A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to business success. Ian Morgan, client services director at Blue Chip Marketing, provides six steps to enjoying a happy partnership
Sales staff are a sad, disaffected bunch. The relationship between them and the marketing department can often feel like a marriage in crisis – they think you don’t care, that you don’t understand them, that you’re not making the effort to make the relationship a success. Some are constantly on the verge of leaving. Worse still, others seem to stay merely to spite you, to make your life a misery.
Yet the most successful businesses are built on a happy marriage between sales and marketing. By developing meaningful bonds with your sales partners you can give them the satisfaction they secretly crave – and in so doing you can make the earth, and your sales, really move. So here I am – your relationship counsellor – with a few tips:
1. Really listen to them
You may think you know what they want, but until you’ve listened to them (and I mean really listened) then you’re probably wrong.
Sales people are at the coalface – talking with customers, understanding needs, seeing what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t. Why wouldn’t you want to listen to what they have to say? Richard Branson credits listening as one of the main factors behind the success of Virgin.
Listening can mean anything from simple polls of the team’s pulse to strategically planned opinion surveys gathering unadulterated attitudes and feedback. I’ve even held workshops – with both the marketing and sales teams present – to help guide discussions and agree the issues in a neutral, non-judgmental environment.
You’d be surprised at how the simple act of making them feel heard can win them over. By working together to uncover the issues, both teams feel more inclined to work together on delivering the solutions.
2. Give them what they want
Be prepared to hear the sales team’s frustrations at marketing’s efforts – and be willing to act on inconvenient truths. A 2015 survey by Knowledge Tree revealed 50 per cent of sales people are not satisfied with what marketing is delivering and over 30 per cent don’t think marketing delivers the right tools.
Expect to spend some quality time together discussing what approaches and tools best fit particular scenarios. Sixty-one per cent of marketers believe their sales tools are being used in the right way but only 28 per cent of sales people have the same confidence.
3. Tell them what to expect
Despite an increasing trend towards comms ‘integration’, sales people still don’t feel aligned with marketing goals.
You need to let them in. Tell them what marketing you have planned, and maybe even get their feedback, so they feel a part of the process.
BA, BUPA, Starbucks and Pret consider marketing’s ability to engage staff to be just as important as the external results they deliver.
4. Don’t forget to woo them
Getting the undivided attention of a busy sales team is a challenge, especially if several areas of the business are fighting for priority. Try thinking outside the box – it really can pay off.
I was recently involved in a project that took a theatrical approach involving inspiring and training sales advisors as part of a product launch for a Telco client. Call centre sales doubled and, six weeks later, the company rose to highest in its market, winning an effectiveness award along the way.
Want to try it for yourself? Do something different to distract sales teams from their day-to-day. Theme your incentives and creative to your marketing campaign. Offer inspiring rewards; cash isn’t always king and sometimes the latest gadget, activity or experience works even better.
Give everyone a chance to participate and reward exceptional performance. Reward regularly, rather than banking it until the end of the campaign.
5. Get a prenup
No, they’re not just for celebrities. According to a CEB study, 87 per cent of the terms sales and marketing use to describe each other are negative, so it makes sense to enter into some formal agreement over who will deliver what to prevent name-calling further down the line.
Think of it as a sales and marketing service-level agreement which outlines specific and measurable objectives for both parties, sets deadlines, tracks progress and generates formal learnings to be incorporated into future campaigns.
Don’t be one of the 59 per cent of marketers in a HubSpot survey who admitted to not having any type of agreement at all
with sales.
6. Go public
Most people love recognition. Studies indicate that around 80 per cent of people are now extrinsically motivated, meaning ongoing encouragement and recognition will help your sales team sell more. Use sales data and share regular analysis to keep the team on track and hitting their targets.
Recognise outstanding performance on the sales floor, as part of an awards ceremony, or over your company intranet. The more you recognise them, the more productive they’ll be, the more revenue they’ll generate and the less likely they’ll be to leave.
While it often appears otherwise, sales and marketing have the same shared goal – the continued growth and success of the company for which they work.
