Rocket Readings: How bonding Marketing and Sales

Leads in funnel – Sales deals

Marketing needs to prove their marketing spending’s by showing as many leads as possible. Although Marketing will qualify the leads before entering them into the funnel they have the tendency to let more leads qualify.

On the other hand the more under-qualified leads the Salesman gets the more time he waists by qualifying each of the leads in his sales funnel. Hence the lesser time he can spend on the really well qualified leads. This creates the perception with salesmen that the marketing leads are of lesser value. In the worst case the salesmen will even ignore the leads from marketing as they prefer to work on their leads.

Rewarding

Marketing is rewarded for the number of qualified leads it generates into the funnel. Salesmen are rewarded by the number of sales deals they have closed.

During sales meetings and revisions by the sales manager the salesmen are evaluated not only by the number and value of deals they close but also on the success rate of their funnel. Moreover their pipeline is used to get a forecast of sales which is all important business and management information.

Hence salesmen should be in control of leads entering their funnel which is not always possible with the current Marketing Automation tools. These Marketing Automation tools and CRM system often start from a marketing campaign and feed the potential leads directly into the funnel.

Commissions for Marketing and Sales

Instead of marketing being rewarded for the number of leads entering the funnel, they should be rewarded just like salesmen for deals closed. In this way they would take the time to qualify leads better as every lead requires time and effort from a salesman. The more effective the salesman can work the better for both. Marketing and salesmen should both be rewarded on a sales commission for deals closed.

This split commission would bound the collaboration between Marketing and Sales as they both will have the same goal.

How is the distribution of leads organized in your company ?