How Your Pipeline Can Fix Sales and Marketing Misalignment

Let us define alignment by pointing to a metric of misalignment. In our survey of 1,000 sales and marketing professionals, we asked them this question: How often do you meet with the other team to discuss pipeline? Nearly two-thirds of sales said quarterly or less. More than three-quarters of marketing said monthly or more. What? We can’t imagine these people are lying. How can they be so out of sync?

The roots of misalignment stem from such fundamental issues as communication and perceptions, but it’s so much more than just that.

Alignment means creating a common focus and putting everything behind that common focus. In this book, we’ll make the case for why pipeline must be your focal point, why data must be your foundation for alignment, and why growth must be the common thread.

We’re not advocating for the end of marketing and sales as we know it. We believe they are two distinct teams with two distinct roles that require two very distinct skill sets. We see alignment as turning these two teams into a collaborative, focused unit racing toward the same goal.

Sales and marketing alignment isn’t easy. It isn’t small. But putting growth at the center of your efforts gets everyone focused on the same point. It becomes the central point around which an aligned company can be built.

Alignment takes a good deal of understanding of each other’s role, their challenges, and their actions, because you’re both relying on each other to do your own job. You have to be willing to work together. You also have to realize that you’re ultimately accountable, and, if you’re not holding up your end of the relationship, your days may be numbered.

To be clear, aligning sales and marketing isn’t some feel-good effort. Tight sales and marketing alignment pays tangible, higher-value dividends. Operationally, we’re talking about things like improved prospecting results, higher lead conversion and sales win rates, lower customer acquisition costs, and increased productivity among marketing and sales teams. Strategically, it gets even better: faster closer rates, improved customer retention and expansion, better understanding and targeting of your company’s best customers, and a widening of total addressable market.

Ultimately, we believe sales and marketing alignment opens the door for a new and shared vision that represents a better way forward. It also means getting back to the basics and working together to set and move toward common outcomes.

Excerpted with permission of the publisher Wiley from Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales and Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth by Tracy Eiler and Andrea Austin. Copyright (c) 2016 by John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. This book is available at all booksellers.