Put all of your data into our system and finance can see sales forecasts, customer service can see billing issues, and sales can see marketing touch points. It was a great concept and it worked. But now, with cloud-based tools and new channels popping up, it's easier than ever to add new software tools as you attempt to keep pace.
In a nutshell, here's what has happened: You have too much technology, you have too much data, and everything is constantly changing. It creates distractions and silos, which exacerbate misalignment. We'll dive deeper into this in Chapters 5 and 6.
The Boundary Between Sales and Marketing Is Blurry
Largely due to technology, sales reps and marketers are stepping into each other's role more and more and their tasks are converging. Add to this the extreme level of miscommunication or lack of communication entirely and you have both sales and marketing doing what's best for themselves instead of collaborating on what's best for the customer and the company's growth.
For instance, if a sales rep wants to invite 25 prospects to an event to find more opportunities, they do it without including marketing. Meanwhile, if marketing wants to start working on the automotive market to get more prospects, they do it without any input from sales. Sure, they each might give the other a heads-up, but the focus on remaining independent keeps both groups from considering the full impact of what they're doing and how it affects the other – or the customer.
Your Current Success Shouldn't Fool You
Right now you may be thinking something like, “Well, things are going pretty well at my company without all of this alignment stuff.” Think again. Industry analyst IDC claims that a lack of sales and marketing alignment can cost you 10 percent of your revenue. Ten percent! Think about what an extra 10 percent in revenue could mean for your company. A study by marketing automation provider Marketo found that well-aligned teams have win rates 30 percent higher. Thirty percent! What would a 30 percent higher win rate have meant for your company last quarter?
You might be perfectly content to stick with your current business process, keeping sales focused on closing deals and marketing focused on filling the funnel. But before you decide to take no action, consider the benefits of sales and marketing alignment: You could increase revenue, profitability, win rates, and more. Why wouldn't you align? Compared to the performance of an aligned organization, your current success isn't actually all that great. We asked Jim Dickie, former managing partner at CSO Insights, a sales and marketing effectiveness research firm, why all companies aren't jumping on the alignment bandwagon.
“I honestly don't know,” Jim says. “This should be a boardroom-level discussion. It's that important. Our research is showing that B2B win rates are steadily declining and are now around 47 percent, on average. That's terrible. The odds of winning at the craps tables in Las Vegas are 49 percent, so companies would be better off gambling!”
Jim says that companies think too much about how much it costs to drive alignment and not enough about the price they pay for resisting change. “The cost of doing nothing is magnitudes higher than of doing something,” Jim added. “When I see companies doing nothing, it makes me cringe.”
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