How often does your Sales team talk to your Marketing team? Do they speak the same language? Are they really listening to one another? Are they aligned in their efforts?
Consider the following truths:
- 60% of sales pipelines are stuck… with no decision pending.
- 67% of salespeople don’t reach their sales quota.
- Only 25% of sales leads and collateral — that the Marketing team creates — is used by the Sales team.
- Over 30% of sales reps spend between 20 and 50% of their valuable selling time looking for, creating or modifying marketing content.
- Less than 35% of a sales rep’s time is spent on… selling.
Yet, when Sales and Marketing teams work together, they can create and execute brand campaigns that are… better targeted, more effective, and have more tangible success metrics. In fact, when Sales and Marketing are closely aligned, companies are 67% better at closing deals and enjoy 35% higher customer retention. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
Of course. However, would it surprise you that this alignment happens in only 8% of companies? And that’s the problem.
Are your Sales and Marketing teams in sync?
So, how do you really know whether the Sales and Marketing teams for your building product brand are working together effectively?
There are often telltale signs that cross-team collaboration is going poorly.
For example…
- Sales and Marketing have competing ideas of what the customer journey looks like.
- The teams don’t meet on a regular basis.
- Each develop materials, without consulting one another.
- Team members rarely share what they’ve learned as “best practice” with each other.
If your Sales and Marketing team members say any of the following, they’re likely not aligned…
- Sales: The leads Marketing sends us are low quality.
- Marketing: We’re allocating significant budget to ads, content and emails, but we’re getting less than optimal ROI.
- Sales: Marketing has no idea what goes on in the “real” world.
- Marketing: Most members of the Sales team say they don’t even use the marketing collateral and educational resources we work hard to develop.
Well, you get the idea.
All too often, the closest collaboration many Sales and Marketing teams achieve is a cordial relationship. Occasional meetings to refresh campaign themes for trade show booths. And the requisite handoff of leads… at a stage in the sales process.
Sales don’t provide Marketing with feedback from the field. How they are overcoming objections to convert suspects into prospects. Or the ways in which they inspire specifiers to become brand advocates.
And brand marketers don’t consider important sales data points and intelligence in their campaign development. Defending messaging instead, with scant actionable analytics.
Instead, Sales typically speak about pipelines. And Marketing talks about funnels.
While everyone stays focused on their own, particular view of the world.
Sound all too familiar?
Merging “Alternate Realities”
If you want your building product business to grow — and thrive — you can’t afford to ignore the misalignment between Sales and Marketing.
At a very basic level, what well-aligned organizations do better than their competition is… allow Sales and Marketing to support each other for mutual reward. The upside? Robust sales pipelines. Improved customer experience with greater retention. And more satisfied employees. But, that’s just the starting point.
There are important strategies and exercises to leverage in achieving alignment. It doesn’t have to be painful. In fact, the opportunities far outweigh any resistance to change.
Stay tuned for future deep dives that we’ll deliver on how to take advantage of this transformational opportunity.
In the meantime… interested in finding out how your building product Sales and Marketing teams can work together more harmoniously toward shared business goals? Send an email to Steve Kleber and sk@kleberandassociates.com to learn more. You can also sign up for our free webinar here.
And, if you’re going to be at Coverings 2021 in Orlando, be sure to check out Steve’s presentation, “Recognize the Problem – Identifying Sales & Marketing Misalignment” on Wednesday, July 7 from 8-9 am ET.
