How to Get Sales and Marketing to Work Together and Win

How to Get Sales and Marketing to Work Together and Win?

“Sales is always just taking clients out to dinner.”??

“Marketing just does all social media, right?”??

Sound familiar? To many businesses, and even to those with large marketing and sales initiatives, at times it can seem like the two departments operate in two completely different worlds.??

We all know that sales and marketing teams are essential pillars of any successful business, but too often they operate in silos, failing to collaborate effectively and missing out on valuable opportunities to work together towards collective success. When the two teams aren’t aligned it becomes easy for both parties to overlook how they can help one another.?

The reality is that your business will accomplish its financial goals much faster when all departments thoroughly understand each other’s role functions and priorities and embrace that everyone is crucial in driving new customer acquisition and influencing sales outcomes.??

Of course, this all makes sense in theory. But here’s the real question: how do I get my teams on the same page???

For your business to move towards a collective understanding and to maximize sales and marketing teamwork, here are a few actionable steps you can take to better align the two teams and work together towards common goals.??

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What does it mean for sales and marketing to be aligned??

While it may seem that sales and marketing have entirely distinct roles and priorities, the reality is that their goals are much more similar than we think. Today on average, 70% of the buying decision is made before a prospect even begins talking to a salesperson. What that means for your business is that there is a shared responsibility between sales and marketing to educate prospects and obsess over the questions and the mindset customers have when researching your product or service.??

In an aligned organization, it’s marketing’s job to help educate and inform prospects with information that would be most valuable to them before they ever speak with a member of sales. The goal here is not to sell them, but to educate prospects so they can move further down the funnel and sales can take over from there. It is truly a joint effort.??

Ideally the two groups engage in collaborative planning and training, share common objectives and ideas and communicate feedback transparently. By regularly exchanging insights and feedback, both teams gain a deeper understanding of customer needs, pain points and preferences. And when marketing materials reflect the sales team’s experiences and customer interactions, it enhances trust and credibility as a business.??

In today’s dynamic business environment, marketing teams play an equal role to sales in new customer acquisition and have a tremendous impact on the sales pipeline and sales outcomes. To better align the two teams, consider the following:?

Your sales team should:??

1. Invite someone from marketing into weekly sales status update meetings?
2. Share a list of the most asked questions from conversations with prospects and current clients. What do sales teams find themselves repeating? Where are the points of most concern and pushback?? What are the most common questions they hear about the website???
3. Encourage joint training sessions, shadowing of sales calls and cross-team projects to build a shared knowledge base??
4. Consider a shared project management tool to enable seamless information sharing and provide full visibility into the pipeline and buyer’s journey??
5. Share and analyze metrics and KPIs. Aligning metrics like lead quality, conversion rates and revenue targets creates a shared sense of accountability.??

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Your marketing team should:??

1. Watch sales calls?
2. Invite someone from sales to sit in on weekly marketing status meetings?
3. Regularly share marketing strategies, brand messaging, campaigns and quarterly goals??
4. Encourage collaborative campaigns. Involve the sales team in the campaign development process to gain their insights and align effective messaging??
5. Include the sales team in content creation. Collaborate on developing case studies, testimonials, blog topics and more that address and resonate with customer needs and questions?

The Powerful Partnership?

When sales and marketing work together, your entire business benefits. This unified force fosters a customer-centric approach to business, where the focus is on delivering value, trust and building long-term relationships. Recognizing the equal importance of sales and marketing in closing leads empowers your business to achieve greater sales success and sustainable growth. After all, everyone in your business is on the same team.??