Marketing- Sales Alignment: Clarify Value, Create Trust

Marketing and Sales Alignment has received lots of attention in the past several years as a way to improve business performance. Why should getting along be so difficult? After all, both teams are focused on creating revenue, aren't they?

One way to understand the disconnects is to compare the ways sales and marketing create value. Sales creates value by focusing on the customer, competing fiercely and achieving goals. Most marketing departments feed the sales engine by providing vision, innovation and new sources of value. As a result, each team leads its people differently, uses a different vocabulary and generally has a different time horizon to measure success.

Unless these differences are articulated and understood, it is difficult to create trust between Sales and Marketing. So a starting point to creating Sales and Marketing alignment begins with a common understanding of Value - how it is created and measured, what blocks it, and what the two departments can do to break through the barriers and get in synch. Here's how:

Clarify focus

Every department has a unique combination of priorities. Is Marketing focused on identifying and penetrating customer segments or in redefining the customer experience - or both?  Depending on the time horizon, Marketing's focus may have little near-term revenue impact.  But their investments in these areas may be necessary to ensure the firm's long term success.

Sales may agree that selling new solution bundles is a great idea, but if making the revenue commit number is the number one focus, they will likely stick with what is known and predictable.

Define clearly where each department is focused and how that supports the firm's strategy and focus.

Define how you create value   

Sales and Marketing need to agree on how each group creates value for itself, for the firm and for each other. While revenue is a common goal, both Sales and Marketing may create other forms of value on the path to booking revenue.  Those might include new market growth, increasing share of wallet, increasing customer satisfaction and retention, training new hires or developing new partners.   

Understand the difference between value drivers and outcomes and agree on who is responsible for each piece.  Just as before, clarify how creating specific kinds of value relate to the team's focus and to the firm's strategy.

Agree on how you measure success - then measure it

Lead generation is a top priority of both Sales and Marketing, yet they often disagree on the meaning of a qualified lead.  Marketing may focus on details such as click-through, lead source, lead timeliness and the prospect's preferred communication mode.  Sales wants accurate information on decision authority, project budget status and time frame for a decision.

From the firm's point of view, a qualified lead might require all of the above. Marketing needs certain data to learn which campaigns, messages and communication channels are most effective.  Sales wants to quickly connect with prospects who are ready to begin a buying cycle.

Bottom line, Marketing should have a big role in lead generation, though it is unrealistic to expect them fill the funnel on their own. A Sirius Decisions study of large B2B firms found that the deals in the pipeline directly attributable to Marketing-related efforts averaged about 18%.

Define the barriers

After Sales and Marketing are clear about what they want to accomplish, they also need to identify what barriers they are up against.  While silos are common between business functions, some barriers to cooperation come from outside the relationship.  Higher-level corporate objectives might be impeding divisional flexibility.  Strategic partner agreements often create channel conflict. 

Performance incentives should reflect the firm's commitment to internal alignment.  In one multi-billion dollar technology company, Marketing was frustrated because their new solution bundling approach was not getting traction in the field, despite a huge investment in platform launch, training and advertising.  Unfortunately, the Sales side of the house was incented to move boxes.  One executive lamented to me, "We sell vision, solutions and value 12 weeks a quarter.  But in week 13, our incentive system forces us to sell boxes on price."  In this case, changing the incentive system and revenue recognition priorities would be better for both the company and its customers.

Get in sync

The more teams connect and interact, the greater the chance that decisions will be made on facts and that they will develop a trust-based relationship.

Set up a rhythm of joint knowledge-sharing, planning and problem-solving to achieve goals and knock down barriers.  Bring cross-functional teams together to discuss plans, assumptions, results and lessons learned.  Sales can provide account-specific insights while Marketing can share patterns across segments and regions. Both can work together to knock down barriers.

Figure out ways to get Sales and Marketing to campaign together, instead of throwing barbs at each other.  Encourage people from different functions, regions and divisions to work with each other consistently, check in with each other informally and collaborate to generate new ideas.  Do not overburden people with more meetings.  Instead, make it easy for the teams to create fewer, high-impact discussions.

When trust develops between the departments, Sales and Marketing refocus on how they can leverage all of their strengths to create and develop exceptional customer impact, experiences and relationships.

Greg Krauska is a change agent and management consultant.  Learn more about The Change Agent Group.

Comments

[legitimate paid surveys]

Creating trust is a big part on a persons business. The points that you've shared are very useful.

[legitimate paid surveys]

Creating trust is a big part on a persons business. The points that you've shared are very useful.

[make money from home]

The point you provided are useful, I think this is what I'm missing. I will use this and hope to see the results soon.

[Michelle]

I'm a business minded person. I enjoy reading your post.

[Austin Search Engine Optimization]

Very informative post. Everyone ofcourse wants to have an improved business performance. Not just on sales but from comment that will be gathered, also for a very useful tips from consumers.

[Nick Moreno]

Value, Value Value!
Well said. Enjoyed your article.
Thanks
Nick

[Nick Moreno]

Value, Value Value!
Well said. Enjoyed your article.
Thanks
Nick

[Lead Generation]

From a technology stand pint and lead generation SEO is a must in my opinion.

Brian