The Age-Old Conundrum: Getting Marketing Involved in the Sales Process

The beauty of blogs is that you can post on those items that you run across in your day-to-day journey that either make you want to dance and sing . . . along with those that make you want to scream! As bloggers, we have that going for us!

Hence the topic of today's blog (screaming not dancing): How can we (the brains and brawn of direct marketing) force our way into the world of sales (with them kicking and screaming) in order to assist them in creating revenue? It's an age-old problem -- and as evidenced by this article from destinationCRM, one that many of us are faced with every day. Here's a snippet from the article:

Who is in charge of revenue at your company? In most B2B companies, the sales department owns the revenue pipeline -- and therefore, the most political power. In contrast, the marketing department too often gets left out of the revenue process. There are companies where sales holds weekly revenue calls, and nobody from marketing is part of the conversations. The executive leaders of these companies think of marketing as a cost center, not a strategic asset that drives growth. As one marketer lamented in a recent CMO Council report, "My group is perceived by upper management as the people who do color brochures." Marketing is suffering from a crisis of credibility. So what can marketers do in order to be seen as part of a machine that drives revenue and profits, not just the people who throw parties and buy swag?

This article, written by Phil Fernando, President and CEO of Marketo, then provides some excellent pointers as to how to accomplish this change of perception. From our perspective, as direct marketers, we possess the tools that can measure and track the success of every single campaign that we create. The beauty of direct marketing is that every little thing can be measured and stripped down to figure out which elements of each program were the most successful . . . and which weren't.

Why then does it continue to be a struggle to prove to sales that they need to include direct marketers as part of the solution to generating more revenue, ROI and sales success?

It beats me.

Don't get me wrong, there are those who do get it . . . but it seems that they are few and far between. And if they do get it, they probably used to be marketers prior to leading sales teams.

However, don't give up on this. We need to continue fighting the good fight. Continue to drive home the fact that you can partner with the sales team to make them more successful. Find the successful sales people and bribe, cajole, and convince them to give you their ear for a few minutes. Explain to them how you are honing in on the perfect prospect for them. Show them how you've come to that conclusion -- or better yet, enlist them as advisor prior to creating a campaign (who knows the customer better than the sales person?), and get their input on their idea of the dream customer. By getting their buy-in on the front-end, they may be more willing to work with you as you launch the campaign and really need for them to begin working the leads you have so carefully crafted just for them.

Then, and most importantly, keep them involved in the measurement process. Help them understand how successful the leads have been. Don't quote response rates and other direct marketing mumbo-jumbo. Sales doesn't care about response rates -- sales cares about closed sales. Make your results speak to them in their terms. Point out the number of sales that the campaign brought in, and again, bring sales in to tell the story of how they closed that sale, why the prospect was the perfect one, and how marketing really nailed it that time (i.e., got sales the leads that were most likely going to close).

Don't stop there . . . next, enlist their support for future campaigns. Determine what went right in the prior campaign and what, if different, would have resulted in more closed sales. Maybe there was an industry out there who -- hands down -- just wasn't open to a sales visit. Or maybe there was a customer segment who refused to be interested in the product or service. Sales can tell you this. Listen with an open mind, get past the whining and on to the actual golden nuggets that you can act upon.

Remember, you are the genius of direct marketing. You enable the sales force to create revenues. What you do can make or break their efforts. Therefore, you have to wriggle your way into those meetings where they talk about projecting revenues and number of closed sales for the month or quarter. Build your story to present to the sales leadership team of how you can -- and will -- impact those numbers.

You need to stand up for your right to direct market! And, sales needs to listen. Guess what? All you need to do is create some success and they will listen. Get that sales superhero on your side and start talking!

Case Study Monday: The Bridge Group and Eloqua

It's Case Study Monday again -- are you starting to look forward to Monday's yet? All right, call me PollyAnna, but it's always good to be able to learn from a good analysis of how to make our lives better by using proven approaches that net out in positive results. Today, we're going to look at a Case Study from The Bridge Group. Since 1998, The Bridge Group has specialized in building, evolving or validating inside sales strategies for their technology clients. Trish Bertuzzi, President of The Bridge Group, responded to my LinkedIn question about contributing Case Studies -- and we appreciate her response. The Bridge Group has a virtual plethora of really great ones -- check out their website for yourself.

This particular case study has to do with how the successful integration between your marketing and sales groups can increase your sales results. As you know, this is an area that we are passionate about. If you can enable effective communication between these two groups, we believe that you are destined for success. Without it, you are destined for a lot of frustration, inefficiency, and eventually, failure. I know, tough words. But, time and time again, we have seen really intelligent marketing groups provide targeted leads to sales -- only to have them fall through the cracks and not get worked. And, to be fair, we have seen really great sales organizations who are not happy with marketing because of their perception of low-quality leads that are being supplied to them. It's definitely a conundrum.

In addition, we think this case study points out that it is sometimes imperative to bring in an outside, unbiased perspective to help you identify those areas that may need to be improved.

Check out this case study. Again, if you have one you'd like to contribute, just let us know and we'll highlight your success story on an upcoming Monday.

Here's The Bridge Group's Success Story:

Growing Pains in Marketing & Sales
Eloqua recognizes the importance of a focused sales and marketing selling approach. So when Thor Johnson and Keith Nealon analyzed their customer base and decided they needed to prospect and sell to larger sized companies, they knew it was critical for them retool their marketing and sales strategies. To help them with this, they decided to seek the advice of an outside consulting firm for expertise and a fresh perspective.

RRW note: Again, we think this is an excellent idea! Sometimes, it is extremely difficult to get outside of your own situation and truly see specific areas for improvement because you are so closely involved in your day-to-day fire-drills. It makes a lot of sense to seek an outside perspective when this is the case. The key here is being able to identify that this is the case . . . and this is not always easy.

After numerous cold calls from The Bridge Group, Thor and Keith realized that they each had colleagues who knew of and had worked with Trish Bertuzzi, The Bridge Group’s president. After some informal reference checking on the company’s inside sales expertise, Thor found out that “Trish is a pro who knows what she’s doing and is someone that I should take seriously.” Keith’s inquiries supported Thor’s findings. “A former colleague highly recommended The Bridge Group and because of the conversations I had had with Trish, I knew they were experts in setting up inside sales models. I felt like we could benefit from their ‘lessons learned’ from past engagements so we decided to bring them in.”

RRW Note: Another great idea . . . check out the company that you are interested in bringing in. When you talk with other folks who have worked with the outside consultant that you are interested in bringing in, you will find out exactly the way that your business will be able to profit by bringing in that expertise. On the other hand, you'll also find out if you really shouldn't spend the money with that specific firm! Net-net, it's always good to ask the questions.

Zeroing In On Core Issues

The Bridge Group initially started out with an assessment of Eloqua’s current situation through a series of interviews with key executives and members from both the marketing and sales teams. According to Keith, “The Bridge Group was very responsive to our needs as far as learning our business. They reviewed how the marketing and sales teams were engaging with prospects and customers, how the teams were engaging with each other, what standards we were using, what common processes existed, and which things were working well.”

After their initial assessment, The Bridge Group created a series of recommendations and then gathered all primary players from the marketing and sales groups together for a two-day meeting with the objective of obtaining agreement on the recommended processes and tools. The meeting included Keith and Thor as well as the directors of the Demand Generation team and the newly formed Inside Sales group.

Keith described the two-day session as a very productive forum, with The Bridge Group being very well informed. “The Bridge Group brought in their observations on where we were at the time, and provided recommendations on what we needed to do to reach our objectives. They produced a comprehensive document in advance which we walked through, page by page, to make sure we were all in agreement.” According to Keith, the meeting was one of the biggest challenges of the whole engagement. “Getting us all to agree on the process steps, from the generation of the lead through to the delivery to field sales, was a challenge. We recognized that it was necessary for us to all agree on what information was needed and how the process would flow.” Keith added, “There were multiple stake-holders present so having The Bridge Group there to provide guidance and remind us of what we were trying to achieve as we debated the whys and wherefores was a great asset in this engagement.”

The Demand Generation Group: Recommendations and Results

For Thor, the recommendations of The Bridge Group were an integral part of the Demand Generation team’s ability to achieve the goal of reaching a more sophisticated prospect. “Helping us clearly describe the prospects we are looking for and learn how to find them were the greatest contributions of The Bridge Group. They recognized that Eloqua, with its current market being half way between early adopter and early majority, is going after a very specific individual as opposed to a specific kind of a company.” Thor added, “The Bridge Group helped us realize that we’re not going after an industry and a title, but an approach and an attitude. They then provided us with a road map for identifying that kind of person.”

According to Thor, the Demand Generation group has now changed the way they go after prospects, based on the recommendations of The Bridge Group. “We’ve modified our vocabulary. The tele-prospecters now have tools and processes that support reaching out to the type of customer who is likely to buy Eloqua.”

The Inside Sales Team: Recommendations and Results

One of the key deliverables of the engagement was an Inside Sales Playbook. According to Keith, “The Bridge Group provided us with everything in the Playbook that we needed in order to set the Inside Sales team up with best practices, such as techniques for outbound calling and objection handling.” As Keith explained, “It’s useful to have the Playbook because it gets new sales people up to speed more quickly. It’s also been helpful when it appears that something is not working – you can see pretty quickly what’s off because we’re engaging in a standard way.”

In addition to the Playbook’s tools, The Bridge Group was instrumental in developing processes involving how the Inside Sales team worked with the field sales force. As Keith described it, “The Bridge Group guided us on how to set up Inside Sales by working in collaboration with the field reps, with recommendations on how to hand off leads and other tactics to avoid field conflict.” According to Keith, the team model that The Bridge Group recommended is working well. “It’s just a question of building trust because you’re asking seasoned field sales people to trust inside sales people to close deals that are in their territory. But because of the conflict-free model that The Bridge Group designed for us, it’s going pretty well.”

As to the overall success of the team, Keith shared that the inside sales reps had been in place for only three months and were able to hit their quota in the first quarter of operation. “I know that The Bridge Group had a key hand in that success.”

The Bridge Group’s Expertise

Throughout the engagement, Keith and Thor recognized the value of The Bridge Group’s extensive knowledge in how to properly set up inside sales tools and processes. Thor, who already has recommended The Bridge Group to several colleagues, shared his impressions of The Bridge Group. “I see The Bridge Group as marketing-oriented selling consultants whose expertise is selling approaches. They understand how best to sell whatever it is you’re trying to sell.” He added, “It worked out nicely that they were able to help both Keith and me with their experience – they were able to help marketing craft the pitch and sales execute the pitch.”

RRW Conclusion: So, here is a case study where bringing in an outside expert really helped a customer to increase sales, while integrating the company's marketing and sales efforts. By getting these two groups into sync, they were able to more effectively distribute marketing's important leads to the various sales organizations, and, in the process make the newly launched inside sales center successful right off the bat.

All in all, a great success story!

Linking Together Sales and Marketing

You've heard our rants before on the importance of the integrated efforts of your sales and marketing teams. And, we've all seen companies where this isn't the case -- and how that negatively impacts everyone's results. You can probably imagine how happy we were to see this article on one of our favorite subjects, then! Especially one that starts out like this:

"As Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Neither marketing nor sales can succeed on their own. But together, working in unison, they create a powerful — almost irresistible — force."

We don't think that this can be said too much. Why? Because we are still talking to companies' sales and marketing divisions that continue to be intent on blaming one another for each other's less-than-stellar results. It may not be easy to accomplish this integration between sales and marketing -- but it is imperative to your success.

This very compelling article comes to us from the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly. As author, Paul Herbig, states, "Integrated marketing or collaborative selling is where all aspects of the organization — marketing, sales, support, customer service — are found within one umbrella organization, and all facets — databases, personnel, etc. — are integrated to optimize previously discrete business departments. The objective is to link all of the business processes among all these common elements into a smooth-flowing cooperative endeavor. If successful, the end result will be the creation of a customer-centric organization."

I repeat -- this may not be easy, but it is so very important.
As direct marketers, we hate to hear the grousing about how the leads that we carefully provide to the sales team are not resulting into closed sales. And, as sales people, we are tired of getting beat up for not meeting sales revenues due to our perception of "crappy" leads. Hence, the blaming begins. The only way to solve this conundrum is to fully embrace the concept of integrated marketing and selling. Herbig states, "Integration continues to gain ground, but it’s slow and painful. Necessity, not corporate vision, will continue to drive the process of improved marketing and sales integration. Silo-based management of sales and marketing resources promotes waste and thwarts results measurement. It also creates a procedural barrier to ensuring that organizational actions align with organizational goals related to sales and customer retention."

It may be a lot of work but it is definitely worth the effort. Try to begin with the desired end state in mind -- again, from the article, creating that powerful -- almost irresistible -- force. Then, start with baby steps. Create a team that bridges across both divisions and begin with consistent communication, feeding back to each whole team. Talk about what you are each measured on -- then try to determine how you can correlate those results metrics. Set goals that are common for both divisions. It is easier to work together when you are working to obtain the same end result. The systems stuff is definitely trickier -- and more cost sensitive -- but think about what you can accomplish by just communicating and collaborating across the two divisions. If nothing else, better understanding of each group's challenges will result. That alone can create a better working environment between sales and marketing.

If you have any success stories on how your company has been able to bridge this gap and work towards sales and marketing integration, please share! Or, if you have any horror stories on what has happened when this integration has not taken place . . . share that, too. We'd love to hear your thoughts!

Managing Those Important Customer Relationships

It's always an interesting conundrum when determining how to most effectively manage your customer relationships. In a recent article by Bob Sullivan of InfoGrow, he discusses how companies are determining that marketing should be the keepers of customer data and lead management systems and strategies. It just makes good business sense. In working with our clients, we've heard some horror stories from both sales and marketing on lead management. The funny thing is that it takes a lot of work from both parties to bring on new customers. It behooves everyone to come up with the most efficient system that assists everyone in doing a better job of managing those important customer relationships.

Here's what we've experienced: Sales thinks that marketing doesn't always provide the bests leads, and in response, they work only those leads that they determine are "hot," leaving others to get lost in a proverbial black hole. Marketing works hard to feed the very best prospects to sales and gets annoyed when sales doesn't want to work them -- plus, they never get feedback on the leads from sales (because they don't work them), or the feedback that they get is something along the lines of "we need some better leads -- these leads are bunk (or some other expletive)." So, it becomes a vicious cycle as marketing continues to provide the same leads to sales, sales doesn't work them, no reporting occurs to determine campaign effectiveness -- as you can imagine, not the best environment for a win-win situation!

Sullivan reports that some companies are now letting marketing own this process. "Often marketing has the need, interest and time. As a result, marketing departments are taking ownership of the CRM database. They are bringing sales reps into the system and monitoring the usage to close the loop on the lead generation process. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are monitored by marketing and reported to management."

The informations that then comes back out of marketing is imperative to understanding your prospective customer relationships. According to Sullivan, here's a smattering of the value that these reports provide:

- Lead generation source – tradeshow, website, mailing, ad, etc.
- Where assigned, such as distributor or rep – number of days to follow-up or assigned elsewhere
- Status update – what did rep or distributor do with the lead
- Status tracking – hot lead, warm lead, bad lead, sale, or don’t know
- Which follow-up activities, lead sources, conversions, and next actions work

All of this information is important for each group involved -- marketing, sales and the leadership team -- to follow the customer through the course of their relationship with your company. It is also important to marketing because they can more intelligently feed leads to sales in upcoming months that are increasingly more targeted. In addition, from a customer satisfaction perspective, you are no longer annoying prospective customers by over-contacting them and you are closing more of the warm leads that used to get lost and not fully worked by sales since they were not closed right away.

Bridging this gap between sales and marketing leads to overall profitability for your company. We think that by allowing marketing to do their job -- manage customer relationships -- that sales will be able to their job better as well -- bringing in new business. In essence, you are creating a win-win scenario for your customers and your company. Now, that's effective customer relationship management!

If you're as passionate about this subject as we are, you may want to take a look at our whitepaper on Performance Based Marketing and Goal Setting. From a marketing perspective, this document provides some ideas on how to effectively provide feedback on the effectiveness of all of your marketing campaigns to ensure that the lines of communication between marketing and sales, marketing and leadership, and marketing and finance are wide open.

The Sales and Marketing Conundrum

As direct marketers, our job is to figure out the best, most accurate approach to acquiring new customers, while keeping loyal customers. It's a simple equation of adding in new revenue, while at the same time maintaining and growing existing revenue. This makes everyone happy and makes us look like heroes in the eyes of our leadership.

When this equation is not positive, marketing tends to get blamed for not using the right data, the right message, etc., to attract those new and loyal customers. . . or worse, they are blamed for not providing the "right" leads to sales. We've seen this happen time and again, where there is a disconnect between marketing and sales, resulting in a lot of hard work with less than stellar revenue results. It also results in a lot of very frustrated marketing and sales people.

Sometimes this phenomenon occurs because of a lack of communication between sales and marketing, other times it is a simple matter of opposing goals between the two divisions. When you think about it, both of these issues are relatively easy to remedy . . . all it takes is a little strategic thought and some open discussion. The problem is that egos sometimes get in the way due to the fact that we, as human beings, sometimes don't play so well together in the corporate sandbox. Go figure.

Just so you know, you can solve this problem. We've helped many of our clients resolve this conundrum by simply sitting down with the various groups and gaining an understanding of what will make them successful goal-wise, how they currently interact with the other group, and how they are currently measured. It really is as simple as that. Once you have this understanding, you can tweak your current operations and create open communications paths.

OK -- call me Pollyanna -- but this is the first step to bridging the gap between marketing and sales. If you can begin to explore this, you will clearly see how you can impact your company's bottom line in a very positive way -- while at the same time, improving your work environment, i.e., having more fun! That's what it's all about, right?