Account Based Marketing (ABM) with Shawn Cook

Episode 23: In this episode, we are discussing all things Account Based Marketing (AKA? ABM). Often, sales and marketing are each toiling away in their own departments, siloed off from one another while performing their day-to-day duties. Well, with today’s topic those two departments will be working together that much more. Because ABM sees marketing and sales collaborating in order to target specific, high value accounts.  

And who better to help break down ABM than one of the leaders from Rollworks, a top Account Based Marketing platform for B2B marketing and sales? Joining Dani, is Shawn Cook. Shawn is VP of New Business Sales at RollWorks and has 25 years experience leading high-performance sales teams, with 15 years in Martech at companies like Vocus/Cision, Eloqua/Oracle, TrackMaven/Skyword and Triblio. Shawn is known to create his own words like “Compelevant” (a combination of compelling and relevant) or “Humblonfident” (a combination of being humble first but always confident). Although he is a VP of Sales, Shawn doesn't really believe in “selling” in the traditional sense, but rather in facilitating buying processes and helping buyers to determine whether or not they should be in a buying process.  

Together, Dani and Shawn break down ABM in a few key areas: 

• How Shawn defines ABM (Spoiler alert: it’s “quirky”) 
• What companies are a good fit for ABM and what criteria to look at when making that decision 
• Tips for pairing Inbound Marketing and lead generation with ABM 

CONNECT:

LeadG2: LeadG2: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/
 
Dani Buckley:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniobuckley/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/dani-buckley
 
Shaye Smith:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shayesmith/
About: leadg2.thecenterforsalesstrategy.com/shaye-smith

Shawn Cook:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shawnsationalcso/
RollWorks: rollworks.com/

TIMESTAMPS:
(03:21) "QERC"
(04:22) You're not trying to boil the ocean
(06:35) Benefits of ABM
(07:54) Sales should be just as digital as everything else
(09:40) 10 times more efficient without 10 times the budget
(11:14) If you have a Target account list, you're ready for ABM
(14:11) What would you say to those considering ABM?
(16:41) RollWorks
(22:04) "Compellevant"

Transcript

Dani Buckley: 0:15

Welcome to Sell Smarter. Sell Faster. A podcast dedicated to helping sales organizations grow. Each week, we discuss proven sales enablement strategies and real life examples with experts and thought leaders from across industries. I'm your host, Dani Buckley, Vice President and General Manager at LeadG2, a sales performance agency.

Shaye Smith: 0:43

In this episode, we are discussing all things Account Based Marketing, AKA? ABM. Often sales and marketing are each toiling away in their own departments siloed off from one another while performing their day-to-day duties. Well, with today's topic, these two departments will be working together that much more because ABM sees marketing and sales collaborating in order to target specific high value accounts. And who better to help break down ABM than one of the leaders of Role Works, a top account-based marketing platform for B2B marketing and sales. Joining Dani is Shawn Cook. Shawn is VP of New Business Sales at RollWorks and has 25 years experience leading high performance sales teams with 15 years in MarTech at companies like Vocus/Cision, Eloqua/Oracle, TrackMaven/Skyward, and Triblio. Shawn is known to create his own words like"Compelevent," a combination of"compelling" and"relevant" or"Humblonfident," a combination of being"humble" first, but always"confident." Although he is a VP of sales, Shawn doesn't really believe in selling in the traditional sense, but rather in facilitating buying processes and helping buyers to determine whether or not they should be in a buying process Together, Dani and Shawn break down ABM in a few key areas. How Shawn defines ABM: Spoiler alert, it's quirky! What companies are a good fit for ABM and what criteria to look at when making that decision and tips preparing end on marketing and lead generation with ABM. With that, let's jump straight to the discussion. Over to you, Dani.

Dani Buckley: 2:31

Thank you, Shaye. I am so excited for today's episode. We love RollWorks and I'm, um, even more excited for you all to get to meet Shawn Cook, who are talking to Hey Shawn, thanks for joining. I, I think you're on vacation, right?

Shawn Cook: 2:43

I am. I'm calling in from the beach in Myrtle Beach with the

Dani Buckley: 2:47

Family. That's awesome. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I appreciate it. Um,<laugh> making me wish I was at the beach, but I'm not, but that's okay. Um, but we get, we got serious stuff to get to here, so I'm gonna jump in and just start asking you some questions. You ready for me?

Shawn Cook: 3:00

All right. Yeah, let's do it.

Dani Buckley: 3:01

Okay, cool. So, ABM, account-based marketing, that's what we're talking about today. Um, this is not a new strategy. It's been around a while, um, but it's certainly growing in popularity pretty quickly. Um, and, and I think that's through the effectiveness that people are seeing that what's possible. So just to get us started to get everyone on the same page, how would you define account-based marketing?

Shawn Cook: 3:21

Yeah, so for me as a sales leader, um, I, I, I always think of myself though as a, uh, a marketing guy in a sales guy's body. Mm. Uh, but I, I think it's, it's about unifying marketing's inbound and outbound programs with sales plays to improve your"QERC", I like to call it. Mm."QERC" being the quality, the efficiency, uh, to minimize or eliminate risks within your, your, your efforts, uh, and to control costs, uh, with accounts that are most likely to buy from you.

Dani Buckley: 4:00

Got it. So"QERC" is Q E R C, just repeating that. Yes. Quality, Efficiency, Eliminate Risk and Control Cost. I love that. I love an acronym.

Shawn Cook: 4:10

<laugh>. I've got plenty

Dani Buckley: 4:11

<laugh>. So do we. That's great. And so, like, just taking it one step further, could you give us like the kind of most broad general, like an example of account based marketing, just to paint the picture?

Shawn Cook: 4:22

Yeah, yeah. So, so you know, if you think about, if you took all the accounts in the world, right? And you said, this group are people who are likely to buy from us and you sat'em off to one side, and this group are people who probably would never buy from us. Hmm. Right. If you can say that, then you are ready for account based marketing because Got it. That is really what it's all about. It's about zeroing in on the accounts that are most likely to buy from you. And then as you start to execute on, uh, playbooks and, and, and programs towards them, you know, automatically you've improved your chances. Right. Because you're not trying to boil the ocean.

Dani Buckley: 5:06

Yeah. And I think, you know, in most B2B sales, that's what you're doing, right? You're already doing that, but this is like taking a marketing role and doing it with more automation at a larger scale. Um, right?

Shawn Cook: 5:17

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think it's, it's also tied to like what I have seen over the years, uh, and lots of organizations talk about it with buyer behavior where if point of interest is over here and point of purchase is over here, form fill in a traditional program is happening somewhere way down here. And a lot of times when that happens, by the time it actually happens, your column fodder, you know, there are lots of research. You know, Forester says 78%, 57% from Gartner, 80% from other select. So the buyer is definitely self-educating at a high pace and Yeah. And oftentimes avoiding salespeople, um, because they, they do wanna self-educate. And so, um, what ABM to me is, is the ability to actually generate, again, those conversations with accounts that are most likely to buy from you without them actually filling out a form.

Dani Buckley: 6:13

Yeah. I love it. I love it. And that kind of takes us to, um, well we're gonna get actually more into that in a minute, even talking about how this pairs the inbound marketing and things like that. But, um, tell us a little bit more about just like the kinds of benefits that someone can see, Like what are the kind of results that people can expect from ABM? And I know that's like the million dollar question and it's broad, but, you know, boil down a little

Shawn Cook: 6:34

<laugh>. Yeah, well, you know what? I'll come from the sales side cuz I think ultimately all of this is about revenue. You know, even most organizations are now revenue marketing cuz they have to be able to tie everything that they're doing to actual revenue. So I say for marketing, it is about attribution influence, actually getting credit for your leads.<laugh>, you know, where sales people are like that's my lead. And marketing knows that they've been going after that person. Yeah. So I think it's about just the ability to actually, for marketing, tie themselves to revenue outcomes. Mm. Um, I think it's for sales, the ability to know where they're, where to spend their time. And, and I always say that the distinguishing characteristic of a high performance sales organization is just that they know where to spend their time. Account based marketing helps sales know where actually to spend their time.

Dani Buckley: 7:22

Yeah. We say that all the time, you know, even at our parent company, like helping sales people just, just do what they do best with the best opportunities. Right? Like there's so much wheels spinning, there's so much time. It's so old school too to just be like, cast the wide net and it's a numbers game and like, yes, there's some truth to that. There will always be truth to that in sales, but like, it doesn't have to be that, um, Yeah. Like un uh, Uncalculated

Shawn Cook: 7:46

<laugh>, Yeah. Yes. Objective, right? Like, like we're in a data world, uh, a digital world and, and I I I often say this like sales should be just as digital as everything else. Yeah. Like we have now conversation intelligence that can harvest words and phrases. Uh, I'm wearing Gong's hat today, so shout out to Gong cause I'm a Gong user, uh, at RollWorks, but we're able to trigger campaigns and sequences even within RollWorks based off of conversation intelligence. Um, so those are, those are some of the things that we can do with it. I would say that the other major benefit, um, and this plays into our conversation today is for marketing, uh, and sales overall, you gotta get a handle on your budget. The cost of sales, uh, is a cost or lead cost of just going outta control. And it's no one's fault except the fact that there are more buyers that are, that are more that are involved. Right? The average number of people in a buying cycle now is anywhere from eight to 15 possible, uh, stakeholders that are involved. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, account based marketing lets you really zero in on the entire buying team, many of which that will never fill out a form. Like they're just an influencer. Yeah. Sales needs to know who those people are and that those people are engaging as a part of the sales process. Um, and so, uh, if you think about, you know, seven years ago, um, the number of, you know, factors, if you will, that uh, you had to track on a particular account may have been 300 today, that number is over 3000. Hmm. And your budget hasn't grown to next<laugh> unless you're a really lucky person. So, you know, the, the, the, the complexity of marketing has, and this is why market like marketers are like scratching their heads trying to figure it out. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, why do I get that same lead number? I'm spending as much or more money. I still can't get to the, I can't even get to my old lead number now. You gave me a new lead number. Right. Uh, and a lot of it has to do with all of these factors and your budget hasn't grown at the same pace. And so there's this gap, and to me, uh, a company's marketing fills that gap. It gives you the ability to not have to have a 10 x budget, but to be 10 times more efficient.

Dani Buckley: 10:06

Yeah. Love it. I love it. And that is what we hear day in and day out needing to, you know, able to attribute being able to, you know, hit these numbers that we used to hit in all the different ways. I mean, there's so many things. So Yeah. I know there's people listening and there's people who are, um, you know, maybe wondering like, is ABM right for me? We hear, you know, they hear that about any kind of strategy, methodology, whatever. Um, how do I know it's right for me? What worked for me? Give me case studies that are my industry, my specific business, you know? Right. Yeah. So, um, what, what companies are a good fit and what kind of criteria can, you know, leaders look at to kind of determine if this, if they're ready for this and if they're a good fit? I know you started touching on that, but what else? Yeah,

Shawn Cook: 10:46

So I I I, I say again that if you can separate accounts, if you had a list of 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, but

Dani Buckley: 10:54

By name and contact info. Yeah.

Shawn Cook: 10:56

Is

Dani Buckley: 10:56

That true? Yeah.

Shawn Cook: 10:57

Just the, just the accounts. Like, cause you can, you can actually, one of the things that we do at RollWorks is we'll look for lookalikes like your close one accounts. Got it. So you say, Okay, I I, these are accounts that we've won, we want more that look like this. Great. Right. And we will identify and build, help you build a target account list if you don't have one today, but if you have a Target account list, you're ready for ABM. And you don't have to have an extensive technology stack or great deal of experience to do ABM. Uh, we in fact, at RollWorks, uh, we give all of our customers a survey and accelerate survey where they take a survey that lets us know where they are on the continuum. Uh, you know, are, you know, are we early, you know, introductory or, or are we advanced? You know, are we exploring, are we developing, are we, you know, op opportunistic? Yeah. Like we're doing it already. Like are we a leader? And we'll define kind of where you are, and then we actually give you just plays that you can run easily and simply to get started. Uh, you know, it, it pays off for itself so many times over, even if you have a small list or if you have a large list. Yeah. You, you can immediately see kind of,

Dani Buckley: 12:07

So to be clear, we're we are talking b2b, right? Yes. B2B is, I was listening. This is, this is really a B2B strategy. Um, Yes. And, and, and, and it seems like the main and really only criteria is like, can you separate those accounts out? And then that Absolutely. From there you can use technology like role works, you can use experts like LeadG2 to help you, uh, further build that out

Shawn Cook: 12:30

<laugh>. Yeah. You know, it's interesting, we, we get companies that come to us that are going after B2C in a B2B motion, kind of like, um, where like they, they have a free offering, so it has a c a B2C kinda feeling to it, right? Yeah. Where like we want'em to sign up for the free thing and then we're gonna move them to the paid thing, right? So there's like a B2C behavior, and here's what we've said. Like one of the things that makes role works as I, you most unique, I don't wanna talk about role works too much here, but like, what makes us so unique is that our rich history from AdRoll, which is the B2C side of next role is our parent company. And on the B2C side is AdRoll, on the B2B side is role works. We are benefiting from 15 years of machine learning and ads and all of these behaviors on the B2B side to inform on the BDC side, to inform the B2B side. Yeah. And, and it's powerful because, just think about it, I'm a consumer, I'm a B2B guy, but I'm still a consumer<laugh>, right? So

Dani Buckley: 13:29

They're all, it's people on every part<laugh>,

Shawn Cook: 13:32

Right? So like that, and that means that I can still target them in their B2C motions and drive them back to a B2B experience, right. So, um, we, we, we are able to assist in those, even though you're b2b and you, you may have a B2C motion, if you will. We, we can support that. ABM can definitely support that. Cool.

Dani Buckley: 13:50

Cool. Love it. Um, so we, we touched on this before, so we're coming back, um, inbound marketing, lead generation. Um, what is, what do you think is the, the, if someone's already doing that, um, and thinking about ABM, which is probably a lot of our listeners Yeah. What are tips for preparing this, getting them to work together? How do they, how do they not, um, what are some things they need to know or be thinking about?

Shawn Cook: 14:11

Yeah, so, so it's interesting. I, I talk to companies all the time who wanna cross that chasm, right? But they're afraid,<laugh>, I gotta get my lead number. I don't know what kind of leads this is gonna produce. Right? And so I think being able to define the measurement and what you're gonna get out of ABM, um, is, is really important. Um, we give you this ability, and I, I, I guess what I'd say is, man, you wanna get off of the, um, uh, the best way to say it is, it's if you wanna get off the treadmill, if you will, or are the, you know, like you're just spinning in place, uh, ABM is the place to start, but you have to define this target account list. You do have to get the buy-in from sales. Yeah. Uh, and find at least one person to say, Hey, listen, I'm gonna take some of your accounts. Here's what we're gonna do, and I need you to be at the ready to engage with them. Yeah. And let's just see what happens. Um, and, and there are a lot of ways that we can, we can help with that, but if they're thinking about exploring it, I, I would tell'em to, to, to call us and, and we'll make it so that they understand. Cuz there is no one size fits all for ABM. Totally. And I think that's what happens is you get afraid of like, you know, I only have a small handful of accounts or, um, I don't have that big of an advertising budget. Yeah. Well one of the things I say like LinkedIn, you can do ABM if you're doing ads on LinkedIn right now you are doing ABM<laugh>. Yeah. So, so there's some ways that you can feed other data into segmentation within LinkedIn that could be just a starting point, uh, for ABM. Right. And I think,

Dani Buckley: 15:47

Go ahead. Yeah, I think also you're just making me think of another piece is, you know, a lot of the ads, a lot of the outreach, a lot of what you're doing with ABM can come from your inbound marketing efforts, right? The content you're already creating, the, the resources you have. Um, so it's like you, you've got a lot of that stuff that can now be utilized. You already are targeting these certain types of audiences and, and hopefully have the, you know, campaigns you've run. So there is a lot of, um, resources that don't need to be created from scratch, I would say.

Shawn Cook: 16:15

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and the other thing I would say is you wanna focus on quality. Cause you know, if you're an lead gen program, then you've heard it, uh, many years ago, I, I ran a sales organization at Eloqua and uh, we used to have a whiteboard. We used to say, Sales is from Mars and marketing's from Venus. Yeah. And we, uh, tell this whole story about lead quality. Uh, and, and truthfully, ABM will provide the most quality leads that you've ever had.

Dani Buckley: 16:41

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Um, okay. So let's talk a little bit about RollWorks. Um, because, and, and not that for, you know, for those listening, it's not like we're not trying to pitch anything here, but, um, but I think it's really important. Um, I think that the technology piece is a really key and crucial part of ABM. Um, and so tell us a little bit, like what is the role that a platform like RollWorks plays in being able to more effectively deploy an ABM strategy? Like what are like just some of the top features and tools that, that make it more, Cause I mean, someone could do ABM without RollWorks, right? Without a platform like that. Absolutely. People do. Yes. Um, just cause you can do inbound marketing without HubSpot. Right. But we don't advise it<laugh>. So Yeah. What, what are the things that stand out that make it better and easier?

Shawn Cook: 17:22

Yeah. I I I, I think what makes it easier with techno, obviously without technology, you're probably limited to a certain number of accounts, right? Yeah. You, you just, at scale, it'd be difficult to scale. So the technology helps you to scale it, but it also helps you to zero in and focus your efforts. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, some of you may be, I just need to build more awareness. Right. Or you may say, Well, I actually need engagement mm-hmm.<affirmative>, well, I need to move from engagement to interest, or from interest to acquisition, or to conversion, or I need to use, uh, uh, ABM in retention efforts for customer marketing. Uh, so the platform gives you the ability to really zero in and pull levers based on the area of the pipeline that you're trying to drive. And ABM is a strategy that can be used at every stage of the funnel. Yeah. It's not just capturing these accounts, It is the ability to actually drive awareness and engagement and interest to create sqs or to move pipeline to close. Yeah.

Dani Buckley: 18:22

Yeah.

Shawn Cook: 18:24

So there, there, every stage of the pipeline, we are able to use all of the behaviors. Just think about all of the digital behaviors associated with a, an account, right? Multiple contacts. You've got website behavior, you've got social behaviors, you've got your sales people, if they're in the funnel, uh, email behaviors that are happening. And all of these things are a part of that journey. And what role works does is take these journey events and behaviors and brings them into one place and allows you to automatically, I'd like to say, move into a different pathway based on their behavior, Right? So a lot of times you can be like, I got this lead through ABM and salesperson call this lead right away, which could be a mistake.<laugh>, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, uh, depending on the level of contact it is, we need to put that person into another journey now and just trigger another journey to warm them up even further before sales engages, right? Yeah. So, cause we don't wanna ruin that relationship and that's where the communication back and forth, uh, with sales is, is super important.

Dani Buckley: 19:33

Awesome. I love it. I think this is really helpful and I think, you know, for a lot of folks, I mean there's, we can obviously talk for hours about ABM,<laugh> Yes. And best practices and all that, but I think this is like a really good foundation for those that are curious, that are exploring it, that, um, are trying to figure out is it right for them? What are the benefits? You know, we covered a lot of that. So just to kind of close us out, you know, is there anything we didn't talk about that you just wanna be sure folks know, um, that we pass along best practices or tips or anything like that?

Shawn Cook: 20:00

So one tip I will give, and this is for those using SDRs as a part of their ABM program, where you, you have SDS that are reaching out. Um, and so they are again trying to get ahead of this form fill. So they may see, uh, you know, we have, uh, rules, like someone has to engage with three pieces of content or, uh, hit our site a number of times. So we have something called Sales Insights that actually reveals, so the salesperson, Hey, these are your accounts that are actually spiking. And then the, the SDR, these are accounts that are actually spiking and the SDR goes in and he can see their entire journey. He can see what ads they've been pushed, They, you can see what things they've clicked on. But here's the key. Make sure that your SDRs and your salespeople know not just what that content is, but why it was created. Mm. This is so, so important. Uh, there is nothing more"salesy" than someone calling you and saying, Oh, I saw you downloaded this such and such piece of content. Like, okay, Sherlock. Yes. Right? Like, and then like, and then they start asking you questions that they haven't earned the right to ask. Yeah. And, uh, so we, we are teaching our SDRs to be able to talk to a prospect about why that piece of content was created. It is a great way to get into a conversation and to get a prospect to admit that their world is not perfect. So will they we'll tell them is, Hey, I saw that you downloaded this particular piece of content. Let me tell you why we created that. You know, our marketing team, I love

Dani Buckley: 21:33

That. Saw a

Shawn Cook: 21:33

Bunch of people that, you know, were, um, experiencing these problems. They were troubled with A, B, C, and D. Does that sound like your world or do you have this stuff all figured out? Yeah. An intro into a conversation. I call it a bucket question. Yeah. That question is really just really putting us automatically in the position of more of a trusted advisor. Yes. Um, and, and, and the last thing I will say is I created a word and I don't leave any meeting without using it at least once. Um, yes, let's

Dani Buckley: 22:04

Hear it

Shawn Cook: 22:05

Truly of about ABM it's also about RollWorks in that there are lots of, like, even for the solutions that the people who are listening to this podcast that you represent, your solution is relevant, Right? You're marketing it, it, it's, you know, it's proven, you know, you have a a, a product mock market fit, right? You wouldn't be sending emails, Right? And doing all these things if you didn't. The question is how do you go from relevant to"Compellevent?" That's, let's take, let's not just be relevant, let's be compelling and relevant. Yeah. Um, and, and that to me is what ABM gives you the opportunity to be not just a relevant solution, but"compellevent" to the accounts that are most likely to buy from you.

Dani Buckley: 22:47

I love it. You're my kind of people when you make up words,<laugh> and good words, they make sense.<laugh>. Um, that's awesome. Sean, This was so, uh, informative. I've learned some stuff. I, um, am really eager to continue our partnerships. So like for those, I think we, we are a partner of RollWorks. We love RollWorks. Um, we use it for ourselves and um, we use it with our clients. And so it's just really a pleasure to have you here. Um, you guys are doing it really well and, and you've got a lot of knowledge. So thank you for joining on your vacation,<laugh>.

Shawn Cook: 23:17

Oh, it's been great. I'm so, it is a pleasure. Uh, I look forward to, to many more and you guys are great. So thanks so much.

Dani Buckley: 23:23

Yeah. And for those, um, that wanna get in touch with Shawn or RollWorks, we've got, uh, contact info in the show notes. You can check that out. And, um, and we look forward to seeing everyone or, or hearing you listen to me. I don't know the right way to put that.<laugh> on the next episode of, uh, Sell Smarter Self Faster. So happy selling everybody. Thanks Shawn.

Shawn Cook: 23:41

Thanks.

Dani Buckley: 23:48

Thanks for joining us on Sell Smarter, Sell Faster. Be sure to click that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And visit us on Sell Smarter, Sell faster.com to access tons of resources on the topics we cover on the show, or to get in touch with Shay or myself. And of course, you can find us on social media, including our personal pages on LinkedIn and Twitter. We'd love to connect and hear from

Speaker 4: 24:08

You.