How To Get Sales To Trust Marketing: Make Them Stay Home
We’ve been talking about digital transformation for decades now. But I’m a skeptic, because transformation does not inevitably follow the switch to a digital sales and marketing environment. The promise is real, but the execution too often falls short. Perhaps you’ve experienced the disconnect: that semi-baked Salesforce installation, those plug-ins that could be giving you immediate insights on what your customers are looking for if only people would try them out, the marketing automation system that, if actually connected to your website and CRM, would deliver near real-time interaction with your best opportunities.
Chances are, your marketing team has been eager to demonstrate what these “connected technologies” can do, but your sales team hasn’t sat down long enough to get into the rhythm of using the tools and acting on the opportunities in order to realize their full value. In fact, they often seem to have a totally different agenda. So, as I’ve been saying for years, “It’s not the technology; it’s the people and processes. Fix those, and you realize the value quickly.” The promise of data-driven, one-to-one relationships has been missing a key ingredient, human commitment, and cross-journey orchestration.
Marketing folks—typically generalist personalities—have been studying ways to connect salespeople to the needs of customers for a long time. They create customer personas, lead-generating campaigns, and make herculean efforts to support their sales teams, including leveraging technology and data insights to foster more relevant and holistic connections. But back in the old days, say January 2020, many sales teams still relied largely on high-touch, in-person relationship selling, with no intention of changing—hospitality suites and expensive dinners at conferences, power lunches, golf, you name it. This is where traditional sales personalities felt most comfortable and effective building relationships.
Enter the big-bang global pandemic. Suddenly, face time with customers is out of play, conferences are canceled, and air travel is ill-advised. All of a sudden, marketing, with its suite of carefully-chosen digital tools, has the answers, providing real-time insights into account activity, purchasing life cycles, needs evaluation, and purchasing readiness scores.
Salespeople, stuck in their homes, trying to make headway in a rapidly shifting market place are finally willing to get hands-on with the technology and become part of a larger team, showing up to deliver at pivotal moments.
As sales switches from “I feel it in my gut that x is ready for a proposal,” to “Wow, I had no idea a, b, and c are ready, too,” their willingness to invest time in digital tools increases. As they use them, they realize that this, more studied approach to customer needs, can efficiently build trust from the start with prospects, and over time with existing customers. As Latane Conant, CMO of 6Sense says in her new book, No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls, “When you move past MQLs into an insights-driven, customer-and-employee-focused approach to sales and marketing, magic starts to happen.”
When things open up again, these early technology adopters will be two steps ahead, with new tools and processes designed to create closer customer relationships.
The actions you can take to leverage this incredible power shift aren't just about technology. In fact, as we’ve seen, it’s a lot more about culture and the way that technology impacts a team’s ability to see what is needed and act in concert. Following is a quick checklist to ensure that your team is moving forward with the times.
Make sure your data tools are fully activated and leveraged by every player on the team. Tools like 6Sense and Drift, help keep sales, marketing, and even customer service, focused on the opportunities that have the greatest potential for success now.
Create a customer journey guidance map to keep everyone focused on the pivotal moments and a tailored approach to giving customers what they want right then.
Train sales, marketing, and customer service reps in tandem to reinforce collaboration, and increase a sense of shared purpose.
Create shared accountability reports to demonstrate the power of acting in concert and celebrate wins.
COVID has shown us, you don’t need more cocktail parties, golf outings, or tradeshows to build relationships. You need a re-imagined approach to the customer/employee experience that better leverages the data and people you most likely already have...from where they sit right now. Home.
Are You Ready to Shift The Paradigm To Deliver Real Growth?
Leading companies are optimizing their marketing, sales, and customer service for the post-2020 marketplace. Ask us for a Brand Trust Assessment for an evidence-based evaluation of your five key trust indicators and a plan for strengthening your ability to connect the dots between marketing and sales and build lasting customer relationships.
Find out more at www.infiniteedgeconsulting.com.
About InfiniteEdge:
InfiniteEdge is a consultancy of marketing and culture experts that helps companies build trust and navigate today’s rapidly evolving market environment, while providing all the marketing services you'd expect from a top-tier integrated agency. Invite us in to help you transition your marketing operation from reactive to responsive and develop a roadmap to help you thrive through the coming unknown.
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