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Amidst the current economic downturn, the impact on account-based strategies has become a focal point for businesses striving to sustain revenue growth in these uncertain times. The challenges are compounded as businesses grapple with the new economic landscape and the shifting dynamics of customer engagement. With revenue generation becoming more complex, many companies are finding their account-based initiatives in a state of stall.
However, with the right approach and a nuanced understanding of market realities, these strategies can still deliver promising results. Enter Jon Russo, a seasoned expert in the field, who offers timely insights on how to navigate these obstacles.
As the founder and CMO of B2B Fusion and a CMSWire contributor, Russo possesses a deep understanding of the current business environment. In his CMSWire column, “5 Ideas to Advance a Stalled Account-Based Initiative,” Russo shares his expertise to help businesses revitalize their account-based initiatives, providing a roadmap to navigate this challenging economic landscape.
We caught up on the topic with Jon in this Contributor Q&A.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Dom Nicastro: Hey everybody, Dom Nicastro, managing editor of CMSWire back we’ve done these videos before with Jon, back with Jon Russo CMS contributor, He's founder and CMO of B2B Fusion. Hey, Jon, how's it going?
Jon Russo: Dom, thanks for having me back. I'm excited to be a contributor for your column. And really looking forward to Q4 coming up here.
Account-Based Strategies Face Challenges Amidst Economic Downturn
Nicastro: Yeah, it definitely is coming up. It's fast approaching everyone's thinking 2023 already, but fact is, Jon, you know, we're in an economic downturn, obviously. And everyone's looking at performance, like you mentioned in your article here today. And, you know, you nicely laid out some of the symptoms that kind of companies can be looking at when it comes to an account based strategy, some symptoms of this economic downturn. So let's start there. What are some of these ramifications of this downturn that are affecting account based strategies?
Russo: You know, a lot of companies right now are searching for revenue. It's a pretty challenging time for sales and marketers altogether. And we've seen a couple of themes, not just from our clients, but the industry as a whole, where sometimes people are getting stuck with their account based initiative, as they've pivoted from the lead based approach to the account based approach. We've seen some real challenges of getting new revenue. And so the immediate knee jerk reaction is, oh, let's just throw out account base, like account base isn't working, let's just discard it move on to something else, when in fact, there are a number of different things and activities and actions that people can take to maybe loosen things up, and maybe make that revenue engine flow again.
Related Article: ABM in 2022: Make It the Year of Smarter Account Based Marketing
Account-Based Strategy: Reshaping Messaging, Sales Processes and Enablement
Nicastro: Yeah, it's about being creative, being, you know, trying new things. And you nicely laid out, let's see, you got about three or five, your five ideas of how to get this going and get the engine revved up again, in this downturn, when it comes to account based strategies. Give us a little kind of preview of what you're talking about in this article?
Russo: Yeah, great question, Dom. And just thinking to the kind of, the stuck stickiness of the revenue engine, think of the revenue not flowing, there's probably a few different areas that a marketer should be pressing, including pressing on themselves. So I give a bunch of different ideas there. But the first one that comes to mind is look within on the messaging side. Today's message is a lot different than it was six months or even a year ago, or will be even different again in another six months.
So really re-tuning that message for the right persona. You know, in talking with a few other experts on the outside, I've talked with Jen Allen, who's the chief evangelist for Challenger sale (formerly), she said it really well about how moving more up market for a lot of these transactional sellers and moving up market to enterprise. It's a completely different selling process.
So in addition to the marketers looking within themselves, are your salespeople really geared for that kind of sale? That's a question that you need to really be inspecting and looking at as a marketer. And then there's that other area of sales enablement. And it's a really tricky area of sales enablement. Platforms are accelerating so quickly, and the technology is accelerating so quickly, your sales enablement function really should be helping, and kind of pushing forward some ways to get that revenue flowing through the system side of things, training the SDRs, training the salespeople on account based motions, marketers can kind of build some relationships there that may help accelerate some of that revenue side. So bottom line is there's a bunch of different areas that one can push on. You know, those are three that come immediately to mind.
Related Article: 3 Ways Marketers Can Ease Account-Based Transition for Sales
Maximizing Martech ROI Amid Economic Downturn
Nicastro: Yeah, thanks, Jon, for those insights. And you know, as you were talking, I'm thinking of the effect that this is all having, all these trends, all this economic downturn on marketing technology itself, or martech, as many people call it, like, what do you see in there?
Russo: Yeah, and that's probably the number one issue that we're seeing right now is getting the ROI out of the martech platforms. Are you really configuring them to maximize the strategy? Have you thought through your business processes and then configured your systems to follow through on the martech?
And then on a glancing blow with the sales enablement and the SDR side, particularly with account based platforms? How are you enabling your SDRs to have all the insights in one spot, so they're not having to hunt and peck around? All of that leads to better ROI of the systems? And if you're not seeing the ROI of those systems, they're getting voted off the island quickly. So it's, it's a very challenging time. And great question that you ask.
Related Article: Leverage Social Media for Account-Based Marketing
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Nicastro: Yeah. Great. And then finally looking ahead, you know, what are some of the things you're watching how all this is gonna shape up, unfold in the rest of 22 and, and even into early 2023?
Russo: Yeah, I think we're headed into kind of the curve of the racetrack here. I think there was a great article that Bain wrote about this, where a lot of companies going that are decelerating into the curve might either have layoffs or, you know, we're kind of tightening our belts here. But it's the companies that really take the time to invest in their processes and the data that will come out of this curve and back into the straightaway and accelerate pretty quickly. So I think what you'll start to see is people will hunker down here for the rest of the year.
But at the beginning of the year, I think it's a brand new year, brand new opportunity, hopefully fresh budgets, a renewed optimism. So I'm hoping that kind of the acceleration might begin to pick up Q1. But between now and then I think it's going to be a bit of a deceleration, focus on the fundamentals of processes of data, get things, get your house in order for when the time does come, so you're ready for it.
Nicastro: Yeah, it's amazing. It's like, you know, let's shift and adjust part 2, like, think of like, March 2020, April 2020, May 2020. And now we're back into all these different dynamics now happening in these changes, the marketing and marketing teams, sales teams are wondering, what is this going on, when is this going to end?
Russo: It's a really challenging time to be a sales or marketing leader right now. In any organization. It's really challenging, no doubt about it.
