| Ask Andy Krafft of Prospectvision |
There's almost certainly a parallel universe nearby to all of us. Before getting overly excited at the prospect of dinosaurs and aliens on the doorstep, it's likely to be a more prosaic alternate reality, occupied by a fair few large companies. These companies contain marketing and sales teams that are all too often pursuing the same leads by the same methods - a duplication of their time and effort. How can we get these two teams to interact with each other, breaking out of their virtual silos, and building on the strengths of both?
The Baby Steps
The first steps of co-operation should be simple ones. How, for example, should leads be passed from marketing to the sales team? Inevitably, this will vary depending on the organization. Some companies choose to keep their process the same, such as moving all leads to sales. Others might choose to implement basic scoring and move only those leads to sales that meet a basic set of criteria.
The next interactive measures between the two teams will involve the setting of goals, particularly when implementing a lead management system. What are the mid-to-long term goals likely to be? In this context, the marketing-to-sales process should be defined by what a sales-ready lead really is within your organization.
A Galaxy Far Far Away?
Beyond these actions, it's fair to say that sales and marketing teams are converging in focus anyway, as a result of external pressures. The most important of these pressures is inevitably the demands of the web environment, which is forcing both marketing and sales to contend with a switch in the balance of power away from sellers to buyers. We can no longer "sell" to customers; they must "buy" from us. This is particularly evident in the US market where phones are left on permanent voicemail, precluding the use of traditional outbound telemarketing.
Or the Here - and Now?
This situation is brought sharply into focus by another pressure - the current tough business climate. Both of these pressures have resulted in marketing and sales becoming more customer-centric - a result that must ultimately be of benefit to the consumer.
Although tensions between the marketing and sales functions inevitably rise when the going gets tough, there are excellent online tools available to smooth out those tensions - specifically with reference to prospecting for new clients.
In summary, sales and marketing must take a single view of the customer journey from unaware to close. It is a continuum, not a step, from marketing to sales. With new technology enabling much better identification, targeting and communication with prospective customers, driving the new customer focus must force the removal of the "parallel universe" inhabited by sales and marketing and encourage a more collaborative approach between them both. The staff of both disciplines will have to learn new approaches and skills while they work out how to break out of their virtual silos to communicate with each other and, more importantly, engage with the customer.
Together - We Can Do It!
And I hope it is those new skills, and techniques and tools, that you might want to explore with me here?...
Questions & Comments
Customer Journey could be the answer
I feel the strategy is to all work to a shared goal. The tactics of course are where the devil's in the detail. Each party has their own skill sets, styles, approaches and knowledge but from the customer/prospect perspective there could be a muddled view as to who to contact, where, how and when.
There is an approach that should help though and it's called Customer Journey - the step by step process of touch points that a customer should be taken along in their engagement with the organisation. By clearly assigning owners to each of the steps we could avoid duplication and aid the clarity of their experience (leading hopefully to additional sales and long term trust, loyalty and value).
At least that's the theory... We have a short introduction to Customer Journey at http://www.vipertraining.tv/video/customer_journey if anyone's interested in finding out more.
Posted by Neil Wilkins on
Sales and Marketing Alignment
My 'starting point' for this is a Sales and Marketing Plan. How often do Sales go and build a Sales Plan while Marketing is off writing a Marketing Plan.
A shared vision and common goals must be agreed first. I discovered how to make sales and marketing alignment happen from Hugh MacFarlane and his book "The Leaky Funnel"
Posted by John Sweeney on
Procter & Gamble B2C example
Have you Gents got any thoughts about the "marketing" (machine) message that gurus were suggesting here, versus the "customer service / sales" people they actually needed to deploy...
http://www.imediaconnection.com/summits/coverage/28907.asp
...to diffuse and win round a "Mums v Nappies" war?
Posted by Neil Warren on
LinkedIn Dos and Don'ts....
Hi Andy / Gents. I noticed some "new" LinkedIn user agreement terms the other day, and just now needed to refer back to this discussion, and reckon you may need to rethink your creative and lovingly crafted "looks like" image Andy. This is the section...
http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=user_agreement&trk=hb_ft_userag#pri-10
...and, specifically....
"Upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo;"
I mean you might get to debate yours, specifically with them (not having met you I don't know), but we need to also be setting examples here, and my fear is that if your "cartoon" is good for you, someone else is going to think that "Simpsonisation" or whatever is good for them.
(And don'cha just love the Thought Police and "command & control" anything? ;-)
Posted by Neil Warren on
Time to get together....
Sales blame marketing for poor quality leads. Marketing blame sales for lack of communication and not following up with the leads they have passed through to them.
So what can be done to forge links between sales and marketing? Here are some thoughts and ideas from a recent artilce that came from modern selling
http://www.prospectvision.net/articles/full/get_together.asp
Posted by Andrew Wise on
Fun cartoon relating to sales and marketing, enjoy. :-)
I was sent a link to this cartoon some time ago by Peter Johnston and it raised a smile, hope you enjoy.
http://www.leadformix.com/martoons/?p=123
Posted by Andrew Wise on
My Question / Comment Is...
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