Alignment that is.
Alignment between marketing and sales is critical for organizations if they want to ensure they grow and gain revenue share in the market of the present and future.
A Unified Revenue Team
Businesses that get this right and align sales and marketing teams experience 36% higher customer retention and are up to 67% more efficient at closing deals. Marketing’s sole purpose should be to create content, tools and a clear narrative that allows sales to close more business. If sales are going to market on their own without the partnership of their marketing teams then they will fail.
We need to stop thinking of sales and marketing as separate teams and combine them into a unified revenue team that’s sole purpose is to add more opportunity and revenue to the sales pipeline.
Sales and marketing teams experience 36% higher customer retention and are up to 67% more efficient at closing deals
Marketing is Not a Support Function
I have seen this firsthand in two recent organizations I’ve worked with. One sales organization saw and used marketing solely as a support function and they failed at conveying a persuasive message to market that ultimately lead to decreased leads and decreased win rates further down the funnel.
The other organization was aligned from the onset. With the CSO working closely with myself to understand our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and the pain we could solve for them and then turning this into a consistent story from top of funnel all the way to bottom of funnel. Then, aligning his sales organization with marketing to collaborate and train on how best to pitch and enable this new narrative to drive the organization to sell more. The results have spoken for themselves.
The days of marketing supporting the business and making things “look pretty” is long gone. Marketing needs to be at the strategy table having the conversations and collaborating with the business in order best be positioned to drive impact to the bottom line.
The days of marketing supporting the business and making things “look pretty” is long gone. The days of sales going at it alone and cold calling or going to events to drum up business are long gone
The days of sales going at it alone and cold calling or going to events to drum up business are long gone as well. Sales needs the expertise of marketers to identify the digital buying journey and ensure we have a clear value prop that speaks to the stages a buyer goes through on and offline to ensure conversion.
Not B2C or B2B it’s B2P
The expertise of marketers combined with that of sales is critical in today’s world.
The reason - think of how you currently purchase items? If you’re like me you typically do research, ask friends, read recommendations, and compare different products based on certain criteria before clicking “purchase”.
The B2C world is converging with the B2B world as younger generations are moving into business buying decision maker roles. They, like me, don’t want to interact with a salesperson from the onset, they want to do their research and understand options before being “sold to”.
The barriers between Consumer and Business are blurring and we as Revenue Ops leaders need to not be concerned about these differences anymore but instead be more focused on the person buying the solution, product or service and how best to ensure we give them enough information and guidance during their buying journey to want to work with us – Business to People (B2P) is the new way we as marketing and sales leaders need to look at our world and how best to position our offering.
Business to People (B2P) is the new way we as marketing and sales leaders need to look at our world and how best to position our offering.
What are you seeing in your business? Do you see some of these trends already making an impact in how you and your teams sell and market yourself? Let me know in the comments or feel free to reach out to me directly – would love to discuss!
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