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ReVive : Episode 11 | Sales & Marketing Alignment

Sales & Marketing Alignment: Defining internal processes that correlates to a successful alignment

In this episode of ReVive hosts Kyle Naber and Jared Falkner are joined by Keith Bradt, an experienced sales and business professional focused on sales process development, sales team development, and management solutions that aligns strategically with marketing efforts. Need help aligning your sales and marketing team? Check out Keith’s new venture at Kallan Sales Development.

Give me the high-level: ReVive in 5

Let’s say I was a manufacturing company, what size business is ideal for your services? – (7:14)

“Generally, Kallan’s ideal clients are small to medium-sized manufacturers that may not have the resources or the ability to focus solely on sales process development and/or the implementation of a system to manage pipeline, drive accountability, and deal migration to closure. In many cases, these might be the owner doing double duty as the sale manager, or a sales manager who is also tasked with business development, account management, field sales and prospecting i.e. marketing and lead generation as well.”

So how do you initially engage with a client in need of process development? – (10:38)

“This can take many forms really based on the needs of the organization, as we’ve been talking, but generally we start with an upfront consultation to understand current structure, needs, pain points or goals to base a scope around.”

“Before changing anything it is important to build an “As is” use case to get a grasp on how the existing sales process works. Identifying how current customers and prospects connect with the organization and how those inquiries are funneled to the sales leaders for follow up is a good start. We also evaluate how they are currently managed with a foundational look at how the sales teams are functioning today.

Once you have defined your sales process, what pre-, during, and post-steps do you take to successfully align your efforts with the marketing team that supports longevity? – (15:18)

“Absolutely. While an existing process is being mapped out or a new one is being outlined, we’ll approach the internal marketing team or the marketing partner we’ll be working with, to ultimately bring them into the fold. To begin aligning marketing efforts with sales, we must clearly define where the lead generation funnel transitions into the sales funnel, and how does marketing qualify leads, as well as the steps that are taken to convert them and for sales to engage. Here is where the development of a service level agreement will further support. An alignment by defining those roles and responsibilities to make sure that everyone can work together. As we all know, if everyone’s responsible, nobody’s responsible.”

“Alignment between sales and marketing teams is very critical because this is a very collaborative process. In some cases, sales may need to provide field intelligence relative to how the prospective clients engage vendors. For example, NPI driven through engineering versus the procurement team. From a needs perspective, generally have distinctly different goals when considering technology vs. cost. And in some cases, marketing in conjunction with sales leadership may need to train field sales on how, or when, to deliver the most appropriate content.”

In order to properly align your sales process with the sales team, what value is found in a proper CRM/CMS system? – (19:06)

“There’s so many different solutions out there for sales force automations, sales enablement, lead nurturing, etc.… That said, there is inherent value in leveraging a content marketing system (or CMS) that either has internal CRM capabilities built into it or is easily integrated into a secondary CRM. One of the largest reasons for this is that it allows you to manage your sales activity from cradle to grave.”

“For example: Imagine if you are able to track how your customers find you, what content is most effectively resonating with them to motivate conversions to a sales qualified lead. You are then able to track those leads to see which ones generate quoting activity which leads to revenue, all within a single interface.”

Collaboration between all teams is critical since sales management issues need to align strategically with marketing efforts. Everybody does not start at the same point when figuring out a sales & marketing strategy, which is why collaboration is so important when properly aligning goals. Having a CRM system is important to this collaboration as it allows businesses to manage their sales activity from beginning to end, helping them track how customers find them, see what content is making a meaningful connection, and illustrate how new sales are converted from a qualified lead.

Is your internal process inefficient? Does the collaboration and alignment between your sales & marketing team need improvement? Vive Marketing can help create a marketing plan and strategy that supplements your sales team. Enjoy a stress-free conversation with Vive Marketing by starting a conversation with us. 

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