As a marketer that develops programs intended to help business-to-business marketers improve sales productivity and ultimately generate profitable revenue, I feel compelled to share some advice with fellow marketing and sales executives. Before making the transition to a marketing role, I spent more than a decade in sales, sales management or sales training in the business-to-business environment. I have had the unique opportunity to walk more than a mile in both marketing's and sales' shoes.
I have felt the pain of a marketer that was unable to demonstrate marketing's impact on revenue generation because of a lack of much-needed sales feedback to close the loop and measure results. I know what it feels like to work day and night to generate qualified, sales-ready leads for a sales force that will either mishandle or ignore them once I've sent them along for pursuing. I have witnessed more than my share of marketers that have lost their jobs over poorly designed (and consequently poorly executed) marketing campaigns because sales either wasn't engaged early on or wasn't open to providing the needed guidance to marketers about the needs of their target audience. I know what it feels like to be a salesperson that has had to spend MANY precious selling hours building my own target list, making cold calls, creating sales collateral or completing multiple, manual, duplicate reports that never seemed to be used for any action of value. I've watched the most talented salespeople, many of them good friends, lose their jobs because they couldn't ramp up fast enough and close revenue in 90 days despite an 18 month complex sales cycle. I know what it feels like to waste hours chasing "leads" that were completely worthless.
And what's really shocking about it all?
WE ARE THE CAUSE OF OUR OWN PAIN.
And I think it's time for the insanity to end. If you agree, join me in bridging the ever-widening gap between marketing and sales by being a real change leader within your company. Here's how we can create real change…
- For marketers:
- Take the time to walk a mile in sales' shoes, work to understand the perspective the sales team brings to the table. You'll learn that sales isn't all about lunch meetings and golf – it involves countless hours of research, preparation, presentations, conference calls, cold-calling (with hundreds of NOs), travel, negotiations, calculations, contracting, relationship management, reporting and rejection – it is a 24 hour a day/7 day a week roller coaster ride for business development executives around the world. You'll also learn that every marketing request means something else, usually a client request or a revenue generating activity, must be put on the backburner.
- Use thoughtful words and appropriate tones in the requests. Avoid, at all costs, the following words: I, BUT, MUST, NEED and MANDATORY. And definitely never use threats – explicit or implicit. And whenever or wherever possible use the following words: WE, PLEASE, THANK YOU, APPRECIATE and SUPPORT.
- Invite sales into the planning process for any marketing campaigns that they are responsible for executing or supporting. Even if no additional learnings are gleamed or if sales opts to not participate, they'll be more apt to embrace that which is created for them because they were included.
- Never ever forget the answer to this question: What defines a qualified, sales-ready lead? SALES DOES. If they're not involved in the defining of a lead or if they disagree, the leads that you worked so hard to generate will be ignored and you will have wasted your precious marketing dollars on something that was doomed for failure before it even started.
- Establish an open communication channel (and a supporting lead recycling program) for sales to return leads that are no longer sales-ready for additional marketing activities. Reward sales for participation in this lead recycling program with visibility throughout the pipeline and actionable sales intelligence when they do become sales-ready.
- Explain to sales what's in it for them, in their terms, to participate, provide guidance and feedback to you. Sales must feel as though you are there to help them succeed and if at any point they feel as though it's a one-sided relationship – they'll put their energy, resources and faith elsewhere.
- Remember that, like you, sales has conflicting priorities and that in reality they're paid and managed to focus on selling activities that will generate revenue in the short term (less than 90 days out). If they don't, they'll be fired. And I can tell you with absolute certainty, they won't be able to blame their lack of sales on marketing requests.
- Respect sales' time. When you make requests and assign associated deadlines, make them realistic. And do whatever you can to make it as painless as possible.
- Last but NOT least: Always respect the true cost of a salesperson and be a responsible steward of your company's resources. While they may not be a line item in your marketing budget, they are very significant portion of your company's expenses. For example, if your company's average salesperson earns $100K annually plus commissions and fringe benefits – their hard cost is $399 per hour. Furthermore, if they carry a $2 million revenue quote, their actual cost to your company is $3788 per hour because if they'd don't sell $3788 per hour, they won't meet/exceed their revenue forecast. If they don't make their forecasts, neither will your company. And while I probably shouldn't have to state the obvious, if your company doesn't meet its forecasts, your marketing budget will more than likely be cut or suspended. If you can have an impact on sales productivity, you can dramatically impact your company's overall performance. If the average salesperson has less than 11 hours of actual selling time per week, imagine how much their performance would improve if you were able to help them spend those 11 hours on qualified, sales-ready opportunities. How much of an improvement would be seen if you could take certain activities off of their plate thus giving them additional hours to actual sell in a week? If it were your company, would you rather pay $3788 per hour for cold-calling lead generation activities or would you rather pay an outsourced call center provider $35-$50 for lead generation calling activities?
- For sales:
- Take the time to walk a mile in marketing's shoes. Understand the pressures that they face in generating demand in a crowded, competitive marketplace. Never forget that they are held accountable for your activities – if you fail to provide timely feedback on what's provided to you or if you fail to convert the opportunities they generate for you, they're likely to lose their jobs. According the CMO Council, the average tenure of a marketing executive is less than 22 months. The primary reason: marketing's inability to demonstrate their impact on revenue generation for their company. The primary reason for that: the inability to close the feedback loop and measure marketing's effectiveness. Understand that most marketers will lose sleep trying to figure out how to effectively generate demand and close the feedback loop while not wasting your time.
- When you receive requests, acknowledge them. If you accept the request, do what you say you'd do and on the timeline you promised to do it in. More often than not, they can't do their jobs without your help. And in many companies, their jobs exist to help you. At the risk of sounding like Jerry Macguire - Help them, help you!
- Participate as often as you can. It will only improve the quality of the opportunities that are generated for you. If you cannot participate, don't blame them if the initiative doesn't produce the results you wanted or needed. And always thank marketing for the invitation to participate.
- Provide both positive and constructive feedback on marketing's efforts. As much as they'd like to, marketers can't read your mind and things won't improve if you don't take personal ownership in the process.
- Even if you've had bad experiences in the past - never, ever ignore, drop or mishandle a lead. Follow up within 24-48 hours. If it's not a good lead, if you were unable to reach the prospect or if you learn that it's simply not sales-ready – inform marketing immediately – let them help.
- Last but NOT least: Always appreciate the marketing dollars that are spent to support you. If you take marketing for granted, one day you'll wake up and the dollars won't be there. I can't tell you how often I've seen marketing budgets cut or eliminated in favor of hiring another salesperson. The answer to a company's revenue challenges isn't to add one more struggling salesperson – it's improving the productivity of the existing team so you can sell more while spending less doing so.
It is time for us to realize that we cannot succeed without each other. It is time to stop the blame game. No more complaining about each other. Let's work together to make magic happen. Because if we don't work together to succeed, we'll surely fail together. We'll fail because our competitors' teams of marketers and sales executives working together, focusing their energy on winning and not on complaining or blaming each other for their failures. We can only achieve success through collaboration.
