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There is never enough money and never enough resources in a business. Whether you work in a multinational corporation with billions of dollars to splash around, or a micro business with only a few staff, budgeting is always tough.

What do you do when a tough competitor enters your space? Many businesses cut their prices, starting a 'race to the bottom' as their previously unassailed niche becomes just another commodity product or service...

Many businesses do their b2b marketing strategy in the rear-vision mirror. That is, they slide into a space by accident, and then seek to justify their position with a retro-fitted "strategy"!

Most sales teams have an inherent awareness of how many customers they need to see in order to make a sale – in other words, the key ratios that affect their business. But how do you drill back into your statistics to determine the total number of activity steps needed to achieve a result?

Market sizing is often done with a degree of rigour, but far less rigour is applied to the task of sizing your own sales funnel. The proposition that "there is plenty out there" might be true, but sizing is not just about working out if the market can support you.

Some businesses change their tactics with the same amount of science as they used to choose them in the first place - none. Others get themselves into such a state about how to decide whether to change or not, that they analyse themselves to death.

Strategy is about deciding what to do and what not to do. In the same vein, choosing how to play is inextricably linked with choosing where to play. For a business, it comes down to choice – that is, assessing which markets are attractive and which the business is best placed to target.

Yes, you can speed up the time it takes for a potential buyer to make the purchase of your product or service. But not by skipping steps along the buyer’s journey.

Mature marketplaces provide clear targets for new growth – the firm demographics have already been mapped. But how can you segment or target for growth in the virgin territories where little is known of who's buying what and why?

A common lament of marketing teams is that they often find themselves acting as a service desk to the sales team. In b2b marketing, it is a consistent dilemma.

If a face-to-face sales call is the most effective tactic to progress buyers from one stage in their journey to the next, should you simply load up the top of your funnel to ensure your sales force is fully occupied?

According to our benchmark study of 1,400 businesses, one in three of them places alignment between the sales department and the marketing department as the No. 1 priority. Measurement makes a surprising contribution.

Sales and marketing teams are geared towards success, but it's how they handle failure that will make them rich. What do we do with the prospective customers who don’t proceed? Those who leak from our funnel? The answer is usually “not much”. They are usually dropped like a hot potato.

Sometimes, closing a sale is all about being in the right place at the right time – or rather, being present when a prospect is ready to buy. It’s for this reason that salespeople strive to keep up a regular call cycle with their prospects. They want to ensure that they’re front of mind when a potential customer is ready to buy, and prevent losing out to someone else. But what’s a valid reason to call?

Some companies defy convention to become great. Stories abound of businesses that excel through innovative solutions which meet needs that buyers did not even know existed. Think Microsoft or the Sony Walkman, for example.

In sales and marketing, we celebrate winners – the salesperson who returns with the signed contract is a hero, as is the marketer who exceeds their quota of qualified leads. But what about recycling?

Understanding your buyer's concept starts with three magic words: what is your buyer trying to fix, accomplish, or avoid?

Glenn Guilfoyle, Founder & Principal of The Next Level, writes... In the B2B environment where core products and services are becoming more and more commoditised, more often than not, customers make their supplier choices on the process outputs that are most tangible and visible to them. Therefore, as suppliers, we live and die daily by the output performance of these critical and inter-related processes, as perceived by customers...

Hugh was recently in Paris helping Cisco gain additional velocity in the funnels of their partners. He presented along with Martin Lindstrom, William Aruda, Marc Lewis and many others. Prior to the presentation, Hugh gave a short interview introducing the buyer's journey.

Otherwise intelligent, well-educated, highly-regarded, wealthy people in huge offices make dunderheaded decisions every day, because they are surrounded by people afraid to tell them that they’re not wearing any clothes.  So, let's ask right now!   Will your corporate boondoggle known as the 'sales kick-off' motivate sales, your team and your channel partners?

Some sales methodologies ask sales people to characterise their sales calls as an 'advance' or a 'continuance' which creates loads of 'wriggle room' for the sales person. What we should actually be recording is the stage a buyer has reached, not whether the sales person thinks this is good or not.

MathMarketing Director, Brett Bonser, explores the importance of a good valid business reason (VBR) - a term coined by global sales performance leader, Miller Heiman...

Charles Besondy, President of Besondy Consulting & Interim Management, writes... “How bad is it, doc”? We’ve all seen the Westerns where at some point the leading character gets shot (in a white hat) and an over-worked, unshaven country doctor rushes to his side. The doctor sets his leather bag on the ground and looks at the wound with concern in his eyes. “Tell me straight, doc, how bad is it?” the shot-up good guy asks again weakly. And so it goes for marketing and sales executives who observe their misaligned departments and wonder, “how bad is it, doc?” A flesh wound? Is the artery cut? Is there nerve damage?

A correspondent sent me a couple of funnel management articles this week. One simply posed a question (Do you know where your sales pipeline is?) without making any recommendations; the other deserves a response. In asking "Who changed the sales funnel", he suggests that the market has changed, and I agree. Customers do much more homework before engaging with sales people now, and this is a great opportunity for Marketing to make a big difference.