Entre Nous...Reflections from a marketer

What makes the sales and marketing teams high performing?

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Last month I was invited to an event to take part in a panel discussion, the topic of the discussion: how to build high-performing sales and marketing teams! The event was well attended by B2B SME leaders, the conversation was good but in my opinion it was too generic to be helpful to these leaders who were trying to find some real solutions to grow their business and efficient team. There was a lot of traditional marketing theory, plenty of talk about reporting and metrics but not enough hints or practical advice on how to get the sales and marketing to actually work together on a daily basis.

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As I mentioned in a previous Entre Nous, if the traditional B2B lead funnel is under pressure, then the relationship between marketing and sales becomes even more important than ever. It is no longer just about who owns what stage in the funnel but about building a team that is truly aligned and focused on revenue.

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The Real Challenge: Trust and Communication

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Most of the organisations I have worked with over the years faced issues with the sales and marketing alignment. I don’t believe that this challenge was due to the organisational culture but more to the lack of trust and lack of communication between both teams that had built up over time.

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Some Questions Every Marketing Leader Should Ask their Sales Team

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 I would take this opportunity to ask market leaders a few questions:

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• What is your sales process?

• What information does your sales person need to gather before creating an opportunity in your CRM?

• Who are the key decision makers in your customers' buying process?

• How often do you review the data in your CRM?

• Which assets are the most valuable to your sales team? ​

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And the list could go on. My point is that I have met so many marketing leaders who had no clues and no answers to these key questions. 

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Suggestions to Build Trust Between Sales and Marketing

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My advice to sales and marketing leaders is simple: take the time to sit around the table, listen to each other but most importantly understand each other's processes and challenges. This should help to clear the air and build trust. The key point to remember for us marketers is that, you can initiate change.

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Here is the first thing I do when facing this situation:

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• Set an informal face-to-face meeting with the sales leader 

• Ask them to share their main challenges in term of process, product, admin, customer feedback, marketing campaigns 

• Suggest to organise a weekly meeting for both teams when they have the opportunity to review activities and raise challenges on both sides, share ideas 

• Keep these meetings interesting and short

• Follow up with meeting report with clear actions, ownership, deadline and distribute to all attendees

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I always ask the marketing leader to give a name for these weekly and monthly meetings and ensure that they are mentioned in Town Hall for instance. Why ? First, the leadership team is aware that both teams are working together. Secondly, these meetings won’t fade away as leadership will ask for updates!

 

When Sales and Marketing Work Together, Growth Follows

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Marketing needs to gain sales team trust. For this to work both leaders need to be aligned and lead by example so their teams follow the same approach. When sales and marketing work as one team focused on the same outcome, your business has a better chance to grow.

 

Entre Nous... this is only my two cents!

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