Issue #27
In This Issue: Vile Rumour & Gossip | SDR community support | The Tribal ecosystem
The differences between Enterprise and Normal-sized companies always amazes us. Our own clients include AWS & Visa at one end, and SMB like the lovely Spike and Advanced Commerce at the other. Enterprise is tired of changing… the CFO says so - is this an opportunity for the normal guys? Or are they ripe for infighting?
Vile Rumour & Gossip
Stay in your lane
Loads of rumours flying around about vendors moving outside of their territory. Both Contentstack and Contentful announcing personalisation modules this month, which about 50+ of their personalisation partners will be looking closely at. #WhenFrenemiesCollide
POS expansion
Talking of expansion, many eCommerce vendors have POS in their sights. Of course Shopify launched POS earlier this year, and rumours are that commerce layer and others have something in the works. But as we know from our work with NewStore this is a tricky space. Some have left the space (Mercaux) and some may not get the traction they have worked for (New Black?).
Turf wars
In the old days, eCommerce Directors moved every two years, along with a new cycle of replatforming. As that cycle elongates, Execs stay in post longer, and a trend for empire skirmishes is happening. Successful CDO’s are being asked (again) by marketing for control of the digital spend, and from mid-market upwards there might be a less than harmonious relationship from CIO to Product teams whilst the operating model is debated.
SDR Community support
We’re sure you’ve all seen this, but if you haven't it is really worth following Tom Boston on LinkedIn. He radiates the good humour and human-centric behaviour demonstrated by all of those at the very front line, but he’s also resilient and honest.
In recent months he and others have created a really excellent group called the “No nonsense sales community”. If you have a young SDR group and want them to be positively reinforced, trained and mentored it is a thriving and high quality group.
Now - we wonder if Tom will accept Jamie's LinkedIn request with such as gushing recommendation?
The Tribal ecosystem
No Frankie goes to Hollywood reference here - we’re better than that 🙂
A very interesting set of conversations recently prompted by a “tanktop diary” from our founder Jamie. Tech has always seen “brand” as pretty meaningless. Sell more, you have a great brand, sell less and it crumbles. Blackberry’s brand only failed because it stopped selling, likewise Nokia (and Apple for many years if you are old enough to remember). We can debate this, but when as a tech firm you’re almost exclusively setup to exit - it’s a fact.
An ecosystem tribe is a great way of both augmenting your sales team, and (when you’re little) making friends who can lift you up. Just ask Bluestone PIM - lifted up by MACH members and winning as a result.
Now then - tribal behaviour. There are great things about tribes…. Support, cooperation, sharing values etc… the reason we all get a little worried about the term is that tribes can prompt poor behaviour. From tribal rivalry (We’ll reference Shopify & Magento to keep things easy) to tribal warfare (we’ve seen this too - Shopify once again has started more than their share of fights). Salespeople sometimes pick up this rivalry and go too far of course.
Anyway - there are two sides of the tribe, a positive brand tribe and the other sort. Let’s stay the right side of the line 🙂
More next month - and insult of the week of course
Buyingtime Dictionary
Frequently used (but never about you) phrases from Buyingtime Ltd.
Scarecrow
/ˈskɛːkrəʊ/
noun
1. Doesn’t think for themselves and stands around doing nothing
″Slight flag. Keith hasn't made any calls, he's just staring at his desk.″
″Ah. Yeah. I told him sometimes he just needs to sit and wait for something to drop. So he is. Keith is...not bright.″
