Following the CIM report at the end of the 2011, everyone has started talking about the business benefits of sales and marketing taking a more joined up approach. In theory it sounds obvious that departments should work closely within an organization, to achieve a common goal. However, one of the biggest challenges faced by organizations is that marketing concepts are based on the ideas of the ‘rational customer,’ while sales have first-hand experience of the ‘irrational customer.’ This can make aligning the disciplines a difficult task.
However, if you’re not exceeding your revenue plan, its indicative that there is a problem and you have to act. In addition, businesses need to have all there ducks in row before they look to grow and add new products or services. There is no doubt your sales and marketing divisions will be aligned to some extent and have the big topics covered, so where are you falling down?
Here are some top tips to fine tune the alignment of sales and marketing.
A lead is a lead, right?: Ensure there is a common understanding over what qualifies as a lead. Do marketing know why sales are rejecting leads? Are sales being overzealous in prequalifying the leads? Tune the pre-pipeline activity.
A problem shared is a problem halved: Encourage cross department briefings, brainstorming and problem solving. Often the answer to one department’s issue is just a department away. The sharing of insights and ideas within the business will enhance your sales potential. Make sure that initiatives and promotions are aligned by developing plans jointly and meeting monthly or at least quarterly.
Extended customer relationship management: Invest in a robust integrated marketing and sales system that is accessible to sales and marketing in order to effectively manage relationships with potential and existing clients. This shared software will allow everyone to track and understand the life cycle of first interest to a repeat customer.
Language drives behaviour: Install the language of value throughout marketing and sales. The marketing team is often focused on tone and presentation and the sales team on targets and orders, so that somewhere along the line the focus on value is lost.
Business briefings deliver success: Keep sales and marketing abreast of new products, services and campaign. A diluted or confused sales message is a worthless one. You need to share information with staff in a consistent and clear fashion to ensure alignment of messaging, collateral and approach. In general look for operational disconnects. Don’t get into the situation where the sales team has an incentive to sell a product that marketing is planning to discontinue in the next month.
Collaborative goals: While inter-department competition spurs on great results, establishing common goals that sales and marketing need to work together to achieve is also invaluable and reinforces the need for an integrated approach. For example, segment the customer base the same way. If marketing have decided that the company should be targeting the pharmaceutical market, ensure every sales manager’s plan has a section on penetration and development of the pharmaceutical market. Also ensure that the sales person’s non-revenue objectives demand calls being made on pharma prospects and customers.
Align on the top customers: Make sure marketing and sales agree who your top customers are to ensure both groups are lavishing discretionary attention on the same ones.
Develop a secondment programme: If you are big enough ensure your top sales talent spends at least a year in marketing and vice versa.
Co-locate: With so much mobility and home working it may be a challenge, but if you can physically co-locate sales and marketing in the same area. You can build all the structured communication you like, but you can’t beat spontaneous water cooler conversations to catch the immediate mood, and if that’s not possible try the following…
Twitter: Your head of marketing and head of sales should be tweeting already, if not make sure they are, run a competition between them to see who can get the most followers from the others department.
Customer advisory board: A lot of larger organizations have a customer advisory board, table a session about how well they think sales and marketing work together and make sure the respective heads of sales and marketing are present.
Provocation: It is perfectly possible that sales and marketing appear to be aligned, they meet together, they project an aligned position, but if they results don’t change it is likely that they have not properly realigned. Get a decent credible third party in to challenge the heads of both departments as to the authenticity of their alignment initiatives, shake out what is really going on and address the problem head on. Hopefully it will never get to this, but you may need to consider recruiting new heads of department.
Sales and marketing alignment is about small gains over time. If this alignment is pursued relentlessly the results will soon speak for themselves. Good luck.
