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Account Based Sales / Marketing
Yesterday I woke up feeling super doogish (what else is new amirite?). I wrote an extremely long winded poast about UW's recruiting strategy and modern sales strategies which I described in detail, and then the Vanilla Gods chose to smite me and sent it to oblivion never to be seen again.
Lesson un-learned Vanilla Gods. I'm poasting it again and in only slightly less words.
Coach Pete employs an Account Based Sales / Marketing strategy which is extremely work-intensive and a long process. It can be frustrating to investors (poasters at HH) who are looking for one call closes and immediate sales instead of a multiple conference calls, on-site visits, and product demos in a year long sales-cycle.
ABS/ABM Model:
- Know the product you provide inside and out and who the target market for that product is
- Research your prospects and understand company history, core values, services they provide, and how your product fits and will make them profitable
- Provide detailed deployment and implementation strategy as well continued customer support and upgrades for lifespan of product
- Get buy-in from the end user (player) as well as decision makers (parents) involved with purchasing process
- Fewer accounts to manage, higher close rate, larger deal size, bigger profit margin, and less unpaid invoices or product returns
All of this is supported by the smaller number of offers given out by UW, the ratio of commits to offers, level of player development by the staff (young stars joined by unexpected productive seniors) , and the amount of players going to the NFL.
Not only that, but target markets start to hear about the services provided, the end user support, and the continued upgrades and start sending out Requests for Proposals.
Case in point, Elias Ricks' quote two days ago, "“They said they like me but just want to get to know me as a person first and I actually like that. Washington doesn’t just throw out a bunch of offers, you have to earn it and I respect that.”
Not all prospect companies are willing to sign off on such a large PO and implementation timeline, but not every company wants to be successful.
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- Buy a lead list from a data company that has not been scrubbed for bunk leads
- Do a quick glimpse of prospect company websites to know what their name is, their HQ, and a brief glimpse of their products and skills
- Cold call every lead on the list looking for someone to pick up the phone and point you in the right direction, then repeat weekly
- Find anyone who can use the company credit card, regardless of their spending limits or need for purchase approval for a large PO
- Too large of a book of business to manage, failure to develop relationships, small close rate, collection calls for unpaid invoices, high product return rate
If you're unfamiliar with this model and need an example, I found one just for you!
Oregon fan says they've never even heard of most of the kids they've offered. Wonders if the staff just trying to get their attention, and isn't sure how they can keep track of it all or manage to see each of the prospects to evaluate them.
Duck mod responds:
"Nowadays you have to cast as wide of net as possible. You also just never know which kids from the southeast are more inclined to move west. Have to shoot your shot. Some of these names will never resurface, others will be kids we’ll hear often."
"So far they have 266 sent to 2019 kids, and 91 to 2020 kids. Nearly 100 for a class that won's sign for 20 months at the earliest. That's how you get it done."
I can live as a frustrated doog, but I'd fucking kill myself if I had to deal with that shit.
There isn't any dispute that CP's recruiting process is effective. Especially in maintaining verbal commitments once the sale is made.
The beef of many poasters isn't the process but the target market. CP artificially restricts the target market and thereby places a self-imposed upper limit on his success.
The other beef is more recently he seems to be taking one of his most important customer bases (in state) for granted. The concern is that these customers could feel slighted by other customers receiving preferential treatment. This is even more concerning since extremely fast growth is forecasted for this segment of the market in 2020 and 2021.
Not everyone can do that.
See: Willie Taggart, Sark, that UCLA guy ...
Taggart can connect with "fast strategy" kids or identify with the Black experience ... but development and success is still more than questionable.
Petersen is White as White can be ... but he's successful and even the fast strategy kids can see that ... getting them to sign on the dotted line is harder than it looks because it takes alot to overcome inertia for a FS kid to say "fuck it, this white dude is successful, I see it in the team record the last few years, I see it in the draft ... i'm going to Washington even though Slick Willie "resonates" with my blackness more ..."
Petersen has taken steps to rectify this without selling out totally ... hiring Will Harris as the 10th coach (and as backup for when Lake leaves), sticking with Malloe who resonates with the Poly recruits etc ... keeping Keith B ... it's a tricky balance between slow and fast strategy coaching players.
Petersen has also tried to massage the message to disguise the fast versus slow strategy approach. He says stuff like "recruits who want to play football versus recruits who want to be recruited ..." or "you want to be recruited or you want to be developed?" ...
Petersen doesn't want a recruit to think "yeah, this white coach loves my ability but he's fighting against my fast strategy roots ..." Petersen wants to appeal to the family who can see the long game and provide the influence over their kid ...
Great embedded Biggie Smalls sentence, though
I'm not knocking Smalls at all, just saying I don't see him as a bigger recruit than PA or RW. All three were the very best in the country at what they did. Brock Huard may or may not be at that level as well, he was Gatorade National POY which seemed like a bfd at the tim but then Kasen Williams was as well and he was clearly a big drop below the other guys as we're discussing as a recruit so I don't know on Brock.
He's fucking great. We need to get him.
All those things were true about RW and PA as well.
Have high standards.
Don’t bullshit yourself into thinking that we’re winning when we’re losing.
Evaluate off whether we are looking more like Bama/Clemson or less like them.
The end.
PA and RW were not that.