February’s almost over and it’s time for me to check in with my New Year’s Resolutions. I can report that I’m right on track with my second book. Furthermore, as I research and write, I have been able to dive in and discover some excellent books. In this blog post, I want to share 5 of the best books I have read recently.
The Three Value Conversations: How to Create, Elevate, and Capture Customer Value at Every Stage of the Long-Lead Sale — Erik Peterson
This book resonated as I write my own book about sales enablement. One thing that struck me is the idea of finding the unexpected needs of your customers and the impact that has on the role of the sales team. Be a problem finder, not just a problem solver. As a result, I actually took some content from this book and incorporated it into my session: “How To Create A Messaging Framework that Resonates”, but from the perspective of betting supporting sales. Learn more about why I love this book in my recent podcast.
Blueprint SaaS Methodology — Jacco Van Der Kooij
Now, this is a great read if you are part of SaaS sales or marketing team and want to better understand pricing, cost analysis and how content plays into your role as part of the sales team. As a marketer, I found it very beneficial to understand how the 4P’s of marketing (Pricing, Place, Promotion, Product) working in a SaaS-based company. Jacco did a great job explaining the tiered pricing model and the role of content marketing when selling SaaS products.
Confessions of an Advertising Man — David Ogilvy
When I read Ogilvy’s 1983 book, Ogilvy on Advertising, I was instantly a fan. This book had been on my reading list for several years. I finally read it as a New Year resolution! Written in 1963, and Ogilvy’s management style and approaches toward marketing still apply. Plus, there are some wonderful quotes in this book, tweetable before their time!
- Tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.
- We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.
- Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys.
Agile Marketing: Building Endurance for Your Content Marketing Team — Jeff Julian
Each year marketing teams are asked to produce more content than the previous year while reaching an audience that is always changing. In this book, Julian looks how to adopt agile techniques and build up the long-term endurance you need to avoid content burnout. I love how this book gives actionable takeaways for accomplishing requests and staying on-task. If you are thinking about implementing agile marketing, check this book out.
The Invisible Sales — Tom Martin
Martin suggests marketers develop a Behavior Email Logic (BEL) diagram. Some may call it a customer journey map. The thing that resonated with me is that Martin talks about how to define the core message for each email you plan to send. He also talks about how to apply a prospect’s behavior pattern to the content. Martin uses this diagram to run email campaigns for his clients, campaigns that take place over six weeks because you need to give prospects time to act on the emails. He uses E-mail to discover clues about the potential leads and find warm leads in the existing database. This is incredibly relevant as we look at the roles of sales and marketing and how tools like email can nurture and engage leads as part of the sales cycle.
Who is Pam Didner?
Being in the corporate world for 20+ years and having held various positions from accounting and supply chain management, marketing to sales enablement, Pam has a holistic view of how a company runs. She thinks strategically and then translates the big picture into actionable plans and tactics.
