Aligning Sales and Marketing

for fun and profit!

Jennifer Davis

ANA Business Marketing Conference | October 2018

All opinions are my own.

Me in 3

3x CMO and VP now in Atlanta, GA

SaaS, commercial AV, embedded

electronics, and services

Corporate enterprise, retail, healthcare, K-12

education, and hospitality through direct,

channel, and OEM business models

Non-profit and advisory board member

Blogger, author, and speaker on marketing,

leadership, and technology

What sales thought they were selling What marketing advertised What the customer received

Misalignment Happens

90% of marketers say that

sales and marketing

misalignment interferes

with their success

Sources: Aberdeen

Alignment Misalignment

Companies

that get it right

Misalignment Costs

30-40% of revenue is spent on sales and

marketing in most companies

Companies that reported high alignment had

revenue growth of 32% versus a 7% y/y decline

from companies without alignment

Well-aligned companies enjoyed 36% higher

customer retention rates

B2B companies who were aligned grew revenue

24% faster and profits 27% faster over three years

Sources: Forrester, MarketingProfs, Sirius Decisions

Sales and Marketing

Other Expenses

Net Profit

Investment

at Risk

B2B Customers Changing

Your customers don’t want to engage with sales: Only 16% of your customers find that

interacting with a sales rep is superior to self-service research.

Your boss cares: 48% of CEOs say that poor alignment and collaboration will be a major

marketing challenge over the next 12 months.

Stakes are High:

“If marketing and sales aren’t aligned and if

they don’t collaborate, they will be

disintermediated. By buyers themselves who

find other ways to get what they need or by

more agile competitors.” – Mary Shea, Forrester

“If you are doing sales and marketing the

same way you did 3-5 years go, you

won’t survive.” – Mary Shea, Forrester

“Align or Die”, Forbes, Jennifer Davis; Forrester Marketing Benchmark Survey and International Marketing Panel

Misalignment Hurts

Aligning Sales and Marketing

Aligning Sales and Marketing

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

Leadership

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

“Sometimes the flowers arrange themselves, Jim”

The Office on NBC; Season 8, Episode 19 “Get the Girl”

Goal Setting

• Define corporate goalsOnly 24% of organizations calibrate on the

definition of target segments or accounts

• Decide who is responsible for each

• Everyone has a specific role to play

• Everyone has targets to achieve

with their respective teams

• Set entire executive team incentives

tied to company-wide results

• Common scoreboard

• We win and lose together

Forrester, Dreamstime

Lessons on Leadership

• Ask for clarity around goals and

what success looks like for the

company, across functions

Helpful hint: Learn how to read

financial statements

• If role ambiguity exists, negotiate

for clarity.

• The leaders of sales and

marketing functions need to

align. Otherwise their teams

never will.

Dreamstime

Alignment at All Levels

• The top leadership in the

company must want sales and

marketing alignment (and be

willing to have awkward

conversations to insist upon it)

• The leadership of sales and

marketing functions, respectively,

must want and fight for

alignment

• You can not expect execution

level staff in functions to be

aligned if leadership is not.

Dreamstime

Empathy

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

Empathy

• Positive Dependency is the

goal of teamwork

• You can only accomplish

your goals with the

contribution from others

(and visa versa)

• Roles should be set up for

check-and-balance

(stick) and shared

rewards (carrot)

• You can’t expect results

on the back of other

functions that you don’t

understand/appreciate

Dreamstime

Lessons in Empathy

Communicate Regularly:

• “Smarketing” Onboarding (using

common curriculum/agenda)

• Weekly meetings

• Corral communications like email,

messaging, etc

• Corral sales tools together

• Work trade shows together

• Ride alongs

Evaluate Results:

• Monthly and Quarterly Formal

Meetings

• Jointly decide how and who will

report metrics up to senior leadership

Helpful hint:

Customer-empathy trumps allDreamstime

Goals

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

Plan on a Page

Plan on a Page

Plan on a Page

Reality

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

Reframe for Alignment

sales marketing

Reframe for Alignment

sales marketing

Competition | Concerning Industry Trends | Disruptive

Technologies |Our Own Execution and Results

Tools

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

Tools

Martech Stack

CRM

Marketing Automation

Sales Enablement Tools

Common Definitions

Lead/Prospect

MQA

SQA

Opportunity

Win/Loss

Opportunities stages/probability to close

Intention

List Append/Look-Alike

Analytics

Decision Support/Machine Learning

Event Management

Other ABM or Success Tools

Aligning Sales and Marketing

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

Aligning Sales and Marketing

Goals

Empathy

Tools

Reality

Leadership

What Can You Do Today?

Talk to your leadership about whether you have an alignment issue and where it might be,

what it is costing, and what you are willing to do about it

Begin implementing some of these ideas, especially those focused on discovery and

empathy development and see what new approaches emerge

You have the power, together with your colleagues and teammates, to improve the

weakest part of the funnel and start impacting your business today. Don’t wait!

Stay in Touch

Jennifer Davis

Web: www.atjenniferdavis.com

Twitter: @jenniferdavis

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferbdavis

Forbes: www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferdavis