Fireside Chat with Lee Auerbach

Lee Auerbach talks about the dynamic elements driving B2B sales revenue model at Chatmeter.

Know My Team

Chatmeter’s sales team is around 20-strong. As most salespeople, money is the main motivator, but a large part of talent retention falls on office culture, achievement recognition, and growth. We have a small team, but the dynamic revolves around bonuses, commission, and office celebrations, whereas long-term sales are focused on promotions and seniority (and bragging rights).

Tech-savvy teams

I’d rate the team high at a 9.

Our teams focus more on industry education than selling Chatmeter. It’s one of our major differentiators. They can discuss anything from our API and new Google Updates to Ranking Algorithms and historical SEO timelines.

Training young sales professionals 

The most important factor is knowledge of the industry which can be learned through alerts, blogs, and mentors. But, some other major skills that many overlook is time management, typing speed (please be over 40wpm minimum), multi-tasking (cliché, but so true in martech), and improvisation.

I specifically look for candidates that can think fast, connect the dots, and create stories to explain confusing Martech concepts.

B2B Marketing Strategy and Customer Acquisition Models

My role at Chatmeter is widespread. I have a hand in most activities from Marketing, Support, Product, Accounts, Sales, and Roadmap. We only had a few employees when I started with very few structures. This was not my first tech “startup” rodeo, so I hit the ground running.

Creating a new image, story, marketing and promotional documents, hiring, networking, and scaling. Definitely had my work cut out for me.

Measuring marketing analytics and sales performance 

Almost every day. From the start to the end, a large part of Chatmeter’s success is a result of daily reporting. We are militant with our CRM, MarCom, and sales automation software… track every detail so that we can help avoid the same mistakes and focus on the successes.

 B2B sales revenue model

All executions are accomplished by having an outstanding team on my shoulders. I can’t do everything as a party of 1. I surround myself with high caliber talent in each department, from our head of operations, marketing manager, team leaders, and sales engineers. I also attend conferences and industry events to understand future technology, potential pivots, and industry changes.

Marketing and Sales Alignment: Social Media and Content Marketing Strategies

Creating effective B2B sales content

As a software company, we understand the value of software tools and what they can provide our salesforce. We use a variety of tools including Salesforce, Tout, Marketo, Email Hunter, and many plugins built right into Salesforce as well.

In addition, sales operations and marketing are working hand in hand to create a ton of content and content marketing strategies to arm salespeople with industry-leading content showing thought leadership that is opening doors and opportunities for our sales team.

Content and sales acceleration strategies

As mentioned above, we are utilizing many tools now to accelerate sales opportunities.

We are using marketing automation techniques from Marketo to take leads from the top of the funnel to deliver meaningful content that is targeted to their industry and the buyer persona. This opens the door to drive them toward content engagement, increased curiosity, learning, and eventually completing a lead form or opening the door for a call with our SDR to learn more who then sets a warm appointment for our Sales Executive.

 Leveraging Sales Content

Case studies are at the top of my list. Sharing success stories with prospects proves our story around online to offline conversion. Instead of explaining, we have evidential data proving. Industry trends, white-papers, webinars, and research all then re-enforce that Chatmeter is the industry leader with knowledge and experience for both predicting future trends, but also improving their internal operations.

Customer Success and Technology Insights

Revisiting sales tech 

I have a quarterly analysis where we’ll assess our current sales tech and examine what new tools have entered the market.  Our team is highly flexible, so new technology can be adopted and scaled immediately if necessary.

Partnership model

Technology allows one person to essentially do the work of 5. It accomplishes two major goals… run lean without sacrificing quality.

Without technology, we would not be able to scale as quick and expansive as we have without raising capital.

Customer acquisition 

Technology has allowed us to exponentially increase our customer acquisition. From drip campaigns to targeted marketing campaigns… we’ve tipped the scales from outbound to inbound selling, which allows for shorter timelines and increased brand recognition.

We’ve even been able to find a higher quality of talent through new recruiting technology.

Sales and Marketing coming together

We see a transition/unifying of technology to finally incorporate both Sales and Marketing teams. In the past, tools have been focused on marketing or sales, and multiple logins were needed with little integration around unity.

Recently, within the past year, we’ve seen more major marketing tools adding (or acquiring) a functional sales automation component so marketing can work with sales towards the same goals.

Advice for the MarTech industry

Innovate constantly.

The most common pitfall I’ve witnessed in MarTech is a creation of an incredible product, see it fully adopted by the industry, then see it slowly become outdated, and without innovation… it dies.

Today’s great idea today is tomorrow’s distant memory.

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Thank You, Lee, for answering all our questions. We hope to see you again at MTS, soon.