B2B Sales And Marketing – The Team Talk

Ok Sales and Marketing, huddle up.

Now, I know you both have strong personalities, but if we want to win this, then you’re going to have to start working together. It’s going to take hard work and smart thinking, but if we start functioning as one unit then our opportunities to succeed are endless.

Marketing! Stop fooling around on Twitter and pay attention.

Here’s the playbook with everything we need to start practicing…

  • Identify the ideal prospect
  • Decide what a qualified lead looks like
  • Define a process for generating and nurturing the leads
  • Develop targeted messaging
  • Create content to attract, engage and nurture the leads
  • Find out where prospects are most likely to ‘hangout’ then start spending time there
  • Create a sales/telemarketing strategy for lead follow-ups and qualification
  • Decide when to handover leads to Sales
  • Complete the sales cycle, analyse the process and develop the strategy

The first thing we have to do is get you both laser-focused on the target. What do the prospects look like? I don’t just mean what are their job titles and what company do they work for. I want an almost intimate relationship with these people. I want to know the prospect’s background, daily habits, activities, challenges, and problem-solving approaches.

Sales, I’m going to need you to chip in here too by analysing your previous sales. Find out all of their idiosyncrasies and see what patterns emerge in their buying process. I’m also going to need you to…

  • Help determine a ‘promising prospect’. Find out what current customers looked like at the prospect stage and what buying systems they had in place
  • Analyse behavioural factors that suggested they were sales-ready and how their company culture and setup impacted their buying process

Marketing, I’ll need you to carry out a survey of the prospect group and find out what their situation is right now; how does their buying process work? Are they happy with their current supplier? Are they approaching a contract renewal period?

Once we’ve got all that information, we’ll then have a better understanding of what the prospects look like now and what our customers looked like back then. We’ll also be able to start analysing patterns in buying behaviour and processes.

Sales, I’m going to need you to tell Marketing exactly what a qualified lead looks like, so they’ll know when to hand leads over to you. Make sure you clarify things like geographical location, decision-maker title and where they are in the buying process.

Once we know who we are targeting and when a qualified lead should be passed to Sales, it’ll be over to you, Marketing.

Did you read up on inbound marketing like I told you to? Make sure you do, because I need you to become an expert at inbound marketing techniques and lead nurturing processes. Be sure to use targeted messaging and content for specific decision-makers at each stage of the sales cycle. Keep them engaged and make it clear that we are industry thought leaders with the solution to their pain points.

It would also be worth you using a marketing automation solution that provides lead scoring capabilities. That way you’ll be able to determine when a lead has become highly engaged and is more likely to be open to a call from Sales.

Sales, in order for Marketing to keep generating high-quality leads, you need to be constantly updating the information we have. If you speak to leads and start finding similar objections, pain points and buying processes then you need to pass that information back to Marketing so the messaging and content can be adapted and more focused to the decision-makers’ needs.

So are we clear on the game plan…?

  • Marketing, you research the prospects
  • Sales, you research the existing customers and look for buying patterns
  • Then both of you come together and decide on what the ideal lead looks like
  • Marketing, you then start generating and nurturing leads
  • Once leads are sales-ready and qualified, pass them to Sales
  • Sales, you start generating appointments and new business and pass any new information/data back to Marketing
  • You both continually analyse and gather information on the sales cycle to improve this process

Ready? Right, LET’S GO GET ‘EM!

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