Fast Fundamentals
February 16, 2022 4:26 PM Subscribe
I've just started a new job where I will be working with marketing and sales teams. I am not from a marketing or sales background. Are there any good sites/courses/books that you would recommend to help me get up to speed?
While I don't need to be involved in any sales or marketing activities myself, I will need to at least understand fundamental concepts around account based marketing, use cases, sales pipelines, and other related topics so I can identify them and speak intelligently when they come up. My employer is working with me on this as part of my new hire training, but I'm trying to be an overachiever and skill up on my own as well.
Note that I am not looking to get an MBA at this time. Other than that, anything you have enjoyed and can suggest would be appreciated!
While I don't need to be involved in any sales or marketing activities myself, I will need to at least understand fundamental concepts around account based marketing, use cases, sales pipelines, and other related topics so I can identify them and speak intelligently when they come up. My employer is working with me on this as part of my new hire training, but I'm trying to be an overachiever and skill up on my own as well.
Note that I am not looking to get an MBA at this time. Other than that, anything you have enjoyed and can suggest would be appreciated!
Hubspot, a CRM system, has a pretty good set of free white papers/blogs about the sales operations space. This'll get you more familiar with some general activities that happen in sales. Link As someone who has been working with sales people for a long time, the most important thing to understand is -- how are they compensated (quota, what retires it, how much of their pay is at risk), and what are the behaviors that enable a sales person to be successful in your company/industry. A lot of things conceptually fall into place after that for the why/how things work the way they do.
posted by ellerhodes at 6:29 AM on February 17, 2022
posted by ellerhodes at 6:29 AM on February 17, 2022
Response by poster: To clarify - I am actually working on enabling new software for clients, not working with my own company marketing and sales teams. I like to take a consultative approach, so while I am going to be asking plenty of questions of the teams I work with I would also like to be able to make suggestions with real value right out of the gate.
Thank you for the answers thus far however!
posted by daikaisho at 8:06 AM on February 17, 2022
Thank you for the answers thus far however!
posted by daikaisho at 8:06 AM on February 17, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
Your best course of action is to go in and meet with your marketing and sales folks and listen to them about what they do. Because marketing is a vast topic and also extremely industry- and even company-specific. Books on general"marketing" won't get you very far.
The number one thing most marketing groups want from you is to be treated with respect and made part of the conversation, instead of brought in because you already decided you need a brochure at the last minute. If they've been doing the work successfully they already know a lot about how to to win. Listen to them.
If your company is using a particular software to manage their pipeline, you could learn about that to get ahead.
To sell, you need to know your industry, your company's offerings, your competition, and your market, especially clients you want to target. If you come to your marketing and sales team with any/all of that information, you will have a higher chance of success.
posted by emjaybee at 6:00 PM on February 16, 2022 [6 favorites]