Integrating Marketing With Sales

Integrating Thoughts and Ideas by Mike Bosworth October 23, 2007 Marketing WITH Sales

Customer Experience Management The conversations field salespeople or channel partners have with prospects and customers may be the last bastion of competitive differentiation in today’s rapidly commoditizing markets.* Conversations are the most critical element in shaping the customer experience. *American Marketing Association

Build Your Process Around Customers B2B Customer Experience Management Best Practice Selling Behavior Conversational Messaging Organizational Sales Process Arrows indicate INTEGRATION

Integration? VP Marketing says: “ We send Sales qualified leads that fall into a black hole. ” VP Sales says: “ When trying to help (our) salespeople have meaningful conversations with decision makers, in our company Marketing is irrelevant.” CEO says: “ When a deal finally does close, it resembles a series of random events tied together by hope and luck. We do everything once in a row!” VP Professional Services says: “ We are continually have to tell customers our product will not do what the salesperson said it would do.” Salespeople say: “ Sales is a sink or swim proposition. CRM, product training and marketing collateral don’t help us sell. Managers tell us what to do, not how to do it.”

Disjointed Marketing and Sales Efforts

“ No agreement on what constitutes a “qualified” lead”

“ Marketing determines what the customer needs based on product development, but without input from Sales”

“ Marketing develops tools sales people don’t use”

Up to 90% of collateral created by marketing is never used by sales

– American Marketing Association

“ Sales and Marketing use different descriptions of products”

“ Sales and Marketing position different products to different users”

“ Sales has no repeatable process”

“’ Finger pointing’ when objectives are not met”

“ Wasted resources”

Sales Benchmark Index

13% of an organization’s salespeople generate 87% of it’s revenue

25% of salespeople do not generate enough revenue to cover their expenses to the company

40% of salespeople lose their jobs every year

Marketing and Sales Responsibilities Strategic Marketing 1-5 years out Market positioning, brand awareness, brand advertising, predicting new markets Tactical Marketing Next 12-18 months Trade shows, collateral, advertising, success stories, web content, lead generation using customer centric messaging Sales Next 1-6 Months Executing the sales process using sales ready messaging The Disconnect

The Marketing/Sales Touchpoint Tactical Marketing Sales What exactly is a LEAD? Sales Says: “ Marketing wouldn’t know a qualified lead if they met one.” Marketing Says: “ We send Sales qualified leads and they fall into a black hole.”

Bridging The Disconnect The key to integrating tactical Marketing with Sales, your Targeted Conversation List The predictable conversations your salespeople will need to have to get your company’s offerings sold, funded and implemented

Targeted Conversation List CRM Example CFO S,F Achieve profit projections with accurate sales forecast Reduce the cost of sales VP Sales S,I Achieve forecasted revenue targets Shorten start-up time for new sales reps Increase the percentage of B and C reps making quota VP Mktg S,I Generate and track leads CIO I Secure customer/pipeline data from competition S Sell F Fund I Implement (Conversion/Compliance) Key Players High Probability Goals

Defining LEADS Name/Title/Company from Targeted Conversation List that is curious/interested in how we helped… Similar title Similar industry achieve a goal or solve a problem

Defining Leads Example John Doe, VP Sales XYZ Software is curious/interested in how we helped the VP Sales of another software company reduce her sell cycle from 9 months to 5

What is Buying? Buying is taking action to acquire products or services that you can visualize using to help you or your organization achieve a goal, solve a problem or satisfy a need .

Product Training Issue Too many people selling “solutions” are unable to explain how their offerings can be used by their potential buyers to: • Achieve a Goal • Solve a Problem • Satisfy a Need

Product Training: Nouns or Verbs? CRM Software Feature list Password administration Single view across platforms Standard milestones Contact information Account history Cross selling 24x7 access Political mapping Electronic coaching Lead tracking Passing of leads Historical close rates Analysis of past campaigns etc., etc., etc.

Does Product Marketing…

“ IT”

give a life of its own?

Does Product Marketing Claim? “ ’ It ’ will improve your sales forecast!” “’ It ’ will increase your productivity!” “ ’ It ’ will reduce your customer churn!” “ ’ It ’ will improve your salesperson morale!” Do prospects wonder how “IT” will do it?

Selling Without Sales Ready Messaging® “ 50 to 90% of collateral created by marketing is never used by sales.” This causes salespeople to develop messaging “on the fly” (13% are competent at this task) Customer Message Management Forum American Marketing Association

Product Centric Positioning “ Our seamless and integrated CRM application will dramatically improve YOUR forecasting accuracy!” (Oh, will it now?)

Common Buyer Reactions

Is that a fact or opinion?

How do you know my forecasting needs to improve?

How will my accuracy improve?

Who will do it?

Why should I believe you?

How many times have I heard this before?

Company-Centric Positioning “ ABC is the world leader in delivering critical insights to connect goals, metrics and people, resulting in extreme performance.” quote from client website

Customer Centric Positioning

ABC Systems helps customers improve

top line revenue by defining and

automating a standard sales process.

We are headquartered in Boston

We were founded in 1990

$1B revenue achieved by Oct 2005

We serve 4 of the 5 largest hosted CRM implementations

Our clients include: Adobe and Fidelity Investments

What is “Sales Ready” Messaging ? Sales ready messaging enables your prospect to visualize using your offering to:

Achieve a goal

Solve a problem

Satisfy a need

Improving their customer experience!

Event Driven Visions

When evaluating your cost of sales

After your salespeople make calls

When assigning new territories

When new hires call on existing accounts

When distributing leads to the field

When unauthorized users attempt to access your system

When will they need your offering?

What is Selling? From the perspective of a customer

Convincing?

Persuading?

Getting someone else to do what you want?

Overcoming resistance?

Handling objections?

Taking at least 5 “NO’s” before giving up?

Your Mother’s View of Salespeople

Aggressive

Insincere

Pushy

Manipulative

Obnoxious

Over-familiar

Prone to exaggerate

Inclined to over sell

Anxious to tell “everything you ever wanted to know”

Poor listeners

Likely to do what’s best for them, not the buyer

Not to be trusted

Customer Centric Selling

Helping targeted buyers progress through buying cycles to a vision of how their organization could use your offerings to:

Achieve goal(s)

Solve problem(s)

Satisfy need(s)

and understanding the value of doing so.

Best Practice Selling Behaviors

Target business decision makers

Willingness to leave if business issues are not uncovered

Ask relevant questions

Converse situationally about title-specific business issues

Are solution focused

Relate product usage

Empower buyers to:

Achieve goals

Solve problems

Satisfy needs

Rarely have to close because buyers want to buy

What is Your Customer’s Experience?

Convince them

Persuade them

Get them to do what we want, when we want

Overcome their resistance

Handle their objections

Take at least 5 “NO’s” before we give up

“ The CEO’s definition of selling is the “DNA” of the customer’s experience.” Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power Magazine Help targeted buyers progress through their buying cycle to a vision of how they could use your offerings to: • achieve their goals • solve their problems • satisfy their needs Company A Company B

Building Incremental Interest Earning the right to ask intelligent questions 30 Seconds Cold Contact “ Elevator Pitch” Sample Menu Curiosity becomes Interest Buyer shares goal 2 Minutes Success Story 15+ Minutes Solution development conversation Curiosity “ Tell me more” Time Interest H L

Can We Enable a B2B Customer Experience? “ Our prospects will be allowed to be curious about how we have helped their job title deal with relevant issues.” “ Our prospects will be given an example of a success story only after asking us to "tell me more.” “ Our prospects will be asked questions about their current situations only after they have shared a goal or a problem.” “ Our prospects will only be offered potential capabilities that will empower them to achieve their goals or solve their problems.” “ Our prospects will hear only facts about our company ’ s credibility rather than marketing hype.” “ Our prospects will view our salespeople as individuals who want to help them achieve their goals or solve their problems by using our products.”

Integrating Sales WITH Marketing By integrating a customer centric sales process with sales ready messaging, you can enable the bottom 87% to behave like the intuitively talented top performers and you can enable the top 13% to sell on purpose!

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