TennisandSales

Head Of Sales

What will make sales and marketing become aligned?

We all know our brothers and sisters in marketing are doing their best.......to just do the bare minimum.

But I have been thinking about what would it take for us to be on the same page, now of course this is a PIPE dream and will never happen. but hear me out.

We are get comped on the same metrics. Revenue.

We get paid when deals close, why does marketing just measured on collecting contact info?

If marketing was only focused on the number of opportunities that came in through the website and closed at a certain % i think everything would be SO much better.

we would actually WANT to talk to marketing leads, marketing would actually be making a difference and it would be easy to track.

What do you think??? Is it that simple?

👑 Sales Strategy

📨 Marketing

🙅‍♂ MarketingSucks

24 comments

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butwhy

Politicker

Solutions Engineer

Honestly, I am starting to believe that Marketing should be under sales. CMO should report to CRO - underlying mission is too similar and living outside of CRO purview just creates silos and misalignment.

SaaSsy

Politicker

Completely agree! If I spent my whole week just typing in Salesforce notes and then changing the font and color scheme, etc. I would quickly be fired because that BS activity does not = $$

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

😂😂😂😂😂

Telehealth_2the_Moon

Notable Contributor

Director of Business Development

This is how it is in our structure. The CRO is focused on growth across the company and all service lines and marketing and sales are both part of that. Often times we are doing our own pieces, but because there is a single person at the top we often will work together on specific initiatives.

As @TennisandSalesmentioned in another comment, this can be weird. In my opinion this wouldn't work well if the CRO is only focused on sales; they need to be looking at revenue across the whole company.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

thats interesting to hear that your company is set up this way. having the right leadership in place has got to be super important in this case.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

hmm interesting take. I think a CRO should have some sort of understanding of sales AND marketing to be effective in the future but idk if i would need the CMO to report to the CRO

butwhy

Politicker

Solutions Engineer

My thinking is that the holistic pipeline funnel should be one team - top to bottom. Marketing exists to generate sales.

But to your point - I have never seen it done, so what the hell do I know.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

hahah! so i have a slightly different take on marketing. I dont think marketing should be geared to generating sales.

I think they should be creating DEMAND for the company. marketing should be helping the 97% of the market that ISNT looking to buy right now, understand that when they ARE looking to buy they should be looking at you.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

Bravado's Resident Asshole

I don't see this ever working hahah

DevSomeBiz

Valued Contributor

Senior B2B Sales Guy.

Marketing's job is to get you leads - your job is to close them. If they are paid based on how well you do your job, that's not going to end well.

You need to determine an agreed upon method to score your leads and attribute quality to them, and set attainment KPIs.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

so the way I look at it, if marketings job is JUST to get you leads, then that is how we all get a ton of shitty low quality leads.

if marketings role was to be creating more demand for your product, the quality of leads will go up and sales cycles will go down.

but this requires a whole new set of metrics for marketing to be judged on.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Our marketing is measured on qualified leads. If I get a lead and it's not converted, then it's not qualified. I do get fewer leads, but they tend to be of better quality. I honestly can't knock our marketing department too much. They're grinding.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

as a sales person thats all you can really ask for haha just a few solid leads would be great!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Love it when they happen! Sinking my teeth into a new account is awesome!

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Mark an opp as invalid and see how fast they email call and Slack ya. 💅

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Right? I’ve done it, and yes, had to explain why to the marketing manager and marketing vp. Fortunately, I’d already discussed with my own manager, and she agreed. I had already talked to the BDR and explained so that it wouldn’t be a surprise and that my reasons were understood. But yes, it was a lot of conversations!

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

LOTS of conversations and then i wonder why the F we have a CRMs that I have to update every day! if you want to know whats going on READ THE DAMN NOTES IN SALESFORCE. and THEN come to me 😂

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

I feel like if you pay marketing based on closed %, you might run into the same issues with SDRs and AEs. There will still be lots of finger pointing. AEs saying they havent created enough "qualified opportunities" and Marketing saying sales is bad at their job for not closing it

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

im not saying marketing should be getting commission. actually i for sure think they should NOT get commission.

im for them getting a bonus if the whole company hits certain goals or something.

But thats why i think marketing needs better metrics. having them hitting "lead" goals is terrible.

having them hit a qualified pipeline goal or something like that is much better IMO.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Ah that makes sense

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

Professional Day Ruiner

I think the problem is how companies give attribution to various departments. Marketing wants attribution for sourcing the leads, sales wants attribution for generating their leads, the channel wants attribution for bringing you the deal. The whole system is set up for multiple departments to compete against each other instead of work together.

My org has been working on this more so that attribution doesn't really matter as much for sales, but it does still matter for the SDR team. The hope is to transition it so that anyone who significantly touched the lead gets attribution as opposed to only who got the first touch.

In the end unless they're under the same team, there is always going to be some level of competition there. Each team has their own goals/agenda/comp plan, and they want to maximize those.

Also we could just get rid of marketing for trained monkeys who we pay in bananas and probably get the same results.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

you said alot of good stuff....but i REALLY want to see the trained moneys run the marketing team.

now THAT is innovative stuff!!

CA.TX.EI

Executive

Regional Vice President

Possibly a controversial take, but YOU can actually change this. The greatest thing about sales is, we control the revenue, and we KNOW the customer, like personally, we've spoken with them, we've met them, we know stuff about their personal lives. This gives us INSANE power, power which we need to use for good, and not evil. There are some amazing marketing departments who are 'skating to where the puck will be'. They're leading the market, the customer and the sales team to a promised land of a solid pipeline of eager prospects with chunky budgets and spiritually broken purchasing departments, but for most of us, these marketing teams are the thing of myth, and we're stuck with a bunch of C List B-School grads spaffing off over nonsense data and puking alphabet salad everywhere. However, and this is where it gets WEIRD... most of them don't actually WANT to be that useless, and they're kind of embarrassed about the torrent of crappy leads they give you. I know, hard to believe!

So WIIFM you ask? well you can actually be the Revenue Messiah that leads them to the promised land, but it requires you to take a different approach. And, that's where the magical 'power of the customer' comes in. If you want to change this situation, you're going to have to work with some of the marketing people directly. So, you're going to have to brave the fugue of Matcha Lattes and Yeti cups brimming with bancha twig tea and pick your way through the sea of purple velvet meditation cushions, whereupon you're going to pick out a few of the fresher ones, less scarred by the periodic whipping by sales, and you're going to engage them gently on a 'campaign' (don't say 'deal', this will scare them). This 'Innovative' campaign you've 'created' (again, language is important here, don't say 'totally pulled out of my ass') is going to involve you introducing them to 'A CUSTOMER'. This will take a while, as they will be genuinely terrified, you need to be gentle, and most importantly, check what they wearing before the meeting actually happens, (I've had some bad bad experiences here which involved things like Steve Jobs cosplay outfits, woefully tight pants and stunningly ugly eye wear showing up at an executive meeting room in Goldman Sachs). Then, you're going to play a 'lets imagine' game, which is where you ask the customer to imagine what the world would be like if your company was the most amazing vendor ever, delivered the most fabulous products and services known to man and actually helped them to be hugely more successful.

The 'Marketing People' will actually do something really weird here, they will LISTEN to this stuff like it really matters. This happens primarily because they aren't shitting the quarter and trying to find somewhere where they can bang a deal in without anyone noticing, but many of them seem to have been trained to do this. When this meticulously scripted meeting has concluded, you, the 'Revenue Messiah', will bring them to an adjacent independent coffee shop, and slapping down your corporate AmEx, you let them order complicated caffeinated vegan beverages like the crazy little pixies they are. One this ritual is complete, you will sit down (careful, check the seats for cleanliness, the chairs in these hipster type places can trash a Brioni in 30 seconds), and you will tell them what you think this account could actually be worth. They will become uncontrollably excited. Keeping an eye open for exuding body fluids, you will ask them to engage in some 'Creative Ideation' (yup, it's a word). This is where you'll basically give them lists of what they need to do to enable you to bathe fulsomely in this delicious firehose of warm, luscious and sweetly life affirming revenue; but critically, these are ALL their ideas, because thats what matters to them! The sweet little imps are desperate to be 'creative', they crave being 'valued' (by OTHER people, and not just their private banking officer), they literally LIVE for this shit! They will talk incessantly about things like 'customer value generation' and 'product market fit'. If they're getting especially frisky, they might start babbling about 'The Ansoff Matrix' (just be aware, this is not a sexual practice, it's some sort of evaluation tool they use amongst themselves, like Tinder without the visuals). However, whilst all of this is happening, your account is getting absolutely premium top level attention from your C-Suite, The CMO is pretty much curtsying on their face, they're being invited to fantastic events in beautiful places where you (of course) will accompany them, 'Grade A' content is being created especially for them, and every time you show up at the account, they get a warm feeling in their pants which can only be alleviated by writing you increasingly large checks. Job done! You've got about three years before some other sales asshole groks the process and tries to hustle in on your action, or, heaven forbid, some 'management' dumb ass insists on promoting you, and you're forced to cash in your options and move to fresh territory. This plan works every time, and while the scale may vary based on the ARR, and some pitfalls may occur along the way, it's exceptionally reliable, but here's the real rub, it actually HAS to start with you making the decision that yes, you ARE the Revenue Messiah, and YOU will be the one to lead your people to the Promised Land. They'll have to accept that this will be a P.J. journey for you and they'll be middle aisle all the way, but hey, neuroplasticity is a thing and they'll learn to cope.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

im going to have to come back and read this when i have a 2 hour free time.

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TennisandSales

What will make sales and marketing become aligned?

24 comments

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