🕵🏻‍♂️ sales & marketing collaboration

Dear Trencher,

​In today's newsletter, we'll dive into the outdated practices still holding some companies back. 

And guess what? 

We'll unveil the secrets to a collaborative approach between sales & marketing that drives real results.

Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential? 

Let's get started!

The Old Way of Sales and Marketing Working Together

1. Gathering Input for Targeting Paid Campaigns: Marketing would ask sales for their insights on who to target in their paid ads. It was a quick chat, and then marketing would run with it.

2. Handing Over Leads: Once marketing got some leads, they'd pass them to the sales team. Sales would then try to turn these leads into customers, often with little follow-up from marketing.

3. Creating Collateral: Marketing was responsible for making brochures, presentations, and other materials. Sales would use these tools, but there wasn’t much collaboration on what content was actually needed.

The New Way:

1. Shared Goals:

Instead of working in silos, sales and marketing teams now focus on shared goals. 

What do we want to achieve together? 

Are we aiming to generate a new pipeline, renew contracts, accelerate existing opportunities, or break into the enterprise market?

Here’s how to make it work:

• Align on the same objectives: Make sure both teams are on the same page, working towards common goals.

• Connect to business priorities: Ensure your goals support the company’s overall strategy.

Quick example:

• The investors are conditioning the next round on a lower CAC for new business

• Enterprise sales cycle is 12 months

==> Goal: win 50 mid-market ICPs, improve account-to-pipeline ratio.

2. Aligned metrics

Are KPIs aligned with your shared goal?

Usual issues:

• Leads/meetings booked KPI

• No leading indicators for new programs

3. Shared account qualification

Firmographics, technographics, and custom qualification criteria (e.g. PE-backed company, sales team > 100) to use for targeting and list building.

4. Shared account scorecard

Agree on:

a) Prioritization criteria (related to revenue potential, relationship, product need evidence, and vendor awareness)

b) Account insights. What info do we need to collect or validate to be able to sell into that account?

5. Buying committee structure

Align on the typical roles (of champions, decision-makers, influencers, and blockers), and their goals, needs, and pain points.

6. Joint account prioritization and planning process

Agree on:

a) Key sources of account insights, intent and engagement data, source owners, and frequency of reviewing them

b) Regular pipeline review meetings, to review and prioritize newly identified accounts, and review the insights and next steps of the accounts currently in active focus or pipeline

7. Buying triggers and jobs-to-be-done

B2B buyers don't buy because they saw an ad, an SDR email, or received the fifth nurturing email. They buy because their business priorities shift to a specific high-priority challenge they cannot afford anymore.

Analyze and agree on:

• The buying triggers and the jobs-to-be-done of your best customers, especially those where you have a competitive advantage

• Signals that can help you map clusters of accounts with the same triggers and JTBDs

• Content, messaging, and activities to market to these clusters

8. Joint programs

Define joint programs by defining specific sales and marketing activities to:

- Generate awareness in target accounts

- Nurture and move forward accounts that are early in the buying journey

- Collect key insights about target accounts

- Accelerate opportunity creation with highly engaged accounts?

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See you in Trenches 😉