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The Secret Handshake between marketing and sales

Oren Askarov

2023-01-29

5 min read

There are times when the line between marketing and sales is so thin that, in some cases, it is invisible.

The online revolution placed (in some cases) the marketing manager position in front of the buyers. And push the salespeople out of the sales cycle. A smooth online customer journey enables the customer to complete the entire buying process without human interaction (or just a small one). In some cases, we are evident that marketing professionals are using detailed User Experience to reduce costs and provide potential customers with a simple and time-saving option to get what they came for.

This text is not a "lamentation song" for the salesman. On the contrary, there are enough places and companies for a professional salesman. This text emphasizes that the marketing and sales teams depend on each other to close a deal.

 

In some cases (mostly in high volume or complicated products), the sale process requires the effort of both marketing and sales teams. A complete alignment between these teams to see the bigger picture. Therefore, marketing and Sales executives need to develop a "secret handshake" to streamline the work process and accurately ensure a correct data flow.

That "secret handshake" is a kind of agreement between the marketing and sales departments. Each side must be committed to the procedure and help understand the other part of the process, what is valuable and what isn't for closing a deal or generating a lead.

 

The marketing team is committed to delivering quality leads. The leads understand the product. The business model fits their budget, and now is a good time for him to pay for this product/service. But that is not enough.

The marketing team needs to provide quality, comprehensive information on each lead. Then, give the sales team some extra information to help them nail that deal.

This combination of quantitive and quality information will help the sales team to build an accurate pipeline and prioritize their sales work.

 

 

You can think about the above chart as a model for calculating Quantitative & Qualitative information.

The Quantitative values on the X axis as A, B, C, and D are "hard coded" values that you set up based on your target audience. For example, Title, Country, Company Size, Business email, etc. Each value is saved and pushes the lead right on that axis. ("A" represent leads that are not the target audience you are looking for, and "D" is the perfect target audience you are looking for).

 

The Qualitative values are on the Y axis is a number. (You can type any values you want in here), the simple logic behind this axis is calculating the qualitative information captured on the lead, such as The number of times the lead visited the website and the assets it downloaded. Did the lead attend a webinar? Yes/No. Following the company's social channels Yes/No? Etc. Once you calculate this information into a number, you'll have a more comprehensive image of each lead.

 

All this and more should be part of the information the marketing team should forward to the sales team. Each of these is valuable information for the salesperson that can change the sales pitch (when used wisely). But that is not all. If your marketing team includes a BDR team, surely more information is coming up when communicating with the lead.

 

The marketing team must embrace a Know Your Customer approach, collect as much information on the lead and ensure forwarding it to the sales team, so they will know what to focus on in the sales pitch.

 

The other side of this process is the sales team. One of their fundamental values is Honesty.

The sales team needs to provide the marketing team a genuine feedback on each lead. For example, which quality leads converted and have the highest potential to become customers, and which are a waste of time? What was on the call with the lead? And what other information may be helpful in the future.

 

This process will improve the conversion rate and reduce marketing and sales costs.

The "secret handshake" can work only when a few terms with these basic terms:

  1. Both teams are committed and see the bigger picture
  2. You have a CRM platform to support all of the above.
  3. There is excellent communication between both departments.

 

Leave the ego at home and come to work.

 

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