GUEST:
Many people don’t know that before co-founding Pardot, I practiced judo competitively for twenty years, four of which were spent in Japan, where judo is the national sport. When I left Japan, I didn’t expect my background in judo to play such a huge role in shaping Pardot and our marketing automation product.
When broken down, the word judo literally translates to a flexible way, which is very similar to how I see modern B2B marketing and sales. Just like in judo, where you’re constantly adapting to your opponent’s next move, B2B marketers and sales reps are constantly learning from and adapting to their buyers. To be successful, marketers and sales reps must size up the needs of each individual buyer, because every buyer requires a unique approach.
In fact, I’ve seen a lot of these same themes — personalization, buyer-centricity, and flexibility — at the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference, “&THEN.” The conference, which was held in Boston, emphasized how a new generation of data-driven, digital marketers is dominating the B2B landscape. Many of the skills that this new generation values are some of the same skills I learned in judo. Not only have those skills better prepared me for the future of marketing and selling, but they’ve also helped me learn from the past and react appropriately in the present.
Humor me: let’s dive a bit deeper into some of the parallels between judo and the themes discussed at this year’s DMA conference.
Step one: Learn from the past
In judo, your next move is always determined by your opponent’s previous moves, their style, their tournament history — if you think about it, you spend the entire match gathering data on your opponent in order to make the smartest decision possible in that moment. Similarly, at &THEN, we’ve heard a lot about why it’s important to make sense of big data and harness it to gain insights about your buyers. This insight can help marketers make decisions based on buyer activities, interests, demographics, and more — and even more importantly, it can help marketers hone in on the factors that are top of mind for every individual buyer.
Step two: React in the present
As I hinted previously, one of the most important traits needed to succeed at judo is flexibility — and not just in the “I can touch my toes” sense. A huge part of judo is being able to react to your opponents in real time, in the same way that buyers now expect marketers and salespeople to react to their activities and needs.
In fact, according to a recent study by IDC, 78% of B2B buyers expect sales representatives to personalize interactions based on information from their online activities. It’s no wonder we’re seeing real-time personalization crop up as a main theme at this year’s conference. Meeting customers where they are engaging — when they are engaging — and offering content that is tailored to their needs and preferences is quickly becoming the holy grail of modern marketing and selling.
Step three: Prepare for the future
The third judo skill I want to emphasize builds on the previous one. Not only is it important to be flexible and adaptive if you want to succeed at judo, it’s also important to be predictive. Anticipating your opponent’s next move can be the key to success, just as anticipating your buyer’s next move — and how their path might change — can be key to providing a selling experience that your buyers actually enjoy taking part in.
At &THEN, we’ve seen how powerful it can be to involve the buyer in the storytelling process rather than linearly pushing messages at them. Using data gathered by a marketing automation solution, you can anticipate your buyers’ needs and deliver targeted, one-to-one messages at moments of engagement. Think of it this way: in today’s marketing landscape, your buyers are using their activities to tell you what you need to deliver — and when — in order to create a completely unique path to purchase.
I expect we’ll see these themes continue to dominate the B2B marketing and selling landscape over the next year. While I don’t expect to see an increased correlation in B2B marketers and judo practitioners, marketers and sales reps can still harness any of these same skills to better connect with each and every buyer. It’s the companies that are using data to personalize their customer relationships that will soon leave their competition in the dust, if they haven’t already.
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