Adrian Hardy, BT
Adrian Hardy, head of global ABM at BT, was the lone marketer in a sales team where he was trying to convince them to adopt ABM.
He realised the most valuable commodity for any sales team is time. If you don’t have something tangible to bring to them to help them meet their targets, they’re not going to give you the time of day.
He also recognised he needed to sell ABM to the sales team using an ABM approach.
Using the Myers–Briggs test, Adrian identified the key personality traits sales and marketing had in common to work out how to get his message across in the best way. He learnt to speak ‘sales-ish’.
He then focused on partnering with – rather than supporting – sales. Instead of using marketing strategies that deliver a marketing target, he developed marketing strategies that deliver the sales target.
At the end of the first year working as part of this sales team he was told he had changed sales’ view of marketing from “the colouring in department” to the “lighting-up department”.
1. Go on a recommendation. Get an existing sales colleague to send an email to the new team. Outline your idea in terms of sales outcome.
2. Go prepared. Book an hour, write your agenda and research the accounts. Go with insight they don’t have.
3. Start small. Identify one simple thing you can impact. Show examples of where you’ve done this before successfully.