What are the top three things you would recommend to align sales & marketing?

Dan:

This is a seemingly never-ending issue that quite frankly I am not sure will ever really get solved. In the meantime, here are some recommendations on how to get close:

1. Create an agreed-upon lead definition -- Brian Carroll calls it a "universal lead definition". This is the most important step in the process. When creating the lead definition, make sure you do the following: a. Get both sales and marketing to sign off b. Agree upon an SLA from sales of what activities they guarantee to do if they lead reaches this definition c. Make sure you have an outlet to "recycle" leads that don't work out back into the lead nurturing/marketing bucket. AND marketers: make absolutely sure you don't agree to an unattainable lead definition.

2. Use a phone-based resource to sit in between marketing and quota-carrying sales reps -- There is a very important factor here: marketing is the only one talking about sales-marketing alignment. Sales is talking about leads, they have NO idea what sales-marketing alignment is. In other words, marketing is judged by their leads. PERIOD. To make matters more difficult, sales doesn't follow up on leads. The solution is a phone-based lead qualification team whose job it is to connect, qualify, and introduce prospects to sales. Everyone wins in this scenario (when done right). Sales connects with leads and is overall happier with the service they are receiving from marketing. Marketing is happy because their conversion rates are up.

3. Talk ALOT -- Once you have a lead definition, create an anecdotal feedback loop between the two groups. This meeting can hurt with the potential to get really ugly. And guess what, it's all for the better. One of the worst things in the current marketing and sales divide is each side running off and talking bad about the other. Sitting at the table and optimizing is the key to continued success.

As has been said, this question, or iterations of it, regularly come up for discussion.

I completely agree with Craig's comments on defining a lead. This simple act can quickly bring sales and marketing closer together. What can often get overlooked is a clear definition of what sales teams and marketing teams are each trying to achieve.

Ultimately, a company will employ a sales team and a marketing team to generate revenue, whether or not growing the business is part of the plan. And that is where things can start to break down. The VP of Marketing is likely to have a corporate goal that is based on perceived market share, or generating a certain volume of collateral, or launching a new product. The VP of Sales is likely to have a goal that is all about revenue - increase sales revenue by 10% in 2011 based on 2010 revenues of $500million, for example.

Now what can the VP of Marketing really do to help the VP of Sales reach his revenue goal?

First:
An honest understanding of customer-facing scenarios can re-engineer many a marketer's assumptions of what a sales cycle looks like. I have had product marketing managers shadow sales people for a month, and they came back with some completely new perspectives on how marketing can be supporting the sales function. Some may recommend that marketing managers only work with top sales performers. I disagree. They should spend time with sales people generating the complete range of results, from regular Club attendees, to those about to get fired.

Second:
Here's a controversial one - tie a worthwhile percentage of a marketing team's bonus to sales results. I have seen this work wonders when tied to customer satisfaction results, but when applied to sales, mutiny ensues. Why is that? When I was in a corporate marketing role, I wanted to be associated with big wins. I wanted everyone to know that marketing played a key role in closing a specific deal. And I was happy to work for it and be paid accordingly. Why should others be resistant to being partially paid based on the value they bring?

Third:
Appreciate each other. As has already been mentioned, there is no shortage of conflict and finger-pointing between sales and marketing teams. Top-down efforts need to be made to clearly define roles and accountabilities. If there are consistent complaints coming from either team, catalog them, summarize them, and then bring the teams together in small groups to develop a positive working relationship. Make it clear that it is OK to complain, but criticism should be delivered with suggestions for a reasonable solution, otherwise it will be dismissed. As long as the feedback is seen to be contributing to the attainment of those annual revenue goals, it should be encouraged and listened to.

I'm actually in the middle of writing a lengthy blog post on this exact topic. It will be at http://www.infusionblog sometime next week. The key for me is what I call "respected ownership" along with metrics that align the two teams on the same goals. Below is an excerpt from my post on "respected ownership". You'll have to read my post next week to get the metrics part (haven't quite finished it yet).

The key to success is assigning respected ownership of key areas and aligning on the right metrics. "Respected ownership" means that each department respects the other department's ownership of key areas that will effect them. There is much humility required here. Each department needs to allow the other to fully own their piece. But each department also needs to be open to input from the other.

Let's look at the most important areas of respected ownership:

Sales Ownership

* Sales must own the definition of what a qualified lead is. Sales needs to be open to input from Marketing & Customer Support. But Marketing needs to be humble enough to allow Sales to create this definition for them. If the Marketing leadership is not confident in their own ability to drive leads under the definition that Sales sets forth, it's time to get new Marketing leadership.
* Sales must own the number of qualified leads. Marketing leadership can push back if the historical data doesn't support the close rate that the Sales management is proposing. But, in the end, Sales needs to come to Marketing and say: We need to close X number of deals this month, we typically close at Y percent, therefore we need Z number of qualified leads.

Marketing Ownership

* Marketing must own the message. Sales reps will always sell whatever the prospect is buying. That's a excellent trait of a good sales rep. But, this attribute is a message killer. When a company is trying to stick a stake in the ground and claim it's territory, there needs to be rigidity around the message. Sales reps need to repeat the message (no matter how boring it becomes to them) to every prospect that comes in the door. Sales management needs to back that up and coach it.
* Marketing (and Product Management) must own the definition of the target market. Again, sales will sell to anyone who's buying. But, marketing needs to steer the ship in the right direction.

Dan:

Great question and one that never seems to go away. I think first and foremost that organizations need to understand that alignment in and of itself is not the problem, but a symptom of greater issues. To many organizations seek to address the symptom but not the issues. Now as for the top three things they are as follows:

1. Align around your customer/buyer
Marketing and sales need to stop the finger pointing and realize that the buyers are the ones who suffer when there is no alignment. Defining the customers buying cycle and then developing the marketing and sales strategy that will enable buyer engagement will help solve the internal alignment. By focusing on a the customer it solves both sides trying to "get theirs" and gives the buyers the attention they want and need from their prospective vendors.

2. Lack of process
To Craig's point above, starting with a universal definition is needed, but both marketing and sales need to develop and implement a Lead Management Process Framework(SM). This includes defining the processes to manage data, lead planning, lead routing, lead qualification (including definition & scoring), lead nurturing, content and metrics. If these processes are not in place each sales person and marketing group does what they think is best which only widens the alignment gap.

3. Common Measurement

Marketers need to begin to include revenue as one of their key metrics. While opens, responses, impressions etc. should be tracked, they do not give an indication as to the overall impact marketing is having on revenue. Marketing should begin to measure themselves on number of sales accepted leads (based on lead qualification process & definition), impact on pipeline and impact on revenue. These measurements, when defined in collaboration with sales will ensure both groups have the same goals in mind and will bring about alignment.

Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group
@cahidalgo

Great comments already posted – I agree particularly to Craig's and Michael's comments.

The obstacles we experiences day by day between marketing/product management and sales are symptoms, not the real root causes. There are several reasons behind as first of all sales and marketing don't really understand each others role in the company. Additionally there are short term versus long term thinking, targets which are not aligned, missing understanding of a common design point, a check list mentality versus etc. What I experienced very often, sales people cannot articulate precisely what they really need and marketing people often believe to know what sales actually needs - but without talking to sales.

First, it's about developing a common understanding of a few cornerstones:
Sales and marketing including product management should agree that selling is a system and not an isolated function. Further they should agree that marketing, product management and sales have different roles in that selling system, and they should agree that the selling system has one design point: the customer. That's of course easier said than done, it's a big, big change management challenge to change view points, beliefs and behaviors!
Behind this first topic are several major misunderstandings between sales and marketing which can be found all over the place. The top ten misunderstandings are listed here:
http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/top-10-reasons-sales-hates-marketing/53...

Second, based on the customer as design point, next step should be to map and to align all activities along the customers buying cycle.
Tackling this topic means inventory and analyze existing content, review the often used checklist behavior, define gaps and needs to come to a buying cycle oriented dynamic content strategy using the dimensions “buying cycle” and “messaging levels”, such as business leaders, CIO, IT management or subject matter experts. That brings us to a nice matrix to be thought through! Many questions have to be answered such as what's the customer's business problem, which other problems behind have to be solved and how will the customer measure the success (business outcome)? How can design a solution toward the customers business outcome and what's the unique business value we can add to help achieving the customer's business problem. What's unique in our value proposition – a perfect question to bring together all necessary skills – the story telling and broadcast messaging skills of marketing and the specific account view of sales. A framework to tackle these questions could be helpful to derive a future content strategy. All that has to be mapped to the training landscape in a cross-functional way. That means is that especially content generation is not a one-way road – content has to be generated cross-functionally! Without organized feedback loops and lessons learned from sales - especially in early stages of product launches - high quality content and messaging cannot be produced.

Third, it's about how to organize roles and responsibilities within the functions, from an overall perspective and how to align everything in a broader frame – that's where we should discuss this topic considering a sales enablement background. Let's assume there is an existing sales enablement initiative, a program or ideally a cross-functional council which can set a frame, provide and maintain operating models, define services and more: using these frameworks and connecting the dots within a broader context could be a step toward next generation sales and marketing alignment. Especially common objectives have to be discussed. Using an alignment strategy as described here with the customer as design point and the buying cycle as operational backbone, marketing should be more accountable for developing leads to opportunities. Additionally marketing's contribution to the overall revenue goals should be defined.

Here's one: Ask better questions of digital marketing agencies before hiring them -- or after.

Whether it's a multimillion dollar social marketing agency or a smaller, boutique group or perhaps an individual freelancer. Your service provider should earn a paycheck by helping you:

1. Generate leads and sales by discovering, nurturing and capturing customer demand
2. Execute the tactics that support them
3. Formulate better strategies

The role of critical thinking cannot be over-stated. It's a necessary habit – for you and outsourced team-members. Because asking tough questions is the only way to improve the output of digital marketing -- in particular, social media marketing.

To align, score your digital agency on these criteria. They should be:

1) Accountable: Thinking and acting critically... connecting their services with your business goal out of habit.

2) A translator: Discovering evolving need, nurturing it and capturing demand. This is the service they provide. Translation involves listening but ALSO involves lead generation (outcomes like sales). Translation is not about creative messaging or advertising, it's about designing interactive ways to sell.

The provider that will serve you best (today or in the future) will demonstrate their ability to think critically about how their tactics affect your strategies.

1. They should interview YOU with probing questions.
2. Ask “why” a lot.
3. Not always agree with your reasoning.

Again, align them with sales by asking better questions -- directly to them. Example:

QUESTION TO ASK YOUR AGENCY: At the highest level what makes a social media campaign produce leads and sales? What are the key elements and how do they work? Feel free to draw them for me.

TIP: Your candidate/agency should speak to demand discovery, nurturing and ultimate capture of leads and sales. At some point the candidate should illustrate exactly how social tools can support traditional marketing constructs – like the customer life cycle or sales funnel (moving from awareness to consideration to purchase to loyalty/advocacy).

TIP: Your candidate should not speak about concepts like engagement, attention, community, branding or any other similar idea outside the context of organized behavior. In other words, you're looking for recognition from the candidate that he/she understands the essential role behavior plays in designing sales as the ultimate output.

TIP: Your candidate should speak to the leading role of direct response tactics (calls-to-action) and metrics (cost-per-order, cost-per-lead, average order, repurchase rate, lead-to-sales conversion rate).

Kotler and Rackham wrote an article together
published in the Harvard Business Review
“Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing”, http://bit.ly/dj2avt where they agree to integrate.

The new role of Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) makes sense to have an individual responsible to the CEO for Revenue results, and his eye on everything from Market segmentation to Cash collection.

Brian, I enjoyed the article: "Ending the war between sales and marketing" and liked the simplicity of the differences being broken down simply as economic and cultural. Carlos weighs in with what I feel is the most important element of fixing the alignment problem and that is common measurement. Tamara, I'll bet the BNET article you linked to creates a lot of heat under the collective marketing collars. It is a bit severe for me, but I suspect the purpose was to ruffle a few feathers. Would that the world was so simple.

Doe any of you out there feel your company suffers from a lack of market definition?

Thanks for the great feedback so far.

Dan McDade
PointClear
@pointclearpd

Dan, thanks for your feedback! I included that link not to ruffle a few feathers.
I included that link to create awareness. Experiencing all these problems we are talking about over years and years from different perspectives (I have a sales, consulting and business development background and I'm currently driving sales enablement from a portfolio management view!), believe me:
I'm facing these statements, too! Anyhow when I have seen that BNET article for the first time - I was laughing and I thought: spot on - rough statements addressing a sore point! Sometimes, laughter is the best medicine;-)

The point I want to make here is - we can analyze everything in a well-structured way (what I love to do) but let's also face people's perception, people's own reality and people's feeling around this topic (what I also love to do).
If we accept that there are just different view points people have in mind when talking about this topic - without understanding the neighbor's view point (purpose of the BNET article) - we can address it and we can change it.
Let's integrate that emotional element to all our well-analyzed ideas - as a major basis for all the change effort we will definitely need to better align sales and marketing.

Here are my three suggestions how to align sales and marketing in a B2B environment.
1. Map out how customers want to buy your products or services (customer journeys). Depending on you portfolio of offerings, there might be different customer journey's.
2. Determine for which journey's marketing can reasonably be held accountable for generating leads. Especially with a Key Account Management program in place, I would not expect, that all leads are generated by marketing.Marketing then is to be held accountable for the portion of revenue generated by the journey's it is involved in.
3. For journey's where the lead is expected to come from marketing, the handover point to sales and the lead qualification criteria must be defined. The handing back of leads sales considers not worth pursuing must be defined as well so marketing can recycle these leads.

There've been a lot of words posted here. I'll sum things up as I see them:

#1 - Implement the tenets of Sales 2.0 (collaboration being the main one) immediately.

#2 - Do away with the 'siloed' marketing and sales structure.

#3 - Recognize that there aren't enough leads in the world to do things the same old way - implement a lead-nurturing program in marketing.

#4 - Did I mention collaboration?

#5 - Demand-generation is done by professionals nowadays; it's the only way you'll rise above the noise. Consider outsourcing your demand-gen programs.