Frenemies - Where growth meets reality

The current market is an employers' market making the fight for the perfect B2B leadership role even more competitive. That's why Julia Hartwig is joined by the brilliant Jillian Als on this episode. Jillian is a skilled B2B Marketing leader with more than 15 years of experience, passionate about Sales and Marketing alignment,  and currently looking for new opportunities. She shares her insights and advice for finding the perfect job, how to spot red flags, who to meet in the interview process, and why staying true to yourself is so important.

The topics discussed in this episode:

• How to get in contact with the right people
• How to navigate networking opportunities
• Case tasks in the application process
• Requirements and criteria for a job
• Stakeholders you need to meet in the application process
• The important questions you need to ask
• How to spot red flags and address them
• Personality tests: useful or a waste of time?
• Why it's important to stay true to yourself

Creating teams that sell - that is the goal of any B2B company. But how do you get there? To uncover this, Julia Hartwig is joined by Martin Nyvang Mariussen, Partner at Kvadrant Consulting and Co-author of the book "Teams that Sell", in this episode of Frenemies.

The topics covered in this episode:

• B2B teams depend more on collaboration now than ever before
• Should Sales be an individual discipline or a team sport?
• The shift that needs to happen in targets and bonus setups to accommodate a team mentality
• Should Marketing get a bonus as well?
• How competitive personality types can collaborate
• Building trust to create teams that work together
• Creating a team that sells as a Sales Manager
• Difficulties SaaS companies face in scaling Sales and Marketing
• Why Marketing and Sales need to center around the buyer
• What makes teams high performing

Find the book "Teams that Sell" here

In episode 19 of Frenemies Julia Hartwig is joined by Sara Leander-Pehrson, the CEO of Prezentor with more than 20 years of sales experience. Together Julia and Sara uncover why the CFO matters in B2B Sales and Marketing and reveal the results of the Sellers' readiness survey 2023 with more than 300 B2B sellers. They discuss what challenges sellers faced with in the buying process, effective methods to sell to the CFO and give insights on what CFOs actually need based on 15 interviews with CFOs. 

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Why should sellers cater to their buyer's CFO?
• Sellers' challenges in selling to the CFO
• How Marketing can support Sales in reaching CFOs
• Sales materials CFOs need
• Is ROI everything CFOs care about?

Here you find all insights on why the CFO matters such as:

• Sellers' Survival Guide to 2023
• Key research insights
• Sellers' readiness survey 2023
• Understanding the CFO
• How to create a business case

In this episode Ahmet and Julia are joined by Marc Denier, the Co-founder of StageSet to talk startup. Together the three discuss how it is to found a startup in a difficult economy, how to prioritize between Sales, Marketing, and Product as well as how to land your first customer. 

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Balancing responsibilities as a startup leader
• Making brainstorms productive
• Differentiating between good ideas and impactful ideas
• How to build targets as a newly founded startup
• Why startups need to prioritize documenting
• What does the tech stack at a startup look like

Pricing - in today's B2B world buyers care about prices. So does the price have the power to make it or break it? It certainly does. That's why Julia Hartwig and Ahmet Albayrak talk pricing in this episode. How should you create a pricing strategy and how do you communicate price with buyers? This and many more are discussed in this episode on Frenemies - where Sales and Marketing sit down and talk together.

In this episode of Frenemies Julia is joined by Jillian Als, the VP of Marketing at Tricent. The two discuss how Marketing leaders can approach and ensure a close alignment between Sales and Marketing in B2B SaaS companies. They talk about their challenges they had working with Sales, the main benefits of a close alignment, and how their relationship with the Sales department has changed over the course of their careers.

The topics discussed in this episode:

• Why alignment needs to come top-down and bottom-up
• Chemistry as crucial element for collaboration
• Why KPIs are the foundation for alignment
• An effective meeting structure that enables alignment
• Should SDRs be part of Sales or Marketing?
• The challenges of working together with Sales

Follow Jillian on LinkedIn for more insights: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianals/

Currently, every department in B2B companies is under immense pressure. And more often than not pressure leads to activities that don't drive value. That's why Ahmet and Julia in this episode talk about the Sales and Marketing activities they have done in their career, which they aren't proud of. What are the things they have done even though they knew they don't move the needle? Let's confess together and learn how to prevent focusing on activities that don't create value. 

The topics discussed in this episode:

• Marketers being tempted to present numbers that look better than they are in reality
• Why sellers think it's easier to lie if they don't know the answer
• How missing sales training can lead to mistakes
• The difference between click-baiting and quality content
• Why you can't get tired of creating content
• How content and our consumption thereof has changed
• Booking meetings to book meetings
• Focusing on lead generation vs. demand generation
• Sending terrible emails is quick and dirty
• How false is false advertising?

Brand awareness - every B2B is currently trying to build and increase their brand awareness, but why is it so important? In this episode Julia and Ahmet take a deep dive into the psychological impact brands have on our decision-making, and how B2B companies can use this to build their brand and create demand in the market. 

The topics discussed in this episode:

• The power of brands
• Branding vs. Brand awareness - What is the difference
• The brand psychology and its impact on our decision-making
• Why B2B companies are so far behind on branding 
• How B2B buyers make purchase decisions
• Does every B2B company need a brand?
• Why branding and content are intertwined
• Our favorite B2B brands that get it right

Sign up for the B2B Saas Growth Day on May 25th

Sources:

• When B2B brands influence the decision-making of buyers
• What B2B needs to know about their buyers

Listen to Shoot the SHFT for more content on how to turn your brand into a long-term asset

Everyone is talking about it, everyone has tested it, and everyone has implemented it - AI. In this episode Ahmet and Julia discuss the AI-based tools they use to get more efficient in their everyday work in B2B Sales and Marketing. They take a deep dive into the use cases for the different tools and tasks. 

The 4 use cases discussed in this episode are:

• Research
• Content creation
• Design
• Other (Graphs, Coding & Sound)

Here is a full list of the tools mentioned in the podcast:

1. Research

• Chat GPT 4
• AgentGPT
• AutoGPT
• Camel AGI
• Superpower ChatGPT
• Stability.ai

            2. Content Creation

• Copy.ai
• Writesonic
• Writer.com
• Autoblogging.ai
• Supermeme.ai
• Tome
• Lavender
• Smartwriter.ai

           3. Design

• Lumen5
• Canva
• Midjourney
• DALL-E 2
• Blue Willow
• Runway
• Uizard

           4. Other

• Notion (Project management)
• Chart GPT (Graphs)
• Taskade (Task management)
• Descript (Video editing)
• Wellsaidlabs (Text to speech)
• Github Copilot (Coding)
• Adobe Sound (Sound editing)

Go get your dream job! In this episode Julia and Ahmet share their best tips and tricks to land your dream job in Sales and Marketing. This episode is especially useful for newcomers who are looking to land their first job in the B2B industry, but also has lots of tips for everyone else that wants to go on a successful job hunt. 

Topics discussed in this episode:

• The power of networking
• How to choose your career path in Marketing
• The skills you need to start in Marketing
• Why applying is the same as selling
• How to make your application stand out
• How to reach out to the hiring manager
• How to handle the first interview
• What questions to bring to the interview

Check out Glassdoor to see if a company is a fit for you: https://www.glassdoor.com/