1/28/2013

Stitch the Sales and Marketing Organization Together

Stitch the Sales and Marketing Organization Together:from Sales Force Effectiveness Blog 
Speed, it is the most commonly used word among Sales and Marketing leaders today. It has come up in every interview we have performed. It is now critical attribute of successful B2B sales and marketing organizations.10087695 s
Why? Because Sales and Marketing organizations are adjusting to the new B2B buyer behavior.
How do you achieve speed? By stitching the sales and marketing organizations through making data meaningful via a robust sales performance management system.
Over the last several years we have seen a shift in sales and marketing organization. This has been brought on by the shift in B2B buyer behavior. For example, Marketing has seen its role drastically increase with the rise of inbound marketing and Lead Generation. Field Sales has seen a resource shift from outside to inside sales. The sales and marketing organization is always evolving. The key to keeping it working is to require Sales Operations to connect (stitch) each piece together.

Stitching Sales and Marketing Together 

3 Keys to Stitching the Sales and Marketing Organization Together

Give Leadership What They Want

When did you last ask leaders of the sales and marketing organization what metrics they review? If you haven’t I would recommend making that priority number one. To get you started you can download the sales metrics assessment here.
Each member of the sales and marketing organization reviews different metrics. Identifying, reporting, and proactively analyzing those metrics is step one to making data meaningful.

Sales Leadership

Focuse on metrics that relate to Sales Results and Talent. Also traditional key metrics such as cost of sales, average sales price, etc.

Field Sales

This group includes you front line sales managers and regional sales managers. Therefore look for tactical metrics the track rep activity and performance. Keep them up to date on talent and social selling activities.

Marketing

Marketing wants to ensure they are contributing to the growth of the organization. The value lead conversion rates, content effectiveness scores, customer lifetime value and customer retention.

Strategy

Strategy groups are always keen on ensuring the products and services are generating results. Areas include customer feedback, product/service performance and profitability.

Facilitate Communication and Collaboration on Cross Functional Deficiencies

Today each function in the sales and marketing organization continues bleed into its counterparts. As a sales operations leader it is your responsibility to facilitate communication and collaboration.
Recently,  I was speaking with a Sales Operations leader who was monitoring lead conversion metrics. (A must for any sales operations leader) He noticed a drastic dip in the conversion of MQL’s to SQL’s. The right move would be to notify marketing which he did. However, he went a step further and engaged the Field Sales Leaders involved, to unpack the problem. Ultimately, the team corrected the problem but they did so in a quarter of the time.

Leverage Technology to Achieve Speed

Finally, stitch the sales and marketing organization together by leveraging and integrating technology.
Ask you self some of these key questions as you think about technology in your organization:
-          Who has access to CRM? Should every member of the sales and marketing organization have access?
-          Is our Marketing Automation software integrated with our CRM?
-          Are we optimized to collect feedback from customers?
-          Can we deploy real time metrics and dashboards to members of the sales and marketing organization at all times?

Call to Action:

An effective sales operations organization leverage sales performance management best practices to make data meaningful. Spend you time:
  • Determining what metrics each of your Sales and marketing organization leaders reviews.
  • Developing a game plan and cadence to report and proactively analyze those metrics
  • Engaging all Sales and marketing organization Stakeholders when issues arise.
  • Leveraging Technology to drive organization integration and speed.


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