Are we limping into Q4? Over the last 7 years VLG clients have become somewhat of a predictable barometer of trends in B2B marketing spend. When you dig a little deeper a couple things might be happening as we close out 2011.
If what Marketing Sherpa says is true, the average B2B deal size is shrinking. The conclusion they’ve drawn is tantamount to “lazy salesman” syndrome. (See this blog post.) They must have polled marketing managers. Would it be shocking if sales tried to close deals that are easier to close. No, and this year differs little than any other on that front. Depending on a companies compensation structure I’d say what we see is not sales taking the easy way out, but that complex deals are taking longer to close for a couple reason.
The first would be prospects propensity to perhaps over evaluate a capital or long-term expenditure. In this economy the pressure NOT to screw up a big spend is very real. Uncertainty has a funny way of causing more research and evaluation.
The second cause is an increased number of stakeholders involved in every decision. This will grind any sales cycle to a halt, or at least slow things down a bit. We see this reflected on the marketing front. More and more VLG clients are including “key” decision makers in everything from messaging to the art itself. More stakeholders equals longer build out of marketing programs equals slower roll out of marketing initiatives equals fewer number of sales opportunities.
If only we could blame sales for being lazy. Everything is more complex than it seems.
