Millennial Obsession Will Bankrupt Neobanks

Personally, I don’t find too many serious shortcomings in the digital banking offerings from my banks. On the contrary, virtually every neobank / fintech I’ve come across is little more than a leadgen tool. But that’s outside the purview of this blog post, the purpose of which is to do a reality check on the … Read more

Ensuring That Buyer 2.0 Contacts *Your* Sales

In What Happens Before A Prospect Contacts Sales?, we’d shared CEB’s finding that B2B prospects complete 57% of their purchasing decision before contacting sales. As we saw in that post, the new Internet-powered purchasing process introduces a blindzone in the purchase process. Unless navigated successfully, this blindzone will lead to a situation where the Buyer … Read more

What Happens Before A Prospect Contacts Sales?

“B2B customers complete 57% of their purchasing decision before contacting sales.” This is easily the most frequently quoted line in B2B sales and marketing in recent times. Ever since  CEB Marketing Leadership Council released this finding in its HBR article in mid 2012, Some startup CEOs have questioned the need for sales A few have … Read more

Loyalty Gifts – Buy Or Earn?

Those of us who redeem our loyalty points on gift portals will have inevitably come across a gift or two that was appealing to us but was beyond our reward points balance. On some gift portals, it’s possible to pick up the goodies by simply paying up the difference with cash e.g. Lufthansa WorldShop, IHG, … Read more

Why Rockstar SDRs Obsess Over Dial Volume

This blog post is about a controversial topic in B2B technology inside sales: Dial Volume. It will not endear me to Inside Sales folks. Nevertheless, since dial volume pushes the revenue needle, I decided to write it. Cold calling remains an important part of business development in large ticket B2B technology products and services. Every cold call … Read more

Don’t Lose Deals By Belaboring Business Value – Case Study

In Don’t Lose Deals By Belaboring Business Value, I’d warned that B2B technology vendors risk losing a deal by belaboring business value all the time. In this post, I’ll describe my experience with a startup that failed to heed this warning, and lost the deal – and more – as a result. I was recently … Read more

Don’t Lose Deals By Belaboring Business Value

“Most B2B buyers only care about the value you bring to their business. They really do not care about your products.” When I read this line on LinkedIn, my first reaction was to reply back with the classical Little Feat line “Don’t Bogart That Joint. Pass It On.” I’ve no argument with the first sentence. … Read more

Why Indian Customers Will Flee Abroad Before Indian Startups!

I was introduced to SINE (Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship), the technology incubator at my alma mater IIT Bombay, when I attended the Silver Jubilee Reunion of my Class of 85 in 2010. Since then, my exposure to Indian technology startups has increased. As a budding angel investor, I’ve lately begun to closely follow the … Read more

3 Ways To Find Hidden Pain Areas

There’s a growing realization among B2B technology marketers that positioning their products and services around technology is a fool’s errand. Even compared to a year or two ago, there’s a massive rise in vendors recasting technology offerings around alleviation of business pain areas. This is a great development. We’d like to take some credit for … Read more