Don’t let your dark side take control of your marketing strategy.

Don’t let your dark side take control of your marketing strategy.

As I write this blog, the global stock market is in a massive downward correction. Here comes more pressure to perform in the short term.

Every marketer has a dark side that emerges under pressure. From the “shotgun approach” of sending out more messages through every possible channel to the loosening of lead criteria with the hope that sales will continue to see lead volume – don’t let your dark side take over.

Instead, get focused. Immediately collaborate with your head of sales. Yep, from my keyboard to your eyes – pick up the phone and call your internal customer. Together, review your current strategy and discuss potential changes to your strategy, messaging and tactics. It’s not time to get fancy. Sure, you can offer up new tactics or recommend doubling down on one or two existing tactics that work. That’s expected. Instead, execute on what is already in your pipeline and to take a “rifle shot” approach by focusing on a few key ways to help close what is in the pipeline and to add quality opportunities to the top of your pipeline. Agree on the changes, the timeline and any new KPI that you need to add or adjust in order to measure your success.

You have to stay in alignment with what is happening in the field and what your sales team needs in order to deliver revenue. Do not attempt to do this in your own vacuum. If you do, your dark side will get the best of you.

Leadership – the hidden danger to successful sales and marketing alignment

Several weeks ago I co-facilitated a sales and marketing SLA (service level agreement) workshop with a multi-billion dollar technology company. It was part of an integrated solution Richardson is delivering to help the organization transform how they sell to their clients.

I can’t discuss the details of the engagement, but what I would like to comment on is how “people” make all the difference in aligning sales and marketing. What made this particular client unique is how their revenue team – sales and marketing – interacted with one another. In the workshop were global marketing and sales leaders who had responsibility for key business units and geographies. From the moment the event kicked off, the incredible high level of respect for each other and desire to collaborate was evident from one participant to the other. The egos were checked at the door. Everyone in the room was ready to roll up their sleeves and accomplish something many large organizations can only dream of – a working sales and marketing SLA.

In my experience, having a team this ready and open to collaboration is not normal – but best practice. Kudos goes to the executive leadership team for setting the expectations and to the senior project manager for ensuring that all participants fully understood their role, responsibility and accountability during the workshop. What a great group of people and some of the best I’ve had the pleasure to work with.

Much is written about how to align sales and marketing. Let me sum a lot of it up for you – just go out and buy a few marketing automation tools, build in lead scoring models, create some playbooks, hook it all together, make it accessible and bang, you got yourself alignment. Not so fast.

Very little is written about the “people” part of alignment. Yep, your ability to work with others. To be collaborative, respectful, honest and to be truly open to helping one another. Easy said, but very, very hard to do. Why’s that? Because you are dealing with attitudes, egos, hidden (or maybe not hidden) agendas, peer relationships and the “protecting ones territory” situations. If I can point to anything that tops the list of alignment killers, it’s the people.

How does a company overcome this issue? It starts with leadership. A sound relationship between your CSO and your CMO. If they can’t get along, then you are doomed to failure from the get go. How do you fix that? The CEO gets them help to correct their relationship issues. If that does not work, then the CEO needs to look to replace that executive who is unwilling to get along.

With solid leadership behavior, executives drive that behavior to their teams and they hold everyone accountable for doing the same. Having people ready and willing to work together, along with marketing automation tools, best practice lead management, process and training, you will have a recipe for successful sales and marketing alignment.

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Learn more about Richardson's comprehensive sales training solutions at http://www.richardson.com

Sales Enablement – coming to a marketing team near you.

Last week, I attended the Sirius Decision’s 2011 Forum. It was my third attendance to this stellar program. And I mean stellar. Sirius runs one of the most content rich and professional forums of its kind. Not to mention the five-star venue and the food. Oh the food!! The desert table at the cocktail reception was the best I've ever seen – or better yet – tasted. From content to the senior-level attendees to the speakers to the vendors, that Sirius crew really knows how to put on a class “A” event and if you are a sales or marketing professional, it should be a must attend in 2012. Did I mention the event was also sold out! Yep, standing room only.

I would have to say that the leading topic at the event was sales enablement. Not lead generation, lead management or even the much pontificated topic of social media. Just flat out how can sales and marketing teams work together to drive the generation of revenue. From the number of sessions covering the topic to how packed the tables where at the “birds-of-a-feather” breakfast, sales enablement was the topic of choice.

Even the vendors were hot on the message. You could have blind folded me and asked me to toss a dart through the exhibit area and I would have hit signage that had the words sales enablement on it.

Why sales enablement? Why now? Is it just another fancy term for sales and marketing integration? Not to many of the attendees that I spoke to. It’s the next step in evolution. Becoming laser focused on revenue generation – having both sales and marketing looking through the same lens in order to view a common goal.

Many attendees at the event were looking to tighten the bond of marketing and sales. Be it through strategy, tactics, process or technology, there was plenty to learn. I would like to comment that sales enablement is more than strategy, tactics, process or technology. Those critical components are the “what” of sales enablement.

Let’s not forget the “How”. The act of teaching sales people how to engineer a better sales dialogue. To teach marketing professionals how the sales process works – down to the nuts and bolts. Even teach them how to align content to the sales process based on what sales people need by stage. By combining the “what and the how”, sales and marketing teams will truly be closer to the nirvana of becoming one seamless revenue generation engine. Isn't that what this is all about?

Five must haves for any sales and marketing SLA

Do you have a service level agreement (SLA) between your sales and marketing groups? If your answer is no – read this blog. If your answer is yes – read this blog.

This blog is not about why you need an SLA, just Google that (or read my other blogs) and you'll find a ton of reasons why. It's about how you actually create one.

Try doing a Google search to find samples of a sales and marketing SLA. Wait, don’t do that. Let me save you some time - you'll find very little if any usable information. If you find any samples at all, they are most likely focused on only lead response or key KPI deliverables between both teams.

There are five must haves that need to be in any sales and marketing SLA:

· Executive Summary

· Communication Plan

· Terminology

· Marketing Accountabilities

· Sales Accountabilities

Let’s quickly review each one.

Executive summary – answer the following question: Why are we doing this? And answer it in a way that it will be clear to your entire executive team.

Communication plan – should include agreements around regular meetings, topics that will be covered in those meetings, key KPIs that will be reviewed and conflict resolution steps to name a few.

Terminology – agree on all key terms – specifically: marketing responder, sales accepted lead, sales qualified lead, qualified lead criteria, BANT and any other terms that need to be clear between each group.

Marketing accountabilities – this is more than just how many leads the marketing team is going to deliver. How about covering: percentage of closed revenue, reporting on win/loss, scoring the quality of your leads, maintaining a minimum quality threshold and alignment of marketing assets to your sales cycle.

Sales accountabilities – you surely want to ensure that sales reps are responding to leads in a timely manner. You also should consider including items such as: data fields that are mandatory to be completed in your CRM, win/loss reviews, minimum close ratios of marketing generated opportunities and closed loop feedback on lead quality issues.

Your SLA should be no longer than five PowerPoint slides. Keep it clear, concise and as simple as possible. There should be a signature page as well. Make sure both your sales and marketing executives actually sign the document.

Here’s to better alignment in 2011!!!!