
In this lecture you take apart the agreement between marketing and sales block by block, so you can see who you have agreed to call a buyer, what makes a lead worth a call, what happens in the first hours after the handover, how a lead comes back with a reason, and how the two sides review it together when there are too few deals to trust a percentage.
This course is built from five disciplines: product management, communications and PR, marketing channels, sales leadership and revenue operations.
The map of the course
A simple dictionary for reading lectures recorded for other fields as business marketing
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Lead Handover Agreement and fill in one line after each lecture.
Tools in this lecture
Files to download (1)
How the role evolved, and how it differs from the technical and commercial ones
Being the voice of the customer where decisions get made
Balancing business, users and technology
What that balance costs when it tips
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Models and methods explained (3)
Vision and mission for what you sell
Finding product-market fit, and sustaining it once found
Strategic priorities
Linking what you build to what the business needs
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (21)
Models and methods explained (4)
The life cycle, stage by stage
The BCG and McKinsey matrices applied to a real portfolio
Deciding whether to invest, maintain or retire
Balancing the core, the adjacent and the bets
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (13)
Models and methods explained (2)
Methods for researching market and customer need
Jobs to be Done, and design thinking
Customer journey mapping
Tools for validating a hypothesis before you build on it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (11)
Models and methods explained (15)
Roles: managers, designers, analysts, researchers
Tribes, squads and goal alignment
Agile and Lean as an operating model
A culture of experiment rather than opinion
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (12)
Models and methods explained (6)
The north star metric and the ones supporting it
AARRR, the pirate metrics
Product analytics tooling
Making decisions on the data rather than around it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (9)
Models and methods explained (3)
Freemium, subscription, transaction and licence models
Growth loops and product-led growth
Unit economics, and lifetime value against acquisition cost
Financial accountability for what you sell
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (4)
Models and methods explained (10)
What changes as the company grows
Supporting expansion into new markets
Technology and market risk
Building security and compliance into the process rather than onto it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (9)
Models and methods explained (2)
Driving digital change from a commercial seat
Artificial intelligence and platform business models
Partner ecosystems and open innovation
What the role looks like next
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Models and methods explained (1)
How the function evolved
Where it sits in the structure, and what the chief executive expects
The areas of responsibility
The competencies the job needs now, and how to assess your own
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Models and methods explained (3)
What a communications strategy is, and what it is not
Linking it to growth, trust, investment and sales
Reputation as an intangible asset
Key narratives, the messaging framework, and the measures
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (4)
Models and methods explained (6)
Media, social platforms, owned channels and opinion leaders
Corporate communication against external communication
In-house against agency, and building the team
The communications calendar
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
Models and methods explained (4)
Why a leader's public profile is a company asset
The architecture of that profile
Thought leadership, speaking, interviews and social platforms
Managing the risk, and the boundaries of publicity
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Models and methods explained (3)
Types of crisis, and the risks that precede them
The response team, and the principles it works to
Media, social platforms and employees addressed at once
The mistakes companies repeat
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (11)
Why reach stopped meaning anything
Output, outcome and impact as three separate questions
Reputation indices and trust measures
Linking it to business results, and defending the budget
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (9)
Models and methods explained (10)
Running the promotion function end to end
Launching a site that works as the entry point
Gamification at the moment of first contact
Building a community, with a case from Wargaming
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (4)
Models and methods explained (5)
Platforms and chat channels
Referral programmes as an organic distribution channel
Tracking systems and chatbots
Building the programme, with a case from Google
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (13)
Models and methods explained (1)
Email as a channel you own outright
Content marketing, video marketing and search optimisation together
Writing copy that gets read, and choosing images
A case from iDeals
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (7)
Search advertising
Analytics set up before the money is spent
Remarketing and its formats
Launching a first campaign, with cases
Tools in this lecture
Services and apps shown in this lecture (2)
Models and methods explained (2)
Paid social advertising
LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and X, one at a time
Setting up company pages everywhere
Cases
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (9)
Analytics for the function
Cost per result, and time to result
The source and the quality of the people who came
A report you can run every month
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (5)
How selling today differs from everything before it
How the most successful companies actually sell
What characterises a salesperson who works
Why chat replaced the telephone
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (2)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (1)
Models and methods explained (3)
Which characteristics separate good from outstanding
Building the selection tools step by step
Creating a scorecard
Preparing the questions
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (9)
Models and methods explained (1)
Searching on professional networks
Making contact
Searching through your own team's network
Active search, and the basics of it
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (9)
Services and apps shown in this lecture (10)
Models and methods explained (1)
Who to start with
Running the interview and identifying real motivation
Selling the role rather than describing it
The onboarding programme
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (7)
Models and methods explained (2)
Developing the programme
The core elements of the sales process
How customers actually buy, as opposed to how we describe it
Training on BANT qualification
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (4)
Models and methods explained (5)
Teaching salespeople what their customers actually do all day
Helping the salesperson build a personal brand
Why customers do not trust a salesperson by default
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (1)
Models and methods explained (2)
Coaching based on performance indicators
Introducing a coaching culture
Building the plan with the person rather than for them
Assessing whether the coaching worked
Tools in this lecture
Ready to use on the slides (8)
Models and methods explained (1)
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Selling to a business is not selling to a person in a different tone of voice. It is a different decision, made by more people, over a longer time. Here are 426 tools for it: 260 ready-to-use templates, procedures, checklists, question lists and AI prompts, 116 models and methods, 38 services shown on screen and 12 working files.
Open a lecture, take the template, apply it to your next campaign.
Half the buying cycle happens without you in the room
Five to seven people sign off, each with a private reason to say no. The cycle runs for months, and for most of it the buyer is reading, comparing and asking colleagues, none of which appears in your analytics. By the time somebody fills in a form, the shortlist already exists and you are either on it or you are not.
What changes after this course
You can describe exactly who buys and what job they hire you to do. Your content arms the person who has to defend the choice to their own manager. Your channels are measured by output, outcome and impact. Marketing and sales work under one agreement and one funnel. And revenue operations show where the funnel leaks and what each customer costs and returns.
A note on two blocks
The channel block was recorded around recruitment marketing: the mechanics are general and the examples are about vacancies, which transfer with little loss, since a buyer and a candidate research you the same way. In the sales block, nine lessons are about hiring, training and paying salespeople, because in business selling the salesperson is part of the marketing machine.
What is inside: 426 tools, counted lecture by lecture
You do not have to take this number on trust. Open any lecture and read its description: every tool inside is listed there by name.
Where the tools are
Who is teaching
I am Mike, the #1 HR instructor on Udemy, with 1,800,000+ course enrollments from 170,000 students, and the author of about 200 books on Amazon. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn and worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank across 20 years in HR. I hold PHRi, SHRM-CP and HCI sHRBP certifications and represent HRCI in Eastern Europe. I am also a founder and lead the strategy of my own academy.
At Preply I saw what segmentation gives a business: the marketing team split learners into people building careers, travellers and people building relationships, and built separate programmes for each segment rather than one generic course. At iDeals we needed to understand an audience we barely had inside the company, so we worked with a research partner, agreed a profile, interviewed about twenty people from that audience and built the brand around the five principles they gave us.
How to use the course
Start with the first lecture and agree the definition of a good lead with sales. Then go through the blocks in order, or open the one where your pipeline is weakest. Section and lecture titles show how many tools are inside, and each lecture description lists them by name.
What is included
Where to start
Write down the last three deals you won and when each buyer first heard of you. If the answer is "when they filled in a form", start with the first two blocks. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.