Sales & Marketing Alignment

A topic that everyone seems to be talking about, one of those trendy topics I think that everyone seems to be in agreement on - that Sales and Marketing teams are not aligned, but that they should be, and some ideas to improve that alignment. I am generally in agreement with the desire for Sales & Marketing alignment, though would like to draw attention to what I think is fake alignment and some arguments for not being 100% aligned.

One example from many years ago of fake or wishful thinking alignment that helps me frame this discussion concerns one of my old bosses who thought it would be a good idea to have the sales and marketing teams working in the same area, rather than at different ends of a large office. It makes sense right? We can be closer to each other, enable better working relationships, friendships and a greater understanding of each others work.

The first morning this played out perfectly. Lots of dialogue lots of "Oh I didn't know you knew them as well" or "I didn't know you like that too." Definitely some great relationship building. However the the afternoon things had gone sour. Why?

This did take place a while ago when sales calls were literally that, lot of phone work, "dialing for dollars". Now what we did not appreciate is that the marketing team, when writing copy, putting marketing plans together, or designing ads like a bit of quiet space. While the sales team were in full stand up shout down the phone "Glengarry Glen Ross" mode. The marketing team were not comfortable working in that noisy environment and the sales team felt that the quieter marketing workers were inhibiting their performance and changing the dynamic of this close knit group by not participating or competing in this noisy race for dollars. So by the end of the week, both departments were back where they were - at least we tried!

There are a number of articles around that suggest solutions to this issue, many of them recommend the following:

1. Meet Regularly - This seems a little obvious, but maybe its true, sales and marketing do not meet enough to enable the development of a rapport. Like everything its getting the balance right between regular meetings that "go through the motions" formal get togethers that don't achieve anything and very specific crisis meetings to discuss an urgent issue and nothing else.

2. Marketing to help onboard new sales people - This is a little more interesting and provides an opportunity for both teams to collaborate on what new hires need - which is always an opportunity for existing sales to be reminded of things, or actually learn new things themselves. For new hires I think it is a great opportunity for them to establish relationships and make friends at the outset with marketing.

3. Attending events together - A good idea in theory but I wonder how good this would be in practice as sales and marketing would have different objectives, and different people to target. I didn't like this idea at first but on re-thinking it I think its a better idea than two sales people doubling up to speak to prospects. I like the idea now of two different parts of the business engaging with customers and prospects, a better sales approach, and a learning/relationship opportunity. A better more informative experience for the prospects too - I would think.

4. Sharing calls - Similarly to attending events I was skeptical about this but now many calls are conducted on Zoom/Teams, and similar to events it makes sense to have a marketing person, not listening in but contributing ideas in the meeting. Again better interaction with customers/prospects and team work benefit for sales & marketing.

5. Team communications - More communication via email or other platforms? Not sure this is that valuable, everybody receives enough emails as it is, being cced on all communications is a time suck too. Collaborative platforms are good if you are focused on working on a joint project otherwise it can be a distraction trying to keep up with all the messages.

6. Co creating content - I think is a great idea, an opportunity for sales people to learn from marketing, copywriting skills, and for the marketing team to learn what is important to the customer as well as bring the two together in a common objective - to engage with the customer or prospect.

7. Co-ordinating marketing campaigns - This should be a given really. Sales should be informed of all ongoing and new campaigns, anything new they can reference (Messaging, new offerings, other customer experiences) with clients can lead to breakthroughs, and equally they should be providing feedback on how these campaigns are being received by customers. You should embrace and value each others work and avoid the "that's something marketing is doing" conversations.

8. Sharing goals and similar KPI's - I think this is a little trickier, I am sure are there are some clever measurements out there, but the only meaningful KPI for sales people is revenue - "nice try or great that you spoke to so many people" can be supportive/motivational markers but they can not be units of measurement, only success really counts in sales. That should be the metric both sides gravitate to with real recognition given to the contribution of marketing to that sale.

9. Showcasing the sales team - This is may favourite, I think this is an excellent idea. It involves generating content for and on behalf of sales people to help position them as thought leaders or at least thinkers in their industry. Lets face it most sales people, myself included, are not great writers. If marketing can ghost write or provide draft copy for sales people to adapt that showcases their knowledge to help with client engagement this would be a real game changer. Not easy, a lot of work but this would have a big impact for sales people and really cement a partnership between sales and marketing.

10. Sales enablement resources - There are platforms out there that can help, Seismic is one that comes to mind. Seismic aim to increase sales results and productivity by providing integrated content, training and coaching. There are others out there but I believe Seismic is the number one provider. You can check them out here: https://seismic.com/

11. Having fun - Just plain old fashioned relationship building through shared experiences, joking around and relating on a "human level" (Whatever that means)

12. Social Selling - Jill Rowley, a recognised social selling guru (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillrowley/) made a great point at Salesforce Dreamforce conference a while back when she said marketing is not just about providing leads and sales is about closing them! Customers now have all the information, sales and marketing need to understand each other better, understand the customer better via research on social, collaborate and use social to generate and distribute their content. So social selling is an area both teams can come together.

Summary

My thoughts on this, there are some good idea above to try, but lets not have unrealistic objectives. Like most things I suggest a dose of honesty. Let's not pretend we all agree on everything. We all know that sales and marketing alignment is a good thing but lets not pretend we are making progress if we are not, lets not be afraid to call out what's not working and our differences. Let's talk about them, find solutions and lets not kid ourselves if there are no solutions, or at least not yet, lets say so. If there are obvious differences lets say so too, so we are know we have different positions - we don't have to agree on everything.

I would go further lets celebrate some of the differences between sales and marketing, make light of it, provide some humour, recognising there are differences is not only honest, it provides some identity and it provides some clarity on what is different and what is important to each. It does not mean we have a win at any cost mindset, we can all work as a team but recognise we have different things to offer and we think differently, we can celebrate that. In all the best sports teams you have different team mates with different jobs, that may make fun of the contributions each make - but they are all on the same team and celebrate success together.