Welcome to A Checklist on Sales & Marketing Alignment Module. This module's learning outcomes are - Deepen the knowledge of sales & marketing alignment and business success, identifying the level of alignment and what are the gaps to be filled, and analyzing what to do to and implementing the actions to align sales and marketing. By the end of the module, you'll be able to do a critical analysis of the major issues between sales and marketing, identify the roots of the problems, and design alternative approaches to implement to mitigate the consequences and strengthen sales and marketing alignment.
we are back to our strategic sales management specialization.
In our last classes, we learned about the viewpoints of sales and marketing.
Then we dug deeper what's behind the mindsets that shape this interaction.
marketing and sales to achieve proper alignment.
Perhaps there is another question we must ask first.
Aren't the two intrinsically conflicting in some points?
Shouldn't we just let it be?
No, we cannot just let it be.
And yes, we must strive to align sales and marketing teams and strategies.
And the reason is straightforward.
marketing are aligned perform better and are much more effective.
The marketing and sales misalignment causes friction in the company machine.
It means wasted energy, wasted resources.
too different than people's background, personalities, and perhaps generations.
Thus, a dialogue becomes almost impossible.
the sales team is all about self-made men and women.
of trying to change the culture by bringing people from other industries.
are replaced by professionals from other industries to bring fresh air.
Not always marketing has more academic training than sales.
have Masters and Ph.D degrees coupled with less sophisticated marketers.
This makes it almost impossible to have a dialogue.
there is no easy way to get a conversation going.
Not rarely the conflict gets personal at leadership level.
the conflict then contaminates all hierarchy levels.
it is simpler to understand than perhaps to solve.
See, this is more a matter of executional disobedience, on purpose or not.
It translates into marketing actions not being implemented by sales as intended.
in which marketing delivers a technical brochure on the new equipment line.
They instruct sales to go through it during the sales call.
salespeople decide to just leave it with the client at the end of the sales call.
There could be many reasons.
the literature was not friendly to show the customer.
sales folks found out it was more effective as a leave behind piece.
Well, that's what technical misalignment is about.
Strategic misalignment is the worst of all.
intended if at the highest level the strategy is not perfectly aligned.
This is a very important matter and deserves a full meeting about that.