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Key Pillars to Driving Business Growth and Change: Your People

Ever drive a car that’s out of alignment?

Take your hands off the wheel for one second and it veers to one side – and quickly pulls you off course.

Your sales and marketing teams are a lot like the front wheels of a car. If not properly aligned, they can make it tough for your company to stay on course – especially in a rapidly changing business environment where the “rules of the road” seem to change daily.

If you’re looking for new ways to accelerate growth, gain market share and drive your business forward, invest in your most important asset:

Your people.

(Your sales and marketing people, that is!)

Like your position, your people comprise one of the four pillars essential to driving business growth and change. Yet in many organizations, people in sales and marketing are “siloed” – happily going about their daily activities, with little regard for how the other operates.

The result? Conflicting goals. Competing agendas. Confused customers. And too many missed opportunities.

The most successful businesses invest time and effort in aligning the goals and activities of their sales and marketing professionals. They know that when sales and marketing work together toward shared goals, both are more effective. Sales cycles shorten. Conversions improve. Customers are happier. And ROI soars!

Want to get your sales and marketing people moving in the same direction?

Use these 3 tips to better align your sales and marketing teams’ efforts – and improve your bottom line:

Tip #1: Build a culture of teamwork.

Break down departmental silos that hinder communication. And if there’s tension between your sales and marketing teams, address the elephant in the room. Bring both groups together so that each develops a better appreciation for what the other does. Resolve to support one another’s success moving forward by doing things like: holding shared meetings; having representatives from each team attend the other department’s meetings; brainstorming and troubleshooting challenges together; and establishing shared communication channels.

Tip #2: Create shared goals.

In different ways, sales and marketing should work toward the same overarching goal: driving revenue. From this single, unifying goal, create cascading goals for each team that support one another’s efforts:

  • Example: Set a goal for account managers to gather testimonials and case study case study content to provide proof of value.
  • Example: Set a goal for marketing staff to: ghostwrite articles or blog posts that answer customers’ most common questions; post them on your sales team’s behalf; and push the content to your social channels.

These are just two examples of the myriad goals you could set. The important thing is to create goals for each team that makes the other more successful.

Tip #3: Cross train.

One of the best ways to create synergy between sales and marketing is through learning:

  • Example: Ask a marketing team leader to host a lunch-and-learn for the sales staff, where they review the latest website improvements and explain how the changes make the sales team’s job easier.
  • Example: Schedule an afternoon ride-along, where members of the marketing team shadow account managers making calls in the field. As members of each team gain a deeper appreciation of the other’s job, capabilities and challenges, that empathy will spark new ideas for working better together.

In today’s fast-changing business environment, aligning your sales and marketing teams will keep your company on track – and propel you ahead of the competition.

Put BARQAR’s people to work for you.

Need help generating leads for your sales team? Creating content busy executives can’t resist? Refining your marketing message? We’re here for you. Just give BARQAR’s experts a call today!

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