TMH Consulting & Investment Group all rights reserved. 2015

The Marketing and Sales bridge

6 steps to align your commercial strategy to boost sales

May 2015

By: Thomas Michael Hogg and Leon Felipe Garcia

The Marketing and Sales Bridge page | 2

The Sales Director´s opinion:

- "The marketing department is only concerned

about branding, events and awards. What about

revenues? Our marketing manager does not

even know our key accounts´ needs nor how we

sell to them."

The Chief Marketing Officer´s opinion:

- "Our sales force does not differentiate our brand.

We communicate our company's differentiators

through all of our communication channels, but

not through the most important one: our sales

reps."

We have heard those statements many times during client meetings and there was always one area to blame

"our neighbor department." Between your sales people and the marketing guys very often exists an area of

opportunity to "build a bridge".

The alignment of the Marketing and Sales departments leads us to a successful commercial strategy

which delivers topline growth. Every CEO is eager to rely on a high performance commercial team. But very

often these two areas lack to bond as a team that works together.

The Marketing and Sales Bridge page | 3

1. ALIGNMENT TO SALES METHODOLOGY

THROUGH COMMON OBJECTIVES

The Marketing department needs to create qualified

leads that have a high propensity of resulting in deals.

The Sales department has to drive these qualified

opportunities through the sales process to a closed on

won status. Therefore, the whole commercial team

needs to know annual, quarterly, and monthly goals

per segment, region, key accounts, and products (or

services). Furthermore, everyone has to be aware of

the lead generation objectives. Because if we do not

achieve our lead generation objectives, the journey in

the sales process may be very unpleasant and we may

avoid experience of too many unqualified leads that do

not deliver sufficient sales results.

In order to generate qualified leads and revenues, the

marketing department needs to fully understand the

sales methodology and process.

2. BI-DIRECTIONAL COMMUNICATION

FLOWS

A common understanding can only be obtained by an

ongoing and evolving communication between the two

departments. The CMO needs to be part of the weekly

top management sales meetings. Communication does

not mean writing emails nor sending presentations.

Effective communication means formal and informal

meetings on a steady basis. Trust and honesty are two

basic ingredients for efficient communication. Ask

yourself: how many top management meetings with

effective and efficient communication take place in

your company between the head of marketing and the

head of sales.

3. DEFINED ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

When it comes to roles and tasks, very often we notice

two common patterns:

- There is no such description which defines clear

alignment responsibilities. The Marketing

department must have clear sales, market

penetration, and lead generation goals, measured

by KPIs. A second step would be to link these

objectives and responsibilities to incentives.

- The responsibilities are well-defined, but hidden in

a HR file and not communicated. There is no clarity

as to these roles, and they are not measured by the

top management.

4. FORMALIZED METRICS AND REPORTING

Having a common set of objectives, indicators, and

reports is crucial in order to be able to deliver

outstanding results. Therefore, we recommend to

measure and discuss the following issues:

- Lead Generation by marketing channels

- Target Market penetration. How many leads and

sales are generated by the marketing department?

- What is the hit rate of the marketing leads? How

much $ value (net sales) are coming from

marketing initiatives?

- Does marketing provide a key support for high-

margin products / services / projects?

- Sales reps are mainly measured by the so called

"exit indicators" - Sales deals closed and revenues.

But what about "entry" indicators that measure how

good a sales rep penetrate the target market and

reach first meetings with new potential key

accounts.

The definition and the follow-up of these common

marketing and sales indicators are very important.

Benchmark companies even have a marketing and

sales KPI dashboard that is constantly supervised by

the CEO.

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5. STANDARD TERMINOLOGY

Do we speak the same language?

- Cost per click

- Ad impressions

- Inbound Marketing

- Sales service quote

- Sell-through rate

- Above and below the line

- Hit-rate per channel

- SEO & SEM

- Key accounts and target market by segment

- Top- vs. Bottom-line growth

Every manager has its own definition or sometimes he

or she ignores the importance of a thorough and

common understanding. What are the key expressions,

terms and metrics your sales and marketing

department use? Are you certain that a sound

understanding and prioritization of these terms exist?

6. JOINED CUSTOMER VISITS

"I have never seen our marketing manager

participating in a sales visit", Sales Director.

Often the marketing guys are busy sitting on their

desks or having unlimited agency meetings than

having customer meetings with the sales team.

The CEO has to push the marketers to be in the market

and to understand the sales process and challenges.

Sales people should invite the marketing department

to their key account sales meetings. You`ll be

surprised with the support and insights you could get.

ABOUT TMH CONSULTING & INVESTMENT GROUP:

TMH Consulting & Investment group is an international

consulting firm, founded 2012 in Monterrey, Mexico.

TMH designs impact-driven strategies & business

models for leading companies and non-profit

organizations. TMH delivers a strategic clarity and

direction to the client's growth plans. Fields of

expertise: Strategic Planning, Marketing & Sales

Strategy and Market Research.

For more information please contact us and visit our

website.

Website: www.tmh.com.mx

Email: info@tmh.com.mx

take a

huge budget allocation, will surely give you a

short term competitive advantage and sales

Thomas Michael Hogg