Interview with Matt Heinz

hi this is Bob Samuels founder techconnectr techconnectr is a
marketplace and campaign management
platform of Best of Breed account based
marketing lead generation solutions we
have partnered with the serious decision
summit to bring you wisdom from leading
account based marketing thought leaders
to that end I’m happy to introduce you
to Matt Heinz matt is one of the
greatest b2b marketers I’ve ever met
he’s a terrific speaker and has a fun
way to share key tips Matt it’s a
pleasure to speak with you how are you
today I’m doing well Bob thanks very
much I’m not excited to be here and I
was good but I always always enjoy
catching up with you of these
conferences yeah it’s a pleasure this
the serious decisions event is
outstanding it’s always good and it’s
just always that I mean in my mind is
the best it’s best in the business
that’s a highlight of the conference
season for me for sure I think this is
my 6th or 7th that I’ve been to and you
know just quantity and quality
pound-for-pound like you just get good
content you get good people like some of
the smartest b2b marketers I think in
the world or at this conference and most
they were pretty open about sharing what
they’re doing sharing what’s working
sharing what’s not working
so what’s I get a ton out of this just
that I can take back and not just for
our clients but also for our businesses
we grow as well beautifully I’m gonna
I’m gonna head to London in October for
serious decisions there too so for those
of the people that don’t know how very
many are there those that don’t know you
very well could you give a little bit of
background about you and maybe a ABM in
general yeah sure so Matt Heinz run a
company called Heinz marketing we’re
based in Seattle and help companies
around around North America build more
predictable pipelines you know we found
as you know as many companies have
lumpiness and sales pipeline development
you know inconsistency around sort of
campaigns and process and systems that
can deliver repeatable scalable
predictable pipeline so that’s what we
help companies do and as you mentioned a
lot of that you know comes especially
for companies selling into enterprise
you know an account-based approach makes
a lot of sense it may not replace other
marketing they’re doing but I
think to create a more integrated across
sales and marketing approach to your
most important accounts is almost always
a better way to drive deals to drive
business makes sense and one of the
things I’m learning is that there’s no
there’s not really such thing as account
based marketing program it’s really
should be baked into everything you do
really well someone asked me once they
said like you know what’s what’s the
minimum size company that you would do a
counter base for I’m like well the
company of one I mean like if you think
about you know you’re not you’re selling
to an individual people write the checks
but you got to make a business case for
that it’s for that organization and even
if you don’t have all the technology if
there’s more than one conversation to be
had if there’s more than one
decision-maker and if there’s more than
one step to your sales process I could
argue that an account based approach can
work now you got to play the economies
of scale game right like you can’t you
know invite everyone out to a steak
dinner but if you take the technology
the platforms out of it and just simply
say we’re gonna have smarter
conversation and smarter messages for
the right person at the right time in
the buying process as members of the
buying committee you’re onto something
right and so you start with a
spreadsheet matrix of who your buyers
are and what stages they’re at and then
you’ve got message guidelines within
those cells of the spreadsheet like
that’s a basis for having better sales
conversation it’s the basis from doing
better advertising and so it just kind
of flows from there makes sense so lots
of different aspects of trying to get
the ABM right and you got the targeting
and the segmentation you get the
messaging and the channels and so forth
and it all starts with planning I guess
if you don’t plan it out well at the
beginning not gonna work out so well
well I think you know how people say
well start twist you know selecting your
target accounts and that’s certainly
part of it but I think it goes back
further I mean it starts with what are
your sales and revenue objectives right
and not just sales objectives but
revenue objectives more and more
companies I’ve seen are applying
account-based program to account
management to driving retention to
driver gaining lifetime value you know
some whoever your champion was the
organization that bought your product or
your service two years ago is now gone
do you do you have consensus amongst the
current buying committee to keep using
or to continue to buy the product right
so I think taking that account-based
approach sort of across the entire
customer lifecycle makes a lot of sense
for a lot of companies yeah it does make
sense and I keep forgetting in
ABM Companies marketing it’s really it’s
really about communicating to your
current customers to and growing them
and retaining them and getting them to
be stars for you I guess yeah absolutely
I mean I think that you know to to often
you know we think of the the sales
processes and the bottom of the Patels
processes the end I mean it’s the
beginning of the relationship right it’s
the bottom of the funnel but middle of
the revenue bowtie so to speak so you
know your abilities sort of continue to
reinforce value to continue not
necessarily to sell but just to deliver
proactive value to those members of the
buying committee who personas mean
serious decisions pointed this out
yesterday their personas of the buyers
once their customers change their needs
change what they’re looking for changes
but if you if you stay attuned to that
that is a key part of driving lifetime
value and account based strategies
absolutely help with that makes sense
and you mentioned personas and each one
of them you have a different approach I
guess you’ve got some of the people that
are focused on accounting and some of
them want security and lots of different
I guess focuses well there’s a
difference – between the persona and
then sort of the buying journey like a
persona defines a person kind of any
moment of time here’s who they are
here’s where they care about okay that’s
fine
but now let’s put them in motion right
and if we put them in motion you’ve got
two planes you’ve got the you’ve got the
vertical plane of who are they
associated with who else has a vested
interest in the company to solve a
particular problem decision-makers
influencers users so there’s people in
the organization they interact with and
then there’s these stages horizontally
of the buying journey and so if someone
is at the challenge the status quo stage
what message are you gonna put in front
of them that reframes a problem that
they did or didn’t know that they have
and how is the message to you know the
CFO gonna be different than the message
to the CTO that ties into their
interests and so I think that’s where
that’s where the rubber starts to meet
the road in terms of executing well but
it’s I think it’s your earlier point a
lot of companies do a nice job with
personas but personas aren’t actionable
in an account based model interesting
yeah it makes sense and one thing that’s
challenging to me is there’s no you
can’t go out and buy some software to
help you write the content for your
different personas and the different
stages and so forth you have to do it
yourself
the ironically there are tools that you
know artificial intelligence that will
create content for you but I don’t find
that it has a whole lot of humanity to
it I think that copywriting is very much
science but it’s also an art one of my
favorite books on copywriting is called
scientific advertising was written by
Claude Hopkins in 1921 and it’s just
it’s he talks a lot about just writing
to your audience like don’t write over
their heads like speak their language
and use plain English and I think you
look at a lot of our b2b content and it
reads as if we’re writing the buildings
you know and you think about the context
so you may have written a beautiful 400
word will email that if someone read it
they would fall in love with your
product and surface but when you send it
at 10 o’clock on Tuesday when your
prospect is going from meeting to
meeting stopping in the modern phone
booth which is the bathroom checking
their email they’re not gonna read your
400 word email they’re going to delete
it right and so getting that copyright
is not just about the words it’s also
about again put this in motion what
happens once someone actually engages
with it or will they you have to get
through so I imagine that you’ve seen a
few successes along the way and maybe
some other challenges and maybe some bad
stories anything that you can share well
I think there is there is someone else’s
account based program is not going to be
your own like every company is different
in terms of who your customer is what
industry you’re in the maturity of your
industry the culture you have internally
has a big impact on who’s doing what and
how well that works but I think they
also keep in mind is that there is no
perfect ABM program that gets launched
and stays the way that it is I mean all
good sales and marketing you know you
learned by failing and you learn by
failing fast and then innovating and
making it better and I think that’s a
big part of the cultural requirement and
doing account-based is to look across
sales and marketing say we’re gonna try
this we’re gonna find out why it fails
we’re gonna find out why it’s already
broken and we’re gonna fix it and so to
take you know to take egos off the table
to take politics take
defensiveness off the table and just
do that together is really really
critical beautiful so learning
opportunities failure is good so I can
learn from it I think and I think there
are plenty of companies where there is a
culture that is
that is toxic to failure we worked with
the company once that they had a term
internally called reputation capital and
the way that was translated is you did
not as an individual as an employee you
did not want to be associated with a
project that failed like you think
anyone is trying to innovate in a
company like that do you think anybody
is trying new ideas or anyone is sort of
putting their leg there their neck out
and sort of saying like I’ve got a
different way of thinking about this
that might be wrong but we won’t know
until we try that sounds like a really
dangerous precedent to set in a company
now you know it’s not about the failing
it’s about what you do next
like if you try something and you fail
what did you learn from that what would
you do differently how are you better
and smarter now to move forward but I
think that that especially when you’re
thinking about like complex buying
journeys you’re thinking about
integrating sales and marketing in a way
that is not there’s no didn’t a
historical president there isn’t a
cultural precedent for many companies to
do that you will fail but let it happen
as opposed to just keep talking about
just go do it fail and get better I like
it so what have you found to be the best
way to measure success with with account based
well I think that there there are
depending on yourselves like a link
there are kind of phases of measuring
account base results I mean at the end
of the day it’s about closing deals it’s
about getting more of those target
accounts close it’s increasing
conversion rate and velocity of getting
those deals close increasing
efficiency of how well you get them so I
would in an account based model expect
those deals to close at a higher rate to
close faster and to close at a lower
overall acquisition cost that’s the end
of the process right like early on I’m
looking at engagement levels I’m looking
at how actively our prospects
reciprocating the messaging approach
we’re taking and ideally you’ve done
some kind of you take in a benchmark
from the last you know 6 12 months of
executing in that same environment
saying like what kind of engagement did
we get what kind of velocity did we get
but early on I mean just like the sales
process you’re just you’re trying to get
conversations going yeah and I remember
hearing you speak one time about you
know what you measure you have to be
able to be able to buy a beer with it
how does that
this is actually it’s one of our one of
our VPS you know in a meeting once he
said you know you can’t buy a beer with
an MQL and I wholeheartedly stole it
from him he’s given me permission to
keep using it his name is Robert Pease
Robert if you’re listening I’d steal
yours
I give you full credit attribution but
no I mean even though you can’t buy your
beer with an mql the point is not that
mql aren’t interesting like there
was a conference couple weeks ago or the
talkee of MQL is a vanity metric came up
like I don’t MQL are a valuable
indicator of making progress in your
market as long as you have tight
definitions of what at mql means across
the organization just like you know a
prospect is reciprocating interest they
may not be qualified yet but they’re
engaged with your content can you buy
our beer with that no but you’re not
gonna have a sales conversation unless
you have the attention of the prospect
right attention access or different
things so they’re all those leading
indicators are valuable measures my
concern is when people say that is the
end of their scorecard right when
opening click rates is what they’re
measuring when lead volume is what
they’re measuring when they’re going
after the marketing of more more more up
into the right chart showing to the
board like that can be counterproductive
very very quickly and that’s one of
things I like about ABM is that it it
puts sales and marketing on the same
page as far as the goals and the
objectives yeah I think well you know we
it’s you know in b2b we tend to you know
we have the the flavor of the month or
flavors a year I think you know ABM’s
had a little more longevity than things
like perhaps social selling and others
but I think if there’s any legacy impact
of ABM if the term ABM is become the
sort of trendy and isn’t something we
use I think the the two things that I
expect will will have a legacy a impact
on organizations one is the integration
between sales and marketing getting
those teams to operate together no
longer splitting the funnel horizontally
in the middle but splitting it
vertically where sales and marketing
each have roles at every stage of the
buying process so that’s one and then
two is an appreciation for the buying
committee right that you don’t treat
people in the organization in silos that
you actually work to build consensus and
velocity inside the organization so that
they can make a decision faster and I
think that’s that nuance that we have
not traditionally paid attention to
because we just focus on leads and leads
or individuals and even serious
decisions talks about having
qualified accounts like in-demand units
and thinking about it as a buying group
and a buying opportunity as opposed to
individual leads so I think you know we
talked about that not in an ABM context
it has a big impact on ABM but I think
those are a couple things that I hope
will continue to benefit and improve
marketing organizations that’s makes
sense it’s wonderful
so few more questions what do you see as
far as if you put your crystal ball hat
on how do you see this ABM progressing
in a year in five years which is an
enormous amount of time it’s gonna go
fast I you know I think it’s it’s really
easy to sort of look at this conference
and you know we get to see each other a
couple times a year these things and we
this is a bubble right I mean like the
tech companies tend to be a little more
advanced companies here are
pre-selecting because they’re more
advanced we do a lot of work with
companies in pharmaceuticals and in
agriculture and manufacturing I don’t
use the term ABM there because it’s
foreign and B it just gets in the way
right but if you can get sales and
marketing to agree to own revenue have
revenue responsibilities together if they
can agree to a common set of plays
integrated cross sales and marketing
activity different stages they’re doing
ABM just not calling it that way so
I think that’s that’s what we’re gonna
see is again a sacrifice so the legacy
of the the ABM movement is gonna be a
tighter integration between sales and
marketing and in a marketing
organization mean more and more
traditional industries that embraces
revenue responsibility it still measures
audience that still measures lead
production but is is is is evaluated and
in many cases compensated based on the
revenue impact of their efforts makes
sense so what are some of the
technologies you’re seeing or you would
like to see you know growing in the next
few years I’m excited to see what’s
happening with sort of predictive
analytics and intent data we’ve had this
category for the last several years I
think we’re finally getting to a point
where some of the tools are actually
doing what they say they’re gonna do and
so you know sorting through the
prospects to find those that are most
interested and they’re most likely to
receive your message is hugely valuable
to be able to say like I’ve got a
hundred people I could sell to who are
this eight
that would be interested in my message
this week and why like that’s really
useful the campaign orchestration and
the marketing orchestration tools I
really like a lot as well we’ve seen
we’ve done research that shows that no
matter how many channels you’re using in
your marketing if those channels aren’t
integrated with the an integrated
message and approach you’re not going to
have the results you otherwise could
have so tools like integrating lean data
that are providing campaign
orchestration but also tying tying the
data together in a more meaningful way
so you can see across sales across
marketing across product across customer
service to know what’s going on and make
better decisions based on that I think
that category I believe will continue to
grow it’s entirely possible that that
you know some version of a of a you know
revenue operations platform becomes the
next table stakes for b2b marketers the
way that marketing automation has the
way that the way that reporting tools
have so is something like engagio is
that in that same ilk or is that a
little bit of a different solution oh I
think you know engagio is interesting to
me because it’s you know it’s it’s
clearly one of the leading ABM platforms
today it continues to evolve like they
all do but I mean I may be going out a
limb saying this like I could argue that
the next the next big leap in innovation
and marketing automation is to orient
around the account not the lead and most
of the marketing automation platforms
today it’s about the lead and so engagio

is the first to really say no it’s
about the opportunity here it’s about
the account so you know if engagio
all of a sudden had email send
capabilities all of a sudden you have a
better mousetrap I think so you know
engagio is you know clearly playing in
the ABM space but I think they have a
broader opportunity based on what
they’re billing excellent so this is
wonderful any other words of advice or
that you can share before we sign off in
the only I guess the main thing is just
you know if you’re if you’re in b2b
whether you’re in sales and marketing
just you know continue to be curious
continue to be humble and we talked
about failing but also just be a
lifelong learner like you know whether
you like to watch videos or you like
podcasts like this or whether you’re a
reader just make it a regular habit cuz
I mean no matter how long you been doing
this no matter how good you are
doing it other people are better than
you other people are doing things you’re
not doing and the more of those things
you expose yourself to even if you don’t
get a direct lesson from it you never
know what that’s going to unlock in your
life and in your work so just you know
keep learning stay humble do good work
wonderful
Matt it’s a pleasure thank you thank you
very much till next time