Sales and Marketing - Same As It Ever Was?

Sales says: “Marketing put your crayons down for a second and listen to what I need you to produce for me, so I can close some sales!”

Marketing says: “Sales put your ego aside and read all the tonnes of stuff I’ve already produced for you, which you don’t even use.” Sound familiar?

It’s no secret that sales and marketing teams, generally, have no love lost for each other. A recent survey by Lean Data Inc. shows that 53% of sales professionals are not all together chuffed with marketing’s support.

How do marketing teams react to this? They get their own back with stats that suggest that 90% of the content created for sales by marketing is never used.

In the real world, this animosity is harmful to the business, damaging metrics on both sides of no man’s land.

What would happen if we all took our fingers off the big red button and put the bayonets down?

When sales and marketing work together, sales metrics soar, costs decrease and companies experience higher customer retention rates.

So, here at CANDDi, we’ve developed 3 steps towards sales and marketing harmony all businesses could adopt for better business and better sales…

Work together on sales content creation

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Sales want something that works. Marketing want to produce great work that gets results

By working together sales are more likely to use what marketing create.

Heck, it’s exactly what they actually wanted!

Sales and marketing intelligence grows exponentially when all parties have a front line route to the most important group in this scenario - the customer!

So our view is, let’s get the best of both worlds where marketing shape content that is relevant, valuable and engaging to the target audience, while sales develops key strategic messages based on what they encounter every day.

CANDDi teams work side by side, just one comment from a prospect into the sales team can spark a blog post. Customer queries are equally valuable in helping us craft useful and valuable messages.

Our sales, account management, marketing and new business teams all work well together. It could help that we all get drunk together, eat cake together and generally function as one big happy family…

And, it works!

Really works!

Collaborate on outbound

Who in sales wouldn’t like their prospects to be lining up, credit card at the ready, itching to get their mitts on your product or service. It’s sales nirvana where all leads are inbound.

The reality is the ‘order taker’ salesperson has been replaced by a ‘pay now’ button on your website!

Sales is changing at a rate previously unheard of. Tech is forcing some of it, but so are buyer expectations.

Buying process are driven by online searches, not necessarily by outbound sales approaches, no matter how well researched..

Purchasers and the buying process changes, when sales inform marketing of this there can be a timely response. When sales are marketing’s eyes and ears, and marketing bring their creativity, talent and values to the mix, it’s a formidable combination. At CANDDi, when we’re creating outbound campaigns there’s collaboration throughout. Nevertheless, the final sign off is always with sales, but we find the real value comes from having the discussion about what we’re trying to achieve and how we can do the best for our clients.

We know everyone wins, especially the prospect, when we collaborate internally. And you know where the real competitive advantage is?

We can see what’s working within 60 minutes of a new campaign going out…so we know whether to ramp it up to infinity and beyond or call a halt and go back to the drawing board.

How’s that for collaborative progress? Over time this has vastly improved the quality of our communications and, in turn, improved conversions!

Look for crossovers in KPIs

Believe it or not, in lots of businesses, sales and marketing KPIs aren’t that different! Yet they exist in separate parts of the business universe, never to talk or meet.

So how about you foster joint conversations around some of the following and let those creative brains get to work on producing the very best routes, messages, campaigns to hit the numbers? You stand a far higher chance of increasing your ROI by collectively focusing on KPIs that are important in both departments.

1. Shared Activity
2. Lead generation
3. Cost per lead
4. Conversions
5. Sales

No finger pointing if the KPI’s are joined up. Joint ownership, joint commitment, joint investment, joint accountability.

Marketing can generate truck load of leads however, if they’re the wrong type of leads, sales will be poor – who gets whipped? Of course, it’s sales.

This blame breeds resentment and ultimately damages results.

Consider the conflict when this happens, and it happens all too often… the marketing department is looking at lead generation to determine what target market and types of leads they should be targeting in future marketing activity. Meanwhile, the sales department is likely looking at which leads are most lucrative and fastest to close. That’s the sort of friction you can do without, and it’s the type of friction that you don’t get when you use joint KPI’s

At CANDDi, we are living breathing proof that sales and marketing don’t have to be enemies.

We work collaboratively, sharing resources, a clear vision and sensible, related KPIs. That was it’s easy to thrive.

We also have fun, respect each other skills, and spend our working lives challenging each other on how we can better serve our customers,

All too often we see and speak with split sales and marketing teams, each desperate to blame the other.

This makes us sad…

Because once you know the sheer productive force of a collaborative and functioning sales and marketing unit, then you have precision, clarity and focus on key business goals, messages and values.

Marketing put your crayons down, sales put your ego aside might be your current battle cry, but how about this for a change: ‘Teamwork makes the dreamwork’ (Where’s the cliche emoji when you need it!)

Try it out, let us now how you get on, and if you’re not keen on waiting around longer than 60 minutes to see if your sales and marketing messages are on point… give me a call…

Nothing unites a team like success!!