Now it's the marketing departments turn. In this lesson, you'll learn what sales does to waste marketing resources . These insights will help you identify stumbling blocks in your customer acquisition process.
After this lesson perform this exercise that will help reduce these conflicts and give you better results in bringing sales and marketing together on the same team.
Four Steps To Get Better Results From Sales & Marketing Efforts
Step 1: Have sales make a one-page list of how they describe marketing's role. Just jot down some characteristics from your sales team's prospective.
Step 2: Compile a single list of the top ten ways sales describes marketing's role. You'll discovery overlaps with the destructive habits in today's lesson, plus ideas for marketing to provide more selling value.
Step 3: Have marketing do the same, then compare results. Department heads will find areas of improvement in both top ten lists; develop a game plan for them while establishing mutual objectives to remove obstacles.
Step 4: Fax your lists to +1 (877) 207-3798 with contact information (including mailing address). Over the next couple of week you'll discovery new ways of eliminating these challenges.
Watch out next month, you'll see how much value can be created when sales and marketing come together . Plus, get the two objectives sales and marketing must have together for strong customer relationships.
Wouldn't you agree that any waste of corporate resources should be stopped for maximum profits? Then you may be appalled to learn that your sales department is wasting marketing resources right now.
What they are doing is worse than not using the latest brochure , sending information to unqualified prospects, or even using the latest glossy as placemats. Which of these wasteful actions could you eliminate to save you thousands a year per sales person?
Your sales department wastes marketing resources when they;
Discount the value of marketing's effort. Your sales department only sees the end-results of marketing's effort without context of the reason way certain contributions are made. Coordinate sales efforts with marketing; understand what each group is doing to provide highly qualified prospects. Often this attention will reveal ways to improve quality in both leads and communications with the marketing department.
Don't provide clear lead profiles. It's the sales team's responsibility to provide a clear profile of qualified buyers. This one thing is more important than anything else because it helps marketing speak with the right audience. Too often sales teams assume marketing knows who to target just because they promote the same solutions as sales.
Work separate of marketing campaigns. If marketing is generating leads around a certain theme, then sales should sell around that same theme because that's what relevant to those leads. Focus on the strengths of what brought the lead forward. Unfortunately, selling professionals are unaware of what marketing activities are generating the leads they receive.
Don't ask for specific collateral to support selling objectives . As a sales team, you'll get better marketing materials if you ask for them. The marketing department's only purpose is to support the generation of revenue, not to create pretty pictures, not to write fancy copy, and not to "spread the word. "� Work with sales to create materials that enhance your ability to close business opportunities.
Don't return unconverted leads for nurturing. What does your company do with unconverted leads? Many just forget about them, they disappear in the dark abyss of a customer relationship management system. If at first a lead doesn't convert, return them to marketing for follow on materials designed to nurture a buying relationship.
Overlook current tools at hand. Is your sales department really using customer relationship management software in a way that provides an accurate picture of prospect follow up? Your company has certain tools to collect logistical data, coordinate efforts between departments, and support other vital metrics to monitor business performance. Use them.
Fail to focus on activity. It's marketing job to think about markets, its sales job to take action meeting and presenting to prospects. When your sales team doesn't take action on leads; market insights and customer desires lose value. This delay in prospect gratification directly hurts closing power. What actions are necessary to turn leads to customers?
Fail to follow up time. When a prospect raises their hand, interested in a certain product or service, time is running down on their interest. The longer it takes to follow up, the less qualified the prospect becomes. But too often this "slow response" behavior is developed from chasing poorly qualified leads; work with marketing to get something worth pursuing quickly.
Which of these things does your sales department do? Internal parts of your organization must function in a uniform consistent fashion , because chaos between employees translates as uncertainty in the mind of customers.
Ask each sales person to paint their own picture of the marketing department, have each write down 10 ways they think sales should interact with marketing . Then see for yourself, how many of their points overlap with the destructive behaviors here.
