Facilitating alignment between Sales & Marketing

How frustrating. We’re still talking about it. Does nothing work? Do we really talk such different languages?

We’ve heard it before – marketing say that sales don’t listen, that they just won’t engage, use the material, or read what we send them. And sales question what?marketing do, saying their leads are rarely qualified, or they’re with the wrong people, claiming they don’t understand the conversations they need to have.

Whilst they're extreme scenarios, the statistics don’t lie either:

According to the TAS Group, 79% of marketing leads never convert to sales and between 60%-70% of content created is never used by sales people. Furthermore unproductive prospecting is wasting 50% of sales people’s time as well as sales ignoring 50% of marketing leads.

This amounts to a colossal statistic -?lost sales productivity and wasted marketing budget cost companies at LEAST $1 trillion a year.

That is staggering.

It’s a perennial, systemic problem that will take huge transformation beyond the two functions to work; as it clearly starts at the top in terms of the way people are driven, managed, and rewarded - the culture we foster and tolerate.

This misalignment continues through a huge transformation in how organisations buy. CEB (now Gartner) research indicates that companies are spending far less time with vendors and more time with their peers and doing online research. As markets and behaviours continue to change, consensus-based purchase processes will continue. Without consensus, organisations 'do-nothing' or simply choose the ‘good enough’ option, typically staying with the status quo.

This means the need to engage prospects early is fundamental and where I believe the heart of the misalignment problem exists between Sales and Marketing.

Too often Sales and Marketing organisations are focused on the wrong thing. They’re distracted by volume and velocity metrics. Marketers create vast amounts of content and blanket approach vast amounts of people through outbound and inbound activities. Sales ignore the majority of content, pick and choose the leads they focus on, but then still start conversations by leading with products and services, rather than engaging with why, backed by relevant insights focused on the challenges, issues, and objectives prospects have.

Effective communication is the barrier. We need to have better conversations, collaborative conversations as teams and work from the same view point - which requires more than simply 'alignment', we need to be deeply engaged with each other with the desire to help customers succeed.

What can be done to cross this chasm?

One simple but effective idea to kick-off your Sales and Marketing alignment (towards deep collaboration) is to start a book club.

Get your team?to read the same books. Then evaluate each book as a team and discuss ways of implementing what you have all learnt together. Heck if that scares you, start with a compelling LinkedIn post, industry insight or HBR article.

There are no excuses to not read and continuously develop yourself, so there shouldn’t be for your teams either. The material is available in multiple ways that will suit everyone. For example Audible, Kindle, and the old fashioned way (that's paperback for my millennial counterparts). If you’re really concerned about your people not engaging, then find the book overview on YouTube to generate initial interest.

What your team will start to find is that the principles learnt are actually timeless and it’s about building a strategy to support the different approaches regarding how to execute on those principles.

The reward for aligning your teams is significant – HubSpot research found that when sales and marketing teams are aligned; organisations generate 208% more revenue from marketing efforts alone, with 36% higher customer retention and 38% higher win-rates.

Blimey, where do I start?!

Begin with one book at a time, set a time slot of circa 2-3 weeks, and then review it in the next sales and marketing meeting. Make it a mandatory exercise, ask everyone to pick out the main aspects from the book that they learned and want to discuss and then as a group, discuss those points and work out the most effective way to implement the learnings if appropriate.

It’s that simple.

Here's a few that you might want to start with:

1. CEB’s: The Challenger Sale
2. CEB’s: The Challenger Customer
3. Stephen Covey’s: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
4. Tony Hughes’: The Joshua Principle Leadership Secrets of Selling
5. Seth Godin's 'This is Marketing'
6. James Altucher's 'Choose Yourself'
7. Start with Why by Simon Sinek
8. Beyond the Sales Process by Steve Andersen and Dave Stein
9. The Obstacle is the Way
10. To Sell is Human
11. Growth Hacker Marketing
12. Differentiate or Die by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin
13. Playing to Win by Roger L. Martin and A.G. Lafley
14. The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge
15. Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson
16. The JOLT Effect by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna
17. Leading Change by John P. Kotter
18. Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars by Patrick Lencioni
19. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
20. Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High! by Jeff Thull

The good news is that the list is never ending. This is about continuous development personally, professionally, and as a team, and coming together to do your best work.

You’ll find that your team becomes quite addicted to learning and wanting to apply what they learn effectively. You’ll start to have better conversations, a better understanding of each other, and ultimately, the way in which you go-to-market will be strides ahead of your competition.

Make no mistake, you need to have a plan in place in the first instance so you may need to pause, take stock, and reflect on what your organisation is trying to achieve throughout this process - don't be afraid to get others involved too like your CEO, an engineer or customer excellence!?

By learning together, you’ll apply together, and win together.

Does your organisation have a positive learning culture or book club? How are you trying to align sales and marketing for deep collaborative conversations?

What books are you reading?

I’d love to know what works well for you and your team.

Hubspot & TAS research: 20 Stats That Prove the Power of Sales and Marketing Synchronization