Best Account Based Marketing Interview Questions and Answers
- Question 1. We Are New To Abm; What Types Of Companies Are Using Abm Successfully?
Answer :
It’s less about the type of company you are and more about whether ABM makes sense for your business — and is something that you can actually do. If you’d benefit from aligning your sales and marketing against a list of specific companies rather than a profile of companies, then it could be an effective tactic for you.
For example: if your products / solutions are “considered purchase” (complex, longer cycle, multi-constituent, more expensive) rather than transactional, you’ll likely do better with ABM. - Question 2. Which Team Is Typically Responsible For Prioritizing Accounts: Sales Or Marketing?
Answer :
This will depend on your approach and your organization. If you are using a process or technology to dynamically prioritize accounts, this will typically fall to Marketing. However, Sales must be aligned on the methodology. If you are using a static prioritization, it could be either or both. - Question 3. Can You Elaborate More On What A “buying Center” Is? How Can Sales Identify And Tag Appropriately In A Crm?
Answer :
When we say “buying center,” we are talking about a group of people within an organization who typically make purchase decisions together, regardless of whether they are in the same physical location. Most CRMs allow you to track these people as a group within an “Opportunity”; however, that record is lost once the Opportunity is closed. This is why we sometimes add a custom object into CRM systems to store this information, as it is an important element in understanding how an account makes purchases. - Question 4. Can You Provide An Example Of An “account Engagement Score”?
Answer :
An account engagement score is a number on a relative scale that represents the collective engagement of contacts within an account. Most CRMs and marketing automation tools are not created to present this view of activity across an account. Different ABM tools have different ways of calculating their version of an engagement score at the account level.
For example: Engager’s score is based on the concept of “engagement minutes,” which assigns the amount of time people might engage with different assets, then rolls up all that time by contacts within an organization into a total engagement score for the account. If you want the account engagement score to be part of your metrics mix, it is important to understand how the different tools calculate it and pick the tool that is the most meaningful to your business. - Question 5. Do You Have Any Economic Suggestions For Managing Offline Data And Ip Targeting?
Answer :
If you are already using and paying for a marketing automation platform (MAP), it’s worth it to speak to your rep about what type of IP targeting tools they offer. Marketo, for example, offers reverse IP identification at a fraction of the cost of many of the tools out there right now. - Question 6. How Do You Assign Revenue Opportunities That Are Unique To Abm-generated Accounts? In Other Words, How Can You Show An Abm Strategy Drives Real Revenue Compared To Non-abm?
Answer :
The short answer is to “wire up” an Accounts view of your pipeline in your CRM so you can monitor activities at the account level. This is not how CRMs natively report, so it will require someone who knows what they are doing. A more simple way would be to monitor revenue for your ABM accounts and assume “correlation is causation” for marketing activities. - Question 7. We Are Using Salesforce.com As Our Crm — How Well Will It Work To Support Our Efforts?
Answer :
The short answer is that it works well, but you’ll have to make some adjustments. One tip is to start adjusting your data structure so that Accounts = Locations and Master Accounts = Accounts. This restructuring connects multiple locations to the Master Accounts and will allow you to have an accounts-based view of the data.
You’ll also need to do some work to produce reports that provide an accounts-based pipeline view instead of a leads / opportunities view. You’ll need to use a third-party tool or find someone to assist you with making these adjustments, as this is not an “out of the box” feature. - Question 8. We Have A Lot Of Opinions About What Accounts Should Be On Our Abm List. How Do We Decide Which To Target?
Answer :
It all should stem from your data! At the very minimum, internal opinions should be validated against a few years of sales information to create a firm graphic profile of your most profitable accounts. The profile should then line up with the companies on your named accounts list. You should also look for external sources to verify, such as predictive profiling, to ensure your teams’ intuition is on track. Taking these steps should not add a lot of time to your process; it’s really just a matter of weeks, or a month at the most. - Question 9. We Go After A Short List Of Accounts With Very Big Opportunities. What Should We Do Differently?
Answer :
A small list of named accounts — say, 10 accounts that are representative of multi-million dollar contracts — provides an opportunity for one-to-one ABM strategies. Consider targeting each account’s corporate headquarters with surround marketing, using out-of-home buys, geo-targeted direct marketing, and a dedicated pursuit budget to create really specific sales materials and videos. In this case, automation and scale matter a lot less. Targeted, insight-driven, custom care and feeding to these key accounts matter a lot more! - Question 10. Can You Provide A Suggestion On How We Should Holistically Plan For Abm From The Get-go, Including Third-party Technology Recommendations?
Answer :
A great starting point is to download our ABM Roadmap and share it with your team. It’s a tool built to provide you with a thorough overview of the seven areas you need to focus on to execute ABM successfully from the “crawl,” “walk” and “run” perspectives. It also provides information on the types of tools you may want to invest in at different stages. - Question 11. Who Is Abm?
Answer :
ABM (NYSE:ABM) is a leading provider of integrated facility solutions nationally. Thousands of commercial, industrial, government and retail clients outsource their non-core functions to ABM for consistent quality service that meets their specialized facility needs. ABM’s comprehensive capabilities include expansive facility services, energy solutions, commercial cleaning, maintenance and repair, HVAC, power, electrical, landscaping, parking and security, provided through stand-alone or integrated solutions.
With more than $5.0 billion in revenues and over 100,000 employees deployed throughout the United States and various international locations, ABM delivers custom facility solutions to meet the unique client requirements of multiple industries - ranging from healthcare, government and education to high-tech, aviation and manufacturing. ABM leverages its breadth of services, deep industry expertise and technology-enabled workforce to preserve and build value for clients’ physical assets. ABM Industries Incorporated, which operates through its subsidiaries, was founded in 1909. - Question 12. What Is Abm’s Commitment To Customer Service?
Answer :
ABM, like MSI, makes every effort to satisfy its customers and build meaningful relationships. The formal program in Building & Energy Solutions is called “CARE” and it is a program that is implemented in every office for every customer to ensure that the right level of contact is made by the right person at the right time to ascertain and confirm customer satisfaction, and build relationships and rapport for the long term. Similar to MSI, ABM’s goal is to be the leading provider of Integrated Facility Solutions. - Question 13. Will There Be Any Organizational Changes?
Answer :
Paul Robinson will work as an executive sponsor on the integration team to support Doug Smyers, ABM Sr. Vice President & GM and Carl Jobe, Vice President of Operations in their new expanded roles. Our goal is to find a new facility that will accommodate the combined operations. Everyone else will continue in their current roles leading the daily activities of the company and participating in the strategic planning activities with the management team of ABM Building & Energy Solutions. Paul’s new title will be Vice President of Business Development for ABM Texas. Carl Jobe’s new title will be Vice President of Operations for ABM Dallas. There will be very few visible day-to-day changes in the organization that you come in contact with daily. We will soon be introducing the MSI team to the greater Texas ABM team located in other facilities in the Dallas metro area. The closest ABM office to MSI is the ABM Business & Industry Office just one exit away off of Regal Row.
MSI IT infrastructure will be evaluated and new servers/computers will be provided where required to meet ABM’s IT security requirements as a public company. The IT evaluation is planned to occur within 60 days. - Question 14. What Do I Tell Customers When They Ask Me Why We Were Purchased By Abm?
Answer :
This is a fair question that may be asked by your clients and industry associates. Paul selected ABM because the cultures, business philosophies and market focus aligned. These similar values ensure continued focus on our current clients and create new opportunities for growth. It should be emphasized that every member of the MSI leadership team will stay in their current roles and continue to operate the business except for Paul who will assume an expanded role to grow ABM in Texas and Carl assuming all Operational responsibilities for the combines entity. - Question 15. What Are The Goals And Objectives Of Our New Organization?
Answer :
Clearly we all want to maintain the current service levels and business relationships through the transition so as to minimize the impact on our customers. Our ultimate goal is to grow the business through connecting customer contacts with cross-selling opportunities for all ABM companies, in order to take advantage of all our available service offerings, and increase our ability to serve our customers. We will continue to live our goal of meeting and exceeding customer expectations.
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