Why a sales driven organisation doesn't make any sense

Why a sales driven organisation doesn’t make any sense…

Sales driven organisations often hire too many salespeople before they have focused in on the market need. They sell (maybe a lot at first) but can often leave a leaky bucky of unhappy customers, likely a wide range of customers that look very different yet being sold the same thing – further made worse when salespeople start providing product development teams with ‘anything goes’ input. Inevitably over time business products become bloated and solve no one’s problems well.

Outcome: Departing customer and declining sales inevitably follow

Sales teams sell whatever they are given, to whoever will buy, sometimes regardless of whether the customers need is met, often with the focus of hitting their own sales quota as their first and foremost priority. This approach creates a number of challenges, but first and foremost - customer satisfaction and retention.

Good salespeople have a narrow focus so if sales are directing and deciding marketing activity and content you’re likely only going to be producing for the bottom of funnel.

Outcome: A disaster for long term strategy

In today's connected world, customers are educated.

They can find information quickly, easily and share those experiences online. They are also more attuned to getting half-truths. More than ever, we are all craving truth and honesty both in business and in life.

We have all met salespeople that follow old school manipulation tactics, but this hasn't ever been great selling – it’s lazy selling focusing on what the sales person wants to achieve, not the customer. It's simply self focused and internally biased thinking on the short-term KPI merry-go-round. And customers sense it a mile off.

Outcome: Financial and emotional risk of losing customer trust and their business.

Great selling is about providing information, education & value - helping people to make a great, informed buying decision based on what customers really want and what they really need. Time and effort needs to be taken to identify the ideal target buyer and deeply understand their motivations, needs, pain points and multi-channel customer journey.

This is where marketing comes in??

There is little point in hiring skilled and experienced marketers to then have sales people tell them what to do.

Outcome: Marketing becomes reactive – putting out fires , cranking out copy under pressure and trying to cobble together a story based on a mixed bag of emergencies. Creativity is stifled and marketing becomes little more than a deflated, burnt out and expensive admin function.

Marketing's job is to create content and messaging that emotionally resonates with the target audience, identifying and targeting the places they hang out, at the right time, driving the sales funnel to push prospects out of the bottom as customers.

When a skilled marketing team is driving demand, more is coming into the top of the funnel.

Strategically thought out insight driven activity based on a solid strategy that underpins business goals, can keep potential customers moving through the funnel and even capture customers who want to enter at different stages and keep them coming back.

Marketing done well drives the attention, interest, desire and conviction process ensuring when the right customers are in the right place, your business or service is front of mind when they are ready, then sales can do what they do best - close.

Outcome: Sales don’t need to do any convincing, their narrow focus is optimised to close more - faster and more efficiently

Customer value, experience and sustainability are buying patterns and signals that cannot be ignored. By not listening to customers, their interactions and what the data shows, companies can potentially go off on a tangent.

No one is better than sales than sales.

No one is better than product than product.

No one is better than marketing than marketing.

Sales + Product + Marketing - working together in collaboration, shoulder to shoulder is where the real magic happens - they each bring a specialist ingredient that helps the cake rise! And each needs a voice at the table.

Put in place collaborative structures and processes that focus on a holistic view and the long-term relationship with your customers. Prioritise deep insights, curiosity and experimentation that will help you steer your business via feedback loops and continuous improvement.

Sales is a sprint, marketing on the other hand is a marathon and customer insight across the entire customer lifecycle is critical to accelerating growth.

A well thought through, insight driven strategy, integrated plan of activity that aligns with business goals is the best way to guarantee success and pave the way for sales.

Be more 'Is this what the customer wants? instead of, 'is this right for the bottom line'