MillettiCHAPTER 1
WHY ALIGN?
What are the topics of conversation around your office? That most likely depends on whom you talk to.
From sales reps, you probably hear complaints about low-quality leads or those that take too much nurturing to move through the sales funnel. They likely also complain that the marketing department's content does not work or is not granular enough for the specific targets, situations, or markets the sales team encounters. For example, maybe your sales reps come back from an event griping that a competitor's booth was larger, had more of a crowd, or looked better. Maybe they argue that the organization's marketing message isn't differentiated or compelling enough for them to turn opportunities into action, or that marketing is simply out of touch with the customer's needs. Your sales reps might even wonder out loud why the organization is focused on one market instead of targeting the obvious opportunity in another market.
When you talk with marketers, you probably hear their dismay that the sales department doesn't appreciate the volume of leads marketing generates and that they are too slow to follow up on hot prospects. Your marketers might mention that the content they're creating isn't being used at the right times, or at all. Maybe they express their frustration with sales reps who are too aggressive in meetings or who get preferential treatment for hitting their numbers. Maybe marketers complain there's never enough budgeted for them to keep up with competitors. Perhaps they talk about being frustrated by not having time to create the never-ending stream of content requested by sales, or to get out in the field to visit customers and really research the market.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Think about what you're hearing from other teams within your company, or worse, from your CEO. Have they commented about the high turnover of sales reps, the missed sales forecasts, the recent loss of a major opportunity, budgets that aren't covering what's needed to win, complaints from customers, or competitors who seem to close bigger deals or have more marketing impact?
There is likely a lot of truth behind all of these complaints and the common cause is sales and marketing misalignment. The consequences of this can be dire.
Misalignment between sales and marketing is holding back the growth of your company – and your career.
Think about the last opportunity your organization lost and how different departments could be considered accountable. Maybe the salespeople couldn't find the content they needed, couldn't quite get the value proposition right, or couldn't articulate exactly why the customer should buy from you instead of your competitor. Marketing may not have warmed up the prospect with relevant campaigns, or may have issues with lead processing leading to lack of timely follow-up. Critical definitions and handoff points may be full of friction.
Now think about how these issues and others combine to prevent your organization from closing more business. All of those barriers to growth are caused by misalignment. According to SiriusDecisions, misalignment is to blame for companies' missing out on 19 percent faster revenue growth and 15 percent higher profitability, as shown in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1 Aligned teams are higher-performing according to SiriusDecisions, who found that more aligned companies have significant strategic advantages over their competition.
Source: SiriusDecisions
Misalignment is rooted in the differences between how sales and marketing work, what it takes to be good at each, and how each department's success is measured. Marketers look at the big picture of markets and campaigns, while sales focuses on one deal at a time. Good sales reps are driven and aggressive, while good marketers are creative and analytical. Marketing success is based on awareness, impact, and quantities, while sales performance is measured by quota attainment.
In most organizations, sales drives revenue and marketing drives lead generation and awareness. Marketing looks at win rates and conversion rates across the sales funnel, takes the revenue target for the next quarter, and calculates how many leads are required for sales to hit their number. Sales uses the leads and content that marketing gives them and tries to close as many sales as possible.
The two departments are inherently different – from how they are compensated to how they are educated – and that's good, but it can also make it hard for sales and marketing to work together. The two teams are frequently at odds over issues as small as how to score an individual lead or as large as which markets to target. That results in mistrust, avoidance, and outright hostility between the groups, some of which is even enabled by misguided CEOs.
Get It Right: Take Those First Steps Toward Alignment
Christelle Flahaux has been a pioneer in using data to bridge marketing and sales in her senior-level roles at MapR Technologies, Jive Software, Marketo, Taleo, and Ariba. Christelle's most recent role was to sit between sales and marketing and use data to bring them into alignment. What it takes, according to Christelle, is working together and relying on data to build agreement.
“In a previous company, I discovered early on the job that our lead scoring wasn't effective,” Christelle explained. “Marketing thought we were doing great because we were delivering leads that scored well, but sales complained the leads were junk. It took us a while to figure out how to do it right so we weren't delivering 20,000 marginal leads, we were delivering 3,000 good ones.”
It was more than just a revamp of the lead-scoring methodology. Instead, it started a deeper conversation between marketing and sales to discover what was really important.
“We walked the sales team through our scoring methodology and discussed each and every point,” Christelle continued. “What firmographic information is important? Should a tradeshow lead get more points? No. Should a white paper download get more points? Maybe. Walking through the logic helped to flesh out the thought behind it and make it transparent. It really built trust between the teams.”
As they figured out the appropriate lead-scoring models, it led to more conversations and more collaboration on different items, all of which brought the teams closer to alignment.
“Eventually we talked instead of getting angry at each other,” she continued. “Marketing can ask for more budget to get more leads to help sales meet their number, or we can jointly figure out how to increase close rates so sales can hire more reps. We ended up being a joint team figuring out how to meet the overall goals together.”
Not getting angry at each other doesn't mean not having disagreements, however. Christelle relies on data as the key to finding a solution and avoiding lingering issues.
“If you're upset, you tend to make blanket statements, like ‘We don't have any leads,’” she added. “When we rely on data, we can turn it into a fact-based conversation. We can both see exactly what's happening. Data takes the emotion out of it. It keeps you from getting defensive, especially if you approach it [by saying], ‘Let's both sit down and look at the data.’ It also helps you figure out what the true issues are and points you in the right direction to fix them.”
We've each been in leadership roles for more than 20 years, and we've seen our share of aligned and misaligned
