ABM Expert Q & A Megan Heuer, VP Research, ( ) SiriusDecisions cont’d What are the obstacles to ABM? A third one is if Marketing goes in and says, “Hi How big a culture change does ABM demand? ABM can be the victim of its own success. If you start Sales, we want to do ABM — what do you want?” I often have marketers come to me when they’re with one or two people being asked to ‘take on’ ABM and it sounds like they’re asking Sales to tell them starting down the ABM road, nervous about having and it works really well, then Sales will want more. But how to do their job. Then Sales just asks for the that first conversation with Sales. marketing leaders can be reluctant to shift resources things that they’ve always known — some nice away from the things that they’ve always been doing. events, a bit of content. Or they say, “No thanks, I’m And what I say to them is this: Sales is going to good. I’m already working with this account. I really be really happy to hear you talking their language When that happens, ABM marketers aren’t able to don’t need you to do anything.” — talking about accounts, talking about support scale their teams or their work as quickly as they’d like for relationships, talking about changing the and they get a bit frustrated. It’s a real issue. The last failure point is starting with tactic selection. way you engage with them to better fit their When marketers say, “I need to scale ABM, and I go-to-market model. Have you seen any ABM programs that don’t have marketing automation and email to use so instantly work? we’re going to do ABM with email nurture streams,” It’s actually other marketers that you may have a hard Once in a while we see a team that doesn’t get off and not look at the bigger picture, it doesn’t work. time convincing. Because you’re asking them to stop on the right foot. Maybe they made assumptions ABM is not about email alone — or any one tactic thinking about general concepts or segments and about what Sales want, rather than going and really for that matter. stop trying to do everything to reach everybody. working with Sales. Then they walk in with a beautiful account profile and say “Happy Birthday” Marketing needs to act in a consultative role that You’re actually asking them to change the way they and Sales says, ‘What the heck is this?’. really showcases the profession, coming to the table plan — to base plans on actual insights about to say, “Hey, this is what we know our buyers prefer actual accounts and the actual people in them. Also, marketers can put Sales a bit on the defensive, and here’s what I recommend we do with this account That’s a dramatic change and it will be the hardest going in and saying, “We’re here to help, give me all of to meet the goals that you told me you have.” thing in ABM: actually changing the mindset of your account plans and I’ll come back to you with a marketers. marketing plan.” Sales isn’t accustomed to handing over their account plans (and maybe haven’t been so diligent about building them) and all of a sudden they’re being asked to turn over the keys to the kingdom and that sort of puts Sales on the defensive. 61