How do you know if poor marketing and sales alignment is the root of slower sales, weaker revenues, and missed growth goals?
It's easy to place blame on sales or marketing teams when things don't go as planned. But more often than not, it's not a personality or performance problem- it's the lack of alignment.
You might have a marketing and sales alignment problem if...
- Your sales teams are having to work harder with fewer results.
- You see your competition siphoning away clients that you think should have been yours.
- You hear complaints about the low quality of leads being provided by marketing.
- Your leads are costing more, but not really producing any better results.
We've always treated sales and marketing as distant cousins when they should cooperate like roommates.
The nature of marketing and sales is different. One has a short time frame, the other a longer view. One master's public communication channels, the other private and personalized. The culture of sales is tied to solving customer problems, while marketing lives more in the world of attention-getting.
Usually, they have different goals, different systems, and different pipelines, each one with unique definitions for their success. That means they are talking a different language even though they are working to win the same customers for the same company. The fact is, when they work in the same company, the goals should be aligned, and one pipeline does directly impact the other.
Aligning sales and marketing is viewed by many leaders as one of the biggest revenue growth opportunities in current company life.
Marketing and sales alignment is not a cost-saving approach, it's a revenue growth strategy.
The effort to align these two functions should not be centered around reducing costs, but rather transferring customer insights, and creating mutual support and communication. Here's why:
If your company can reach customers who are in the self-exploration phase in ways that build trust, define the discussion, and demonstrate that your company solves problems, you'll shorten sales cycles, improve lead quality and increase customer longevity with right-fit clients. Not only that, you'll ensure that what makes your company special is planted in the mind of your prospects rather than allowing your competitors to suggest it's not you, but them, that deserve the business.
That can only happen when the customer insights and empathy of salespeople are provided to marketing teams and then its implementation is improved through consistent feedback. That's why alignment is critical.
These areas need your attention to create alignment:
- Pipeline coordination across departments
- Share goal setting
- Feedback and learning interactions
