Attribution, analytics and analyzing data is today's topic. What does the report say? Does it accurately display the past and does it accurately help us predict the future?

Marketers are in a world of big data. We've gone from nothing to overload. So there is a lot to help marketers in high tech and not in high tech of how to best use the data available to them. 

"How do I interpret the data?" Perhaps a better question is, "What answers and knowledge am I seeking to move forward?"

You need to organize the metrics to interpret the metrics. The questions of what you seek are critical.

Do we have the fundamental metrics that the business needs to understand the health of the business?

Within the channels of my function, how do I use metrics to ensure that my efforts are working?

Do we have the capabilities to answer the adhoc questions that come up in business?

Listen to this show to get a more organized list of what you need to know first before you even pull the data.

About our guest, Jeff Day:

Jeff is a Marketing and Product Management executive with a focus on startup and high-growth technology companies. Jeff excels at applying the right mix of marketing for the right stage of company in order to maximize growth. With 20 years of proven success with companies such as Highspot, DomainTools, Apptio, Enodo Software, HP, PolyServe and Intel, he has run all aspects of marketing and delivered industry-leading software and hardware products. He is passionate about working with high growth product companies to help drive marketing and product strategy, build happy and productive teams and maximize company success.

Our guest this episode is Don Gregory, the founder of On-Target Consulting.

Some of the points covered are:

The importance of gathering market insights, marketing intelligence, doing research to understand what the markets is interested in.

If you are highly confident that you know your customer, you know your marketplace, your competition, emerging trends with your consumers, you can argue that you don’t need to get insight early on in the process of going to market and figuring out how to take products and services to market. The reality is that most companies and most leaders really don’t have that insight. What makes it worse is that many of the companies in my opinion who are providing market research are providing facts and data, they are really not driving to try to understand the consumer, what the consumer is looking for whether it be B2B, B2C, it really does not make any difference, the process is the same.

Matt asked, "Why is it so important to make sure you are approaching this research right? Maybe a different way of asking that is what it is sometimes dangerous to have company insiders do their own research?"

Don responded with, "Their bias to start with. And they don’t know that many… I do the research completely inside and go out I bring a natural bias to me, with me as I do that investigation. And the rigor has to be impartial and has to be neutral. When I am looking for an answer to a question, I have to have integrity in process and in actions to make sure that I work an honest answer to what I am looking for versus – here is my assumption on what the answer is therefore am going to ask the question to assume and get the answer that I am looking for.

And it is subtle because when you are on the inside I don’t think you understand that bias that you carry and that’s why I think the rigor for having somebody or some organization from the outside who has the expertise in looking in at business situations as well as the business savvy to really look and understand sort of what the key questions are. Once you understand what they key questions are, the areas of investigation are, then to effectively find out the answers to those questions."

Listen to the full episode to learn more.

Matt's annual, "What he read in the year" episode is here. This is a great place for a filtered reading list. Some familiar authors in this list and some you may not have had a chance to read. I love the One True Barbecue and how it applies to business. Have recommendations? Add them in the comments. 

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini

Anything on the science of influence is absolutely fascinating to me – whether it’s about influencing fans, customers or myself.  Cialdini’s book Influence is a classic, and this sequel/prequel is a must-read to understand how your sales team (and marketing/content teams) can set the conditions for influence and conversion better in 2017.

The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need by Anthony Iannarino

If it weren’t for all the other great sales books on the market (this year and in recent years), I’d say the title of this book is 100% the truth. Anthony is one of the very best sales bloggers and speakers working today, and this book summarizes much of his very best advice.  I highly recommend expanding your sales library, but if there is just one book on the shelf, this should probably be it.

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute by Zac Bissonnette

A fascinating and fast read, with numerous business lessons included.  What differentiates a trend from a fad?  How can you tell you have something sustainable and repeatable?  The story of the rise and fall (both fast & dramatic) of the Beanie Baby craze is chronicled with a great combination of business advice and juicy insider stories.  A fun read with value.

High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results by Mark Hunter

The most important, eternal, fundamental sales skill is prospecting.  Whether you’re working ice-cold leads or warm inquiries from your marketing team, you’re still prospecting.  Activity and volume isn’t enough.  This book features new trends and research, plus a proven framework of habits to accelerate your sales pipeline-building results in 2017.

More Sales, Less Time: Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Today’s Crazy-Busy Sellers by Jill Konrath

Every one of Jill’s books have been fanastic, but this might be her best yet.  She’s previously covered how to work with crazy-busy buyers, now she addresses the problem every single sales rep I know has – how to make best use of their time to increase active selling time, external impact and results.

The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog by Rein Fertel

I’ll give away the punchline – according to Rein, the only “true” barbecue is 1) whole hog, 2) cooked over wood in 3) a masonry pit.  A difficult combination for amateur BBQ enthusiasts to replicate, but this amazing book covers the history of whole-hog BBQ while simultaneously covering the history and anthropology of the Carolinas.  If you like BBQ or history or good story-telling, you’ll like this book.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

What separates this book from so many other business autobiographies is its focus, candor and detail.  It’s not an ego-driven puff piece, nor does it sugar-coat what growing a business is like.  The book starts with Phil’s inspiration to start the business, and ends before the IPO.  In between, he highlights the numerous times Nike almost didn’t make it, almost ran out of money, almost went out of business – yet somehow figured out (or stumbled into) how to keep moving forward. It's a story of humility and gratitude.  One of the best books I’ve read on the real story of entrepreneurship in a long time.

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eli Goldratt

This book was originally written in 1984, but I re-read it earlier this year to reinforce Eli’s Theory of Constraints.  Think about your business today – what’s the #1 constraint keeping you from growing, that when alleviated would help everything else work more efficiently?  This book is a great example of business fiction (if you’ve read Five Disfunctions of a Team, you know the format).

Spinach in Your Boss’s Teeth: Essential Etiquette for Professional Success by Arden Clise

This book is a differentiator.  It covers what all too often is a lost art of habits, manners, mannerisms and more that get noticed, differentiate you as someone special, and can material help you win more business.  Maybe not on your “mainstream” business reading list but it should be.

Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens

Published as a set of letters to a struggling and fellow former SEAL, this book pulls deeply from ancient literature and lessons on what resilience means, how it applies to our lives, and how to apply it to make ourselves better – personally, professionally and in all points between.  This is the last book I read this year and might be my favorite of the bunch.

REQUESTING YOUR ASSISTANCE - Trying to find who orignally said, 

"The Path to Success: There is no elevator, you have to take the stairs."

Matt Heinz and Sales Pipeline Radio producer, Paul Roberts talk about Profit Center Marketing. Here's how you know if you are doing it right. IF you can related to any of the next three points, it's time to make a change:

• If your marketing team is more focused on picking the right t-shirts for an event, rather than driving opportunities into the sales organization.

CEOs don't care about clicks and retweets, about your open rates and probably don't care about your qualified leads.

So changing the thinking to changing it up to become a profit center requires this type of question: What do we have to do to get a blank check from the CFO of marketing?

"Give me a dollar and I'll make you three." THAT will gain their interest and they will then ask, "How long can you do that? Can you do it every month?" THIS is how you get the blank check. Keep listening. Matt will give you a to-do list to head toward this goal.

The buying committee internally is getting larger and more complex. We are talking about account based marketing and strategies to get into the fold of these more complex groups of decision makers.

What is Account Based Marketing to you?

Jessica says, "Account Based Marketing (ABM) is really understanding who is your target audience and building a marketing mix around going after that target audience. And, along the way, building your sales force in the mix so you can align the sales messages with the marketing strategy. THis helps them close more deals, faster and with a larger contract value. It makes your entire sales orgnaization more efficient. Instead of throwing them over the wall and hoping they make it, ABM lines up the budget behind those targets and budgets with these goals."

A number being quoted regularly is that six people are typically involved in the purchase process. Many times it's way more than that in enterprise companies.

You need to focus on the person who is actually signing the contract, but you have to gain buy-in by the committee. This reuqires that sales brings the same message developed by marketing. Jessica has a list of tips in this show. Get your pen out.

After 3.5 years at Demandbase (and 20+ years in B2B Marketing), Jessica has seen it all when it comes to Account-Based Marketing. Playing an instrumental role in Demandbase’s rollout of an ABM strategy, and educating over 1000 B2B marketers on the principles of ABM over the last 18 months, Jessica has become a resident expert. From building the right target account list and understanding the impact of ABM on marketing programs, to selling ABM within an organization and finding budget for your strategy, Jessica has worked with organizations to build, hone and measure the success of their own ABM strategies.  

Storytelling is a compelling way to build interest, get to know prospects, build trust and create connections. Paul Smith is THE utlimate storytelling coach. He's a best selling author of three books on this topic. Learn this tool to put everyone at ease, give you more enjoyment from prospecting and building relationships and make you more memorable.

Some of the questions Matt will be asking Paul Smith:

1. What exactly is a sales story? How is it different from a sales pitch and can you give us an example?

About our guest:

Paul Smith is one of the world’s leading experts on organizational storytelling. He’s a keynote speaker, storytelling coach, and author of the books Sell with a Story, Parenting with a Story, and the bestseller Lead with a Story already in its 8th printing and available in 6 language around the world. Paul is also a former consultant at Accenture and former executive and 20-year veteran of The Procter & Gamble Company.

As part of his research on the effectiveness of storytelling, Paul has personally interviewed over 250 CEOs, executives, leaders, and salespeople in 25 countries, documenting over 2,000 individual stories. Leveraging those stories and interviews, Paul identified the components of effective storytelling, and developed templates and tools to apply them in practice. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, Time, Forbes, The Washington Post, PR News, and Success Magazine, among others.

Paul delivers professional workshops and keynote addresses on effective storytelling for leaders and salespeople. His clients include international giants like Hewlett Packard, Ford Motor Company, Bayer Medical, Abbott, Novartis, Progressive Insurance, Kaiser Permanente, and Procter & Gamble.