Sales and marketing alignment in the enterprise space – aka complex sales – is tough to achieve. Yet, if you do that, you can achieve a whopping 36% higher retention rate(3), and higher sales win rates of 38%(4) overall. That’s fascinating. Although this study was not entirely focused on complex B2B sales, these are still meaningful numbers.

As any practitioner knows, there are many factors at play that are not just about process and data. If it was easy, everyone would do it. So in this post, I’ll highlight what I believe is a core underlying issue for sales & marketing alignment. And then I’ll discuss how to address this problem.

Let me come right out with it before we examine the solutions.

The challenge is that during planning, both sales and marketing forget what is bringing in the revenue right now (or soon), and how they can drive that together. Instead of building from the foundations, they dream from the top down.

I’ve been there too.

The Challenge

Here’s how it normally goes down. At the start of the year, both sales and marketing agree that they need to work better together. They set lofty goals, agree on what a qualified lead is, and decide what the journey should look like on both sides. They develop key buyer personas and brand messages. They clear the air on what has happened in the past and plan the right collateral to enable sales. And finally, someone sprinkles in some marketing automation pixie dust to top it all off.

This strategic planning looks, sounds, and feels great. The sales and marketing alignment sessions lead to a spirited launch of a new program. Happy new year everyone!

But then it falls apart. The presentations and journey maps are forgotten, only to be picked up when everyone has less pressing issues at hand (hint: these issues are about making money, exactly the purpose for which the exercise was started).

That’s because we try to start top-down. In addition, marketing often thinks in terms of “changing the dialog”, or is influenced by the promises of database marketing automation that are not easy to achieve (hint: don’t let anyone who hasn’t done it make the plan). On the other hand, sales have different challenges. These range from meeting short-term targets, closing an upcoming deal, competitive advances, aligning multiple client stakeholders, to being able to price and position the product and/or services.

In the end, this simple misalignment ends up with both teams looking to satisfy two different sets of objectives. It seems that are working together, but they actually don’t, and won’t.

• They focus on what should be, rather than thinking of how to improve what is already happening. 
• They try to reach their destination quickly. However, just as it takes time to change gears and client perceptions, it also takes time to modify outreach capabilities, and have conversations differently with (different) clients. Have you ever wondered how the same dated messages get presented even when you have decided to modify them? It’s called inertia and the comfort zone of the field.
• Both sides forget that they have limited time on their hands. Regardless of the level of sales and marketing automation that you put in, ultimately you need to qualify, pursue, and sell in person. And so as soon as that deal seems likely, everything else takes a back seat.

Through a thousand such cuts, the sales and marketing alignment ambition takes a backseat. The metrics that each wants to measure start diverging and become less and less relevant to the other.

In fact, this is the familiar story of marketing RoI and sales performance.

I think you will identify with the above. I’ve been through all these countless times. Having played both roles before – as a sales lead and also as a marketing lead – I often successfully managed to ignore this secret myself.

The Solution

The secret to sales and marketing alignment that works is: during joint planning, do not ignore what is bringing home the revenue in the near future, and plan on driving that together.

Here’s an approach that can help you overcome this challenge. First and foremost, analyze the pipeline for deals that have happened, and those that are high on the sales radar in the immediate future. Don’t discount them in favor of the ideal that should be. Acknowledge the client’s interest in what you have, and all the effort that has gone in to make that happen.

And then focus on improving and expanding. Try to improve the probability of deal conversions, and expand the impact with a defined game plan around client engagement. The Principle of Customer Interaction is a good one to remember – connect your emotional branding with the physical interactions.

Because at the end of the day, sales will always put less(er) emphasis on what can be versus what will help them close the next couple of quarters positively. And if marketing is focusing only on the big picture, that picture will always remain lopsided. The reverse is also true. So sales and marketing alignment remains a dream, propped up by one-off success stories. 

Simply ground your action plan on the following 5 strategies:

1. Plug the Gaps: Focus on closing better what needs to be closed soon – even if it doesn’t seem sexy. Marketing is best positioned to translate the org strategy and capabilities to support these short-term priorities. You’ll be surprised at the number of gaps you will identify that can provide solid air cover – collateral, references, case studies, 3rd party support, pursuit marketing, client showcase, awareness of a specific capability, and so on. This applies to new business development too.
2. Insert Strategic Objectives: How clients perceive you depends on what you sell to them today, not what you have on your website. So make the current portfolio the starting point of the big picture, and begin the life-cycle of awareness to closure from there, not independently. Ultimately, most stories can be distilled into a problem of cross-selling and up-sell. Translate them that way. It can start with inserting messaging about larger customer goals (Principle of External Reinforcement), integrating the value proposition of various parts of your portfolio (Principle of Presenting), and expanding what you have to offer through your partners (Principle of Completion).
3. Live in the Other’s Shoes: Try inserting marketing into the sales machine and vice versa. Take over a couple of key responsibilities and metrics from each other (yes, that’s a part of the deal). What you take over should be actual, down & dirty tasks that need to get done. For example, sales can take a metric on client coverage by touch-points per month, and marketing can take over a metric on producing deal-specific material. This can require some trust-building, so be prepared to start small and deliver first.
4. Prioritize Tactically: Most change fails because we try to start a transformation. Instead, focus on things you can easily change. Work with the people who want to work with you, and begin to show results in tactical increments. And then amplify the sharing of the results in terms of war stories. Nothing gets more attention than war stories. Slowly you will have a dashboard worth boasting about, and numbers to back them up, with people willing to attest to what’s happening.
5. Follow High-Low: Every successful plan needs to be able to scale and grow. The sphere of visibility for both sales and marketing needs to expand. And you can’t do that if you execute only high-touch activities in a narrow area. So supplement your plan with low-touch activities that can provide continuity and consistency. An example of a high-touch activity is deal-specific collateral. An example of a low-touch activity is a monthly client update by email or a case study that can be shared broadly. Be sure to link low touch activities to the pipeline analysis from the first step so they are relevant.

Once you start with the above, everything else will fall in place – brand messaging, your database, the campaigns, and the metrics.

In the next planning round, give this approach a shot. I assure you that you will not be disappointed. In fact, as part of one big happy family, you’ll never have to prove marketing ROI again.

Next step:

Read the post on my upcoming book and course on Systematic Account Growth.

You may also get a FREE copy of the book! After all, all your strategies should focus on the client. Without that as the context, everything is just meaningless mechanics.

 

 

 

Ref:

1. Based on the principles in my books Dancing The Digital Tune and Connected!
2. Image courtesy of Pixabay
3. Sales and marketing statistics from this nice collection on ZoomInfo
4. The study quoted was from by Align.me