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PREDICTIONS

2013What's in Store for Sales,

Marketing and Big Data in the New Year?

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What’s in Store for 2013?THIS IS A TRULY EXCITING TIME FOR SALES AND MARKETING TEAMS. Data about customers and prospects is practically exploding, granting tremendous opportunity to those teams who choose to leverage that data into insight. As more and more data becomes available and buying behavior continues to shift, sales and marketing organizations must continue to discover new ways of getting in front of customers and prospects at the beginning of the buying cycle.

So we wrangled up over 20 thought leaders, venture capitalists, analysts, editors and experts to weigh in on the Big Data for sales and marketing landscape in 2013. The predictions we collected span the whole gamut. Is it the end of cloud computing or the rise of Big Data? What new challenges will sales and marketing teams face in 2013? What is happening to the sales cycle?

If you don’t agree or would like to add yours, please do—and please share this with anyone you think would enjoy it.

I hope you enjoy reading!

shashi upadhyay, ceo, lattice

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1 Sales Department Needs to Generate Leads

REP PROSPECTING WILL BE A TOP CHALLENGE IN 2013. In 2012, companies over rotated towards lead generation being the exclusive responsibility of the marketing department. Marketing has to do its part, for sure. However, marketing will not be able to produce enough leads to hit the number in 2013. Sales has to generate their fair share of the leads. Failure to do so will result in a miss in 2013. Yet, rep prospecting has been neglected for sev-eral years. These muscles have not been used for a while and reps currently are not very good at generating their own leads. Sales departments got caught up in the hype cycle of marketing automation.

THE TRUTH ABOUT B2B MARKETING. Unfortunately, 2012 revealed the truth about modern B2B marketing, which is we still have a long way to go. There are more failed implementations than there are successful implementations.

These muscles have not been used for a while and reps currently are not very good at generating their own leads. Greg Alexander serves as CEO of Sales Benchmark Index (SBI), a professional services firm focused exclusively on sales force effectiveness. He is also the author of three critically acclaimed books:The CEO's Guide to Getting More Out of the Sales Force (2010), Making the Number (2008) andTopgrading for Sales (2008).

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@gregalexander

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THIS REQUIRES SALES TO MAKE A BIG DECISION IN 2013: A. Trust that marketing will finally “get it” and fill the funnel consistently, or B. Take control of their destiny and generate their own leads.

BIG DATA IMPACT? Big Data has the ability to transform sales ops from a tactical department delivering limited value to a strategic department deliver-ing lots of value. How? Before Big Data tools, sales operations directors were reduced to basic report runners due to systems limitations. They were unable to make data meaningful because the process of capturing quality data was very difficult and costly.

IDENTIFYING HIDDEN GROWTH. Big Data tools now allow sales operations directors to identify hidden growth opportunities. This encourages senior executives to take action on ideas submitted by the sales ops team. Some of these ideas can be the difference between making, or missing, the number. This elevates the people in these jobs from “staffers” to key members of the executive committee.

Big Data tools now allow sales ops directors to identify hidden growth opportu-nities. Some of these ideas can be the difference between making, or missing, the number.

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Where Have All the Sales Reps Gone?

A LACK OF INTERACTION. A trend making sales intelligence and data a necessity for sales teams is the fact that much of the traditional sales cycle is taking place without any sales involvement. 2012 B2B Buyer Survey conducted by Demand Gen Report found 51% of buyers said they didn’t interact with a representative until after they had established a preferred list of vendors and 13% didn't engage until after they had put out RFPs or were ready to negotiate pricing terms.

LATE TO THE GAME. By this point, sales teams are working at a disadvan-tage and intelligence on the key pain points and areas of interest of a prospect are often the tools that can get teams back in a deal that would have been lost.

251% of buyers said they didn't interact with a representative until after they had established a preferred list of vendors.Andrew Gaffney is editor of DemandGen Report, a targeted e-media publication focusing on best practices in lead generation and lead management. Each week DemandGen Report delivers targeted content to close to 25,000 sales & marketing executives across a wide variety of verticals.

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@agaffney

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’Modern Demand Generation Is Here

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW. In 2012, most sales teams have come to terms with the fact that their traditional demand generation tactics are no longer effective (i.e. cold calling, trade shows, unsolicited email, etc.). They also understand that marketing holds the keys to modern demand generation in the way of content generation and social media participation.

BIGGEST CHALLENGES? In 2013, the biggest challenges these teams will face is getting their content creation engine going and aligning sales and marketing to work together to successfully attract, nurture and convert leads into customers.

3The biggest challenges these teams will face is getting their content creation engine going.Mark Roberge is responsible for the entire sales and services function at HubSpot, increasing revenue over 6,000% and expanding the team from 1 to 200 employees in five years. These results placed HubSpot #33 on the 2011 INC 500 Fastest Growing Companies list. Mark was also awarded the 2010 Salesperson of the Year at the MIT Sales Conference.

‘@markroberge

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’One Word for Sales Teams: Alignment

THE TOP CHALLENGE OF SALES TEAMS IS ALIGNMENT.As the economy picks up speed and as technology accelerates the sales process more and more companies are out of alignment.

HERE ARE THE TOP 5 ALIGNMENT CHALLENGES: 1. Align the sales process with the customers buying process 2. Align sales with marketing 3. Align sales information with customer demands for insight 4. Align newly hired sales talent with forever shifting job demands

and customer requirements 5. Align people, process and technology

4As the economy picks up speed and technology accelerates the sales process, companies are out of alignment.Gerhard Gschwandtner is the founder and CEO of Personal Selling Power, Inc., a magazine and book publishing company located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Today, in addition to Selling Power magazine, Personal Selling Power, Inc. has a book-publishing division, an online video division, a sales leadership conference series and a website.

‘@gerhard20

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’New Accounts: Three Times the Effort

CAPTURING NEW ACCOUNTS IS THE NUMBER ONE OBJECTIVE. The preliminary findings from CSO Insights 2013 Sales Performance Optimization (SPO) study show that capturing new accounts is the number one object for sales organizations for the coming year. But the study also found that selling to new accounts requires three times the effort compared to selling additional products to existing customers. So how do we make it easier for our sales teams to achieve that goal in 2013?

BIG DATA IMPACT? Having benchmarked several firms that are effectively leveraging Big Data, let me share two ideas you may want to use for your own sales organization for 2013. The first revolves around pointing your sales teams in the right direction. A medical products firm shared with us that they used Big Data tools to do an analysis of past wins, losses and no decisions. Using data from their CRM, ERP and support systems, they built a profile of

5Selling to new accounts requires three times the effort compared to selling addi-tional products to existing customers.Jim Dickie is the Managing Partner of CSO Insights; a research firm that specializes in benchmarking how companies are leveraging people, process, and technology to optimize the way they market to, sell to and service customers. He has over 29 years of sales and marketing management experience.

‘@jimdickie

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prospects that were more likely to buy from them than others. This included surfacing insights into certain stakeholders they were more effective at engaging, certain problems they were more effective at solving, a breakdown of which competitors to attack and which to avoid, etc.

Sales managers then met with each rep to discuss how to leverage these findings to develop penetration strategies for each territory. The outcome was a clear focus on where to best invest each rep’s selling time. The insights into prospect demographics were also shared with marketing so they could develop much more targeted lead generation campaigns.

Knowing who they wanted to focus on was only half of the battle. They also needed to determine why the prospect would want to spend time engaging with them as well.

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’Big Data Is Bullshit.

BIG DATA IS MINISCULE. Twenty years from now, the thing we call ‘Big Data’ will be tiny data. It’ll be microscopic data. The volume that we’re talking about today, in 20 years, is a speck. The key for 2013 with Big Data is to figure out how you can make a difference. Don't let marketing noise obscure what's real and what isn't.

6The key is to figure out where you can make a difference.Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars.Brad currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor, Cheezburger, Fitbit, FullContact, Gnip, MakerBot, MobileDay, Modular Robotics, Oblong, Orbotix, SEOMoz, Standing Cloud, and Yesware for Foundry Group.

‘@bfeld

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’Insight Selling Over Solution Selling

COMPELLING AND PROVOCATIVE INSIGHTS ACCELERATE BUYING DECISIONS. With a push from the Big Data movement, expect to see B2B sales and marketing leaders put increasing attention on actionable insights in the coming year. WHY? Because the B2B sales field is swiftly moving from solution selling to insight selling. It’s now more critical than ever to bring prospects relevant and provocative insights that challenge current thinking, provide new perspectivesand vividly make the case for change. As Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon point out in their thoroughly researched book The Challenger Sale, the biggest driver of B2B sales performance today is “a supplier’s ability to deliver new insights.”But you can’t provide compelling insights that create a sense of urgency and accelerate buying decisions unless you’ve done the hard work of producing them in the first place.

7The biggest driver of B2B sales perfor-mance today is a supplier's abil-ity to deliver new insights.Britton Manasco is a partner with Visible Impact, which works with B2B companies to develop compelling positioning, elevate sales conversations and accelerate buying decision cycles. You can reach him at 512-301-4881 or Britton@VisibleImpact.com. Download a free copy of the ebook The Power of Visual Selling at www.VisibleImpact.com.

‘@brittonmanasco

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YOU WILL NEED TO LOOK TO MULTIPLE SOURCES. First, there’s the participation of your key sales and marketing stakeholders in the creation of your context-setting and status quo shattering insights. In fact, it’s increasingly clear that vivid, signature stories must be developed through collaboration and consensus if they are to be expressed with conviction. Next, there’s the voice of the market. Are the discoveries and experiences of your existing customers informing the insights you offer to prospective ones? Such evidence is critical if your insights are to be considered valid in the eyes of your prospect. Finally, there’s sales intelligence—key trends, triggers and trusted connections that justify an initial meeting with a prospective client. Your insights must be deeply relevant to your buyer to create sales momentum. BIG DATA IS BOTH FEEDING AND FORCING THIS TRANSFORMATIONAL SHIFT IN SELLING. It’s a matter of signal and noise. While prospective buyers can find vast amounts of information on their own, they now look to forward-looking suppliers to bring new insights, new perspectives and new directions. And, by providing rich and reliable guidance of this sort, today’s suppliers become tomorrow’s trusted partners.

Are the discoveries and experiences of your existing customers informing the insights you offer to prospec-tive one? Such evidence is critical if your insights are to be consid-ered valid in the eyes of your prospect.

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Marketing, Not Sales Will Adopt Big Data Faster

PROSPECTS AND CUSTOMERS ARE IN COMPLETE CONTROL OF THEIR B2B AND B2C purchase processes following self-directed, social-influenced and trusted based journey from need recognition through post-purchase. The impact on vendors is that the average sales cycle is 22% longer than 5 years ago (Sirius Decisions) because of the mismatch between today’s buyer expectations and habits that sales and marketing won’t let go of.

BIG DATA HAS BEGUN TO SHED LIGHT on the steps of buyers’ journey, the characteristics of the best deals and marketing programs that deliver high quality leads and meaningful buyer engagement. Marketing will more quickly embrace the insights from Big Data and change how they engage and enable prospects and build enduring relationships with customers. As marketing’s ROI and pipeline generation improve they will, over time, convince sales to take a more analytical approach to understanding prospect, customer, pipeline and deal behavior.

8Chris Crandell is President of New Business Strategies, a B2B market strategy consultancy. She leads client teams serving customers worldwide. Widely published in BusinessWeek, Forbes, B2B Marketing, Investor Business Daily, CMO.com, Sandhill.com and Forbes.com, she has keynoted and spoken on improving marketing ROI, actionable buyers� journeys and customer loyalty. Her thought leadership has led to recognition in 2012 as one of the top twenty women in Sales and Marketing by the SLMA, one of the top 15 leaders in social selling, and in 2010 as one of Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Women by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.

@chriscrandell

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’Biggest Challenge for Sales in 2013? Hiring.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR SALES IN 2013 WILL BE HIRING. With the economy improving (assuming the fiscal cliff is avoided) and the election over, sales organizations will look to upgrade their sales teams. At the same time sales people, feeling safer in the improved economy, will start looking for new opportunities. In spite of this movement, companies will struggle at identifying the skills required to be successful. In addition to iden-tifying who they need, companies will struggle luring and retaining “A” players. The current sales environment is shrinking the pool of “A” players. In 2013 sales organizations will struggle with team development and resource deployment.

BIG DATA, BIG TOOL. For the most savvy sales organizations Big Data will be used to assess where the biggest opportunities are and therefore the types of skills and sales people need to be successful. Unfortunately, few companies will possess the organizational savvy to capitalize on Big Data 2013.

9Big Data awareness will grow substantially in 2013 as success stories from early adopters gain traction.Jim Keenan is the founder and partner of A Sales Guy Consulting. A Sales Guy Consulting helps companies grow sales. We are a fun, straight forward consulting company that relishes the challenge of taking companies from point A to point B in as little time as possible.  We get it.  It’s no fun when you’re not making your numbers.

‘@keenan

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THE BIG “A”. Big Data in 2013 will be about the “A.” However, the “A” is not for adoption but for awareness. Big Data awareness will grow substantially in 2013 as success stories from early adopters gain traction. Larger companies and sales organizations with the available resources will implement small trials or tests. Due to the complexity of Big Data implementations wide-spread adoption of Big Data will be relatively low through out the general sales world. Big Data adoption will continue to avoid small and medium sized business in 2013, yet awareness will increase substantially, potentially setting up a stronger adoption in 2014.

Big Data adoption will continue to avoid small and medium sized business in 2013, yet awareness will increase substantially, potentially set-ting up a stronger adoption in 2014.

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Intelligent Leads

HIGH PERFORMANCE SALES HONE IN ON PROSPECTS. In 2013, high performance sales organizations will be starting to provide their sales people with “intelligent leads.” Today, those companies are leveraging market-ing automation systems, lead nurturing, lead scoring and other techniques to provide high sales accepted leads.

BY INCORPORATING RICH ANALYTICS, these organizations will make quantum leaps in lead quality/conversions. “Intelligent leads” will extend lead scoring into identifying people with a high propensity to buy. “Intelligent leads” will provide a rich profile of the individual, not only where they are in the nur-turing process, but it will incorporate data from multiple internal and external resources. “Intelligent leads” will provide the sales person not only the insight of when to talk to the person, but what we should be talking to them about and how we should be talking to them.

10Dave Brock has spent his career developing high performance organizations. He worked in sales, marketing and executive management capacities with IBM, Tektronix and Keithley Instruments. His consulting clients include companies in the semiconductor, aerospace, electronics, consumer products, computer, telecommunications, retailing, internet, software, professional and financial services industries.

@davidabrock

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BIG DATA IMPACT? Companies leveraging Big Data and “intelligent leads” will find this capability to be their competitive advantage and differentiator, further distancing themselves from their competition. “INTELLIGENT LEADS” WILL DRIVE A MUCH RICHER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. Customers will actually welcome contacts from salespeople because the timeliness and content of these discussions will be focused on what interests them at the moments their interests are highest. Salespeople will be relevant, creating value in the initial contact and every subsequent exchange.

Intelligent leads will provide the sales person not only the insight of when to talk to the person, but what we should be talking to them about and how we should be talking to them.

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’Top Challenges

1. Achieve/Exceed Revenue Targets (especially given the mediocre economy). Growth targets are consistently set well above GDP growth. Growth generally requires taking significant market share.

2. Ramp New Reps Faster. New reps have to be able to find targets, engage them and convert them much faster.

3. Engage More Clients Effectively Via Phone, Web and Lower-Cost Channels. Cost of sales must reduce to accommodate more reps and coverage effective engagement via lower cost phone or web channels is an imperative.

4. Leverage Channel Partners to Expand Sales Coverage. Gaining the interest and time of channel partners is an immediate way to expand sales capacity at low/no sales cost.

11Gaining the interest and time of channel partners is an immediate way to expand sales capacity.Michael McCarroll is the SVP of Sales at Lattice. He is responsible for developing new relationships and expanding existing relationships through the achievement of customer revenue lift. Prior to Lattice Engines, Michael was co-founder and President of SAAS-based analytics software provider InformLink (acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation in 2003).

‘@mpmccarroll

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BIG DATA IMPACT? 1. Tells Reps What a Customer May Care About. Helps rep to infer

customer needs.

2. Helps a Rep Start a Conversation. Helps rep to start a relevant conversation.

Growth targets are consistently set well above GDP growth. Growth generally requires taking significant market share.

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Seeking A Better Customer Understanding

BIG DATA WILL CAPTURE ONLINE BEHAVIOR. In 2013 I predict companies will continue to seek a deeper understanding of buyers and the foundation for achieving this will be Big Data. Marketers will leverage their ecosystem of technology and the insight it provides to further understand their buyers’ ‘digital body language.’ The explosion of available data, beyond demographics, that captures a prospect’s online behavior will help organiza-tions move potential customers through the buying stages by delivering the right information at the right time in their journey from awareness to consid-eration to, ultimately, purchase. If marketers can take advantage of Big Data, companies will benefit from the insights necessary to drive revenue.

12Heidi Melin brings a valuable track record of proven success leading marketing teams at some of the most recognized brands in Silicon Valley. Her focus at Eloqua is on generating the brand’s thought leadership in the SaaS sector and driving demand. Melin comes to Eloqua from Taleo, which was recently acquired by Oracle Corporation, where she was CMO. Prior to Taleo, she served as CMO of Polycom Inc., where she helped turn the brand into a leader in unified communications. Before joining Polycom, Heidi was CMO at Hyperion Solutions Corp. (now Oracle Hyperion), where she led a brand strategy that led to renewed recognition within the business intelligence space.

@heidimelin

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Online Sales Replace The Sales Person?

THE VIRTUAL SALES TAKE OVER. To begin with, I think it is important we accept that virtually anything that can be purchased online with a credit card does not require the input from a salesman/saleswoman—these are the new “commodity sales,” including so many products that in the past have been sold traditionally, for example, I.T. equipment, software, financial products, mo-tor vehicles, clothes, food, etc. I estimate that 80-90% of all B2B transactions will be conducted online within three years, including high-end solutions that require some level of consultation, which will be provided via video conferencing.

This is a harsh economic reality.

13Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author, consultant and sales thought leader, who has guided hundreds of companies and more than one hundred thousand frontline salespeople and sales leaders towards optimum performance levels.He is the Senior Partner at Jonathan Farrington & Associates, Chairman of The JF Corporation and CEO of Top Sales Associates, based in London & Paris. You can also catch his popular award-winning blog here—The JF Blogit.

@JFAssocs

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SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. The remaining 10-20% external sales professionals that are left will become far more sophisticated—they will have to be in order to survive. Their basic skills-set will include very high levels of commercial acumen, industry/sector/market knowledge. They will speak the language of the buyer. They will be a rare and highly valued commodity! JOE AVERAGE. But my biggest concern is for the “Joe Average” external salesmen and women. These are the order-takers; the “just popped in for a chat to see if there is anything going” people; the courtesy callers; the shelf-stackers; the “I’m here if you need me” and the “He will always buy from me because he likes me” operators. WHAT IS TO BECOME OF THEM? They are going to be consigned to the annals of sales history. They will become extinct—it is already happening.

The remaining 10-20% of external sales professionals that are left will become far more sophisticated—they will have to be in order to survive.

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’Trust Is Not Enough

BIG DATA ALLOWS US TO TARGET BETTER. Advocates will say that the benefit of Big Data is that it organizes disparate sources of information to allow us to target better, be smarter about our business and make better decisions.

FOR SALES PEOPLE, I’M NOT SURE THAT WILL BE A BENEFIT IN 2013. Why? More data. And more options. And more decision points. And more complex matrixed decision committee. And more opinions. Equals one confused buyer, longer sales cycles and more losses.

While we can’t ignore Big Data, we do have to learn to sell differently in spite of it. This is the transformation I see smart companies making in 2013.

14While we can't ignore Big Data, we do have to learn to sell differently.Colleen Francis is the founder and president of Engage Selling Solutions and one of the top 5 sales trainers in the market—Sales & Marketing Magazine. Colleen is driven by a passion for sales—and results. A successful sales professional for over 20 years, she understands the challenges of selling in today's market and how traditional sales techniques from decades ago often fall short.

‘@CFrancisVoice

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THE RELATIONSHIP IS KING. For many years, developing trust and rapport was considered the hallmark of a great sales process. Driving sales required exposing your sales team to a maximum number of prospects and developing trust and rapport with those prospects. Important is not the exposure but the relationship.

BUILDING TRUST. The theory has always been that, all things being equal, if a prospect trusts you more than another potential supplier, when the time comes for them to make a purchase, you’ve won their business. But today, just knowing, liking and trusting a potential supplier is not enough. It’s important that the prospect also sees you as an expert in their business. One that they can trust not only personally but professionally to guide them through their purchase and future business problems.

BIG DATA HELPS ORGANIZE. Advocates will say that the benefit of Big Data is that it organizes disparate sources of information to allow us to target better, be smarter about our business and make better decisions.

If a prospect trusts you more than another potential supplier, when the time comes for them to make a purchase, you've won the business.

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Sales People Will Require More Data Initially

IT'S MORE THAN JUST LOOKING AT THE WEBSITE. The days of salespeople educating themselves about a prospect's company simply by visiting their website are over. Because of the plethora of information available, prospects expect that any sales rep approaching them has done their research.

THE BENEFITS OF BIG DATA ON HAND. Having Big Data available at your fingertips allows you to differentiate yourself from your competition immediately. In 2013 sellers will more carefully research top prospects to offer valuable insights from their first conversation.

15Kendra Lee is a Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencer for 2012 and Top 25 Influential Leader in Sales for 2012. She is a Prospect Attraction Expert, president of KLA Group, and author of the award-winning book Selling Against the Goal and The Sales Magnet (coming January 2013). Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group helps mid-market companies break through tough prospecting barriers to exceed revenue goals. Ms. Lee is a frequent speaker at national sales meetings and events. To find out more about the author and her “Get More Customers” strategies, visit www.klagroup.com or call +1 303-741-6636.

@kendraleekla

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BIG DATA WILL CONTINUE TO BE CRITICAL IN LEAD GENERATION. One of the most important things companies must do is to create lead generation campaigns that are personally tailored to the segments being targeted.

STANDING OUT IN THE CROWD. There are more people conducting email campaigns, hosting webinars and utilizing other Internet-centric marketing vehicles than ever before. You can no longer expect to be heard above the noise without a message that distinguishes you. Big Data allows you to be highly relevant to your target segments and will be a critical success factor in lead generation throughout 2013 and beyond.

You can no longer expect to be heard above the noise without a message that distinguishes you. Big Data allows you to be highly relevant to your target segments.

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The Big Data Ecosystem

ANALYZE THIS: VCS, ENTREPRENEURS ALREADY ARE BUILDING THE BIG DATA ECOSYSTEM. It’s easy to dismiss “Big Data” as just another saying that’s sweeping the national tech communities from Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley. But Big Data is much more than the latest catchphrase. It’s all about managing and making sense of a growing volume of information and statistics that countless Internet companies and mobile app developers are collecting on their users.

NOT JUST FOR STATISTICIANS. And what’s important to note is that Big Data is not just for statisticians in white lab coats. The amount of business intelligence that is accumulated affects every online company, no matter its size nor its sector focus. Marinexplore, for example, operates a Big Data platform to catalog information on the world’s oceans and has accumulated more than 1.2 billion measurements taken from a variety of devices. Similarly,

16Alastair Goldfisher is Editor of Venture Capital Journal, a Thomson Reuters publication that covers the VC industry. He also contributes to peHUB.com. Alastair primarily reports on venture capital and startups—pretty much anything dealing with fundraising, investment trends, personnel news and other topics about the VC industry. Alastair has worked as a business journalist since 1994. He’s been at Thomson Reuters since 2003. Previously, he was the founding editor of California CEO and a reporter with the San Jose Business Journal. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

@agoldfisher

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Practice Fusion, which has raised more than $65 million in VC funding, operates a platform to manage health records. To date, the company has amassed more than 50 million de-identified patient records in its database, which is more than three times the VA (7.5 million) and Kaiser (8.5 million) combined.

INTO THE HANDS OF ORDINARY USERS. Companies like Marinex-plore and Practice Fusion are taking Big Data out of the realm of research and putting it into the hands of ordinary business users. Entrepreneurs should take comfort in knowing that more investors are paying attention to the notion of Big Data. In 2011, VCs invested nearly $2.5 billion in Big Data-related startups, compared to a little more than $1.5 billion in 2010 and $1.1 billion in 2009, according to Thomson Reuters (where I serve as editor of Venture Capital Journal). It’s believed that the flow of VC dollars will continue to pour into the pockets of Big Data entrepreneurs in the coming years. Research firm IDC estimates that Big Data tech spending will jump from $3.2 billion in 2010 to an estimated $16.9 billion by 2015 and several VCs are already getting in line to fund future startups.

Companies like Marineexplore and Practice Fusion are taking Big Data out of the realm of research and putting it into the hands of ordinary business users.

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BIG DATA IS FLUSH WITH FUNDING. In early 2012, Accel Partners launched a $100 million fund to invest in early stage and growth companies throughout the worldwide Big Data ecosystem, from next generation storage and data management platforms to a range of software developers and ser-vice providers. Similarly, Data Collective got started two years ago to invest in companies that manage complex databases and provide faster processing of information. The firm is currently in the process of raising its first institutional fund, which industry watchers expect to reach between $50 million and $100 million. VCs and entrepreneurs sense an opportunity, and are ready to jump into the fray. The data doesn’t lie.

Accel Partners launched a $100 million fund to in-vest in early stage and growth com-panies throughout the worldwide Big Data ecosystem.

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Machine Age Predictions

PUTTING TRUST IN THE SYSTEM. Sales and marketing professionals will become more and more comfortable with the predictions made by Big Data systems. Most organizations will start small by experimenting outside the core, e.g., with new products or prospecting for new customers, but over time will gain the confidence to run a large part of their marketing and sales efforts informed by machine-driven predictions. In a fairly significant change from the Cloud transition, this Big Data wave will be driven by large enterprises first.

17Shashi Upadhyay is the CEO and co-founder of Lattice Engines. Since the company’s founding, Lattice has changed the lives of tens of thousands of sales professionals with award-winning technology that enables them to be more successful and their companies to drive more revenue. Before Lattice, Shashi was a partner at McKinsey & Company where he advised several Fortune 500 clients on improving their productivity. He has also served as an expert resource to CEOs of several companies to help conduct operational and strategic turnarounds.

@shashiSF

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Close Faster, Reap the Rewards

TOP CHALLENGES. In 2013, as in every year, sales teams will be looking to close more sales faster and find incremental revenue.

BIG DATA PREDICTION. Without the sales insights made possible by Big Data, sales teams will waste a lot of time and alienate a large number of buyers who aren't ready to buy or will never buy. Forward-thinking “Sales 2.0” com-panies have recognized that selling strategies informed by data and enabled by technology lead to measurably better business results and happier custom-ers. Big Data and analytics have already contributed to major advances across industries and functions and it's time for sales to reap these rewards as well.

There are tremendous opportunities to identify prospects and customers who are most likely to buy fastest, engage with them in a way that is relevant and meaningful and measure and predict sales productivity gains. Sales executives who embrace these opportunities will lead us into a future of better selling.

18Anneke Seley has been a champion of innovative sales thinking for over twenty years. She is the CEO and founder of Reality Works Group (formerly Phone Works), a global sales strategy and implementation services and content develop-ment firm that delivers revenue results in today's new Sales 2.0 reality. With expertise in phone/online/social selling, Reality Works Group has helped over 450 clients increase revenue at decreased cost using Sales 2.0 practices—measurable, predictable, scalable selling combined with better engagement and relationships with customers.

@annekeseley

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The End of Sales As We Know It

GET READY FOR THE RISE OF THE NEW “PROFESSION OF SALES.” University raised, multi-skilled, customer focused and accomplished in multiple disciplines: personally adding value to their customers business and driving rev-enue and prosperity as never imagined before.

The new “professional salesperson” is versed in the emerging science of professional B2B sales. Supported by true sales analytics and personally providing added value, she is changing the game—not only in our national economy, but also across the global economic landscape.

LACK OF SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT. Historically, sales had lacked the science to support innovative solutions and reliable results. Sales executives had to rely on their own experience and intuition for many of their most critical decisions.

19Howard Stevens is Chairman and CEO of Chally Group Worldwide, a research firm focused on Talent Management, Leadership Development and Sales and Productivity Improvement. Chally provides both talent and productivity audits at a corporate, functional and individual level as well as personnel assessments in 23 languages. Our research services support over 2,500 customers in 49 countries. Clients include such diverse international corporations as IBM, American Family Insurance, General Motors, Verizon, Sara Lee, Siemens, Xerox and Johnson Controls as well as many mid- and smaller-sized companies.

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Over the past century, other business functions (unlike sales) were not only innovating new products and services, but also applying Total Quality Man-agement (TQM) to achieve significant cost reductions and product reliability.

Initiating Process Improvement and six sigma principles to leverage global resources to produce flexibly tailored products and services that fit precisely to an individual customer’s needs.

AS A RESULT, THE COMPETITIVE EQUATION HAS CHANGED IRREVOCABLY. The parity of products, services, features and options has diminished their competitive advantage.

THE MODERN VALUE DIFFERENTIATOR IS NOW THE SALES FORCE ITSELF. Where value-added salespeople are absent, vendors are only distributing commodities…although some have not yet discovered that.

Historically, sales had lacked the science to support innovative solutions and reliable results.

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AN OUTPOURING OF TOOLS. Modern Data Analytics has upgraded traditional sales toward TQSalesMTM to drive a real sales science. The year 2013 will see a continuing outpour of tools that measure, track and drive success for an individual or the entire sales force. These tools monitor:

1. What Customers Both Need and Want at an individual level

2. Which Salespeople Can Deliver That Value: Detailed, precise measures of critical competencies

3. Which Salespeople Will Perfrom: Motivation is a key. Who is “hungry” and motivated to succeed according to the effort invested

4. How Well are They Performing: Bottom-line process tools measuring tasks that directly and indirectly lead to revenue • Are performed tasks matching the capability or potential? • Are there areas of additional coaching or training required?

5. Risk Factors and Derailers: With the position itself causing stress and under performance. With their manager, team members or support staff also causing conflict and reduced sales

The year 2013 will see a continuing outpour of tools that measure, track and drive success for an individual or the entire sales force.

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“BIG SALES DATA” BRINGS PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS TO SALES, empowering salespeople, increasing success ratios, minimizing costs and providing the instant flexibility to design and redesign solutions to win the business, retain the business and leverage that success to drive additional business.

Big Data empow-ers salespeople, increases success ratios, minimizes costs and pro-vides instant flexibility to design solutions to win business.

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20 Bridging the Gap

LEARNING WHAT THE CUSTOMER NEEDS. My biggest prediction for 2013 in marketing is that organizations will begin to address the gap between the way our customers seek information during the buying process and the gaps in the information marketers provide. This will create a greater need for new roles to be created in many more companies. Roles such as Content Strategist, Chief Content Office, Data Scientists (in marketing) and Social Business Managers (Marketers spreading into other departments like sales and customer support). These roles will help companies to bridge the gaps and address the changing buyer journey.

Michael Brenner is a senior director of Intergrated Marketing for SAP. He is the author of B2B Marketing Insider, is the founding editor of the SAP Business Innovation blog, and also is a co-founder of the social news site Business2Community.com. Michael has been working in marketing for nearly 2 decades in various roles where he has used customer insights to drive sales, return on investment, and customer loyalty through effective sales and marketing strategies.

@brennermichael

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Selling Will Become Even More Challenging

SELLING HAS BEEN A CHALLENGING CAREER, especially for people selling business-to-business. However, it is unlikely going to get easier. In fact, in many ways, it will probably become even more challenging. Here are the top three challenges I believe will plague sales people in the upcoming year.

1. Connecting with Decision Makers.This has always been one of the top challenges that sales people face. Corporate decision makers are inundated with people trying to sell a product or service. Decision makers will be busier than ever which means it will become even more difficult to connect with them. And when you do connect, they will be more reluctant to meet with you due to the demands on their time. Gatekeepers and executive assistants will become even more protective of their boss’s time so you will need a powerful value proposition if you want them to connect you with their executive.

Selling is unlikely to get easier. In fact, in many ways, it will probably become more challenging.Kelley Robertson helps people master their sales conversations so they can win more business and increase their sales. He does this by conducting sales training workshops and keynote speeches at conferences and sales meetings. Contact Kelley to speak at your sales event: 905-633-7750 or Kelley@RobertsonTrainingGroup.com.

‘@FearlessSelling

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2. Competitive Difference. As we move into the next year it will become more difficult to differentiate yourself from a competitor, especially from a product perspective. To many companies, your product or solution looks exactly the same as your competitors even though they may be vastly different. Part of the inherent challenge with this is the fact that many prospects will do more preliminary research before they contact you. This research will educate them and also confuse them at the same time. As a result, price will often become a differentiating factor unless you are able to demonstrate exactly why your solution is worth more than a competitor’s.

To many competi-tors, your product or solutions looks exactly the same as your competi-tors even though they may be vastly different.

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3. Information Overload. Marketing departments, operations and managers push more information out to the field faster every day which makes it difficult for salespeople to keep caught up. Plus, the lifespan of many products has rapidly diminished and this will continue. Most companies introduce new products before the sales team has fully learned the existing ones. And don’t forget, that in order to articulate your competitive difference you will need to know more about your competitor’s products. A friend of mine is a chiropractor and he admits it is extremely difficult to keep up with the latest news in his professions. Salespeople— especially those who sell a complex product—will find themselves in a similar position.

Marketing depart-ments, operations and managers push more infor-mation out to the field faster every day which makes it difficult for salespeople to keep caught up.

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Selling Will Become Even More Challenging

INCREASING SALES PRODUCTIVITY. 2013 is looking like a modest year with a forecast of two percent GDP growth. As a result, most B2B companies will focus on increasing sales productivity rather than expanding sales head-count to drive revenue growth.

Big Data has proven itself as a driver of sales productivity lift and is poised to accelerate in three ways next year.

1. Using Internal and External Data to Identify Selling Sweet Spots. Today, many large companies have begun using internal data to aid their selling efforts, typically by analyzing their customer's purchase history in search of pattern recognition.

22Anjai "AJ"Ghandi is a VP of Customer Solutions at Lattice Engines where he is responsible for the implementation and success of the company’s Enterprise customers. Prior to Lattice, AJ served as Vice President, Global Sales Strategy at salesforce.com. AJ has spent the majority of his career as a management consultant to B2B Sales & Marketing organizations in the Global 5000. Collectively, he has served over 40 clients during his tenure at McKinsey, Sales Executive Council and Alexander Group.

@gandhib2b

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In 2013 companies will take it to the next level by combining many sources of Internal Data (Purchase History, Customer Service Data, Marketing Automation Data) with External Data (Firmographic Data, Company Growth Indicators, 3rd party data sources such as D&B, Lexis-Nexis & RainKing). More data sources will translate to stronger predictive analytics about which customers/prospects are most receptive and what they are most likely to buy. This will be essential because most sales reps don’t have the capacity to cover everything in their territory.

2. Unlocking the unrealized cross-sell of new/acquired/strategic products. Seemingly, every new product launch, analyst briefing and M&A pitch deck makes the same promise about the “massive” potential of cross-selling new products to the installed base. However, results often disappoint because sales reps are perceived to want to stay in their com-fort zone and don’t sell them. In reality, sales reps would love to cross-sell more to existing customers. However, they are challenged by excessive choice (many customers in their patch, many products to sell) and often make mediocre decisions about where to sell which products.

Analytics will be essential because most sales reps don't have the capacity to cover everything in their territory.

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In 2013 Big Data will be used to develop focused campaigns to identify specific customers who are the highest fit for buying the new products. With a little help from the marketing and training teams, this will enable sales reps to achieve much higher levels of success with new products and thus increasing their confidence and willingness to sell them more broadly.

3. Dramatically Increasing the Value of CRM with Big Data. A key problem with CRM is that it is largely a tool for sales leadership. In too many deployments, there is a limited value proposition for end-user sales reps. As a result, CRM adoption remains a widespread problem which is typically addressed with a “stick”. In the New Year companies using Big Data as a “carrot” to transform their CRM systems in to a “single pane of glass” will help sales teams sell more. The first component will be analytics that identify each rep’s most recep-tive customers/prospects and recommends what to sell them. Second, they will display selective data to enable account research and sales call prep which empowers reps to have a more contextual sales conversation.

A key problem with CRM is that it is largely a tool for sales leader-ship. In too many deployments, there is a limited value proposition for end-user sales reps.

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23 Thoughtful Strategies,Better Sales Discipline

DOUBLE DOWN ON TOP TIER TOOLS. A growing assortment of point solutions to address sales productivity will overwhelm sales organizations. Apps, devices, social networks and the latest selling strategies will be distracting for everyone in these organizations—sales professionals, their managers and the operational support teams. Smart teams will recognize that they need to double down on a small set of top tier tools and focus their energy on improving effectiveness through more thoughtful strategies and better sales discipline.

Kent McCormick is responsible for setting product direction and deployment activities for Lattice Engines. Before founding Lattice, Kent served as director of business operations at EMC. In this role, he had been leading pricing and operational analytics for all of EMC. Before this, Kent was a consultant at McKinsey & Company—working with Fortune 500 companies on product development, sales & marketing business problems.He received a Ph.D. in Physics from Berkeley, and before that a dual-degree in Physics and Mathematics from Rice University.

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24 Ready? Set. Go. Capture and Use Big Data in Sales

RIDING THE CREST OF A NEW WAVE. I believe we are just at the very early stage of being able to capture and use Big Data in sales. B2C sales organizations, like Amazon.com, have done a brilliant job capturing data from individuals and deriving insights that allow them to make recommendations based on an individual’s past purchases and the past purchases of similar consumers. Google, with their massive data sets, has used Big Data as well or better than anyone.

Selling is unlikely to get easier. In fact in many ways, it will probably get more challenging.

BUT WE’RE NOT THERE YET IN B2B SALES ORGANIZATIONS. Our customer databases are smaller. Most of us don’t sell anywhere near the number of items or the volume of an Amazon.com, so we don’t have quite the

Anthony Iannarino is the President and Chief Sales Officer for SOLUTIONS Staffing, a best-in-class regional staffing service based in Columbus, Ohio. We provide light industrial, clerical, accounting and scientific staffing solutions for our clients who need a higher-caliber employee, and the highest levels of service. He is also the Managing Director of B2B Sales Coach & Consultancy, a boutique sales coaching and consulting company where I work to help salespeople and sales organizations improve and reach their full potential.

@iannarino

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We have some access to public databases, but gleaning action-able insights is still difficult for a B2B sales organization.

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ability to gain the same kind of insights. We have some access to public databases, but gleaning actionable insights is still difficult for a B2B sales organization. On the other hand, while the public databases don’t yet provide the kind of insight I believe we will inevitably be able to capture and use, they have been extraordinarily helpful for the individual salesperson!

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25 Focus on Your Growth Objectives

DETERMINE THE MOST IMPORTANT DRIVERS. One of the biggest challenges facing sales teams today is their inability to determine the most important drivers of sales effectiveness to meet growth objectives. Some organizations take on too much because they haven’t prioritized the two or three productivity drivers that are most critical to driving growth. In other cases, sales organizations address the wrong area because their leaders focus on what everyone else is doing versus what they should be doing to meet their company’s growth objectives. These organizations focus on the new big thing (“Big Data”?) versus the most important thing that may not have created as much “buzz”.

BIG DATA PREDICTION? The immediate answer to this question is that Big Data and the potential insight generated from more, and more granular, information about customers and partners will result in more targeted and executable strategies, improved decision-making and ultimately

Ashish Vazirani is a Principal at ZS Associates with responsibility for ZS's High Tech practice. Ashish helps his clients improve marketing and sales productivity by developing and executing integrated marketing and sales models and Go-to-Market strategy. In recent years, Ashish has focused on working with leading global technology companies including software, hardware, networking and communications. Ashish is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. Before starting a career in consulting and sales and marketing management, Ashish served in the U.S. Navy as a Submarine Officer.

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The reality is that each of these innovations have become ubiquitous across sales organizations and the competi-tive advantage offered has either not been realized or has been quickly matched.

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superior sales force performance. At least that is the promise. However, that has been the promise of each new “big” sales innovation: solution or value-based selling, sales force automation (SFA), CRM, mobility etc.

INNOVATION, INNOVATION, EVERYWHERE. The reality is that each of these innovations have become ubiquitous across sales organizations and the competitive advantage offered has either not been realized (due to mis-alignment with strategy, poor implementation or execution) or has been quickly matched (and sometimes surpassed) due to better execution.

Our point of view is that Big Data and the potential for increased insight, can offer competitive advantage under two conditions:

1. The insight generated must be believable, delivered consistently and at the right time and in the right context to drive action specific to the individual salesperson's situation.

2. The salesperson is coached, or better yet apprenticed, on how to take full advantage of the insight to improve customer and partner engagement.

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A mastery of the fundamentals of sales force effectiveness, and the ability to implement leading best practices, is required to take full advantage of insight as a sales effectiveness driver. Otherwise, the only promise that will be fulfilled is a salesperson that is overwhelmed, or disillusioned by the “silver bullet” of Big Data.

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26 ’Big Data for Targeting and Measurement

MARKETING HAS NEVER BEEN AS LEFT BRAINED AS IT IS NOW, and Big Data will drive that trend even more in 2013. We’ll see this play out in two key areas. First, the options available to marketers for targeting are incredible. With Facebook ads, advancements in retargeting, website personalization capabilities and so on, a marketer today has the ability to target down to a specific person or company. Have a list of high lead-score prospects that you are nurturing? Target them with specific ads that complement the emails you are sending them and customize your website accordingly. Trying to close a deal at a particular company? You can expose every person in that company to brand advertisements that reinforce your value proposition. Capabilities like this are creating unprecedented opportunities for new kinds of coordi-nated campaigns—but of course this requires an ability to synthesize massive

A marketer today has the ability to target down to a specific person or company.Jon Miller leads strategy and execution for all aspects of Marketo’s thought leadership and content marketing programs. In 2010, The CMO Institute named Jon a Top 10 CMO for companies under $250 million revenue. Jon holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard College and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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Marketers can take advantage of this massive amount of infor-mation to measure marketing pro-gram ROI will be able to make better decisions about where to invest their time and resources.

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quantities of data to get the right targets, and the right marketing platform to coordinate and synchronize the activities across channels and time.

Second, as more marketing activities move online and interconnect, they spin off a tremendous amount of data about what is working—and what isn’t. Marketers that can take advantage of this massive amount of informa-tion to measure marketing program ROI will be able to make better decisions about where to invest their time and resources. Half their marketing may still be wasted, but at least they’ll know which half. IT’S AN EXCITING TIME TO BE IN MARKETING. Big Data can lead to more relevant marketing for customers and better results for marketers. What’s not to like about that?

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Lattice is revolutionizing sales and marketing through the power of Big Data. The company's Big Data for Sales platform, salesPRISM, delivers real-time, predictive and actionable insight to sales and marketing professionals wherever they are so they can engage the most receptive customers in the most compelling ways. Fortune 500 companies such as ADP, Dell, EMC and SunTrust rely on Lattice to generate 75 percent more pipeline, triple conversion rates, and double win rates. Lattice is privately held and backed by NEA and Sequoia Capital with headquarters in San Mateo, CA. Learn more at www.lattice-engines.com and follow @Lattice_Engines.

For more information, visit www.lattice-engines.com or call 1-877-460-0010.

About Lattice