The Real World: Marketing & Sales Alignment

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abdulahad
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Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:23 am

The Real World: Marketing & Sales Alignment

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his is the true story…of two organizational functions…picked to share an office (work together)…and produce results…to find out what happens…when marketing and sales stop pointing fingers…and start getting aligned…The Real World: Marketing & Sales Alignment The Real World: Marketing and Sales Alignment As a marketing (and former sales) professional, I have had the not-so-privileged opportunity to play a starring role in marketing and sales misalignment. What I have learned, and continue to learn, is that alignment does not happen overnight, but is critical to the success of a business. One of my favorite parts of MTV’s hit show “The Real World” was the ever-so-entertaining “confessional booth” where cast members openly commented/insulted/trashed their roommates, with the freedom of knowing they would be long gone and out of striking distance whenever the episode finally aired on TV.

While marketing and sales generally have more than a season together, I thought it would be equally entertaining to reenact marketing and salespeople doing the same thing, perhaps in a secluded conference room, armed only with a video camera and their opinions. In this blog, I’ll cover three tips to help marketing and sales stop pointing Phone Number List fingers and start getting aligned. The Real World: Marketing & Sales Alignment Confessional: The MQL Handoff: Marketing just passed a qualified lead off to sales Marketing: “Way to go marketing! We just sent another super awesome, totally qualified lead to sales and are one step closer to hitting our MQL goal this quarter!” Sales: “What does marketing think they are doing? I have absolutely no idea why this lead is qualified. Does marketing even understand who our target market is? Disqualifying this lead.” How every marketer just felt reading that: The Real World Confessional Photo 1. Unified Funnel = One View, One Interpretation One of the key issues with marketing and sales alignment is that each team lives in their own funnel. Marketing has traditionally focused at the top of the funnel with inquiries and qualification, while sales have focused on the pipeline, opportunities, and other bottom-of-the-funnel metrics. The core issue with siloed funnels is that neither team has any accountability for what the other team delivers before or after their funnel ends, which makes it easy to point fingers and allocate blame.

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What do I mean by this? Marketing’s funnel ends at handing a qualified lead to sales, not what happens after the handoff. And sales’ funnel starts at receiving the qualified lead from marketing, yet they typically are not as involved as they should be in defining what “qualified” actually is. Well-aligned organizations recognize the importance of viewing and measuring their marketing and sales funnel as a single holistic system. This creates equal accountability for both teams. The Real World: Marketing & Sales Alignment Confessional: Who Gets the Credit? An opportunity just closed from a demo request Marketing: “Check out that demo request opportunity that just closed…that was all marketing! Maybe they should start paying us commission?” Sales: “Why should marketing get any credit for that opportunity when all they did was put a form on a web page? I was the one who did the initial call and then had to practically do CPR to resuscitate the deal after the decision maker left the company! Marketing shouldn’t get credit, I did all the work!” 2. United Metrics = Honest Discussions Marketing and sales have to create common processes and systems to create a single source of truth for their funnel metrics. This data alignment opens up the door for meaningful conversations focused on improvement rather than data credibility. Leaders from both marketing and sales teams need to establish a regular cadence of meetings between themselves and their teams to make sure they are all on the same page.
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