting automation, and DialIQ for cold
calls. No matter what type of sales organization you have, there’s
immense value to be gained from this platform.
KiteDesk
kitedesk.com
Best for: The sales organization that wants to spend way less time
finding leads and way more time turning them into customers.
Cost: $$–$$$
Kitedesk helps you hand deliver highly-targeted leads, complete
with verified phone numbers and email addresses, to your sales
team. Never again will you pay for a bad list or experience the fury
and frustration of junky emails, disconnected phone numbers, and
bogus prospects.
SalesLoft
salesloft.com
Best for: SMB and mid-market companies looking to scale
outbound sales development.
Cost: $$–$$$
SalesLoft is an established sales automation platform that comes
equipped with auto-dialers, voicemail templating, email tracking,
call recording, and tight synchronicity with Salesforce. There’s tons
of functionality for streamlining and improving account-based
sales development efforts quickly.
ToutApp
toutapp.com
Best for: Highly-collaborative sales organizations who are still on
the road to full maturity.
Cost: $$–$$$
ToutApp is an all-in-one team communication, outbound email, and
calendaring tool that syncs with Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar,
Salesforce, and Marketo. Stellar and diverse functionality helps you
drive both inbound and outbound sales campaigns.
19
Yesware HelloSign
yesware.com hellosign.com

Best for: Front office reps who conduct outbound communication
primarily via email.
Cost: $–$$
If ‘read receipt’ is the extent of your outbound email tracking, you
need Yesware. Get live notifications of prospect interaction plus
real-time reports on opens, clicks, and more. Yesware is also
souped-up with email templating, prescriptive analytics, and its
very own auto-dialer.
Best for: Sales organizations who use team chat and collaboration
tools, and that have a swiftly growing rotation of contracts coming
in.
Cost: $–$$
This eSignature solution is quickly dominating the market, thanks
to its full integration with Google Apps, Box, Dropbox, Slack, and
Evernote. Status notifications, templates, and branding are just
some of the cool features that help you secure the bottom level of
your sales funnel.

GetAccept
getaccept.com

Best for: Growing B2B sales teams focused on improving

conversion rates.

Cost: $–$$

GetAccept is a sales document automation platform specifically

designed for the lower half of your sales funnel. It’s the
only platform that offers 1-to-1 prospect communication,
video, reporting, and eSignature. Additional features such as
remarketing tools and live notifications on prospect interaction
make it a great choice.

DocuSign
docusign.com

Best for: Rational sales organizations who think like Don Draper—
not Harvey Specter.

Cost: $–$$

DocuSign lets you manage, send, sign, and redline legally-binding

documents electronically with next-to-zero hassle. DocuSign is the
fastest, most secure way to put the finishing touches on a hard-
won sale.

20
CHAPTER 5

Customer Experience: A Unifying

Force for Sales & Marketing
The Trend

The more expensive or complex a product, the longer the sales cycle. The longer the
sales cycle, the more touch points needed to shepherd the customer through the
buying journey. The more touch points, the more chances you have to screw the whole
thing up.

A single negative experience during a brand interaction is enough

to turn off many customers, or at least get them thinking about
The Needs

alternatives. Customer Experience (CX) has been on the radar of 1. Guide prospects through a coherent
many business leaders for some time now. It’s one of those things
and deliberate buying process
that sounds good in a board meeting but never gets the attention it
57% of the buyer’s journey is completed before the
deserves. To date, investment and execution in CX, market-wide, has
buyer talks to sales. (CEB)
been lacking. Companies that make it a priority, see results.

Customer Experience will be the defining element in marketing 2. Create feedback loops for
and sales strategy in 2017. The increased importance in creating
communicating with customers and
seamless CX will push companies to align not just Marketing and
Sales departments, but Customer Success and Product as well. implementing insights
91% of unhappy customers who are non-
Customer Experience is critical to growth and competitive complainers simply leave. (Huffington Post)
differentiation. CX cannot be a separate and final phase of a business
strategy, or limited to interaction with the product itself. It is a
3. Turn buyers into repeat buyers,
function of marketing and sales, and how well those departments
coordinate communication with the customer. advocates and channel partners
Increasing customer retention rates by 5%
CX starts with awareness and ends when … well, it never ends. increases profits by 25–95%. (Bain & Company
via HubSpot)

21
The Tools
LeadGenius
leadgenius.com
Best for: Sales and marketing teams that want to function as
two limbs of the same organism, supporting each other’s goals,
evolving together, and perfecting the buyer journey.
Cost: $$–$$$$
As your target database begins to grow, LeadGenius helps
you prune prospects, cultivate customers, and zero-in on
company decision-makers. Use it to ditch bad leads, unearth
new stakeholders and decision-makers, and scale your best-
performing campaigns with A/B test-ready email outreach
capabilities. Plus, you get unlimited users, so you can scale up
without scraping the bottom of your budget barrel.
Intercom
intercom.io
Best for: SMB, High Growth and Mid-Markets who rely heavily on
client renewals and upsells.
Cost: $$–$$$
Intercom’s platform is essentially four separate products bundled
into one. Allowing your personnel to chat with clients, onboard and
upsell more effectively, and leverage customer feedback, makes
Intercom great for both inbound and outbound sales.
Zendesk
zendesk.com
Best for: Maturing support teams that default to online
correspondence with customer issues.
Cost: $$–$$$
Zendesk began paving the way for streamlined, effective, and
tech-enabled customer service almost a decade ago. Zendesk
features like Help Center builder, their ticketing system, and real-
time chat offer the perfect suite of functionality.
Front
frontapp.com
Best for: SMB, High Growth, and Mid-Markets who struggle with
silos—and with timely internal and external communication.
Cost: $–$$
Front allows business teams to coordinate external
communication: routing all incoming, outgoing, and internal
communication from email, social media, phone, and messaging
to a single organized inbox. On top of that, it’s also a full-fledged
internal team communication platform.
Talkdesk
talkdesk.com
Best for: High growth and mid-market companies with growing
headcount in support.
Cost: $$–$$$
Talkdesk enables call center levels of client support—without
the actual call center. It’s an auto-dialer that also routes calls,
integrates with your CRM and Helpdesk, tracks response time,
and provides detailed analytics about the quality and efficiency of
your interactions.
Gainsight
gainsight.com
Best for: Software providers looking to thrive—not just survive—at
managing client success.
Cost: $$–$$$
For software providers, Gainsight’s platform is jaw-dropping in
its totality. The potential breadth and scope of its application and
value-adds range from improving customer retention, to driving
client advocacy and increasing upsells.
22
Mixpanel Influitive
mixpanel.com influitive.com

Best for: Software providers who place product development and Best for: Businesses in growth-mode who leverage customer
customer success above all else. satisfaction for competitive edge.

Cost: $–$$$ Cost: $$–$$$

Mixpanel is built specifically for digital software products.
Mixpanel specializes in tracking granular activity trends across
your user base, so you can see what’s driving retention, renewals,
upsells, and much more.
Influitive allows companies to activate their customers and
use them to generate referrals, warm leads, and word-of-mouth
inbounds. A full suite of features helps organize and propel
user review campaigns, reference call lists, and incentivized
promotion programs.

KISSmetrics
kissmetrics.com
Allbound
Best for: SaaS companies looking to kill 2+ birds with one stone. allbound.com

Cost: $$–$$$
An innovative platform that goes deep with buyer behavior
tracking, event notifications, and actionable funnel analytics,
KISSmetrics also has a marketing suite which includes laser-
focused functionality on prospect behavior, digital marketing
effectiveness, and A/B testing capabilities.
Best for: Companies with pre-existing sales partners, or a nascent
partnership program.
Cost: $$–$$$
Allbound has one purpose: drive channel sales and marketing
success with your company’s closest partners. Allbound is a
software bridge that streamlines collaboration, content sharing,
partner engagement, and business intelligence across each of
your channels.

Drift
drift.com

Best for: Companies with tightly-aligned marketing, sales, and

client success strategies—that want their clients and prospects to
really feel heard.

Cost: $–$$$

Drift is a breakthrough communications tool that enables

sales teams to communicate with prospects in a Google chat-
like experience whenever they visit your company website.
Catch prospects while they’re hot and address client support
issues instantly.

23
CHAPTER 6

Personalize Everything: From

Messaging to Management
The Trend

There is an inverse relationship between personalization and scale. Personalization is

labor-intensive. It takes effort. A highly-personalized customer experience consumes
more resources than one-size-fits-all.

W hat do companies stand to gain with that investment? A

chance to compete in a crowded market. Consumers can only
The Needs

absorb so much noise, and personalization is an opportunity to cut 1. Prospect intelligence

through the clutter. Nearly 57% of B2B prospects and customers feel
The push to personalize everything goes hand in hand with the rise of that their sales teams are not prepared for the first
millennials in the workforce and the need for well-designed customer meeting. (IDC via HubSpot)
experiences. From outbound sales and marketing to employee
performance management, technology is helping businesses create 2. Outbound communication with
more personalized, beneficial experiences for prospects, customers, prospects and clients
and employees alike. Personalized emails improve click-through rates
B2B buyers have been conditioned to expect B2C-like personalization. by 14%, and conversion rates by 10%.(Aberdeen
However, in this area, business-to-business companies lag well-behind Group via HubSpot)
their business-to-consumer counterparts. B2B companies see the
need for personalization—they just have yet to get there. 3. Employee onboarding and
A blanket approach to content and strategy is no longer enough to management
get the job done. More empowered customers can see it and feel it. It takes B2B sales reps nine months, on average, to
Personalization is necessary to survive and thrive at each stage of get fully up to speed when joining a new company.
the buyer journey. (E-Strategy Trends)

Luckily, technology is making it possible to heavily reduce the

resource-investment gap between a highly-personalized customer
experience vs. one-size-fits-all.

24
The Tools

Prezi Business PersistIQ

prezi.com/business persistiq.com

Best for: Businesses that want to stand above the competition Best for: SMB and high-growth companies looking to discover the
with engaging presentations and real-time analytics. secret sauce to help them scale outbound efforts.

Cost: $–$$ Cost: $$

Prezi Business is an entire suite of presentation and analytics PersistIQ is a unique outbound platform that refines messaging
tools for those wishing to break through the noise of their slide- and creates repeatability via intuitive A/B testing and set-up-
wielding competitors. Unlike slides, Prezi Business lets users and-go email campaigns. Instantly build new email lists from
navigate between topics at will, following the natural flow of SFDC, LinkedIn, or CSV and even auto-detect duplicate leads
discussion. “Conversational presenting” feels more personal, and reply emails.
more relevant, and better-prepared for your specific target than
traditional one-way slide shows. And when you’re done, powerful
analytics let you see who’s viewing your materials and which parts
they find most interesting.

Groove
groove.co

Best for: SMB and high-growth sales organizations using

Cirrus Insight Salesforce and Gmail to run email-heavy outbound campaigns.
cirrusinsight.com
Cost: $–$$
Best for: Sales professionals who use Salesforce and Gmail in
their daily workflow. If your sales team uses both Salesforce and Gmail and runs
outbound almost exclusively over email, then it’s time to meet
Cost: $
Groove. Groove allows you to sync your Google Calendar and
Gmail account to Salesforce, create targeted prospect lists, multi-
If you use Salesforce and Gmail, go download Cirrus Insight step touchpoints, and synchronized campaigns.
from the AppExchange right now. This is the 2nd highest-rated
Salesforce application of all-time for two simple reasons: it’s
remarkably user-friendly, and consistently upgraded with new
features and functionality.

SendBloom
sendbloom.com

Best for: SMB and high-growth sales organizations using

Salesforce and Gmail to run email-heavy outbound campaigns,
and that are dedicated to standing out.

Cost: $–$$

SendBloom’s automated prospecting software is built to enable

more personalized 1-to-1 email campaigns using a fraction of
the typical time and labor. Create granular segmentations, build
and clone frictionless campaigns, and tailor messaging based on
prospect data fields.
25
Zoom
zoom.us
Best for: Business teams of all sizes that are disillusioned with
their current web conferencing provider.
Cost: $–$$$
Zoom lets you run slick marketing webinars, interface with sales
prospects, onboard new clients over video, and record it all so you
can review and analyze it later on. If you’re looking to ditch your
old web conferencing approach, the quality, usability, and support
that Zoom delivers warrants your attention.
BlueJeans
bluejeans.com
Best for: Mid-market and growing companies in competitive,
innovative markets.
Cost: $–$$$
BlueJeans is the market leader in cross-functional video
communication for modern business teams, largely because it’s
the most versatile in terms of functionality, and the most primed
for opportunistic companies looking to gain an edge via video.
Join.me
join.me
Best for: Inexperienced web conferencing users looking for a
simple, low-impact solution.
Cost: $–$$
With no cost and no need to download anything, Join.me is
many business teams’ first brush with web conferencing software.
Additional benefits like call recording, analytics, and versatile
attendee preferences make virtual conferencing a worry-
free experience.
GoToMeeting
gotomeeting.com
Best for: Serious web conferencers who want zero frills and
a utilitarian software that attendees are most likely to be
comfortable with using.
Cost: $–$$
GoToMeeting allows you to run video demos, international
conference calls, and virtual meetings. It also has the added
functionality of screenshare, recording, and virtual execution of
PowerPoints and other presentations.
Vidyard
vidyard.com
Best for: Companies with a strong array of existing video assets
and strategies ready to launch.
Cost: $$
Vidyard offers the most robust solution for leveraging video
content across sales, marketing, support, and internal team
channels. Tailor and embed videos across your website and
communication channels with maximum efficiency, analytics,
and personalization.
Consensus
goconsensus.com
Best for: Growth and mid-market B2B teams with a substantial
video asset library.
Cost: $$
Consensus lets you dynamically stitch together videos with
unprecedented personalization, automation, and analytics. Slide
in different clips, attach PDFs, and track prospect interaction with
branded videos to help your sales team close more deals.
26
LearnCore
learncore.com

Best for: High growth, mid-market and enterprise companies that

use Salesforce.

Cost: $–$$

LearnCore takes sales, account management and customer

support team onboarding, training, and coaching to the next level
with its versatile array of features. Track new hire onboarding,
coach and train using in-game footage, and create a dedicated
system to get the most out of your front office personnel.

ExecVision
execvision.io

Best for: Mid-sized inside sales teams that hit the phones
throughout the entire sales process.

Cost: $$

ExecVision delivers the full suite of features needed for

optimum call coaching, including live call feeds, feedback
channels, recording, analytics, scorecards, storage, organization,
and reporting.

Gong.io
gong.io

Best for: Sales organizations that primarily conduct calls and

meetings via web conferencing.

Cost: $$

Gong.io is like an instant replay system with in-game analysis

that’s powered by AI. Gong.io also provides teams with a call
recording library, auto-routing to managers and peers, and a time-
specific comments section for each recording.

27
CHAPTER 7
The Consolidated
Technology Stack
The Trend
Marketing and sales teams are beginning to consolidate their stacks.
T he B2B marketing technology stacks are getting heavy. The
integrations, mergers, and partnerships of 2017 will shape the
landscape for the next decade and beyond. Integrations are key, and
marketing and sales tools are becoming multi-purpose instead of
point solutions.
In this new ecosystem, companies should make buying and renewal
decisions based on four key measurables: adoption, effectiveness,
efficiency and synchronicity. B2B Marketing and Sales teams need
(and will be more apt to adopt) tools that give them an edge, not slow
them down. Broad-reaching functionality, automation and integration
capabilities are all huge pluses.
Across functions, it’s important for managers and operations
leaders to proactively ask reps for their own assessment of current
enablement tools. Oftentimes, reps will also have adopted their
own tools to help drive their individual daily efforts. Find out what’s
working and try to ensure consistency.
The Needs
1. Seamless integration and reporting
The marketing technology industry has seen a
3,400% increase in technologies and solutions in
about 5 years. (MarTech)
2. Force multipliers on technology and
personnel investments
31.3% of companies achieved all or a majority of
sales effectiveness initiatives implemented during
the past two years. (CSO Insights)
3. Inter-department communication
and collaboration
59% of sales enablement initiatives containing
a formal process for cross-functional collaboration
achieved all or a majority of expectations.
(CSO Insights)
28
The Tools

Ambition LinkedIn Sales Navigator

ambition.com business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/sales-navigator

Best for: Growth, mid-market and enterprise front office teams Best for: B2B sales and marketing personnel who are never
with a rhythmic daily workflow, competitive employees, and high- finished prospecting.
energy culture.
Cost: $$
Cost: $$–$$$
Sales Navigator gives you the keys to the largest prospect
Ambition’s acclaimed employee productivity platform gives database in the world with targeting, list building, and integrations
360° visibility into individual and team performance. Create that are nothing short of spectacular. Combine Sales Navigator
accountability and recognition with live performance data from with a high-powered CRM and you’ll have a never-ending supply of
any data source. Track and broadcast key metrics to personalized targeted prospects.
dashboards and office TVs. Put holistic goals right in front of your
reps. Compare activity level and goal attainment across teams to
see how hard and how smart your reps are working. Benchmark
success for teams, roles and individuals, then drive results via
automated scorecards, contests, recognition and reporting.
Perfect for front office teams that value performance-driven InfusionSoft
culture and transparent operations. infusionsoft.com

Best for: SMBs yet to adopt CRM or marketing automation, but

that care deeply about alignment.

Cost: $$–$$$

Prezi Business In terms of sheer versatility, InfusionSoft is on a level of its own.

prezi.com/business This double-sided sales and marketing automation platform
caters perfectly to SMBs looking to streamline operations as
Best for: Businesses that want to stand above the competition tightly as possible.
with engaging presentations and real-time analytics.

Cost: $–$$

Prezi Business is an entire suite of presentation and analytics

tools for those wishing to break through the noise of their slide-
wielding competitors. Unlike slides, Prezi Business lets users Zoho
navigate between topics at will, following the natural flow of zoho.com
discussion. “Conversational presenting” feels more personal,
more relevant, and better-prepared for your specific target than Best for: Companies looking for a total connector across all of
traditional one-way slide shows. And when you’re done, powerful their chosen business software solutions.
analytics let you see who’s viewing your materials and which parts
Cost: $–$$$
they find most interesting.

Zoho brings it all to the table: CRM, helpdesk, accounting tools,

email, analytics—you’d be hard-pressed to find a more complete
suite of business operations features anywhere else. Zoho is
also the perfect solution for integrating with Google G-Suite or
Microsoft Office 365.

29
Sendgrid
sendgrid.com
Best for: Email marketing teams built on strong engineering and
developer principles.
Cost: $–$$$
Sendgrid approaches email automation with an engineer’s
perspective, providing unique advantages for tech-savvy
operations specialists and marketing leaders. Sendgrid’s key
benefits are its powerful segmentation and API integrations,
flexible workflow, and reporting clarity.
Autopilot
autopilothq.com
Best for: SMB marketing teams looking for an effective alternative
to marketing automation.
Cost: $$–$$$
Autopilot gives you complete control over how prospects are
directed down the sales funnel, using personalization, automation,
and integrations with other apps. The ability to map complex
paths with unique outreach methods, like SMS, as well as auto-
updates to Salesforce makes Autopilot a very compelling tool.
Zapier
zapier.com
Best for: Business operators who want an extinction event for
team busywork.
Cost: $–$$
Zapier helps you swiftly direct your data across separate apps to
make things as streamlined as possible. By selecting the apps
you’re currently using and connecting with Zapier, this workflow
efficiency machine can reduce your busywork by leaps and bounds.
Segment
segment.com
Best for: Ops-minded business teams looking to leverage more
value from existing software.
Cost: $–$$$
With over 180 integrations available, Segment is perhaps the most
versatile bridge builder among existing sales, marketing, and
support technologies. Segment is great for creating connections
between any number of different platforms including helpdesk,
payments, referrals, live chat, attribution, and SQL.
Calendly
calendly.com
Best for: Companies whose employees have meeting after
meeting after meeting—and who can’t afford to miss a single one.
Cost: $
Calendly takes away the pressure of managing multiple calendars
and schedules. Simply set your availability preferences in the
platform, share a link with people who want to meet with you, and
leave the time selection and booking to them.
Docurated
docurated.com
Best for: Companies with lots of great content, but no streamlined
processes in place to help sales reps leverage it.
Cost: $$–$$$
Docurated allows your sales team to easily access relevant
content like case studies, infographics, and videos. Docurated
ensures that the right assets are readily available by allowing you
to transform disparate content systems into a single, powerful
knowledge base.
30
Octiv
octiv.com

Best for: High growth, mid-market, and enterprise teams that are
content-driven and that interface B2B prospects digitally.

Cost: $$

Octiv understands that creating sales collateral is only good if

you can find it. That’s why Octiv empowers your team to access
all of your sales collateral with seamless customization, storage,
routing, and integration capabilities.

RingDNA
ringdna.com

Best for: Call centers and phone-centric inside sales teams of all
shapes and sizes.

Cost: Contact

For sales teams that still hit the phone with abandon, RingDNA
is an auto-dialer that comes equipped with powerful automation,
intelligence, and analytics. RingDNA helps spur more efficient
workflow, more effective conversations, and insights between
sales and marketing.

Troops
troops.ai

Best for: Sales organizations who rely heavily on Salesforce and

Slack.

Cost: $–$$

Troops is a GIF-driven Slackbot that auto-sends Salesforce

updates to team members via Slack. Get live updates on prospect
activity and newly closed accounts, coupled with compelling,
humorous visuals, to ensure that everyone in your sales team
stays happy.

31
CHAPTER 8

The Currency of Trust

The Trend

From security, to customer service, to data quality, usability and beyond, trust will
become a key differentiator for marketing, sales and business intelligence technology
vendors in 2017.

T he world is getting smaller; the market more competitive. B2B

customers have the ability and willingness to shift spend. B2B
The Needs

companies want to business with partners they can rely on—as
they should. To stay competitive, B2B sales, marketing and support
leaders must leverage prospect, employee, and customer data to
prospect smarter, enhance their funnel, and drive renewal and referral
channels more powerfully than ever before.
In the past, buyer decision-making and internal decision-making
had two trust centers: brand and gut. Today, trust has three new
trust centers: data, referrals, and support. To that effect, savvy
business leaders will lean heavily on data to make strategic decisions
across sales, marketing and support. Data will be the North Star for
increasing demand, prospecting smarter and creating shorter sales
cycles and better customer experiences.
Word gets around. Marketing and sales leaders rely on their peers for
recommendations. Solutions that do not deliver on their promise of
smooth onboarding, easy integrations, and reliable service will see
churn rise and adoption slow. Onboarding is more important than
ever. Dedicated support is a baseline expectation. Handing over a
technical product with the equivalent of an instruction manual does
not cut it because buyers have options.
1. Quick access to organized internal
and external data
A study of 61 million customer records by
Dun & Bradstreet found that 84% of marketing
databases are barely functional and 64%
lack basic data such as industry, revenue and
employee fields. (Dun & Bradstreet)
2. Integrated cross-channel data
sources leveraging client data
84% of B2B decision makers start the buying
process with a referral. (SBI)
3. Proactive, actionable insights
74% of marketers prioritize lead quality over lead
quantity, with 59% asserting that better database
depth and accuracy is a top priority. (Dun &
Bradstreet)

The companies that win will leverage key data insights from their
current client base to influence their entire marketing and sales
funnel. Add in a strong, data-driven employee management strategy
and you have foundations of a scalable, successful business.

32
The Tools
LeadGenius
leadgenius.com
Best for: Sales and marketing teams that want to function as
two limbs of the same organism, supporting each other’s goals,
evolving together, and perfecting the buyer journey.
Cost: $$–$$$$
As your target database begins to grow, LeadGenius helps
you prune prospects, cultivate customers, and zero-in on
company decision-makers. Use it to ditch bad leads, unearth
new stakeholders and decision-makers, and scale your best-
performing campaigns with A/B test-ready email outreach
capabilities. Plus, you get unlimited users, so you can scale up
without scraping the bottom of your budget barrel.
ZoomInfo
zoominfo.com
Best for: Sales and marketing leaders new to sales intelligence
software, or that are unhappy with their current provider.
Cost: $$–$$$
This is the most powerful sales and marketing intelligence tool at
this price level. If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to start
conducting targeted prospect collection, enrichment, and data
cleansing, ZoomInfo is for you.
Clearbit
clearbit.com
Best for: Prospectors, operations leads, and anyone who serves
the top of the sales funnel.
Cost: $–$$
Clearbit is the most efficient way to get quick sales intelligence,
update your prospect list, and assess the viability of new inbound
leads you may be capturing. If you need help finding key decision
makers and their contact info within an account, Clearbit is for you.
RingLead
ringlead.com
Best for: CRM and marketing automation users struggling with
poor data quality.
Cost: $$
RingLead is a data health specialist that analyzes database
quality, corrects duplicate contact entries, and auto-routes leads
to appropriate personnel. A great investment for those who suffer
from the ailments of bad data.
MatterMark
mattermark.com
Best for: B2B sales organizations that use Salesforce and are
highly data-driven in their sales process.
Cost: $$–$$$
MatterMark uses automation and integrations with Salesforce,
Google Sheets, and web browsers to enable targeted data
discovery, import, and enrichment across the board. MatterMark is
for those who are in need of some enrichment to their lead data.
Hunter
hunter.io
Best for: Anyone vetting new (and existing) contacts, and who
needs more accurate contact info.
Cost: $–$$$
Hunter is the perfect starting point for a sales ops leader who is
looking to find prospect data quickly and easily. Simply install the
Email Hunter plugin into your Chrome Browser, and whenever you
access a prospect’s LinkedIn page, Email Hunter will find their
email for you.
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Ghostery
ghostery.com
Best for: B2B sales and marketing teams that consider marketing
technology to be a crucial data point in prospect accounts.
Cost: $
A neat little app that reveals the entire marketing technology
stack of any company via their URL, Ghostery is a must-have
for any sales or marketing team that derives value from finding
information about anything from IT budget to front office pain
points and target markets.
Qualtrics
qualtrics.com
Best for: Mid-market and enterprise teams that see the value of
proactive, tailored, continuous feedback.
Cost: $$–$$$
Qualtrics is the undisputed leader in survey-driven customer
experience, employee engagement, and market research. Qualtrics
lets you ask the questions that matter most and have your
employees, customers, and markets answer them loud and clear.
Domo
domo.com
Best for: Forward-thinking mid-market and enterprise companies
who rely heavily on disparate data tracking systems.
Cost: $$
Domo demonstrates the changing tides in business intelligence
and performance management. Slick visuals, goal-oriented
graphs, team communication channels, and real-time notifications
distinguish Domo as a unique solution built to maximize
deliverability, actionability, and visibility.
Tableau
tableausoftware.com
Best for: Mid-Market and enterprise-level organizations with
relatively complex business operations.
Cost: $$$
Tableu’s souped-up business intelligence platform connects with
hundreds of data sources, enabling instant data visualization,
sharing, and on-the-go mobile insights. Create every conceivable
graphic and build your business intelligence war room.
Gooddata
gooddata.com
Best for: Experienced, resource-backed, enterprise-grade analytics
and operations teams.
Cost: $$$–$$$$
GoodData offers a treasure trove of functionality that savvy
analytics professionals will turn into an arsenal for hyper-efficient
business operations. This includes prescriptive guiding interfaces,
versatile insight distribution, and predictive analytics that span
channels and departments.
Looker
looker.com
Best for: Mid-Market and enterprise companies with disconnected
data systems.
Cost: $$–$$$
If you’re using a disparate array of platforms to store key
performance data, Looker is here to bring order to the chaos.
Want to see the big picture insights from Oracle, Intercom, Google
Analytics, and Salesforce all in one place? Looker was born to
make that happen.
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Chartio
chartio.com

Best for: Operations leaders that need to reduce lag time,

broaden relevance, and increase synchronization across business
intelligence tools.

Cost: $$–$$$

A sleek, streamlined business intelligence platform, Chartio has

quickly established itself as a leader of agile platforms predicated
on taking massive swaths of disconnected data and fusing them
into simplified, actionable business analytics.

ClearSlide
clearslide.com

Best for: High growth, mid-market, and enterprise sales

organizations seeking granular insights from inside the trenches.

Cost: $$–$$$

ClearSlide is a tool that provides deep insights into how

prospects are responding to your sales collateral. If you want to
test the mettle of your marketing collateral, phone effectiveness,
and follow-up emails, this is the total package for managers and
reps alike.

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CHAPTER 9
Machine Learning: Predictive
Sales and Marketing
The Trend
Many platforms already used by marketing and sales team have or are developing
predictive capabilities. However, many companies lack the data volume and/or quality
needed to get the value from these features. Opportunities are hiding in messy and
incomplete data.
M any SaaS companies have been incorporating machine learning
technology into their platform. In 2017, these companies will
have gathered enough data to make machine learning a true value-
add to their platforms.
Predictive is on the rise because lead prioritization, personalization,
and content output are all time-consuming to do at scale. Having
clean, complete data is the first step. Forming a cohesive plan of
attack for each is the second. Third is implementation, execution and
adaptation based on what the data instructs.
Done right, machine learning has the opportunity to advance B2B
sales like never before by doing all of the time-consuming, inefficient
dirty work that data-driven outbound teams must do in order to drive
more successful conversations.
The Needs
1. Lead scoring and prioritization
61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to
sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be
qualified. (Marketing Sherpa via Marketo)
2. Data volume and quality
Big data has emerged as the critical factor to
achieving an enterprise-wide, customer-centric
culture, according to 40% of CMOs and 51% of
CIOs. (CMO.com)
3. Data organization and completeness
24% of companies said that ¼ of their lead data
is complete: that means ~75% of lead data is
missing. (RingLead)
4. Dynamic, personalized customer
experiences must be scalable
• The biggest challenges with personalization cited
in the study are gaining insight quickly enough
(40%), having enough data (39%), and inaccurate
data (38%). (Experian via MarketingCharts)
• In-house marketers who are personalizing their
Web experiences and who are able to quantify the
improvement see, on average, a 19% uplift in sales.
(CMO.com)
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The Tools
Prezi Business
prezi.com/business
Best for: Businesses that want to stand above the competition
with engaging presentations and real-time analytics.
Cost: $–$$
Prezi Business is an entire suite of presentation and analytics
tools for those wishing to break through the noise of their slide-
wielding competitors. Unlike slides, Prezi Business lets users
navigate between topics at will, following the natural flow of
discussion. “Conversational presenting” feels more personal,
more relevant, and better-prepared for your specific target than
traditional one-way slide shows. And when you’re done, powerful
analytics let you see who’s viewing your materials and which parts
they find most interesting.
InsideSales
insidesales.com
Best for: High-performing mid-market/enterprise sales
organizations looking to become elite.
Cost: $$$–$$$$
InsideSales is an incredibly powerful tool with unmatched
versatility. ISDC includes predictive forecasting, auto-dialing, lead
scoring, email tracking, and playbooks. It’s a potent Swiss Army
knife that will impress even the most watchful of sales leaders.
Infer
infer.com
Best for: High growth, mid-market, and enterprise sales
organizations with defined ICP(s) and maturing sales and
marketing processes.
Cost: $$–$$$
Infer offers amazingly granular insight into prospect characteristics
and interactions at all levels of your sales and marketing funnel.
Its customizable analytics give you a surefire way to assess the
evolution of ICPs and the warmth of target accounts.
InsightSquared
insightsquared.com
Best for: SMB, high growth, and mid-market and sales
organizations with reliable data.
Cost: $$–$$$
InsightSquared provides sales forecasting, process insights, and
granular pipeline trends, all in one platform. Perfect for SMB,
Growth and Mid-Market companies (SaaS companies are its
specialty), InsightSquared offers just the right level of functionality
for science-minded sales managers, ops, and reps.
Bizible
bizible.com
Best for: Companies that leverage a hybrid inbound and account-
based marketing model.
Cost: $$
Bizible provides incredible value by spotlighting the full impact
of marketing efforts throughout the entire B2B funnel. Bizible’s
true trick is how it predicts account interest and viability using
the behavioral data of leads within that account. This is a great
application of two key trends—ABM and machine learning—driving
modern B2B sales.
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SalesWings Owler
saleswingsapp.com owler.com

Best for: Companies new to lead scoring/tracking who conduct a Best for: B2B reps pitching solutions to hard-to-impress decision-
transactional sales cycle. makers.

Cost: $$ Cost: $

SalesWings is a website tracking and lead scoring add-on that
identifies, scores, and updates sales leads based on website
activity. SalesWings is an easy way to start analyzing past and
future visits from leads and attach scores based on their level of
engagement and interest.
Researching a prospect can help you walk into a meeting and use
their own words to sell them on your solution. Owler lets you do
efficient, on-the-spot research on prospects—for free—and offers
comprehensive insights that you can modify and slice as you see fit.

Charlie
charlieapp.com
Best for: Business pros that interface with prospects/clients and
have meeting-filled calendars.
Cost: $
Charlie is the ultimate personal assistant for salespeople and
executives who regularly meet with external stakeholders. Its
specialty is researching the people attending your upcoming
meetings, then providing you with timely, insightful briefs on
recent developments, shared interests, and mutual connections
pertaining to everyone involved.
Crystal
crystalknows.com
Best for: Sales and marketing pros looking to improve internal and
external communications.
Cost: $–$$
Crystal gives amazing insight into what type of person your
prospect is and how to communicate with them based on how
they write emails, their DISC profile, and other bits of information.
Crystal integrates with Gmail, and is a favorite of sales reps who
use it for cold outreach.

Nudge
neednudge.com

Best for: B2B sales reps with larger target accounts and more
complex sales processes.

Cost: $–$$

Nudge plugs into Gmail and shows you comprehensive

information on your prospect and their company, including latest
news, press hits, and social media posts. Nudge is a great tool for
gaining insight into your prospect’s behaviors and getting timely
updates on the state of the accounts you’re trying to close.

38