Mark Gibson

Mark Gibson, Managing Director UK, North America, EMEA is a certified inbound marketing professional and certified HubSpot partner, with 29 years of international sales, marketing and business development success.

PowerPoint, Memory and Visual Storytelling

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Posted on 2012-02-07

Users of PowerPoint like it because it's easy to create and modify presentations and that's the good news. The bad news is when you are on the other side of the presentation - in the audience as a salesperson at a kick-off, or as a prospective customer in a sales or marketing presentation or in a business setting.
The fact that it's easy to create presentations is part of the problem with the whole Powerpoint metaphor. To be more accurate, it's easy to create bad presentations in PowerPoint.

I attend a lot of sales kick-offs events to run Whiteboardselling enablement to train people in visual story-telling using a whiteboard and I see many Powerpoint presentations in the course of the day or so I am in attendance.

I have been thinking about the persistence of the average Powerpoint slide that I see at these events (maybe an image combined with...

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Downton Abbey - Great Storytelling and its Importance in B2B Selling

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Posted on 2012-01-27

The PBS Masterpiece Theatre period costume drama, Downton Abbey is a masterful example of visual storytelling, featuring superb British acting talent, staged in the magnificent Highclere Castle, (hailed as the best castle in England).
It's the best TV drama I have seen for a very long time and a welcome departure from the US election news; I'm a huge fan and recommend it to anyone interested in quality entertainment.
For those who have not yet seen Downton Abbey, Series 2 is playing on Masterpiece Theatre on Sunday evening in the US, on the PBS channels.

Downton Abbey has enormous appeal across age groups from 10 years old to 100 and is being shown in 100 viewing territories. It is hugely popular in...

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Three Must Read Books to Improve Sales and Marketing 2012 Results

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Posted on 2012-01-03

If you haven't read these three books yet, the good news is there is still time to read them and make an impact on sales and marketing performance in 2012. Welcome back to work and have a great 2012.

The Challenger Sale

This is an important book for B2B sales and marketing and will be of interest to sales and marketing leadership as well as sales professionals. The research in this book has uncovered new insights into what works in our current B2B buying climate and debunks a lot of commonly held views and practices.
You are going to hear a lot about the Challenger style of selling in 2012 and beyond as it is the most effective mode of selling complex B2B products and services.

The...

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The Challenger Sale - Who paid for your last sales call?

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Posted on 2011-12-20

Would your prospect have paid you for the value they received from meeting with you or one of your sales executives on your last call with them?
This is a vexing question and it's one of many vexing questions that have been on my mind since I read the "Challenger Sale". It's a question that should be keeping B2B sales enablement professionals, sales managers and sales professionals up at night.

This question is vital in a World where buyers can find everything they need to know about your products and services without having to speak to you.

On your last call, did you bring the gift of knowledge and insight? Did you educate the buyer on an industry issue or sub-optimal condition that you are aware of because of your domain expertise, view of the market, knowledge of their company and your unique understanding of how your capabilities can create value?...

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Challenger Selling and Whiteboarding - a perfect combination of tools

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Posted on 2011-12-12

I've just finished reading and can recommend a new book by Matthew Dixon and Brent Addington entitled "The Challenger Sale” and I enjoyed the quality of the writing and the research underpinning the work.
The challenger sales type has been identified as the most effective in complex B2B selling and was the only sales cohort from the extensive research conducted by the Sales Executive Council to achieve success during the downturn. Figuring out what Challengers are doing differently, cloning that behavior and recruiting and training more challenger types is a priority recommendation in this book.

The 5 Sales Profiles

The Challenger

Lone Wolf
...

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Three Tips to Overcome the Channel Sales Enablement Blues

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Posted on 2011-10-24

Channel Sales Enablement

Channel sales enablement is an ongoing process of messaging, training, marketing, communicating, coaching and leading by example and when implemented correctly helps reseller sales teams to succeed in selling your products and services.
Success starts with a crisp and clear value proposition, essentially a pact between you and the buyer: i. How is it exactly that you create value for your prospective buyers, ii. What can the buyer reasonably expect from using your products or services?

I recall the early days in the channel at MicroStrategy, prior to the release of MicroStrategy7 and our first proper API; when not only our message was vague, but our code-base was vaguer; - a huge Visual Basic executable that was...

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Put the Clicker down and Step Away from the Powerpoint Projector

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Posted on 2011-10-03

Sounds like a line from a familiar TV show, except it would be "put the gun down and step away from the ....."
The best advice I can give to sales professionals whether starting out or with 20 years experience is to put the clicker down and step away from the PowerPoint projector.

There may be a time toward the end of the sales cycle when the buyer actually wants to see a presentation of your proposed solution... then it's OK to present. If you want to use Powerpoint, then please use the resources for...

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Using a Whiteboard to Improve Discovery and Qualification

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Posted on 2011-09-27

The following article is based on a recent client conversation and could be of value to anyone interested in using a whiteboard to improve sales performance.
My client who asked to remain nameless, works in a technology company and has been using a whiteboard to tell her story for about 6 months; she is a fan of Paper-Show digital paper for remote whiteboarding as she does most of her selling virtually.

Using the WhiteboardSelling Methodology, we worked with her team and created a powerful whiteboard story and helped her team develop mastery over the material in a...

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Hubspot triples R&D, gets a B+ for 2011, sets bold course, #HUGS2011

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Posted on 2011-09-18

I was in Boston last week for #HUGS 2011, the 2nd HubSpot User Conference and this is my report.

Last week in Boston there was even more for marketers and HubSpot customers to get excited about than at this event a year ago. HubSpot’s community has grown in the past year to more than 470+ partners and 5000+ customers and more than a thousand of the faithful gathered for the second Annual User Group Meeting. You can read my report on last year's event HubSpot 2010 user group meeting here.

HubSpot was founded just 5 years ago by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah (pic on stage taking Q&A at HUGS 2011), with a grand vision to make...

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3 Critical Success Factors for SaaS Channel Sales Success

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Posted on 2011-09-14

Recently I spoke to Justin Pirie about his role at Mimecast and his take on the biggest factors to get right in building a successful channel in a SaaS business.

Justin has managed the largest SaaS group on LinkedIn over several years and has adjudicated over thousands of articles on the subject of SaaS. He works at Mimecast and leads Social and Community Marketing. He has first-hand experience in engaging their channel to help them succeed, enabled from spending the majority of his career in the channel.

Mimecast provides...

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