Some among us have really strong internal navigation systems. Drop these folks into an unfamiliar place; they can easily figure out how to get where they need to go. Road closed on the way… no problem, they’ll map out a new route on the fly.
But for most of us, the thought of spontaneously devising a route out of unfamiliar territory, or quickly creating the best backup plan when our normal path is not available, makes us sweat. For folks like us, life became dramatically less stressful when navigation systems were introduced to the world, first in our cars and then on our phones. Now, even if I misinterpret the navigation system’s instructions (it’s a thing, believe me), a firm but patient voice reassures me that she is rerouting me and will have me on my way in no time.
It’s not so different for B2B marketers.
Marketing leaders today generally know very well where they need to get to — the goals are clear. But the process of developing a coherent, defensible plan for getting there? That’s a different story. And building contingency plans for disruptions to the route…. forget about it.
That’s not to say that some of us aren’t naturally good at this. And some of us have expert teams of people who do it for us. But that’s not the majority. Most of us get that clammy feeling in the palms of our hands when we sit down with our team to start the planning process. It’s going to be spreadsheets and inconsistent data — and we know there’s going to be plenty of guesswork involved. The question is: How much of the planning will be guesswork? How good will those guesses be, and which of those guesses might come back to crush us? As a former colleague used to say, “Time to hold your nose and plan!”
And that’s why we have acquired Fortella. Fortella is an AI-driven solution that ingests and rationalizes all the relevant data from across our internal systems — including pipeline and revenue generation success rates — then builds out the plan for achieving our revenue goals.
However, as with any navigation system, just plotting the initial route isn’t enough. So Fortella also monitors progress toward the goal, and when it notices we are either off track or that there might be a better route to the goal — if a segment is underperforming, for example — it alerts us to the potential shortfall and recommends new routes to goal.
These planning and monitoring capabilities bookend the capabilities 6sense customers already enjoy for uncovering ideal customers and prospects, noticing whenever they are in-market, and orchestrating marketing and sales campaigns to attract and engage them. With Fortella, 6sense customers will be alerted when their current plans are not trending to goal and will see which programs and tactics are in the red. Armed with these advance warnings, revenue teams can redirect budget to more productive audience and tactic combinations to get back on track toward goal.
We are incredibly excited about this acquisition. 6sense already had the most complete platform for B2B teams to predictably achieve revenue growth. The Fortella acquisition extends the existing capabilities on both sides of the process, ensuring that 6sense customers have best-in-class pipeline planning and forecasting capabilities.
To kick things off, Rahul Sachdev, CEO and founder of Fortella, and I will be hosting a webinar on September 21, 2021. We can’t wait to share with you what’s in store.
You can watch the on-demand recording here.
