Build a Sales and Marketing Machine

How to Build a Powerful Sales and
Marketing Machine
Introduction

As mentioned in some of our previous white
papers, it’s no secret that the future of
marketing and sales lies in referring to these
not as two different but one single
department. Some companies have already
taken that step and combined the two into
what’s usually called Revenue Performance
Management department.

So, why is this sales/marketing alignment so important? The best way to respond to this
question is with another question (well, two actually). First, what is one of the most
important factors behind revenue growth? Most would agree it’s the conversion rate –the
number of prospects that actually become your customers. Secondly, what is the most
important factor behind the conversion rate? Undoubtedly, an effective sales and
marketing machine, and to have this machine, it’s imperative your sales and marketing
departments not only work together but are bound by same goals, strategies, policies and
procedures.

Apart from joining their marketing and sales efforts, companies are also slowly realizing
that it’s not so much what you sell but how you sell it. Most customers do their own
research and don’t want to hear yet another sales pitch. Instead of finding and force-
feeding their customers, companies are increasingly focusing their marketing and sales
efforts on being found by the customer. One way of doing this is putting out content that is
relevant to the customer because it addresses their needs and concerns and gives them
something valuable. Another might is engaging the customer in an interactive and
meaningful dialogue through social media, CTAs, etc.

So, the process of building a powerful Sales and Marketing machine boils down to two
critical factors: bridging the gap between Sales and Marketing by aligning the two
departments’ strategies, policies and procedures and being customer-centric (focusing on
your customers and selling on their terms).

LeadMaster Australia Pty Ltd – L6, 80 Mount Street, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.leadmaster.com.au | community.leadmaster.com.au | +611 300 852 599

But before we get into this in more detail, we should define exactly what a powerful sales
and marketing machine is and what it isn’t.

Concept Definition

Contrary to popular belief, a sales and marketing machine is not merely a combination of
marketing efforts and sales reps’ pitching techniques that seamlessly lure in and lead a
prospect through the buying process until the deal is closed. If one thing is true about
customers, it’s that they are capricious and can change their mind or their preferences at
any stage of the buying process, so it’s all about feeling their “pulse” and making the sales
and marketing machine work and adapt to this “pulse”.

An efficient sales and marketing machine is a
carefully designed customer-centric set of lead An efficient sales and marketing
generating and nurturing processes aimed at machine is a carefully designed
turning prospects into customers, an engine customer-centric set of lead
that either lies the heart of an RPM department generating and nurturing
or is a product of a tight sales/marketing processes aimed at turning
collaboration if there is no such department in prospects into customers.
place yet. Sounds simple, right? It actually is.
However, there are still so many companies
struggling with the traditional disconnect between Marketing and Sales, where the two are
trying to work as frenemies at best or undermining each other as rivals at worst.

There are various symptoms of this disconnect, most notable of which are:

 Sales complaining about the quality/amount of leads receiving from Marketing
 Marketing accusing Sales of not handling the leads adequately and losing the deals
that should be closed
 No clear lead trajectory or leads funnel defined
 No singular view of the prospect’s journey through the buying process
 Chaotic and/or dysfunctional marketing/sales process

If your company is suffering from one or more of these symptoms, then read on to find out
how to build a powerful sales and marketing machine that will solve these problems,
enable you to deliver better results and improve your company’s overall performance.

5 Steps to Building a Powerful Sales and Marketing Machine

As mentioned in the introduction, there are two factors that are fundamental to having an
efficient sales and marketing machine. First one is bridging the Sales and Marketing gap
and the second one adopting an exclusively customer-centric focus as a business. To


understand these in greater detail, here are 5 steps to building a powerful Sales and
marketing machine.

1. Align the two departments’ strategies, policies and procedures (SLA)

There are various ways you could go about this. Some companies choose to set up a Service
Level Agreement (SLA) between the two departments where both state their expectations,
goals, amount of leads required and provided, lead follow-up frequency, etc. Hubspoti
suggests including the following points in your Sales and Marketing SLA (these of course
can vary depending on your needs preferences):

a. Run a closed loop analysis on your historical inbound lead segments. Calculate
the profitability of each segment.
b. Classify profitable lead segments as “workable leads”, which are ready for
sales. Filter out and/or nurture “non-workable leads”.
c. Determine the number of “workable leads” per sales rep per month that
marketing is accountable for. This metric becomes your marketing SLA.
d. Define the number and frequency of attempts that sales will make against each
“workable lead”. This metric becomes your sales SLA.
e. Automate the daily monitoring of the process. Key metrics to monitor are:
 “Workable leads” produced per sales rep, month to date
 Attempts per “workable lead”
 Connect rate per “workable lead”
 Conversion rate to forecasted pipeline per “workable lead”

If you’re not a big fan of SLAs, there are other options. We recommend designing an
Integrated Sales and Marketing Strategy, Procedures and Policies Guide, in which both
teams agree on a joint sales/marketing strategy, goals, lead qualification system, lead
terminology, lead quantity and quality features, lead follow-up procedures, pipeline
management system, etc. This is very similar to an SLA; however, it does go into more
detail as far as lead generation, nurturing and management procedures, all of which are key
to the conversion rate.

2. Establish a clear and singular view of lead qualification system and customer’s
journey through the leads funnel

Next step in building a powerful sales and marketing machine is your Sales and Marketing
teams agreeing on a clear and singular view of your lead qualification system and all the
stages of your leads funnel. The key here is having uniform terminology.


Here is an example of a leads funnel system we developed here at LeadMaster Australia. It’s
a product of successful collaboration between our Sales and Marketing teams, so there is
never any confusion as to what makes a lead an MQL, SRL or an Opportunity. Moreover,
there is a clear scoring system in place, so that there is really no room for the blame game –
both teams know when somebody goes onto the next stage and what actions need to be
taken to lead the potential customer to the next phase of the buying process. In addition,
our LeadMaster CRM allows us to have a homogenous, transparent and efficient lead
management system that both teams use to do their share of work. In case a lead regresses,
both Sales and Marketing know exactly what needs to be done to get them back into the
leads funnel and nurture them again. This, of course is only one example of a uniform leads
funnel. You can customise and re-customise your pipeline whatever way you like, as long as
it’s a product of a continuous sales/marketing collaboration.


3. Work together on the development of lead nurturing tracks, marketing
content, etc.

The third and perhaps the trickiest step to building a powerful sales and marketing
machine is both teams collaborating on the developments of lead nurturing tracks, CTAs,
marketing content, etc. This does not necessarily mean each blog or white paper you
publish should be written jointly by your entire marketing and sales team. Your marketing
team, for example, could develop some lead nurturing tracks and run them by the Sales
team for feedback and suggestions. This allows for a clear understanding of all the steps in
the lead generation and nurturing processes and will hedge you against mutual blame
games in the future regarding the quality of leads, lead capture, etc. In terms of CTAs and
content marketing, we recommend organising weekly brainstorming sessions where both
Marketing and Sales come up with fresh content or best practices that will capture your
prospects’ attention and make them want your products and/or services. There is no
reason why somebody from Sales shouldn’t have a great blog idea or why someone from
marketing shouldn’t come up with a great lead follow-up event.

4. Gather and share insight on customer behavior, needs and preferences and
always listen to their “pulse”

The fourth and probably the most
demanding step in building a powerful sales
and marketing machine is collaborative
gathering of insight on customer behavior,
needs and preferences. As mentioned
earlier, the only way your sales and
marketing machine will be successful is if it’s
customer-centric. Again, it’s not so much
what you sell but how you sell it, so make
sure you are always selling on your
prospects’ terms. Today’s customer is not
only capricious but plays very cunning
games with different product and service

providers, so the only way to cater to their needs is to gain a full and comprehensive
understanding of who they are, what they like and don’t like, what they want and don’t
want, who they are influenced by, etc.


It is imperative that both sales and marketing teams are involved in this process, as neither
can do their job properly if they don’t have access to this insight. There are five basic
guidelines to follow in order to get this insight and make the most of it:

 Segment your market and clearly define your target audience
 Analyse your prospects’ and customers’ digital body language (e.g. social
media)
 Instead of putting out sales-pitch content, find out what your prospects’ and
customers’ concerns and pain points are and then focus your content on
those issues, providing them with real value and establishing your company
as a credible industry thought leader (we recommend segmenting your
content into three types: educate/empower/persuade)
 Vary communication channels and adjust your messages and content to
target segmentation (e.g. according to industry, product preference, company
size or other criteria of your choice)
 Instead of finding your customer, focus on being found (inbound marketing)
by providing them with relevant and valuable content and giving out free
stuff (don’t underestimate the power of free), proving that you want to
engage with them beyond a mere sales transaction.

5. Never settle

Final and the most underestimated step to building a powerful Sales and Marketing
machine is to never forget that the only thing constant is change, meaning you are never
finished with improving your Sales and Marketing processes. You and your team should
never stop asking how you can improve your sales and marketing machine because, just
like any other engine, this one needs to have its oil changed every once in a while. You
should schedule periodical meetings during which Sales and Marketing can analyse,
brainstorm about and improve on:

 lead generation and nurturing processes
 pipeline management
 lead sources (focus on those that have the highest ROI and improve those that don’t)
 customer needs
 marketing content
 innovation through trial and error, etc.

Someone once said that Marketing provides the weapons and Sales fights the war. Nothing
could be further than the truth. The sooner you stop thinking about Marketing and Sales as
two different divisions, the sooner you’ll see that the only way for your company to go


forward and outperform your competitors, not to mention impress your customers, is by
joining the two into one powerful business engine.

Never forget that the only thing constant is change, so you are never finished with
improving your Sales and Marketing processes.

Follow us:

i
Hubspot Blog, http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5885/Improving-Sales-and-Marketing-Alignment-
The-Marketing-and-Sales-SLA.aspx


Build a Sales and Marketing Machine

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Último

Último (20)

Destaque

Destaque (20)

Build a Sales and Marketing Machine