Why Sales Teams Don't Trust Marketers

According to LinkedIn, a whopping 1 TRILLION dollars are lost per year because sales teams and marketing teams don’t coordinate together. In today’s episode of the Aligned Podcast, our host Sean Doyle goes over how you CAN coordinate your sales and marketing teams to avoid losses and improve profits.

• Generating quality leads:
  • Getting leads for your business is easy. But making sure they’re QUALITY is the hard part.

• • One reason why salespeople don’t trust marketers is because marketers are just there to get leads INTERESTED in the product. They answer questions and show off a product or service. That will generate leads, however, those leads aren’t guaranteed to be good, profitable ones.

• • One scenario mentioned in the episode is a lead already having the product being offered. Imagine if your marketing team generated 100 leads, but 90 of them didn’t have any NEED for your product. Your sales reps have just then wasted time that could’ve been spent finding QUALITY leads.

• What sales teams want from marketers:
• • The MAIN thing that sales reps want from marketers is: Communication.

• • Communication is key in business and in life. If your marketers and sales reps are properly communicating, this prevents any wasted time. Marketers can let the sales team know of potential leads, what they’re looking for, what they have, etc.
    
    
  • Once proper communication is established, the sales team can focus on quality, profitable leads and discard the ones that they can’t sell to.
    
    
• How to align marketing and sales teams:

• • Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. Have your sales and marketing teams actually WORK TOGETHER. Focusing solely on your marketing team will prevent sales from working at maximum efficiency. Focusing solely on your sales team will prevent marketing from working at maximum efficiency. Make sure the needs of both marketing and sales align.
    
    
  • Alongside having your marketing and sales teams work together, prioritize COMMUNICATION. As said, communication is key. Too often, marketers are unaware of what leads should be prioritized, leading to wasted time.
    
    
  • Flip the conversation. Focus on what the BUYER ACTUALLY WANTS and how to meet their needs. Have sales reps and marketers work together to figure out a.) What a buyer wants and b.) How to best deliver your product or service to them.

Making sure that your marketing and sales team are aligned is CRUCIAL for increasing profitability. One can’t function maximally without the other. Utilize these tips, and watch your profit grow.