Five Things Sales and Marketing Can Agree On. Finally!

The battle between sales and marketing is legendary, playing out in organizations across the globe.

Sales enablement is a proven way to bring the two together.

Here are five things your sales and marketing teams will be able to align on once you implement a sales enablement program.

Priorities

Sales enablement provides the data needed to set sales and marketing priorities. Instead of disagreeing about them because of a lack of information, the two groups can use current and historic data to align on the best sales opportunities. This will help them decide together on where to focus their marketing and sales efforts.

The teams will be able to determine:

• What customer types to go after
• Which products and services to offer them
• Geographic areas to focus on
• Timing and goals

Without coming together on these basics, marketing can’t run campaigns aligned with — and its support of — sales priorities.

Data

At most organizations, people on the sales and marketing teams have access to different sets of data. Neither side has a view into the information the other depends on. That’s because most marketing and sales tools, including customer relationship management systems (CRMs), don’t make it easy to transfer data from one platform to another.

Unlike CRMs and other databases, a sales enablement system will link your different sources of information together. This creates a single unified database that facilitates conversation and understanding between your sales and marketing teams. It helps prevent the conflicts and inefficiencies that come out of battling over competing agendas.

Sales Process

In most organizations that don’t have a sales enablement program, sales has one view of the end-to-end customer experience (based on day-to-day interactions with prospects and clients) and marketing has another (usually based on theoretical best practices).

Sales enablement makes the two teams come together to define and document a single optimal sales process. This encourages open dialogue about the realities salespeople deal with every day and recommendations made by marketing.

Once a customer journey is defined, both teams support the same experience and are able to track its effectiveness together, improving it over time.

Content

Marketing makes things. But do sales reps actually use them?

This is a big question most organizations face. The uncertainty is eliminated once a sales enablement system is implemented. It facilitates content distribution and provides marketing with the data needed to see whether reps are using sales materials and determine the effectiveness of the pieces.

No more pointless check-in meetings to go over sales collateral – marketers will get realtime feedback! This not only eliminates wasted time, but it improves the quality and effectiveness of sales content going forward.

Metrics and Goals

In many organizations, sales has one set of goals and marketing another. This doesn’t make sense. The goals for any department in any organization should ladder up to — and fully align with — achieving sales quotas.

Sales enablement ensures that both teams — and everyone at your company — are focused on the same objectives. They also have clear data at the ready to monitor progress toward your goals.

This is perhaps the most powerful benefit sales enablement provides in bringing sales and marketing into alignment.

Are you looking for a sales enablement system to get your sales and marketing teams to work together rather than against each other? Mobile Locker offers one that’s proven to help encourage conversation and cooperation. You owe it to yourself to check it out to find out how it could benefit your organization.