Is there a Sales and Marketing Alignment Problem?

What do your colleagues feel about the how well your Sales and Marketing teams work together?

Want a rough defintion of Sales and Marketing Alignment?

How about:

“A state of agreement or cooperation among Sales and Marketing, with a common cause or viewpoint.”

So is there coperation with a common cause, something like Revenue or not?

Tim Reisterer and Diane Emo wrote in "Customer Message Managment" a little section on "Is there a Problem". Tim and Diane suggest that you ask the following:

Is there a Sales and Marketing Alignment Problem?

My Role is:

I think that we have a Sales and Marketing Alignment problem because:

The challenges that could prevent us from correcting this problem are:

The company goals or projects that will suffer most if we don’t correct the problem are:


Could you answer those questions?

More importantly, could they be answered acrosss your company?

Would there be some agreement between Sales and Marketing on the answers?

Hey, you don't need any consultants to do this.

Why not give it a go?

If you want a nice Word Document or pdf with these questions , just drop me a line Rod Sloane.

Is there a Sales and Marketing Alignment Problem?

Interview with John Watton CMO of ShipServ

My interview with John Watton


John has 20 years’ marketing leadership experience in the IT and telecommunications industry, spanning software, managed services and outsourcing. Before joining ShipServ, John was Director of Global Marketing for telecoms software pioneer Cramer Systems, where he was responsible for marketing communications and demand generation worldwide. In 2006 Cramer was acquired by Amdocs in one of the biggest ever deals involving a European software business.

Previously, John held marketing management positions at Microsoft, Ariba, SAP and Oracle.

John has received many awards in recognition of his marketing leadership and in 2009 was named Marketer of the Year by B2B Marketing Magazine. He has a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Manchester.

Grey is the enemy of successful Sales and Marketing Alignment.

You won’t achieve long lasting Sales and Marketing Alignment by fudging it, by compromising or by being fluffy!

Look at the CMO’s who have achieved successful new working practises such as Christine Crandell. You have to take a straightforward black and white approach. Know what you want, Know what you cab achieve and just do that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you take outlandish risks or bet the farm on this. Your responsibility is not to change the world; it’s just to get a few sales and marketing people working closer together.

Why not start with those who are open to your ideas of collaboration and cooperation?

Remember don’t shoot the collaborators, instead praise them.

Keep it simple

Keep it black and white.

Ditch the grey!

Are you going to the 2010 Marketing and Sales Alignment Executive Forum?

I am, it looks an excellent event that Corporate Visions have put together with some good speakers.
Particularly looking forward to the Case Study presentations.

If you are going, please say hello to this Englishman.

I've never been to Lake Tahoe or even Nevada before.

I bet that weather at Lake Tahoe is warmer than London, in October.
Now that is something you can bet on!

http://corpv.com/conference/index.html

Culture

Does your company have a formal statement of it's culture?

Is it public?

Can I read it on your website?

If not, why not?

This statement is often referred to as your Core Values. If you think this is somewhat namby-pamby for my No-Bull style, can I just suggest that businesses such as IBM, Accenture and Tesco all publish their Core Values.
That’s good enough for me.

Do your Core Values document how staff are expected to behave to each other?

How are staff told about this & how is it maintained?

Does your culture effect hiring and firing?

Would you hire a "star performer" who could help the biz but who probably doesn't fit your culture?

Does your staff know it and believe it?

How are staff expected to include culture into their normal work practice?

Does this all come from top down?

Are you driven by the personality, focus & goals of your current CEO?

Do sales and marketing follow it?

If you have all this, then why do you have a Sales and Marketing Alignment problem?

Alignment on the SNCF

I must have been a pretty horrible 16 year old.

Arrogant, spotty and sullen.

Correction….I was a pretty horrible 16 year old.

How did my parents decide to deal with this Rebel-without-a-Cause?

In the summer holidays they packed me off, on my own, to a family they knew in France. That was some selling job my father did.

So there I am with my Scout rucksack, sitting in a packed, 8 seat, old fashioned, compartment on the SNCF from Gare du Lyon to Dijon, surrounded by Gauloises smoking, Pernod drinking, L’Equipe reading locals. I was out of my comfort zone and to make matters worse I had an incorrect ticket and le chemin de fer inspecteur had just entered our compartment.

You know what was going through my mind?

‘These Frenchies are just pretending that they cannot speak English. In a minute they are all going to start helping me and speaking the Queen’s English.’

And guess what…they didn’t.

Quelle domage.

To the amusement of my fellow travellers, I had to muddle through with my dodgy O Level French. And I did, somehow. That inspecteur must have been a patient man.

Fast forward three weeks, and I am travelling back to Blighty on the ferry from Calais to Dover and I accidentally bump into a middle aged man. He apologised to me in English and I apologised to him in French. In French! I had even begun to think in French.

Had I achieved this by studying the systems, process and technology in France?

Non!

What I had begun to do was understand, appreciate and like the culture, language and people of France.

Culture, Language and People.

So, if you want your sales and marketing teams to start respecting, trusting and working together, rather than the current mistrust, then you need to get them understanding, apreciaiting and even liking their respective culture language and people.

The good news is that you don’t have to be stuck in a railway compartment to start your journey.

Allez!

A bientot!

Melting the Cold War between Sales and Marketing.

I’m a child of the Cold War. Remember all that stuff? Spying, B52 Bombers and David Hasselhoff singing on top of the Berlin Wall, (sorry about that last image!) The only good thing to come out of that conflict was “Dr. Strangelove”.

But is it really over? Over in your business?

Are sale and marketing good buddies inside your business. Or are they just comrades?

What was the real cost or the real Cold War? Lots of budget spent on expensive hardware and systems that were never used. Thank God. Sound familiar?

So what resolved the real Cold War?

Was it computers and technology? No

Was it systems and processes? Uh?

Was it from breakthroughs thanks to consultants and trainers? You cannot be serious! Are you?

It was good old fashion economics, the allocation of scarce resources that caused one side to change. Thankfully they did.

And it’s only going to be economic and market forces that will cause the Cold War in your organisation to melt. You aren’t going to fix this with a blow torch or an ice axe.

That drive for change has started in most businesses and markets. Just remember technology cannot help you much, talking and dialogue can go a lot further.

When did you last have a Sales and Marketing Alignment workshop in your company?

I better the answer is never.

OK. Don’t worry I just made that term up. But what is stopping you?

Yes, I know your CRM will not allow you to schedule it, and it might ensure that you don’t hit your KPIs or it might negatively impact your value proposition.

Or maybe, just maybe it’s just time to get started on the real work, real détente, real discussion.

Please don’t stick your head into the ice, it maybe a cool way to prospect, but don’t expect to succeed for long.

Get Aligned Comrade!