Value-ology: Aligning Sales and Marketing to Shape and Deliver Profitable Customer Value Propositions by Simon Kelly, Paul Johnston, and Stacey Danheiser

Simon Kelly has 35 years experience in customer service, sales and marketing. At British Telecom, he pioneered the move from ‘product push’ to ‘value-based’ selling and marketing.

A ‘pracademic,’ he has developed innovative marketing and sales skills module for Sheffield Business School where he is a senior lecturer he is the Co-founder of Shake Marketing Group, based in London.

And, interesting fact: He is a big Colorado Rockies US Major League Baseball fan.

The Host's Perspective:

One of the biggest headaches for companies these days is trying to align their sales and marketing functions. It’s become vitally important because the way your customers buy has changed.

These days, the salesperson rarely encounters a prospective customer at the beginning of their buying journey like they used to. Now, buyers want to do as much research on their own before they take the plunge and finally, often reluctantly, contact the seller.

That’s why marketing now must align with sales in order to produce content that the prospective customer can, ideally, consume prior to engaging with your salesperson. Studies have shown that companies that are able to align their sales and marketing are experiencing faster growth and higher profitability.

But here’s the catch - it’s not just about aligning sales and marketing. You must align sales and marketing around your customer. And that disconnect with what your customer values is why, according to studies cited in the book, up to 90% of marketing content never gets used by sales.

Or why 58% of sales deals end up in “no decision.” Or why 94% of prospects say they have completely disengaged with vendors because of irrelevant content.

If your sales and marketing are aligned with each other but not necessarily around your customer, rather than being on the stairway to heaven, you’ll be on the road to nowhere.

Value-ology will point you in the right direction.

Listen to the Interview:  

Show Notes

Value-ology: Aligning Sales and Marketing to Shape and Deliver Profitable Customer Value Propositions by Simon Kelly, Paul Johnston, and Stacey Danheiser

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad

The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu

A Practitioner's Guide to Account-Based Marketing: Accelerating Growth in Strategic Accounts by Bev Burgess and Dave Munn (The Marketing Book Podcast)

About Value-ology (Value-ology.com)

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