Poor quality leads and a broken lead process are warning signs that sales and marketing are not aligned.
Over the years I have witnessed the intersection point between sales and marketing to observe many of these ‘canaries’. Here are the top ten signs that sales and marketing are mis-aligned:
- Wrestling in the Office. Sales and marketing settle their differences like cro-magnon men or women.
- Rental Lists as Leads. Marketing refers to accounts and contacts on rental lists as ‘leads’. Any marketer who indiscriminately parrots this term from list vendors should be sent back to B2B marketing school.
- Inquiries as Leads. Marketing categorizes an inquiry as a ‘lead’. A responder is just that: someone who is interested in your offer and may not be evaluating solutions.
- Multiple Definitions for a Lead. Marketing and sales can’t agree on a single definition of a qualified, sales-ready lead.
- Recycling Marketing Messaging for Sales. Dragging-and-dropping a message from a marketing brochure or website does not satisfy the needs of inside and outside sales for precise, distinct and succinct messaging.
- No commitment from Sales on Lead Handling. Once marketing hands off a lead to sales there is no agreed upon course of action for lead engagement, lead reporting or lead recycling.
- Fuzzy Sales Lead Feedback. The reports from sales are full of emotion but not facts. Leads are tossed aside with little detailed feedback as to why the lead did not meet the lead criteria.
- A Qualified Prospect Calls Back. A lead who is expecting a call from sales, never receives contact. The lead re-contacts your organization to find out when someone will call.
- Leads Generated by Marketing are Not Factored into Quota. Sales does not count on marketing-sourced leads to achieve their quota.
- Marketing is Measured on Inquiries or Responses. Marketing is measured on activity metrics, rather than results metrics.
What signs do you see that cause you concern about sales and marketing alignment? What would you add to the list?
Tags: b2b lead generation, Marketing, sales and marketing alignment, sales leads
Good stuff. Two more: 1) Sales fails to acknowledge results that evolved out of marketing efforts (similar to your number 9). 2) Marketing fails to distinguish lukewarm responses from genuinely qualified leads (similar to your number 3).
Thanks for the input Jonathan – that gives us a dozen!
Great post. Here’s another one. A marketing lead disqualified by sales ends up purchasing from the competition within 24 months.
Now we have the unlucky 13.
Robert, You must have been looking over my shoulder all these years. You have compiled a great list that I found myself smiling or reacting to after each item with a “that’s true” comment.
Another one that I would add to the list is: Sales and Marketing Leadership compete against each other to claim credit when things are going well, and blame the other when expectations are not met. There seems to be a “one must win and one must lose” mentality between the two and with executive leadership. I recommend that both roles should be connected at the hip and what happens to one happens to the other. Most would acknowledge that when sales are rolling along ahead of plan that BOTH sales & marketing are in sync.
Here’s another one: No one bothers to do any math on the ROI that various lead sourcing/nurturing combinations yield. So there is no real, objective way to say whether marketing adds more or less value in the demand generation process than other channels sales might tap.
This one came out of some feedback several senior sales people gave me for a related blog post I did this past Thursday. Did an interesting 2×2 chart to assess the various scenarios of how sales views marketing.
FYI – if you’re interested in this chart/piece: http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/demand-generation/viewing-salesmarketing-misalig.html
Thanks for driving this dialogue, Robert. It’s important to be talking about this as marketers right now. The sales and marketing roles are so quickly changing, and that creates an opportunity to re-define the relationship.
Even here the finger pointing continues. It’s no wonder in bad times marketing is the first cut, followed by a culling of the sales ranks.
Adam, to your point we ALL should of been talking about this way before the economy hit the skids. Perhaps this “kick in the pants” will give us the wake up call, “everybody sells.”
Hey Robert, this is an excellent top ten list. I used to work in Inside Sales and was always frustrated with our marketing department, it never seemed like their objectives were in line with ours. Maybe a solution would have been a commission system for the marketing department as well. There should have been better communication by both departments to be fair. I thought your #1 point was hilarious, thankfully I’ve never seen it get to that point. I found you through Twitter and am now following you, we are @toptentopten. You can cross-post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and link back to your site. We are trying to create a directory for top ten lists where people can find your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.
Robert, you’ve clearly highlighted the need to distinguish people in different stages of the buying cycle and meet their specific needs.
Also, this post highlights the importance of not being delusional. Sometimes its easier to focus on meaningless metrics because that’s all that is the extent of the accomplishment. Ego, and a desire to save one’s neck comes into play.
Thanks all for the comments. The tally has reached 15 signs with a number of great comments on addressing the underlying issues.
As Adam Needles says, let’s keep the dialog going.
Robert, for a different take on the subject of sales and marketing integration, check out my Sales and Marketing Wish list at
http://www.sales-lead-experts.com/tips/articles/wish-lists.cfm
Regards,
Mac
mcintosh@sales-lead-experts.com