In this episode, Mike talks with Jen Spencer about the role of sales and marketing in demand generation and her new role as CRO at SmartBug Media. 

Key Takeaways:

• You have to make hard decisions when it comes to demand generation, having data helps. 
• Organizations struggle when they don’t have that data - it becomes an emotional decision when data is absent.
• Use data to tell a story.
• Failure comes when you’re not aligned across the board.
• We are still in the early days of the CRO role in organizations, it will change things. But, we are in the early adoption stage of that philosophy.
• Cross-functional collaboration among teams is starting to emerge.
• Most people are sitting on a ton of data and they don’t know how to access it or organize it in a way that is useful.
• Initially it seems hard to justify carving out time to set up data gathering/documenting correctly, but it is worth it to spend the time upfront. Lay the foundation as early as you can. 
• Job shadowing work - members of the team participating in some of the conversations they might not otherwise, offers great insight and the ability to ask different types of questions of the client. 
• We don’t sell alone. Leverage members of your team to set better alignment. 
• Everything needs to roll back up to company goals and initiatives. Then it is about pulling the right levers. 

Show Links: 

• Jen on LinkedIn
• SmartBug Media website
• Revenue Collective
• SDR Nation

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