Winning big deals: Classic ABM & MQL strategies are not enough.

Is it possible that a primary focus on ABM and MQLs in B2B go-to-market strategies is not always the best way to accelerate profit and revenue growth? While effective for longer tail segments, these approaches are not effective for the very fat end of the tail.  

For vendors which sell complex offerings in its portfolio the process leading up to a sale with values in the millions, or even hundreds of millions, is unique. It typically involves significant investment of dedicated resources to support longer sales cycles, a need to win the support of larger groups of decision makers and influencers - most of whom the vendor will never meet in person - and an appetite for risk. The cost of losing is potentially huge.  Standard ABM and MQL strategies are not equipped to support a consistently winning strategy in this segment of the market. A very different approach is required.

Over the last three years, a team based in Stockholm identified this pain point. They researched over 100 Fortune 500 companies, interviewed over 60 of the most successful large sales deal-closers around the globe in search of patterns for success - winning more often, faster and more consistently. The result: Megadeals, an innovative go-to-market approach used to target the 1-3 very large deals which may come along each year and which your company could only wish to win. And such strategic wins can truly move the revenue and profitability performance needle.

For any B2B company with regional or global ambitions, Megadeals has enormous potential to accelerate growth. I recently had the privilege of experiencing the impact of this discipline during two workshops that put theory into practice – first at IMEC in Antwerp, then within a solar business in Eindhoven two months ago. The participants walked away inspired and mobilized behind a singular approach that empowered practical action, immediately.

Here are just a few takeaways that I learned and wish to share:

1. Expertise: the orchestration of people, tools and resources requires leadership, experience and discipline. Its a special skill and process that can be learned.
2. Understanding a prospects key initiatives at the start of the process is key as basis for formulating the positioning of your offering and your strategy.
3. Map the ecosystem of stakeholders, leverage the help of a Trojan horse
4. Risk mitigation is incredibly effective way to build trust with the prospect during the selling process.
5. Aligning marketing and sales with a clear messaging framework, creates relevancy through the eyes of the targeted prospect, increases effectiveness.
6. Marketing: Client tailored, cross channel communications both online and offline is very effective, cost efficient and required in order to influence the ecosystem of stakeholders. There are a few really valuable, innovative tools that will help better identify and micro targeted audiences at scale.
7. PR can have the greatest impact around the time of the final signature of the deal. Now that was an eye opener!

I personally know the co-author of this methodology, Christopher Engman, with whom I have collaborated in the past. I have seen his evolution towards mastery of the approach over the last few years. As just one example, Christopher joined a relatively unknown niche Swedish thermal energy venture.  While there he helped to build a winning go-to-market large deal approach that helped the venture grow from less than $3 million to over $90 million within two years when it became listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. 

When you wish to learn more about this approach, the High-Tech Campus in Eindhoven, is hosting a free workshop on March 4th 2020 in The Netherlands. The MegaDeal team will fly in from Stockholm to share this highly transformative process in a dynamic, practical, interactive format. More than just theory, it will feature case studies and hands-on exercises with breakout sessions covering such elements as:

1. Strategic engagement strategies unique to big deals like how to build consensus at scale
2. How to structure the process to win big deals more often. 
3. An organizational collaborative framework for sales and marketing
4. Marketing: Specific messaging architecture and communications strategies to use - you will walk away with a draft of messaging approached tailored to your own company
5. Identification of effective digital media tools to use and tactics for social media, some of which you may never knew existed.

 Pre-register here to reserve your place - apparently space limited: https://www.hightechcampus.com/calendar/megadeals-a-transformative-approach-to-marketing-selling-and-winning-complex-deals