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Marketing and sales: 5 ways to improve your teams

Learn how you can improve your business just connecting marketing and sales teams

Irina Ionova 16 Stories

Tuesday May 22, 2018 , 3 min Read

In business promotion, there are two important parts: marketing and sales. First, you think there are almost one thing, but many businesses face dividing between marketing and sales team, despite having the same overarching goal (hey, we all want more dollars in the door, don’t we?).

That’s so because they have different views — marketing tends to skew more long-term, while sales are highly focused on the short-term. And when we have income that doesn’t satisfy for us, sales department says that the leads weren’t qualified, while the marketing department asserts that sales just didn’t do their job adequately.

Sound familiar? This sort of blame game is common, but that doesn’t mean it’s productive. Instead, marketing and sales professionals need to identify ways that they can better work together toward those shared goals—with as little hair pulling as possible.

However, the best-performing companies find ways to flip that standard dynamic on its head and inspire these two groups to work in harmony. Here are some numbers that just might convince you of the value of sales and marketing alignment:

⚡ Misalignment between sales and marketing technologies and processes costs B2B companies 10% of revenue or more per year.

⚡ When sales and marketing teams work together, companies see 36% higher customer retention and 38% higher sales win rates.

⚡ Companies with aligned sales and marketing generated 208% more revenue from marketing

(Source: 20 Stats That Prove the Power of Sales and Marketing Synchronization)

Start introducing these 5 tips into the mix, and you’re bound to see the collaborations between those two notoriously at-odds teams improve.

Get on the Same Page About Goals

Both teams need to ensure they have an understanding of the business goals and each other’s objectives. They’ll need to find the overlap in those objectives, and see where they can help each other.

Gain a Deeper Understanding of Responsibilities

Get part of either team involved in the other’s day-to-day operations, even if just on a basic level. When the two teams take a step in the other’s boots, so to speak, collaboration is sure to improve.

Get a Grasp on Challenges

Give the other department the opportunity to attempt to address some of the problems you frequently encounter, you’ll solidify the understanding of all of the work that’s being done on the other side of the table

Encourage Together Time

Spend time together. Emailing and messaging and talking on the phone isn’t enough. Marketing staff and sales staff should work closely together on buyer persona development, buyer’s journey mapping, and content creation. Also, don’t hesitate to strengthen your bonds outside of the office as well.

Create Together

Make the time to brainstorm and create together. Such approach involves the other team in the process—before anything hits the fan. This effort adds to the idea of collaboration, rather than competition or constant complaining.

So, as you can see, the sales and marketing departments need to work closely together to improve your business.