I’ve been a marketer for a B2B company for the past six years. I love my job, but lately, I’ve been thinking that it’s time to grow my career in a new direction. In my considerations, I decided to speak with sale colleagues, as maybe this would be a good fit for me.
Many of the people with whom I spoke travel to a different city each day of the week, constantly in transit and, sometimes, without access to Wi-Fi. Their main struggle is finding time between travel to sit and accomplish work.
Mike Murray, CMO of Mediafly, put it best when he said, “Sales professionals, by nature, are master jugglers. And it’s not a knock at them, it’s just that they simply don’t have the time in the day to keep all the balls in the air.”
That’s where the B2Sweat story comes into play.
After talking to many friends in sales, it was apparent to me that the following scenario takes place more often than not. Sales professionals return home after a long week on the road only to be reminded that they have a pitch meeting early the following morning…. and it’s their responsibility to create the pitch deck.
Hours spent finding marketing-approved content and lots of stress later, the sales colleague finishes a 50-page deck for the next morning—equipped with short videos and fancy touches—a guarantee to impress.
When the meeting starts, internet connectivity is limited, and the video won’t play. Now the sales colleague is nervous and the beads of sweat start to form above his lip.
Once the meeting ends, the sales colleague sends a follow up presentation to the customer, but he has limited visibility into if or when the customer receives and opens the deck. The sales colleague has lost control of the situation, and the beads of sweat are now dripping from his face.
Mediafly has solved the B2Sweat dilemma.
Mediafly has designed an evolved sales enablement platform that works both online and offline enabling the creation of marketing-approved presentation decks in as little as five to ten minutes. From the airport to the backseat of a cab, all the information created by the company’s marketing department and any additional sales content is hosted within the mobile application, available off or online.
As Murray explained, 70% of marketing material created within an organization is never used. The disconnect between sales and marketing is frustrating, and for both departments to be successful, they must closely align.
With Mediafly’s evolved selling platform, when ad hoc questions arise during pitch meetings, sales can easily find the pieces of content needed to address the questions and answer them on the spot. After the meeting, all notes are automatically logged in CRM and viewership of follow-up material can be tracked.
Similarly, the marketing team can view when a sales colleague is using their content, helping them to tailor their creative efforts on the format types most utilized.
To bring benefit to more organizations, Mediafly joined the SAP Ariba Network.
Just as Mediafly helps sales colleagues save time and succeed with their customers, SAP Ariba Discovery is helping Mediafly grow its customer base. Before joining the SAP Ariba Network, Mediafly was transacting with very big organizations, yet had no visibility into payment dates. “Because of that, I had to be hyper-conservative from a resource deployment perspective. With SAP Ariba, I have visibility to know when I’m getting paid, and that visibility allows me to allocate capital in a very efficient manner,” said John Evarts, COO and CFO at Mediafly. With visibility and dynamic discounting options, Evarts eliminates the beads of sweat from forming in his world.
Both internally and with its customers, Mediafly is leveraging technology to enhance human interactions. The purpose of solutions like that of Mediafly and SAP Ariba is not to eliminate human relationships, but to make them stronger.
Through the SAP Ariba Network, Mediafly has strengthened its relationships with its customers. Evarts continued, “The best thing about SAP Ariba is the quality of not only the preferred customers, but also the quality of the relationships we’ve built on the network. It’s a very different process. We have multiple touchpoints with the customers, and that really does allow us to build a cohesive story for them.”
In the future, Mediafly plans to utilize SAP Ariba Discovery in a larger capacity. “We’ve got neat opportunities from a visibility perspective. We’ve got large customers, and honestly, the reason why I think Discovery is a really good opportunity is large companies like to buy from folks that sell to other large, well-known companies.”
My Future is Still Unclear
I’m still not sure if a role in sales is the best place for me. However, as a marketer, with a solution like Mediafly, regardless of my direction, I could more effectively drive success for my employer. When the beads of sweat are eliminated from both sides of the business, it’s a win-win for all.
For more on how Mediafly is leveraging SAP Ariba, watch this video interview with John Evarts, COO and CFO.
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