Latane Conant is the Chief Marketing Officer of 6sense. She is the best-selling author of the book, No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls: The Next Generation of Account-Based Sales and Marketing.
Latane has an unconventional background. She used to be an accountant, but she needed to move on from that because she has dyslexia. So she ended up in consulting.
She got into software sales after that, and she now jokes about being a recovering software salesperson.
She then got asked to help with marketing and became a marketer. That is where she found her true passion.
She spent some time at Appirio, as a Chief Marketing Officer, before joining 6sense. She joined 6sense because she fell in love with what they were doing. She had tried to do account-based at Imperial, but she failed because she did not have the right technology.
Latane found that account-based is not just a campaign. It is like a change and go to market strategy, and that kind of change needs people, process, and technology. And it all starts with the accounts that you select.
6sense
What Latane loves about 6sense is that it makes it very clear statistically which accounts present her with the best opportunities. It is math-based, and it is built on what AI is saying about the accounts you are most likely to win in your ICP. It looks at members of the buying team, and the AI will tell you if you are engaging the people who would usually result in a closed one deal. It will allow you to find out which territories are hot and where you will have the best opportunity to sell bigger deals, have faster cycle times, and better win rates. And it takes a lot of the debate and delays out of a marketing and sales motion.
The difference between mentorship and sponsorship
Mentorship is just giving someone advice. Sponsorship is saying that you will put your credibility on the line in vouching for someone because that person is amazing, and you are willing to put your brand and credibility behind them.
You need a track record of commitment
Few people will commit to doing something and then go and do it without any drama. So, if you want people to stand up for you, you need to be the kind of person that people know they can always rely on once you have committed to doing something.
Dark funnels
There are accounts out there that have problems with their market fit to what you do and are researching things that would indicate that they are ready to buy what you have. That is your dark funnel. It happens all the time, and you probably don’t even know about it.
Sales and marketing can go to work and do the good work they love to do if they have data rather than debate and delay. That would be possible if someone could come in and uncover your dark funnel. To do that, they would need to:
- Look at all your data and all your website activity.
- Look at the critical keywords that would indicate that someone is researching what you do.
- Bring a lot of third party data to the table, and shine a light onto the dark funnel to tell you who would be an ideal fit for you based on historical patterns.
- Tell you the make-up of a typical buying team, what is going on with your key accounts as identified in your ICP, and break down exactly where those accounts are in their buying cycle (if they are early or late).
Once you have uncovered your dark funnel, you start to understand the accounts that are in target, and you will also know the right time for sales to engage.
That will inform you about what can be done for different segments, like financial services. It will tell you whether or not you should go in there and what it will take if you do.
The 6sense solution
The 6sense solution gives you all of the data you need elegantly. And it allows marketers to go and run a campaign instantly. It will also tell salespeople why an account is in-market.
Time
As a seller, the number one thing that you have is your time. So you should not waste it on the things that are not worth it. Make sure that you choose wisely and that you are working on the right stuff.
A fundamental change to B2B sales marketing
When Latane saw all the different elements coming together at 6sense, she knew that the company would be able to change B2B sales marketing fundamentally. That is why she knew she had to take a job at 6sense.
The power of 6sense
Latane explains that the strategy is less about the size of a company and more about sales motion.
The power of 6sense is that it can pick up on multiple buyers and put together the dynamics of a buying team.
The window of opportunity
6sense time stamps the window of opportunity. They also have an SLA to guide the way they work the account and to make sure that they start multithreading from the get-go.
The results
The process results in 75% better conversions, 40% faster cycle times, and 50% larger deals.
Selling change
Although Latane sells technology, she sells change even more.
Links and resources:
Connect with Latane on LinkedIn
Revenue Collective website
6sense website
