Article

Driving growth by changing the marketing and sales dynamic

Marketing execs can get so caught up in words, pictures and messages that they fail to focus on ROI.

June 25, 2012

By Phil Fernandez

Corporate executives who want to fuel growth are increasingly asking themselves: "How do we move forward intelligently? Where do we go from here?" They sense that big changes and real opportunities are afoot for companies who have the courage to seize the moment, overcome the challenges of the status quo, and capitalize on change.

The revenue-creating parts of the modern corporation — the marketing and sales departments — embody fundamentally different crafts and have strikingly distinct cultures. Marketing tends to be more creative, thinking longer-term, managing brand identity and programs that span weeks, months, or even years. And frankly, marketing can also be a bit soft in terms of how it approaches the world. Marketing executives tend to focus too much on the qualitative dimension, often getting so caught up in words, pictures, and messages that they fail to focus on hard performance metrics and bottom-line ROI.

Sales, on the other hand, is the ultimate "what have you done for me lately" organization. Salespeople are trained to think and perform to optimize for the extreme short term: "How do we get the deal across the finish line ... now?" A salesperson or team might work a deal for a long period of time, but it is still all about "going for the kill" and getting the deal done as soon as possible.

The contrasting psychologies, personalities, and cultures of marketing and sales personnel can seriously impede the goal of driving increased revenue. This is especially so in a world where the buyer is in control, and where essentially all buying starts on the web and in social media. The fact is that buyers complete 60 to 70 percent of their research and decision-making before a salesperson ever contacts them. This hard truth does not leave much room for maneuvering without fundamentally rethinking marketing and sales processes you use internally to create revenue.

Newly empowered prospective buyers have told us in no uncertain terms that they couldn't care less about this rift between marketing and sales. At its most basic, they want, and increasingly demand, their needs be met in a seamless fashion across the channels owned by marketing, such as the website, product collateral, or social media, and those channels owned by sales.

Changing this dynamic opens the opportunity to ignite revenue growth. The first payoff comes when marketing and sales become so aligned that they're able to engage together with the buyer on the buyer's terms. That's when marketing begins to see itself as an integral part of the revenue equation, and accepts revenue-driven quotas and success-based compensation plans. They also agree to be measured based on hard results such as the flow of genuinely qualified leads to their colleagues in sales. Marketing is able to fulfill these commitments because they own the early stage of the buyer process, and can use the best of web, social media, and marketing automation technologies to capture and develop leads that the sales team values.

The second payoff happens when sales starts to act on and value the leads that their marketing colleagues deliver. If a sales team can shift its allocation of time, even just a little bit, away from early-stage prospect development and toward competitive differentiation, value selling, and closing business, then overall sales efficiency immediately increases. And the results of increased sales efficiency drop straight to the bottom line.

The third payoff takes place when marketing and sales are able to truly collaborate around a common process that features shared metrics and definitions. To this day, many companies continue to waste an amazing amount of time arguing about what is, and is not, a good lead. Their definitions are all over the map. There is no common vocabulary, and few common terms between the marketing and sales camps. And you simply cannot make real progress together if you're not able to communicate clearly, effectively, and consistently.

Finally, the last and arguably most important payoff is the Big Picture story. This comes when organization members can understand, analyze, optimize, and forecast the entire revenue funnel — from early-stage social engagement to closing revenue — as part of a single, coherent process. At this stage, the heads of marketing, sales, and finance, along with planning professionals, general managers, and CEOs, are all able to work from a common view of the revenue process. As a result, they're all able to gain more visibility into future revenue performance and allocate strategic corporate investments in revenue to wherever they'll have the highest return.

Adapted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from "REVENUE DISRUPTION: Game-Changing Sales And Marketing Strategies To Accelerate Growth" by Phil Fernandez (c) 2012 by Marketo, Inc.

Phil Fernandez is president and CEO of Marketo, recently named one of "America's Most Promising Companies" by Forbes. (Photo by Kyle Taylor.)