4 out of 4 stars
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ABM is B2B: Why B2B Marketing and Sales Is Broken and How to Fix It, written by Sangram Vajre and Eric Spett, abridges a wealth of literature about marketing. But first of all, let’s get the acronyms out of the way, shall we? ABM stands for Account-Based Marketing, and B2B is Business-to-Business Marketing. According to the authors, since they are both organizational strategies “designed specifically to create more revenue,” they are the same thing. However, as the title suggests, ABM has the upper hand here. Furthermore, the book promises to demonstrate that ABM can fix how “B2B marketers have found all sorts of ways to screw it up through the years,” and it delivers!
The authors present the most common marketing concepts and terms in a very instructional manner. They also describe a simple and practical framework to address the core areas of marketing – it is called TEAM: targeting, engagement, activation, and measurement.
I am partial to hands-on, straightforward, and practical handbooks. I tend to love them. This one was right up my alley, for it contained a multitude of real-world business cases and examples in a little less than two hundred pages. I found it to be a fast and instructive read. The tone is conversational and fun, with amusing quotes. For instance, “Half the money I spend on marketing is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
A good part of the book (almost half of it) encompasses references to content available in a site named FlipMyFunnel. The resources include summaries of daily podcasts, books, and interviews featuring business leaders talking about marketing, sales, and leadership. I was pleasantly surprised to see notable names such as Jeff Bezos (founder, chairman, and CEO of Amazon) and Peter Drucker (legendary management guru). I enjoyed how the key takeaways got presented.
Most of all, I was positively impressed by how aesthetically pleasing the book’s layout is; I found this to be a noteworthy positive point. The pages’ outline and typographic design were beautifully done and looked professional. The text does contain some minor grammatical errors, but most of them are related to comma misusage and do not detract from the reading experience at all.
In closing, I rate the book 4 out of 4 stars. There’s nothing I disliked about it. It will surely appeal to business executives, especially those directly involved with marketing and sales. I also believe it can be a useful textbook for college students in the field. I don’t think it will appeal to those who have no ties whatsoever to the business world.
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ABM is B2B.
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