Improving Sales And Marketing Collaboration

Sales and marketing are two primary business functions that focus on creating satisfied customers. Due to their complementary orientations and objectives, these two functions are ideally positioned for a fruitful, synergetic collaboration. UnfortuÂnately, the practical reality in many companies is far removed from this utopia. Sales and marketing personnel fail to communicate effectively, resulting in misunderstandings, frustration, and sometimes sabotage. Instead of supporting each other in creating superior value for customers, they often fight tiresome internal battles that are a drain on profits, efficiency and customer satisfaction. Improving Sales and Marketing Collaboration offers the first comprehensive perspective on the functioning of sales-marketing interfaces in business to business (B2B) companies. We explore their complementary roles in creating superior value for customers, problems that occur, the underlying causes of these problems, and potential solutions. These solutions are accompanied by a series of tools that managers can use to diagnose their sales-marketing interface and develop appropriate approaches to improve this relationship. Additionally, the book discusses a number of challenges that companies encounter and the impacts on their sales-marketing interfaces. The discussions and tools presented in this book provide managers with a deep underÂstanding of this critical interface, allowing them to apply these insights to improve their sales-marketing interface, which helps them create superior value for customers.

A smart, practical guide to rocket-powered business growth Aligned to Achieve puts sales and marketing on the same page, creating a revenue 'dream team' that will drive your organization to new heights. Smart, practical explanations, case studies, and tips guide you toward action over theory, and dozens of examples illustrate the tangible effects of these changes in action at business-to-business companies. Written by sales and marketing executives who have made alignment work, this book is directed toward practitioners and leaders seeking to crack the code of sales and marketing alignment. Contributions by industry thought leaders and B2B executives provide fresh perspective and nuanced direction, while thoughtful, strategic, and well-supported guidance throughout helps you remove the obstacles standing in the way of your organization's financial and strategic goals. Misalignment between sales and marketing is an age-old problem—frequently lamented, but seldom addressed. As this schism grows amidst the evolving marketplace, its effects on top and bottom line performance are being felt more than ever before. This book shows you how to bring sales and marketing together effectively once and for all, leveraging their strengths to build an unstoppable force for growth. Understand the cost of misalignment and the driving forces behind it Learn strategies for improving your culture, process, leadership, and technology to initiate and support alignment Identify the best places to modify your sales and marketing programs to kickstart collaboration and cooperation between your teams Discover how other companies are uniting their sales and marketing teams into a single force for growth Walk away with practical advice on how to apply recommendation in the real world Misalignment is frustrating for everyone in sales, marketing, and leadership. It's also detrimental to your organization's performance—but the problem is not insurmountable. In fact, most of the obstacles it creates are self-inflicted, and entirely within control of leadership. Aligned to Achieve helps you identify and remove those obstacles, and build a culture of sustainable growth.

There has never been a time when sales and marketing teams have needed to work together as closely, and as effectively, as today. The risks associated with Sales/Marketing mis-communication have never been greater, but neither have the potential rewards for effective collaboration. But what is the most effective way to achieve the desired business results? This book describes the current Sales and Marketing landscape and proposes an expert method to move sales and marketing teams beyond mere alignment into true collaboration. This book aims to: 1)Show that solvable collaborative issues are impeding business growth 2)Prove that organizations thus impeded are falling significantly behind in the race to keep up with the ever-accelerating Buyer's Journey 3)Provide the reader with the adaptive collaborative tool kit that they need to prevent their organizations from falling behind their more agile competitors in the race to keep up with rapidly accelerating twenty-first-century customer expectations Who Should Read This Book? This book is for senior executives in medium to large B2B organizations, particularly those with a centralized marketing team and a distributed sales force: CEOs who wish to increase financial results and reduce waste Sales and Marketing Executives who would like to improve sales productivity and marketing effectiveness Sales Managers who want more effective marketing support and wish to retain their top performers Marketing Executives who want to demonstrate better ROI and enjoy a better two-way relationship with the sales force HR Directors who prefer a more collaborative work environment, one that attracts and retains the best talent CFOs who want to see better margins, more profit and lower costs CIOs who are evaluating CRM and sales and/or marketing automation systems Anyone who is interested in the latest business productivity methodologies

How should corporate sales and marketing teams operate collaboratively in a 21st Century to enhance performance in the marketplace? This publication provides insights into how and why con ict and/or separation has grown up between the sales and marketing functions in many organizations, and what senior managers can do to counter this. Sales and marketing functions have the capabilities required to assist the organization to adapt to rapidly changing environments by focusing on customer needs and the activities of competitors. To gain the maximum bene ts for the organization, sales and marketing need to interact effectively and communicate both formally and informally. Creating Effective Sales and Marketing Relationships will consider the resourcing of sales and marketing, and how innovative processes can reduce conflict and promote mutual understanding.

There is growing evidence that the traditional role of the sales organization in business-to-business marketing is quickly evolving from a tactical, operational function to a strategic capability concerned with the management of critical processes that support business strategy and deliver value to profitable customers. This topic is of major relevance to scholars in both the sales and marketing domains, and this relevance is underlined by the intense interest of managers and companies in how this field is changing. This collection is a unique gathering of views on the critical issues to be confronted in the strategizing of the sales function, from distinguished scholars from throughout the world. Their focus is on the linkages between strategic marketing and the corollary of strategic sales. This book was published as a special issue of Journal of Strategic Marketing.

Buyer behavior has changed the marketplace, and sellers must adapt to survive The Collaborative Sale: Solution Selling in Today's Customer-Driven World is the definitive guide to the new reality of sales. The roles of buyers, sellers, and technology have changed, and collaboration is now the key to success on all sides. The Collaborative Sale guides sales professionals toward alignment with buyers, by helping them overcome their problems and challenges, and creating value. From building a robust opportunity pipeline and predicting future revenues to mastering the nuances of buyer conversations, the book contains the information sales professionals need to remain relevant in today's sales environment. Buyers have become more informed and more empowered. As a result, most sellers now enter the buying process at a much later stage than the traditional norm. The rise of information access has given buyers more control over their purchases than ever before, and sellers must adapt to survive. The Collaborative Sale provides a roadmap for adapting through sales collaboration, detailing the foundations, personae, and reality of the new marketplace. The book provides insight into the new buyer thought processes, the new sales personae required for dealing with the new buyers, and how to establish and implement a dynamic sales process. Topics include: Selling in times of economic uncertainty, broad information access, and new buyer behavior Why collaboration is so important to the new buyers The emergence of new sales personae – Micro-marketer, Visualizer, and Value Driver Buyer alignment, risk mitigation, and the myth of control Situational fluency, and the role of technology Focused sales enablement, and buyer-aligned learning and development Implementation and establishment of a dynamic sales process The book describes the essential competencies for collaborative selling, and provides indispensable supplemental tools for implementation. Written by recognized authorities with insights into global markets, The Collaborative Sale: Solution Selling in Today's Customer-Driven World is the essential resource for today's sales professional.

Collaborative selling comprises targeting your market, contacting your prospect, exploring your customer's needs, collaborating with your customer, confirming the sale, and assuring customer satisfaction.

This publication considers how sales organisations are responding to increasing competition, more demanding customers and more complex selling environment, and offers discussions of some of the possible solutions to these challenges.