We all know alignment is essential for a well-oiled revenue team. Sales needs to trust and understand marketing in order to have the best chance to win. And marketing needs to be in lockstep with sales to understand how to best educate and persuade customers … so that sales has the best chance to win. In fact, well aligned revenue teams grow their revenue 24% faster than teams that are misaligned.
And yet, sales and marketing alignment is elusive. Whether it’s because we’re using disparate sources of data that keep us from agreeing on priorities and goals, or because we lack insights into each others’ day-to-day realities, a united sales and marketing force can feel like a pipedream in a lot of organizations.
That’s why when we see our customers attaining the seemingly unattainable — true marketing and sales alignment — we insist that they spill their secrets. What follows are some golden nuggets from three of 6sense customers who are living the unified rev team dream.
Lauren Wagner, Director, Marketing Technology at Okta, Inc.
“It all starts with a plan and having clear alignment around how we go to market in marketing, how sales is aligned to their territories, and how marketing influences those theaters. If your sales team is aligned in an industry-focused approach, you want to make sure that you’re mirroring that in marketing and have a joint, agreed-upon plan of action for those theaters. For Okta specifically, we have a strong pod structure around territories. Each pod has a marketer, a sales development rep, AEs, and CSMs. And this pod meets on a regular basis to talk about the strategy for that territory. That pod structure, that regular communication, that cadence and approach really helps to foster that alignment.”
Listen to our full interview with Lauren Wagner on the Difference Makers podcast:
Making Alignment Look Easy
Sales and marketing alignment is different within each organization, as these B2B leaders can attest. But the teams that do it best are the ones in which the sales and marketing departments share the same intelligence and insights. Instead of butting heads over opinions and hunches, these teams pave a data-backed path to revenue. And when everyone is on the same page — and seeing the impressive successes that result — alignment comes naturally.
[1] https://business.linkedin.com/en-uk/marketing-solutions/blog/posts/sales-and-marketing/2018/Are-you-scaling-the-right-buyer-experiences
