How to Accelerate Your Growth with Marketing and Sales Alignment w/ Tracy Eiler [Episode 398]

Tracy Eiler, is Chief Marketing Officer at InsideView, and the co-author of a new book, with Andrea Austin, called Aligned to Achieve: How to Unite Your Sales and Marketing Teams into a Single Force for Growth.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Tracy and her co-author, Andrea Austin, found that their clients’ sales and marketing departments had no understanding of, or trust for, each other.

Sirius Research claims a 19% faster revenue growth when sales and marketing are aligned. Tracy talked to Sirius about their benchmark testing, which they did through surveys of behaviors, processes, and revenue figures.

Alignment reduces process friction by coordinating lead data with CRM data, so leads go to the right group. There is also coordination of lead scoring. People friction is reduced by removing intimidation, and by adding communication.

Tracy chairs a bi-weekly Smarketing meeting covers a six-week window, following up on past events, current activities, and upcoming plans. It holds teams accountable. It is a venue for ideas. Sales and leadership meetings also include marketing.

Tracy found that in 25% of their six-figure deals of the last year, there were engaged in the sale, an average of 34 individuals per client account, representing sales, marketing, ops, IT, and so on, through webinars, website visits, trials, etc.

The book has a test for marketers to measure whether their sellers trust them, with questions like, “Has your seller shared their account plans with you,” “Have they taken you on a call,” and, “Have they followed up your leads with feedback?”

The alignment problem is getting worse. Tracy cites the messy MarTech stack. Examine if your tech is adding value to your marketing and sales alignment.

Sales thinks of top-of-funnel, but marketing can help mid-funnel as well, with engagement. Have the conversation, and apply all the tools available.

 Aligned to Achieve uses a sideways figure eight from Forrester Research to replace the sales funnel, cycling through the Find, Engage, Close, and Grow stages of the account relationship.