Top Guide Posts for this week talk about Roads, The Clash and Friends.

The Road Not Taken

In the world of marketing, we often bemoan insufficient differentiation.

Everyone took the same path!

This leads to needing to compete on price.

In turn, this leads to margin erosion.

Margin erosion leads to cost cutting.

Cost cutting leads to lack of resources for innovations.

And so the death spiral continues.

Instead, take the road less traveled!

Invest in innovation!

Invest in marketing those innovations!

Grow your margins through differentiation!

Robert Frost said it well in "The Road Not Taken".

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Let Due North Guide you to difference makers!

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Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Attention MedTech and High-Tech Leaders!

You may not realize it but, your top talent is quietly biding their time until bonuses are paid out.

During this time, they are reaching out to me stating that they are some combination of bored, overworked, undervalued, or other.

When they call me and tell me they see no end in sight for their current work frustrations, the next words often are...."Should I stay or should I go?"

Truthfully, by the time they ask me, their minds are made and they are going.

Maybe not today or tomorrow.

But they are definitely leaving you.

Even if it is "quiet quitting".

My advice. Get in front of this now.

If not, after bonuses pay out there will be a lot of vacancies on your teams.

And for those of you who don't know the song. See the link below. One of my all time faves!

https://lnkd.in/gSan6rQ9

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Attention Sales and Marketing Leaders!As a leading Sales and Marketing recruiter and former sales and marketing executive, I have always been fascinated by how adversarial sales and marketing teams can be.

Marketing often views the Sales team as rogue elements that refuse to follow anything that marketing puts out. That includes sales processes, discounting guidelines, key product messaging and on.

Oh, and forget about updating your CRM. That's about the last thing they want to do.

Sales tends to view Marketing as those "pointy-headed know-it-alls" that have no idea what the customer actually wants. And as long as they are hitting their numbers, who cares about your goofy CRM?

The enternal question is how to end these battles and get them to work together?

In addition to the annual Sales and Marketing Meetings that are taking place right now, one of the best ideas I have seen is to have them have shared metrics.

Most marketers have revenue components in their performance goals but don't consider other sales indicators. And, few sales people have marketing metrics in their performance plan.

So, leaders need to think about what common metrics can both sides can influence.

Is it better usage of your CRM?

Marketing can influence by making this an invaluable tool to sales. And sales can influence by making it an invaluable source of information for marketing.

Is it the sales pipeline?

Marketing influences this through improved lead generation and engaging content. Sales influences this through information flow back to marketing and prompt follow-up on leads.

Undoubtedly, there are many other examples of areas where sales and marketing can align for the benefit of both sides.

So, if Leo (our cat) and Phoebe (our German shepard) can be friends, I am pretty sure that by aligning your sales and marketing teams' objectives, they can be friends as well.

For those of you too young to remember this iconic song, here's the link: https://lnkd.in/gxCrGHRT

Chris Gustanski – Founder and Lead Talent Guide

Chris is a classically trained marketer with over a decade of executive search experience. He moved into recruiting because he was someone that was frequently recruited and was tired of recruiters hounding him to consider roles they didn’t understand, and he wasn’t interested in pursuing. He was determined to disrupt Executive Search to deliver a better result and experience for companies and the commercial talent they need.?After over a decade seeing the dysfunction in executive search firms large and small, he formed Due North Executive Search in collaboration with his wife Amie.

To learn more about how Due North can help you build World Class Commercial teams click here to schedule a meeting.