3 Powerful Steps to Align B2B Sales and Marketing of Today!

Sales and Marketing Alignment Today – Why Does it Matter?

Buyers are taking more control of the buying processes…

Buying decisions are taking longer time & longer purchase

cycles

Customer 1

Customer 2

Customer3

Do today’s B2B marketers

understand their

customers?

Sales and Marketing Alignment Today – Why Does it Matter?

Sales team get on the business of short-term

selling

Marketing team generally fail to drive

long term value at tough times

It’s not about how you sell; it’s about how they will buy…

Sales and Marketing Alignment Today – Why Does it Matter?

Sales is all about pushMarketing is all about

creating a pull

Marketing MixProduct

Price Promotion

PlaceCustomer solution

Customer cost

Communication

Convenience

The 4Ps

Sales and Marketing Team – Top questions To Align With

• Where are our leads coming from and at what cost?• How many prospects do we need to generate one

lead?• Which prospects need immediate action to ensure a

sale?• Which campaigns result in the highest long term

value?• How many leads of a certain quality does a sales rep

need to make quota?• How many leads does a sales rep need to be busy

100% of the time?

To gain insight, sales & marketing team should first align with these top questions…

Tug-of-War between Sales and Marketing

• Sell product & do business quickly to fulfil sales volume

• Match the products produced with the customer demand

• Fulfil customer wants. Once they are met, profit will be generated

• Market products are mainly research-oriented. So, it’s better to produce products and make customers aware of them

But sadly, there’s always a tug-of war between the sales and the marketing team!

Tug-of-war between Sales and Marketing

Instead of spending so high on campaigns, hire more sales people or pay more

compensation to sales reps

Your sales force lacks strategy which upon

execution results in poor sales

Tug-of-war between Sales and Marketing

You are out of touch with the reality of what’s going

on with the customers

Your sales team is ignorant & prioritizes individual customer experiences,

insufficiently unaware of the larger market & blind

to the future.

Sales and Marketing Alignment Issues

When sales and marketing are not aligned to each other …

Duplicate Leads Limited lead information

No feedback from sales

No ROI measurement Longer sales cycles Smaller sales

pipeline

Sales and Marketing Alignment Issues – Impact

When sales and marketing are not aligned to each other …

Perplexed Management

Dispersed Sales resources &

efforts

Inconsistent revenues

Conflicting marketing messages

Confused customers

Negative effects on customer

retention

Sales and Marketing Alignment – Effects upon the Customer

Unmet expectations

Confusion

Service failures

Poor support

Exposure to other competitive brands

Reduced customer spending

Less sales/No ROI

Tug-of-war between Sales and Marketing

Lack of alignment damages corporate performance & sales enablement

Can’t we all just get along?

Sales and Marketing Alignment Facts – Did you know?

Companies with strong sales and marketing alignment can achieve

20% annual growth rate

Business that align sales & marketing are

38% better at closing

proposals than non-aligned businesses

Companies experience 36% higher customer retention when sales and

marketing teams are aligned

How To Align Sales and Marketing

Sales & marketing should work together to create value for business & customers

Sales Marketing

Smarketing

Sales and Marketing Aligned Marketing Objectives

Marketing is for Reach!• Find & nurture leads • Create platform for conversations• Support sales

Selling is for Conversations!• Convert leads to prospects • Convert prospects to customers • Retain customers

There should be a mutual consensus between Sales & Marketing teams…

How To Align Sales and Marketing to Build a Smarketing Organization

Step #1 Agree on Terminologies & Definitions

How To Align Sales and Marketing – Step 1

Agree on Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)

How To Align Sales and Marketing

Step #2 Implement a Service Level Agreement (SLA)

MARKETINGTO

SALES

SALESTO

MARKETING

Number & quality of leads required to hit company revenue goals

Speed and depth of lead follow-up that makes economic sense

How To Align Sales and Marketing – Step 2

Create a Service Level Agreement (SLA)

How To Align Sales and Marketing

Step #3 Gather Additional Insights about sales process

• Get individual and marketing teams to action

• Fix problems without management’s intervention

• Resolve disputes frequently, transparently

• Dive deeper into more contentious issues

• Involve key managers in monthly management meetings

How To Align Sales and Marketing – Step 3

Get accurate Monthly Marketing Reports

Attention Marketing & Sales Team!The relationship between sales and marketing should be matured, integrated and NOT

Blurrrrry ……

It is time to create clear rules of engagement if you haven’t done it yet …

Don’t confuse your teams anymore!