Why would a sales and sales management training company be writing a blog post about sales and marketing alignment? For starters, a recent study by Leandata and Sales Hacker found an astounding 78% of B2B brands challenged by revenue growth. Digging in, the study further uncovered that:
- The problems are largely caused by failure to integrate sales and marketing together and with customer success.
- 95% of companies agree that customer experience is the key to unlocking growth.
While the news itself is not good, it’s encouraging to see emerging recognition of the need to align all go-to-market teams around the buyer. This alignment is not optional. It’s simply not something companies can afford to continue to aspire to without accommodating the modern buyer and the modern buying experience now. And sales and marketing alignment is integral to doing so.
The Modern Buying Experience Requires Sales and Marketing Alignment
So, what is the modern buying experience? And, what can you do to support it? The modern buying experience is all about problem solving. Buyers don’t want to be on a journey, and they don’t want salespeople to impose a sales process on them. Rather, they require prescriptive guidance for solving a defined and articulated issue that they are experiencing. Therefore, addressing the modern buying experience means taking a comprehensive buyer-centric approach to go-to-market strategies and efforts.
Who cares if you and your products are the Muhammad Ali of the market? There’s nothing about your being “The Greatest” that’s directly about your buyer. Your buyer cares that she has a challenge, and she’s given you the opportunity to help her fix it. In response, you need to ensure that you have a deliberate, disciplined, and rigorous approach to coordinate the languages of sales and marketing with her own to show her the way. And that’s every time so you need to be sure you understand the factors that make up your most common buying situations and the plays most likely to win.
With true marketing and sales alignment, you have consistency of tactics, systems, messaging, and content from top of funnel to close. And you ensure that consistency is reflected by all your teams and in all their interactions so that at any point in time, as Sales Enablement Platform Highspot suggests, they know:
- What to ask
- What to say
- What to know
- What to show
Without that consistency, the experience is fragmented, and the buyer is frustrated. And chances are good that you don’t get the sale—or the revenue.
Want to learn more? Watch the webinar 3 Big Mistakes that Frustrate Your Buyers and How to Fix Them presented by VantagePoint, Highspot and MarketingProfs.