Agile Product Development

B2B Partnermanagement

As a B2B Partner Manager, my primary responsibility is to cultivate and maintain strong relationships with other businesses that we collaborate with or are interested in collaborating with. This involves a multifaceted approach that includes several key aspects.

1. Identifying potential partners: This process involves analyzing market trends, attending conferences, and networking with industry professionals.

2. Negotiating agreements: Once a potential partner has been identified, I work on developing a mutually beneficial agreement 

3. Maintaining relationships: To ensure the long-term success of our partnerships, I maintain regular communication with our partners to discuss progress, address any concerns, and identify new opportunities for collaboration. 

4. Coordinating joint initiatives: This includes managing timelines, allocating resources, and tracking progress to ensure that both parties are working towards a common goal.

Spirituality and a growth mindset are instrumental in fostering strong relationships in this role. By incorporating both of these elements, I can create an environment that encourages collaboration, understanding, and personal growth. Furthermore, my education in growth and spirituality has played a crucial role in helping me put my ego aside and make better decisions and actions.

Spirituality allows me to approach negotiations and communications with empathy and compassion, helping me stay grounded and mindful during interactions. By being present and attentive, I can better understand our partners' needs and concerns, leading to more effective problem-solving and decision-making. This spiritual foundation also supports my ability to recognize and manage my ego, enabling me to prioritize the best interests of the partnership over my personal ambitions or biases.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of learning and development, motivating me to embrace challenges and view setbacks as opportunities for growth. This mindset promotes adaptability and resilience, which are essential qualities in the dynamic world of B2B partnerships. Additionally, it encourages me to continuously seek self-improvement and personal growth, which ultimately results in better decision-making and more effective actions.

Incorporating spirituality and a growth mindset into my approach as a B2B Partner Manager enables me to build more meaningful connections with our partners, ultimately leading to successful collaborations that drive mutual growth and benefit both parties. By putting my ego aside and focusing on the greater good, I can create lasting partnerships that foster trust, understanding, and shared success.

Strategical Marketing

As a business development professional with a strategic marketing background, I understand the importance of aligning sales and marketing efforts and integrating them through a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Strategic Marketing

Strategic marketing revolves around setting goals, planning marketing efforts, and implementing strategies to achieve these goals. It involves a deep understanding of your market and customers, and the ability to anticipate market trends and changes. My experience in strategic marketing has equipped me with the skills to identify growth opportunities, segment the market, position a business in the market effectively, and create a compelling value proposition.

Strategic marketing also involves understanding the customer journey and creating targeted marketing campaigns to guide potential customers from awareness to purchase, and beyond. It focuses on long-term customer engagement and loyalty, driving customer satisfaction and repeat business.

Sales and Marketing Connection

Sales and marketing are two sides of the same coin, and their close alignment is crucial for business success. When these two functions are coordinated, businesses can ensure a seamless customer journey, from the first point of contact to the closing of a sale and post-sales service.

This alignment is especially important in CRM. CRM systems are not just sales tools, but are equally important for marketing. They provide a comprehensive view of each customer, which helps in personalizing marketing efforts, nurturing leads effectively, and making sales efforts more targeted and successful.

CRM Integration and Scrum Project Management

As a Scrum project manager, I oversee CRM integration projects, ensuring that sales and marketing are effectively connected. I work in iterative cycles, called sprints, where we set specific goals and work collaboratively to achieve them. This approach gives businesses the flexibility to adapt to changes and the ability to regularly review and optimize the CRM system based on real-time feedback.

By integrating CRM into their operations, businesses can leverage the shared knowledge of the sales and marketing teams, coordinate their efforts, and provide a better, more consistent customer experience. Ultimately, a well-integrated CRM system enhances both marketing and sales effectiveness, leading to increased customer satisfaction and business growth.

Sales Management

I have 18 years experience in B2B sales in the digital branche and I have attended multiple professional sales-trainings. 

But what makes b2b sales special?

In my experience, the key differences between B2B and B2C sales lie in the target audience, sales process, and relationship building.

In B2B sales, I've dealt with businesses as clients, focusing on building long-term relationships and navigating more complex sales processes involving multiple decision-makers and tailored solutions.

On the other hand, B2C sales typically involve selling directly to individual consumers, offering standardized products, and aiming for high volumes of one-time transactions.

These distinctions have shaped my approach and the skills needed for success in each sales environment.

Through my longterm work as a B2B Sales Representative, I've come to realize the importance of personal skills in building relationships, effectively presenting information, and closing deals. While working in the field, I've noticed that certain personal skills have significantly contributed to my success:

1. Active Listening: By attentively listening to clients, I can better understand their needs and concerns, allowing me to offer tailored solutions that address their specific requirements.

2. Emotional Intelligence: In my role, I've found that being aware of and managing my emotions, as well as understanding and navigating the emotions of others, is crucial for building trust and fostering strong client relationships.

3. Persuasion: The ability to convincingly present the value of our products or services has been vital in helping me secure deals and drive growth for our company.

4. Time Management: Balancing multiple tasks and priorities efficiently, while still maintaining a focus on building relationships and closing deals, has been an essential skill in my role as a sales representative.

5. Adaptability: In my experience, being able to adjust to changing circumstances, such as shifting client needs or market trends, has been vital for staying ahead in the competitive B2B landscape.

6. Problem Solving: I've found that the ability to think critically and creatively in order to address client concerns and find mutually beneficial solutions is instrumental in my role as a sales representative.

By honing these personal skills throughout my career as a B2B Sales Representative, I've been able to build strong client relationships, effectively present our products and services, and ultimately close deals that drive revenue and growth for our company.

Last but not least, I've found that utilizing software and embracing digitalization have been invaluable in helping me stay organized, efficient, and competitive in the rapidly evolving sales landscape. In my experience, the following digital tools and software have significantly impacted my work:

1. CRM Systems: Leveraging Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems has enabled me to track and manage client interactions, set reminders for follow-ups, and store crucial information that helps me tailor my approach to each client's specific needs and preferences.

2. Sales Analytics Tools: By utilizing sales analytics tools, I can analyze my performance, identify trends, and discover areas where I need to improve. This data-driven approach helps me make informed decisions and adapt my sales strategies accordingly.

3. Collaboration Platforms: In my role, collaborating with other team members is essential. Digital collaboration platforms have allowed us to share information, discuss strategies, and coordinate efforts seamlessly, even when working remotely.

Project management with scrum

As a freelancer, I provide companies with comprehensive CRM integration and content marketing services based on the principles of Scrum. A key benefit of using Scrum is that it gives my clients permanent cost control, a transparent overview of project progress, and the right to co-design.

The iterative and incremental nature of Scrum allows my clients to see exactly what was accomplished in each sprint and how costs were incurred. They have the ability to influence the priorities for the next sprint, allowing them to actively shape development. This level of transparency and control ensures that the end product is exactly what my customers need and expect.

Application of Scrum for CRM integrations

The application of Scrum in CRM integrations usually consists of several steps:

1.) Product Backlog Creation: first, I create a product backlog that contains all the desired features and requirements for the CRM integration. Each item on the backlog is represented as a "user story," which describes what a user expects from the system.

2.) Sprint Planning: We then plan a "sprint" together - a fixed period of time (usually two to four weeks) during which a specific set of user stories from the product backlog is worked through.

3.) Sprint: During the sprint, I work intensively on implementing the selected user stories and designing the CRM system according to the company's requirements.

4.) Daily Scrum: 15 Minutes (!) Daily Scrum meetings help me to stay in touch with the team, allow to check the progress and to identify and solve any obstacles.

5.) Sprint Review & Retrospective: At the end of each sprint, I conduct a sprint review in which the product increment developed in the sprint is presented to the company. The subsequent retrospective allows us to reflect on the process and identify areas for improvement.

Finally, with a tool like HubSpot, I can link the generated leads to sales via automated marketing. This allows sales to respond directly to qualified leads and convert them into customers.

By using Scrum, I can manage my projects in a flexible and agile way, maintain an overview and react quickly to changes. This ensures that the companies I support get the most out of their CRM and content marketing initiatives.

Content Marketing

In today's digital world, content marketing is not only important, it's critical. It strengthens your brand, creates an engaged audience, and ultimately increases your sales.

As a content marketing specialist, I'll help you create relevant, engaging content that aligns with your target audience and meets their needs. Using the professional tool Contentbird, I can streamline your content marketing process.

Effectively linking content marketing and sales through a suitable CRM system is an important step in guiding potential customers through the entire sales funnel. Here's how it works:

1. content creation with a focus on the target audience.

First, create relevant and valuable content that is aligned with the needs and interests of your target audience. This content could include blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, videos, infographics and more. Careful keyword research will ensure that the content is found by your target audience.

2. lead generation through content

Through your content, visitors to your website can be converted into leads. For example, you could offer an e-book or newsletter that requires visitors to leave their email address. This contact information is then entered into your CRM system.

3. lead nurturing and segmentation

In the next step, the CRM system uses the collected data to nurture and segment the leads. By analyzing how leads interact with your content, you can better understand what they're interested in and what stage of the buying process they're at. This information helps you send personalized follow-up messages that are tailored to each lead's specific needs and interests.

4. sales support

Finally, the CRM system supports sales by providing them with relevant information about the leads. Sales reps can see what content the leads have consumed, what pages they have visited, and what actions they have taken. This enables sales to respond to leads individually and provide them with suitable offers.

By effectively linking content marketing and sales through a CRM system, you can ensure that you are sending the right messages to the right people at the right time. This increases the likelihood of leads converting to customers and ultimately contributes to your business success.

My process:

My content marketing process is divided into several stages:

1.) Strategy development: I start by identifying the needs of your target audience and setting clear goals for your content marketing strategy.

2.) Keyword research: thorough keyword research is essential to ensure your content is found by your target audience. With Contentbird, I can identify relevant keywords that will improve your visibility in search engines.

3.) Content creation: based on the keyword research and the defined strategy, I create high-quality, engaging content that strengthens your brand and engages your target audience.

4.) Dissemination and Promotion: once the content is created, I focus on its dissemination and promotion. This can be done through organic search results, social media or paid advertising.

5) Analysis and optimization: Last, I analyze the performance of your content and adjust my strategy accordingly to ensure continuous improvements.

As your content marketing specialist, I'm here to help you optimize your content marketing and achieve your goals. I look forward to working with you!