Marketing, strategic planning, lead generation, proposal management
Sales and Marketing; is it still a “we vs. they” culture?
There's been the on-going question of marketing’s value and capabilities of partnering with sales and sales with marketing to acquire and retain customers throughout history.
Directing, guiding and facilitating a collaborative and common approach between Sales and Marketing is even more critical in the digital age as more and more buying decisions are being made before the RFP response or sales process even starts. This is not new news, but all too often, the same old marketing vs. sales culture as opposed to the marketing AND sales culture is still firmly rooted in the company’s overall culture.
So, how do we get to a one-team, we win together approach?
Start by asking basic questions:
• Do Marketing people meet with the customers during the sales process?
• Do Sales people participate in the development of marketing plans?
• Do Sales people value the collateral support developed by marketing?
• Do Marketing people believe that Sales provides true customer feedback?
• Do Marketing and Sales leadership regularly confer on business planning, strategic and tactical issues?
• Do Sales people provide input to the development of criteria for Marketing Qualified Leads?
• Do marketing leads get the appropriate attention by sales?
• Do sales leads close faster than marketing leads?
• Do Sales and Marketing develop SLAs to govern the lead and sales funnel process?
No doubt, there are more questions that can get at the root of how well or not the two teams work together and, how well the two teams work together can help or hinder the results needed.
Do your teams work well together? Should they work independent of each other or in a collaborative team approach? What questions do you believe would help determine this?
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