AMA: Adobe Director, Adobe Sales Academy, Jessica Holmes on Sales Development

Sales is a team sport and this also applies to prospecting and sales development and proper prior planning will be key to your success. To ensure you're prioritizing correctly, you should consider the following: * First, find commonalities between the accounts: * Start with the key accounts your sales team/AE wants you to focus on - and WHY? * Are there commonalities in these accounts? (Same industry, customer profile, decision maker, market/industry challenges?) * Next, review your tiered accounts - which accounts have the same commonalities as your AE's top focus? * Bucket these accounts together and treat them the same in your prospecting efforts. Identify the commonalities. * If you're drafting a campaign or email, use the same content for similar ICP, account or industry. You can still personalize, but now you're personalizing minimal information instead of researching and starting from scratch each time. * Select your top priority accounts that align closest to your AE's top priorities and work those with the same intensity. Any account that does not align with your AE's top accounts can be nurtured at a secondary rate, but still use the same content/campaigns. * When receiving marketing leads you should: * Identify if there are buying signals that would cause you to treat this lead differently than your priority accounts. Some examples may be leads that have a request for pricing/demo, a high lead score, or prior opportunity that was stalled or closed/lost. * Determine if the lead can be bucketed with your top accounts and leverage the same messaging/campaign. * If neither, treat as your secondary tiered accounts and continue to nurture the lead. * Most importantly, review your strategy often with your AE, provide feedback to marketing on lead quality and be critical with your campaign strategy to ensure you're using the right message at the right time, for the right person.

A strategic and automated nurture campaign aims to engage and educate prospects, guiding them towards a purchasing decision. A successful campaign will: * Understand your target audience and tailor your campaign to their buyer's journey * Provide personalized content, offer educational resources aligned with the buyer's journey stage * Will use feedback loops to adjust your communication strategy or content * Be delivered during optimal engagement times for more effective nurturing

The timeline for starting a nurture campaign and the frequency of touch points can vary based on factors such as your industry, sales cycle length, and the specific needs of your target audience. However, here are some general guidelines to consider: * Initiate immediate touch points with a welcome email or acknowledgment to set the tone for engagement. * Understanding your buyer journey and typical time to go through buying process, determine nurture cadence and modality. * Implement behavior-triggered touch points based on the lead's interactions and that align with the buyer journey. * Continuously monitor lead behavior and adapt the nurture campaign based on the insights gained. Overall, flexibility is key. Regularly review and refine your nurture campaign strategy to ensure it remains effective in engaging and moving leads through the sales funnel.

To prioritize sales tools effectively, there are 3 key considerations: 1. Understand your sales process: outline your process from lead generation to closing deals and identify the key activities at each stage. 2. Assess team needs: what are the needs and challenges faced by your sales team and what are the biggest pain points in the current process? 3. Consider integration capabilities: what do you need to seamlessly integrate with your existing systems, and/or offer API support for easy data exchange analysis. Once you identify what type of tool will benefit your sales process and your sales team the most, while providing the data and integrations you need to successfully use the tool, you then should identify the best vendor for you based on who offers strong training and support, has positive customer reviews and ensuring they align with your business goals and can adapt to growth. If it's not easy to use, makes the seller's job easier to do, and doesn't align to your sales process, it's not a tool worth investing in.

Staying ahead in a sea of industry information requires strategic choices tailored to your preferences. * Opt for podcasts during your commute or workouts if you prefer shorter format * Decide if lecture formats like in person conferences or webinars suit your learning style * Tap into expert insights by following industry leaders on social media or joining professional advisory networks like Emblaze and Gartner * Embrace technology by setting alerts for key topics, leveraging news aggregators, and curating content to personalize your learning experience effortlessly.