One Half Down…

We all know the old adage “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”  While in some circles that may be true, in the world of marketing and sales “if you can’t beat ‘em, complain about them until it seems like you are beating them” seem to be a more common sentiment.

Yes, the ever present gap between marketing and sales isn’t going away. It continues to plague a number of companies.  For example, 59% of attendees at this year’s Sirius Decisions Summit said they do not believe their marketing and sales teams are aligned.  Another of the many statistics that indicate the great divide between marketing and sales.

In thinking this through and even writing about it in the past (see We Don't Talk Anymore! – June 2008) I have come to believe that lack of alignment between the two groups is not really the core issue.  Lack of alignment is only a symptom of a greater problem.  The fundamental problem that creates the misalignment is lack of process.  Marketing and sales groups are misaligned because they lack common understanding, definitions and protocols.  As a result we have a modern day Tower of Babel in most organizations with each group speaking their own language and following their own plans, regardless of what the other thinks.

The first half of 2009 has already passed us by.  If you want to improve the value of your marketing and sales investment for the second half, start now by looking at any broken marketing and sales processes that currently exist.  Bring marketing and sales together to identify the gaps and fix them. Develop a process based approach where common terminology and standardized methodology is used.   Do all of this and perhaps by the end of 2009, you’ll be poised to hit 2010 with an aligned marketing and sales team that will lead to greater productivity.

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The Best Practice Mamba

It goes without saying that following or adhering to lead management best practices is a good rule of thumb, especially when you want your marketing and sales organization to be top-notch.  Adhering to lead management best practices will help companies achieve tighter alignment between marketing and sales, improve lead conversions and ultimately improve revenue.  However, a word of advice:  make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of implementing best practices without a thorough understanding of your company’s unique culture and environment.  Best practices are developed to be used “across the board”, and often “tweaking” them to fit into a specific company situation is needed. 

Let me give an example.  One of our clients wanted us to develop and implement a best practices lead management process that included lead qualification and lead scoring.  We went through the disciplines of reviewing their products and services, developing a customer profile, and segmenting their database.  We then developed qualification and scoring criteria based on all of the above.  When we tested the lead scoring model, it failed.   Why?  Well, not because there was anything wrong with the model per se.  It failed because a lead scoring process applied to their complex selling model was creating more confusion than clarity.  So, instead of forcing the model, we opted for a detailed “rules based” qualification process that yielded the sales team the highly qualified leads for which they were looking.

Often times marketing and sales executives become so enamored with “best practices” that they fail to see the forest for the trees.  They seek to adopt a new process without any regard for their under riding corporate culture, their relationships with their customer base, or their customer buying cycles.  As a result what was supposed to yield great benefit turns out to be a colossal failure.

Now you may be asking, “Shouldn’t best practices drive process change?”  Yes, in many cases they should.  But only when the case can be made that adopting the new practice will indeed improve productivity.  If it doesn’t, then alter the process, or abandon it altogether. No one wants a new practice if it’s not going to improve productivity or help to better achieve results.

Remember, adopting lead management best practices is a good thing.  Adopting the “best” best practice is even better.

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SIRIUS DECISIONS SUMMIT 2009

Two posts ago I spoke about the Silverpop 2009 conference (See Silverpop Client Summit – 2009 – May 17).  In that post I also mentioned the 2009 Sirius Decisions Summit I attended.  Having finally dug out of being away from the office for two weeks, and being able to sift through the content and notes I had taken, I am now taking the time to briefly comment on it.

As is commonly known in the industry, Sirius Decisions provides some of the richest content available regarding sales and marketing alignment. At this summit they definitely delivered yet again.  From the Sirius personnel sessions to the corporate case studies provided, each presentation was an education on how to improve on marketing and making your marketing dollar count.

During these sessions though there was one theme that came up repeatedly:  the need for process. While there was talk of marketing automation, CRM, and other technology, by and large the prevailing theme was that process is key to success.  I couldn’t agree more!

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