Quality Connections versus quantity of activity

In my post on "Sales is a Numbers game" discussion was kicked off regarding a misalignment with ICP and output at the bottom of the funnel. I think that this is an important discussion that needs to be held within sales organizations regarding whom and how we should be targeting in our efforts.

In the comments of the post, Michael Fried points out that there is a "...huge mismatch in the ICP definition." He is dead on and, in the end, this leads to a ton of activity without a huge result. Jim Burchell eloborates more stating, "We're in a time where senior people (C-suite/BoD) remember when activity = revenue, but those of us in the IC/VP of Sales level know 250 emails per week in a sequence MIGHT equal 1-2 responses." In other words, C-Level and above are nostalgic for a time where they had an easy way to create pipeline. But that just does not exist any longer.

There are likely several reasons for this, but today, I am going to pin this on three specific causes that can be addressed easily by an organization to put this on track. This includes:

1. Misalignment between Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
2. Sales Outreach automation and a proliferation of these contacts.
3. Over reliance on Artificial Intelligence

TAM vs. ICP

There is a very big difference between a TAM and an ICP. However, many companies, in an effort to increase volume and using the old "sales is a numbers game" adage, mix these two concepts. To be clear, ICP is a stringent definition of a customer base that needs your solution. This is actually your smallest viable market and not often a large grouping of customers. The KEY aspect of an ICP is that there is an easily definable Unfair Advantage that your product has in solving the customer's problem over anyone else. In effect, a company should be able to corner a market of their ICP.

Conversely, a TAM is a broader definition of a market that MAY have problem similar to what you solve. This is a broad definition of a market that can be reached that will eventually need to solve the problem by using your software. The

C-Suite wants an ICP to be huge, because when it is huge there is a lot of market potential and they can tell the investors that the space that they can dominate is worth Billions of dollars and thus our valuation should be unicorn level. The front line, however, understands that the TAM is highly competitive and our product only fits well with a specific target. It's much smaller, maybe only in the $100's of millions of market potential, but we can win many deals.

A client I recently worked with was attempting to describe their ICP as follows:

"Any company with at least 500 users on [COMPANY A] OR [COMPANY B] and located within these 5 metro areas."

Here is what is wrong with that description for an ICP...there is no definition of the problem that these companies have, nor is there a description of who will buy the software. It's a wish list, not an true ICP and that kind of definition does not help your sales team find and close deals. It will force them to blindly talk to everyone in the 5 metro areas seeking to determine if they have a problem that you can solve.

Another client had a different issue in defining their ICP. Simply put, the senior level did not like the answer. In the Board Room, the ICP was Enterprise Companies with 1000's of employees who need to manage a specific set of objectives. But in truth, their product was a much better fit for mid-sized companies with a smaller organizational footprint that needed their tool to be more efficient in defining strategy and objectives. In the words of one of the front line people, "We know what our ICP is, but our board does not like the answer because those deals are smaller."

The problem here is that you cannot force the definition of your ICP. You can build out your product for it, but that takes more time...and in this case, time was not a luxury they could afford.

In both cases, the misalignment between the board and the front line means that the front line will struggle to find the audience and win deals. Without the unfair advantage, sales is much more difficult of an effort and your ability to dominate is skewed by lack of differentiation.

Sales Outreach Automation is prolific

I am certain that you have noticed the influx of emails and LinkedIn requests that have something to sell you. In my last corporate role, I classified my email as unusable simply because it was inundated with offers from everywhere asking me to buy something. It was not always that way, there was a time where that kind of message from a sales person actually stood out.

Here is a fact, however, every marketing technique and channel diminishes in response over time. When I first started in Digital Marketing, our average Click Through Rate (CTR) was 15% on Digital ads. Today, the average CTR on digital display is 0.35% depending on placement and market. The public is numbed to the advertising.

The same is holding true for sales outreach. Because of automation, we have all jumped into sequences that send 3-5 impressions per sequence with a standard greeting, follow up, bump, last chance, and final attempt. It's boring, predictable and rarely provides value.

But, if we were doing this less, with a well-defined ICP and where you had an unfair advantage that you could use to provide value to the end client? Well, that is when you can get their attention.

Over-reliance on AI to build your messages

I am personally an early adopter, and I love AI and where it is going for us. But, I also understand that it cannot write for me. Which is why I use it for research but not for writing these posts. But some of you, are using it to write your outreach and it is obvious.

Poems, haikus, even bland personalization messages about where I went to school or something in my linkedIn profile are pretty easy to spot. The advancement of this technology has been a productivity gain. But over-reliance on this as an answer only serves to drop the efficacy of your efforts. Automation is useless if it drives down your outcome.

AI is a tool, just like a hammer is a tool. You would not let the hammer perform it's task on its own, would you? Human's are still way better at human connection than computers are. While it is tempting to let the machine do the work, it only dulls your ability to succeed.

There is a shift going on in B2B sales and marketing right now. Old models are becoming less effective and new technology is at the stage where it is simply amplifying old models. We need to get better at finding our core markets, articulating our unfair advantage and dominating our small spaces. What we really need is a new model for the new technology we have at our fingertips. Any ideas on what that looks like?