GrowthANSWERS » STOP THE INSANITY - Restructure For Revenue!

July 31, 2008

STOP THE INSANITY - Restructure For Revenue!

Filed under: sales process optimization, sales team development, 1-to-1 relationship marketing, lead generation, marketing strategy, General —

RESTRUCTURE FOR REVENUE

BY DON RIGBY - www.integratedmarcom.com

STOP THE INSANITY! If I could add a volume control to this text, it would be cranked up to 10. I can’t say this with any more passion or belief with every bone in my body…the purpose of marketing is to generate sales–new sales, repeat sales, REVENUE!

Last week, I worked with 2 CEOs of growth companies on restructuring their organization with intent to lean operations. Both executives believed Marketing & Sales were separate sciences. They are. Sales department focuses on 1-to-1 relationships while Marketing leverages 1-to-many. Yet both disciplines need to operate with a common purpose and the goal that matters most is revenue. Why create separate dynasties? Why not a single department, directed by someone who truly understands Cause & Affect? Call this department anything you like, but the objective is Business Development and make certain their grade card is based on revenue. Combine these teams into a single department and you’ll break down natural barriers that keep marketing & sales from working on the same team.

Perhaps this is a subject that rivals similar emotional debate as religion and politics, but I’ve witnessed too many gaps, too many obstacles with separate marketing & sales teams working at cross-purposes unless the Top Officer is willing to give an unfair share of his/her time to coach the ambitions of both department heads. Your leader can create value for the organization in other strategic ways.

The Classic Gap Your marketing team believes their job is to generate leads. Your sales team believes their job is to generate sales. When 95% of your sales leads are not ready to buy now, whose job is it to nurture these prospects to the next stage of relationship?

This is classic…sales will point to marketing and say the leads are worthless and they’re right since they view the world in terms of 30/60 day close cycles. Marketing sees things differently. Marketing believes there’s interest and desire within each lead and sales needs to do their job. Both are right. What’s missing is a strategy to nurture prospects through multiple stages of the purchase process until they are ready to buy.

Aligning Buying and Selling Processes This is easier than you think. There’s a system that honors every lead as a possibility to create a customer. This same system understands there’s often 12-15 touch points required to convert a prospect to a customer. Your sales team does not have to shoulder this responsibility alone. These touch points can and should be well-planned, multi-media communications and needs to include person-to-person dialog. Integrated MARCOM (www.integratedmarcom.com) synchronizes these events with a workflow system that automates the step-by-step communication process and walks the prospect through a pre-defined, linear sequence leading to a predictable outcome.

So how can you get sales and marketing on the same team? Give them a system that serves common revenue goals. Do this and more wealth possibilities will unfold.