Yes, Sales is Sales, and Marketing is Marketing. I’m not suggesting you combine them. But the results can be extraordinary when the two work together.
I’ve been making the case for aligning sales and marketing for years. In the very first issue of KickStart Accelerator, our monthly newsletter back in 2003, I wrote TOGETHER – Sales and Marketing. That article, still available on our website, continues to be a top content draw to the site with nearly 5% of pageviews consistently month after month, and the concepts in it are genuinely timeless. Nothing in that article is out of date today.
The article addresses three key points:
Talk to each other – Developing shared goals, objectives and metrics is essential to the success of each group. The time you invest in jointly discussing what it will take to increase sales, what is most important — revenue or market share — will pay for itself. Sales and Marketing management must commit to the conversation. Marketing’s plan must take the sales cycle into account. It is not OK to assume you know what the other group is thinking. And don’t just discuss plans together once. Do it every quarter, religiously! Put the next meeting on the calendar during the current one.
Share information – You’re probably sharing technology for logging and tracking leads through a common system. (If not, get on it NOW! Contact us if you need help.) But there is other information you need to share, too. All Marketing-produced content and tools must be easily and clearly accessible to Sales. A competitive information database is important to both groups; Sales has the better handle on the competition, and they need to feed it back to Marketing so marketing programs stay competitive. Win-Loss reporting needs to be entered by Sales into a shared database and studied on a regular basis by Marketing.
Discuss how things are going – Marketing produces messaging, sales tools, campaigns and leads. But handing them off to Sales with no follow-up discussion is faulty. Arrange for a panel of veteran sales reps to provide feedback periodically on what is most effective in the field. Sales commonly complains about the quality of leads they get, so make sure you have a shared definition of what constitutes a qualified lead. Both groups may contribute to social networks. If it isn’t what the other group needs, criticism needs to be constructive, with indications of what will improve prospect and customer interactions.
Think of Sales as Marketing’s customer. Develop a sense of partnership between the two groups, and everyone wins!
Other relevant KickStart articles and blog posts:
⁃ Time for Marketing to Synchronize with Sales – (2007)
⁃ Marketing’s Role as Sales Enabler – (2010)
⁃ Kick Down the Sales Silo Walls – (2010)
⁃ Marketing – Helping Sales Sell – (2011)