Breakthrough is almost over with just one day left. But we’re not winding down — we’re having a blowout party to celebrate the community of RevHeads that came together this week to learn from and lean on each other. We’ll share some pics from tonight’s festivities.
For those who couldn’t make it, or want to relive the day, here’s a rundown of today’s highlights:
Amy Purdy: Life Beyond Limits
Attendees laughed, cried, and cheered for keynote speaker Amy Purdy. She recounted a sudden, near-death experience that resulted in the loss of her legs, and the extraordinary journey she has been on ever since as a Paralympian, author, fashion designer, model, and motivational speaker.
An expert in creativity and problem solving, Purdy sent the message home to attendees that anything is possible, obstacles are opportunities, and of course, her mantra: Inspiration is Contagious.
The Coming Renaissance in B2B and the 2024 Buyer Experience Report
Kerry Cunningham, Head of Research and Thought Leadership at 6sense, shed some light on the “Dark Ages of B2B,” or how misalignment, low conversion rates, defensive buyers, and shrinking budgets have stymied revenue team efforts.
But Cunningham had something positive and truly remarkable to share: We’re right on the edge of a B2B Renaissance, and there are things revenue teams can start doing now to be a part of it.
AI and tools that align revenue teams are key components of the B2B Renaissance, but so is a deep understanding of buyers and their needs. 6sense customers get access to the best tools, but all revenue teams can get important insights from the 2024 Buyer Experience Report.
The latest report, unveiled by Cunningham during his session, reveals:
- How buyers are making decisions
- When they are making key decisions
- Just how thoroughly they are avoiding sales conversations until they’ve already established a favorite
- Mistakes B2B companies make when trying to improve sales numbers
Marketing Track Highlight
Marketing Product Deep Dive
6sense’s SVP of Product, Rahul Sachdev, went over some of the 6sense platform’s more advanced capabilities.
Some key takeaways:
- 6sense’s solutions are designed to streamline marketing tasks and enhance productivity by offering tools to address key pain points in marketing, such as identifying potential customers, automating outbound marketing, and optimizing inbound marketing.
- 6sense empowers revenue teams to take a people-centric approach to marketing. The ability to understand accounts and buying teams at a deeper level allows for more personalized campaigns and outreach that builds trust and moves the needle.
- 6sense has a strong focus on automation that boosts both inbound and outbound marketing. AI agents make sure emails are replied to in a timely manner, intent-based scoring ensures outreach efforts are focused on highly qualified leads, and hyper-personalization tools make it easy for every prospect to get emails crafted specifically for them.
Whether you’re new to 6sense or a power user, there was something in this session for everyone.
Sales Track Highlight
Cold Calling Sucks (And That’s Why It Works)
Don’t let the name of this session fool you: We’re not fans of traditional cold calling at 6sense. We generally restrict direct outreach to instances when we know a buyer is in-market and close to deciding.
But the truth is that even when we have hard data that tells us a prospect is interested and in-market for a solution, sales reps still need to be prepared mentally and emotionally for picking up the phone and starting a conversation with a stranger.
In this session, Ernest Owusu, Director of Sales Development Transformation at 6sense, Ben Funkhouser, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at 6sense, and Nick Cegelski, Founder of 30 Minutes to President’s Club, discussed how to do just that.
Here’s the secret sauce to a successful call:
- Start by calling high-intent prospects, as indicated by the data
- Lead with something that’s going to get their attention, ideally something related to the problem they have that your solution can solve
- Own that this is a cold call, but show the prospect you’ve done your research to disarm them
- Be prepared to give a detailed sales presentation tailored to the account and intent data
If you only take away one thing from this session, it should be this: Going in prepared is the key difference between an average and good cold call.
Ops Track Highlight
Refining 6sense Modeling in Complex Data Environments
In the wake of recent acquisitions, Avetta faced the complex challenge of integrating multiple CRMs, each with unique go-to-market business models targeting the same accounts for different lines of business. This resulted in duplicate accounts, significant data fragmentation, and a whole lot of noise.
In this session, attendees learned how the challenges were fixed. The session was led by Brittany Ecker, VP of Strategy at Zion & Zion , and LT Richards, Senior Director of Marketing Demand Generation at Avetta.
Topics covered included:
- Refreshing your 6sense taxonomy
- Ensuring field mapping accuracy in the CRM and MAP
- Enriching data with correct domain and country information
- Re-running your 6sense predictive model
Takeaway 1: Clean data is a must-have for predictive models
Improving data hygiene was a crucial element of Avetta’s success. Data is constantly changing, and without ongoing efforts to clean, enrich, and update the information feeding into the model, the accuracy of predictors will just continue to degrade over time, they realized.
The company had to audit their entire workflow to ensure their 6sense predictive models were based on accurate and reliable information.
Takeaway 2: Improving data taxonomy improves accuracy
Avetta adopted a methodical process to review their data taxonomy and improve their predictive model. Field mapping and data enrichment were crucial steps in Avetta’s process, as well as building new workflows to correct data and future-proof solutions.
Once their data provided a clearer picture, they re-ran their predictive model, which led to a significant improvement in performance.
Takeaway 3: Trust is critical for adoption of predictive tools
Trust played a pivotal role in the adoption of the predictive model within Avetta. The company recognized that people needed to trust the model’s outputs to effectively act on its insights. It was only with clean data and proven accuracy that the teams had confidence to use the predictive results.
Continuous refinement is also vital for sustained model performance. Avetta monitors accuracy on an ongoing basis, along with conducting regular reviews of their taxonomy process. It’s important to remember this work is never done and requires a continuous feedback loop and dedicated resources for ongoing data management.
RevHead Rewind Party
There ain’t no party like a 6sense party! After three days of learning, attendees donned their favorite ‘90s, ‘80s, or ‘70s fashion to let off some steam at THE Party as KAOS nightclub.
We’ll be back tomorrow with one last Breakthrough recap. But until then, have a most excellent retro evening, and party on, dudes!
