From the subscription economy to digital transformation, the rules of modern business are constantly being rewritten. Now more than ever, leaders must work together to successfully ride the waves that innovation and disruption create.
Our Chief Marketing Officer Jon Perera and Vice President of Worldwide Sales Matt Weil know this better than anyone. For this dynamic duo, the challenges of modern business are best conquered with tight alignment, a focus on customer experience, and best-in-class sales enablement.
Jon and Matt recently shared their perspectives on the Modern Selling and B2B Growth podcasts. Here are our favorite nuggets of wisdom for you — and don’t forget to check out the full podcasts below.
Maximize Sales and Marketing Alignment by Sharing Goals
The problem: Marketing and sales have little insight into each others’ priorities and goals.
Jon’s take: “Aligning on the metrics is one of the most important things. I know exactly how many MQLs that convert into SQLs that then lead to opportunities for Matt. And I connect this information back to what our team plans to do on the website, what our demand gen strategy is, and the account-based marketing we’re going to do to generate that exact number.”
The takeaway: Align your goals, and then work backwards through the buyer’s journey to understand how and where marketing can support sales. Working in lockstep highlights areas for optimization and eliminates the potential for miscommunication that could impact revenue.
Reframe Your Mindset to Focus on the Long Game
The problem: Salespeople are prospecting, but buyers aren’t taking the bait.
Matt’s take: “When it’s a longer sales cycle, it’s about educating the buyer. Over time, your buyer is going to make a decision; they don’t need to make one today. I think a lot of salespeople make the mistake that they think they have to sell something at a given moment. They’re not trying to play the long game.”
The takeaway: Sales is a long-term relationship — one built on trust, where sellers become trusted advisors. Sales teams would do well to utilize marketing content to nurture authentic connections with buyers throughout their journey. After all, 64% of buyers say that the winning vendor’s content had a significant impact on their buying decision. To ensure that content is optimized to help sales move buyers through the journey, marketing teams can use advanced analytics and direct feedback from sellers on what’s working and what’s not.
Tackle “No Decision” by Helping Buyers Understand “Why”
The problem: New markets don’t understand your solution or why they need it.
Jon’s take: “We’re on a journey to help the buyer understand why buy anything — why buy now, and then of course, why buy from us. When you know you’re in an environment where “No Decision” is a big issue, it’s imperative for marketing to do this work upfront.”
The takeaway: By developing and distributing content that maps to various stages in the buyer’s journey, marketing can build urgency. This investment helps build brand affinity and presents your business as a trusted source of guidance. Once marketing has warmed buyers up, it’s easier for sales to work the deal.
Empower Salespeople with Prescriptive Guidance
The problem: Reps struggle to use marketing content during customer engagements, and marketing’s time and effort goes to waste.
Matt’s take: “Marketers need to be able to not just build assets and make them beautiful, but they have to be able to give the sales team guidance on how to best leverage the content.”
The takeaway: Specific guidance on what sellers need to know, say, show, and do for every customer conversation ensures reps are maximizing their use of content. With advanced sales enablement technology, marketing and enablement teams can prepare salespeople with guidance and just-in-time training at the moment of action.
Deliver a Cohesive Customer Experience with a Unified Go-to-Market
The problem: Many teams interact with the customer throughout their journey, often creating a disjointed, inconsistent experience.
Jon’s take: “Job number one is to align across sales, marketing, and customer success on a shared vision of the customer journey. From the time that a customer is at the top of the funnel to the time they renew, our teams must be operating with the same understanding, nomenclature, and taxonomy of the different steps the customer takes.”
The takeaway: Companies can deliver a superior customer experience by unifying the back-end elements of their customer-facing operations, such customer marketing, events, and support playbooks. Ongoing communication is critical to effective execution.
When it comes to sales and marketing, there’s truth to the saying “better together.” Ready to put Jon and Matt’s advice into action? Get started with our guide to enabling revenue teams.
