Issue #23 - Hello spring
In This Issue: Vile Rumour & Gossip | Our love of the sales letter | The mid-career moment | Technology’s part in company failure
Vile Rumour & Gossip
Consent Mode V2
Platform panic. In a post-cookie world, consent will live between websites and GA. The consent mode framework seems to have “snuck up” on a number of platforms that are not yet compliant, and frankly should be. Shopify’s status last week read “Our developers are currently in the final stages of integrating Google Consent Mode V2 into Shopify. However, we cannot guarantee when this is expected to roll out”. They are not alone.
When vendors claim independent TCO outcomes
Those of us needy enough to live on LinkedIn will have seen some elegant “paid” TCO research surveys from SaaS vendors in the run-up to Shoptalk. A little bit like Gartner, nobody really believes these, and as a member of our community said “When sales are bonuses on LTV it will really change the narrative”. Fat chance!
Silent layoffs
Some really sad times in SaaS. A European PIM business is laying off a significant percentage of staff and restructuring. They’re not the only ones. Quietly the redundancies are continuing, and so there are some great people job hunting in a tricky climate. In some ways the silence is a good thing, it’s classy at least, but there are no more rocketships it seems.
The Sales Letter - a love affair with the value proposition
For most SaaS companies (and therefore SI’s) there is very little funding around. The world our agency inhabits is seeing a huge shift in spending, towards in-house events delivery and much more traditional sales outreach. SDR and messaging are being taken far more seriously.
From our community, we know that customers do not enjoy being pursued, but they do like being wooed, persuaded, and enticed. It’s human nature after all. We like to be liked.
So, instead of these horrific calling/text/social cadences, how about a good old sales letter? We like to write something like these as part of an ABM campaign, and thought we’d provide something for fun here. Enjoy.
The “Mid-Career” Moment
Our team thinks a great deal about personal motivation when they design ABM programs. We do the same when we design events. Is our target persona C-Suite? What career and life stage are they at? Does their career trajectory make them likely to be a heavy LinkedIn user, or is it a platform to be avoided? (Or are they so ancient it’s likely they’re reading print?). Who are their people?
We recently ran an intense series of daytime Commerce Futures events, where we see a real mix of delegates from younger learners to mid-career executives. Those in mid-career are becoming really very considerate about the networks they become a part of and the people they get guidance from. A significant group are taking part-time AI courses (and then building from the Alumni group that creates), and it is precisely this group who “pays it forward” to their peers, whilst also having the ambition to get their career to the next level.
Props to the mid-career people - ambitious but caring, media-trained and community-savvy. We’re here for you.
Technology’s Role In Company Failure
No - not another paragraph kicking SaaS or SI’s, but a thought about the pace of success or failure today.
Brands come and go fast nowadays, Pangaia went from zero in 2018 to $76m in 2020. Just the thought of that level of growth in a digital-only business is scary. Sure, the tech-enabled all of it, but equally the tech has been part of their decline (42% yr on yr decline last year).
Wiggle was a different story. Homegrown tech stack which aged badly, and a super-botched new platform which lost all customer history - the business was never going to survive. The tech went from creaky to poor.
Ted Baker? Well, initially they got distracted by the tech (remember the in-store massive touchscreen from Scala?), but in the end what or who was to blame? Product? Over-use of promotion in a Pavlovian style? Tech? Management? Strategy? Vendors? Post-sale partner selection? All the above for sure… and a little exec ego too perhaps.
More next time. We’re in peak event season, with a bunch of ABM programs starting AND a global rebrand for a System Integrator - who knew life could be so rich. #humblebrag
Laters!
Buyingtime Dictionary
Frequently used (but never about you) phrases from Buyingtime Ltd.
Laptop
/ˈlæptɒp/
adjective
1. Someone who is a little too PC
"I'm not being funny Phil, but–"
"Nope! No, don't say, don't even think it." Phil nods to the blouse-wearing person perched atop a little ivory tower. "Laptop watches."
