#flipmyfunnel Podcast

Effective enterprise leaders ask themselves two questions: What needs to be done? What is right for the company? Peter Drucker gives both of these points away in the first page of his book “The Effective Executive.” These may seem simple. They are. And they have amazing returns. Not only does Peter give these away, he gives us a specific plan of attack. On this episode, you’ll get an inside peak from the minds of one of the executive greats. We tell you his plan on how to ask the right questions, communicate effectively with your team, and maximize your productivity.

Marketing in today’s world is all about engaging with a potential buyer. Or at least it should be. But too often, a seller simply automates the process. There’s no trust, no knowledge and no value to the buyer. How many times have we all received an unsolicited email from someone who clearly sent out that same email to a thousand other buyers?  How did you feel? Probably the same way our latest guest, Jill Rowley, former Chief Growth Officer for Marketo feels about those emails. Jill came on our show to tell us about engagement -- a whole new marketing philosophy.

My goal outcomes determine my daily tasks. Not my inbox. Who's determining your goals? Is it you? Or is it your inbox? That’s what we talked about on today’s Big Idea Friday episode of the #FlipMyFunnel podcast. The secret is having an outcome based mindset. So, what's important to you? Whatever is important to you should be your outcome. Thinking this way forces us to do less, and to focus on just a few things that will help us reach the outcomes we are striving for. Here's a challenge: come up with the top three goals you want to accomplish that will make you proud of whatever you're doing professionally and personally. Then let those goals determine the tasks that take top priority in your day. Check out the link below for the full episode.

You've got a marketing strategy, a content strategy, a social strategy, an ABM strategy. You may also have a crisis strategy, a sales strategy, a hiring and recruiting strategy .… You probably have an entire desk full of strategies. But few businesses have a word-of-mouth strategy. Jay’s on a mission to change that. He’s the author 6 best-selling books, including Talk Triggers (as well as the founder of 5 multi-million dollar businesses.) On this episode, Jay shares some of his best secrets about how businesses can operationalize a word-of-mouth strategy that will keep your customers talking.

Tech evangelists have been with us since the beginning of the Macintosh operating system. While the evangelist title is undeniably cool, when is it necessary for your company to deploy one and whom should it be? We sat down with Dan Steinman, co-author of the book Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue and Chief Evangelist for Gainsight, a customer success company which helps businesses secure and surpass their customers' desired outcomes and deliver consistently amazing experiences.

If we are human, why is it so hard to act like one? What does being human in the corporate world look like? In Daniel Pink’s book, To Sell is Human, Pink really tried to figure out what it means to be human. It’s a really good book to read if you think that selling is only the job of a salesperson. Using loads of data and multiple studies, he argues that 99% of us are selling something every day. This something could be a product, a service, an idea, or a plan to get your spouse to take you on vacation. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s a must.

“It’s isn’t always the biggest, baddest, or fastest mouse trap that gets the mice. It’s the one with the stinkiest cheese.” And this translates directly to marketing. So says Soon Yu, author of the new book, Iconic Advantage: Don't Chase the New, Innovate the Old.   Soon helps companies realize that they don’t have to be the fastest, biggest or have the best technology in order to be successful.  But they do have to connect with their audience, and the best way to do that is through meaningful marketing. If there is no emotional connection created with customers, they’re just competing on price.  There aren’t many winners in that game. In this episode of the #FlipMyFunnel Podcast, we chat with Soon about B2B storytelling, chasing the new versus innovating the old, and three qualities behind the most successfully innovative and iconic companies.

It’s another episode of Sangram’s Big Idea Friday. In this episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast Sangram talks about how to rewrite history. You can rewrite history if you can reframe the problem. We’re all really good at excuses. We constantly come up with lies that we tell ourselves for why we can't do something. But there's an alternative: reframe the problem.

If there is one person synonymous with marketing excellence, it is Seth Godin.   Godin has written 18 bestselling books including Permission Marketing and Purple Cow. I had the exciting opportunity to discuss his recent book This is Marketing. “It's very easy for us to think we live in this mass market world, but we don't. We live in a micro market world,” says Godin. For Godin, marketing is the art of hitting the smallest viable audience. Like developers who attempt to create the minimal viable product to ship, targeting the smallest viable audience forces a marketer to sharpen their messaging to attract just those customers. Here’s what we’re unpacking today: The origin of flipping the funnel. Positioning as a service. Marketing isn’t about marketing spend. This is Marketing: The Five-Step Marketing Framework. Sangram's Summary. Seth’s Challenge.

As you know, on Tuesdays we have been doing our Takeover series. For this series, Ethan Beute has been hosting awesome interviews, all focused on this idea of evangelism. Well, for today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast, we thought we’d shake things up a bit. Our guests host today is...me, Sangram. That’s right. Today, I’m a guest on my own podcast! On today’s show, Ethan and I talked about what makes a great evangelist.

Delivering a talk is a critical skill whether you are speaking to an intimate gathering in the boardroom or a crowd of thousands for a keynote. The advent of TED Talks has helped shape the public's expectations for what a meaningful address actually sounds like. Many business professionals, however, struggle with this new style of public speaking. On the #FlipMyFunnel podcast, Sangram Vajre and James Carbary discuss the book How to Deliver a TED Talk: Secrets of the World's Most Inspiring Presentations by Jeremy Donovan. They consider Donovan's five major major components to delivering a top-shelf speech: how to open, how not to open, the use of the pause and "you," making someone else the hero, and how to close.

For today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast, we spoke with Daniel Englebretson, Director of Integrated Marketing at Phononic. In this show, Daniel and I talked about how Phononic used Terminus to reap ABM success. Here’s what we’re unpacking today: Can Your Demand Generation Be Too Successful? Account Based Marketing Proves Its Worth How They Did It Blogging Strategy Changed Selling the Sales Department on ABM Keeping It Fresh Too Much Success

Not everyone agrees with Guy Kawasaki. But no one ignores him. He uses his social influence to speak out about politics. Many told him to stay out of those issues — that he would lose followers. Indeed, when he began to use his social influence to get involved with the political process, many began to feel strongly about his inclinations. But actually gained followers by taking a firm stance. On this week’s #One Big Idea episode, Sangram dives into why every person should stand for something.

For today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast, we spoke with Trent Ricker, CEO and President of Pursuant Group. Trent and I talked about how to Flip the Funnel on nonprofit fundraising. While nonprofits have passion, they often lack expertise in modern best practices such as data-driven strategies, integrated fundraising, donor analytics, insights, and experience. Your experience creating and tracking buyer personas through your sales funnel could help a nonprofit get more small donations from individual donors (B2C) or big donations from large entities (B2B). Here’s what we’re unpacking today: Fun Fact: Fairways to Heaven Storytelling Lessons from Pixar What Pursuant Does The Two Types of Nonprofits Flipping the Funnel on Nonprofits Sangram’s Summary Trent’s Challenge

For today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast, we spoke with JD Prater, Quora Evangelist at Quora. JD and I talked about why Quora needs to be part of any marketer’s arsenal. Here’s what we’re unpacking today: From Quora Believer to Quora Evangelist How an Evangelist Measures Success Why Marketers Need to Quora Seriously Sangram’s Summary JD’s Challenge

You need to communicate and motivate your colleagues and customers. Culture is the invisible water in which we swim, but if you’re not aware of its currents, you can drown. Cultural mastery is a 21st-century skill that leaders and salespeople need to thrive. To discover the six steps to cultural mastery, listen to today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast. We spoke with Ricardo Gonzalez, CEO of Bilingual America and author of The 6 Stages of Cultural Mastery.  

Think always of your prospect’s challenges, not your solution. If you want to see a company that’s learned how to put their prospects’ challenges first, listen to today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast. We spoke with Michael McCunney, Vice President, Marketing at Revenue Analytics. Michael and I talked about why marketers need to speak their prospect’s pain and sometimes tell them no, we can’t help you. Also join us for Michael’s challenge, on Twitter @Sangram with the hashtag #DistillMarketing and give us your distilled value proposition in less than 100 characters. To learn more about it, listen to this episode. 

Are you ready to live the life of your dreams? You have to be ready to make a hard choice and gamble on the unknown. That’s my life lesson from today’s Big Idea. It is a quote from Oprah: “you can have everything in life but not all at once." You need to see where this quote has taken me as it weaves in and out of the choices I’ve made in my life. On paper, two of these choices were dumb, idiotic and very risky. Did they pay off? Listen to the podcast and decide if this approach will work for you too. Try it and let me know your results.

Sales 3.0 has arrived and could be about to destroy your sales job. When account-based marketing and sales enablement platforms meet artificial intelligence, the salesperson needs to add more value than merely taking the customer’s order. Just as McDonald’s is striving to replace human cashiers with self-order kiosks, Sales 3.0 will eliminate any sales position that doesn’t help the end customer with their business. To prepare for this future, listen to today’s episode of the Flip My Funnel podcast. We spoke with Barbara Weaver Smith, Founder and CEO The Whale Hunters.

Retention and talent acquisition take up a lot of bandwidth in conversations today. So Sangram sat down with a real pro, Jeff Perkins, to ask him how he constantly adds to his rockstar marketing team. Jeff is the CMO at ParkMobile in Atlanta. Before that, he was CMO at QASymphony, VP of Marketing & Inbound Sales at PGi, a director at AutoTrader.com, … and the list goes on. He’s hired a lot of people, he always seems to be in the know about who to hire. (Sangram even gets consistent emails from him about recruitment.) So, how does he constantly have such a solid talent pool, even in today’s market? Let’s find out.