Sales and Marketing alignment

The alignment between Sales and Marketing is one of the main issues faced by business-to-business (B2B) companies worldwide. Businesses which enjoy strong alignment are:

• Outgrowing their competitors by 5.4%
• 38% better at closing proposals
• Churning 36% fewer customers each year

Source: MathMarketing alignment benchmark study 2004/2005 : 1400 professionals : 84 countries

Sales and Marketing are often on different planets. Sales asks Marketing to do more advertising and run more events. Marketing thinks that Sales is out to lunch and fails to capitalise on all their hard work.

Senior management says they have to align; so they swap staff and try to be friends.

Unfortunately, simply being nice to each other is not the solution.

So what do you align them to, and how do you do it? You need a solution which:

• Aligns Sales and Marketing to the buyer;
• Creates an agreed plan that outlines how each will operate; and
• Builds a common language and shared outcomes, strategies, processes and measures.

Alignment requires a complete sales and marketing planning solution.