How to Drive Synergies between Marketing and Sales: Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode, we’re talking about how to drive synergies between marketing and sales. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• Strategic Counsel Summary
• Transcript

How to Drive Synergies between Marketing and Sales

Marketing and Sales traditionally operate independently – but they shouldn’t. We believe they should be intrinsically tied, so the efforts compound into exponential benefit. But, this is easier said than done. Drive synergies between Marketing and Sales by getting clear on what you are selling, getting clear on the ecosystem that surrounds your target client/customer/consumer, measuring and optimizing the efforts holistically, and building respect and understanding for the other’s role. There’s a ton of opportunity here for organizations who get Marketing and Sales on the same page. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• How to break out of department silos
• The KPIs of a collaborative sales and marketing team
• Understanding what you’re really selling
• Determining the ecosystem of your consumer
• The emotional benefit of what you’re selling
• How do we spend Q4 actually learning?
• How a co-incentivized structure generates better outcomes

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Show Notes

• How to Drive Synergies between Marketing and Sales
  • [00:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [00:53] So much opportunity created when sales and marketing work together
  • [2:18] Get clear on what you’re selling
  • [3:44] What is it that you’re going to provide that nobody else can provide?
  • [4:39] Speak the audience’s language
  • [6:05] Clarity of what exactly are you selling that then is connecting to those people at a deeper level?
  • [8:04] What you’re really selling is the experiential benefit
  • [10:20] Get really clear on the ecosystem that’s around your target client, customer, consumer
  • [11:48] What do I know about my consumer? What do I know about what their needs are?
  • [13:11] How to avoid working in silos?
  • [15:01] Right message to the right person at the right time
  • [16:03] The feedback loop is really important
  • [17:33] Feedback should always be looked at through the lens of learning
  • [18:28] Measure, report, review, and optimize the efforts holistically
  • [20:20] Determining cooperative KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
  • [23:07] The role of leadership in creating synergy
  • [25:24] How do we spend Q4 actually learning?
  • [27:08] What to do when sales and marketing are rewarded differently?
  • [28:52] What tends to happen is that marketing becomes a catch-all for all the things
  • [30:28] How to avoid being reactionary when things aren’t working
  • [32:21] When there’s tension, teach – coined by Kyle Schlegel
  • [33:18] Have your sales and marketing people experience each other’s lives
  • [34:44] A breakdown in communication is generally the root of the problem
  • [35:13] Why co-incentivization works
  • [37:04] The change is less overwhelming in practice
  • [38:25] Understand every point in the funnel
  • [39:52] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
  • [40:00] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

_

00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team, and your business. Now let’s get to it.

00:29
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re gonna talk about driving synergies between marketing and sales. So these two functions traditionally operate very independently, but really, really, they really shouldn’t. In fact, they should be intrinsically tied so that the efforts compound into exponential benefits. And we’re gonna talk all about what that looks like here today.

00:53
But this can be easier said than done as the two functions tend to compete more than cooperate. Yes, but there is so much opportunity, we want you to hear this, so much opportunity that can be generated when marketing and sales actually can work together. Not to mention things like budget efficiencies, process efficiencies, and ultimately better ROIs, all of the things that speak to the bottom line of the actual business itself.

01:22
And these are things that I think people don’t think about when we talk about bringing these two teams together, but we can tell you from experience that absolutely this is what happens when they start working and functioning really well. Yeah, and it also benefits Topline exceptionally too, because a lot of people look at it and they look at their P&Ls, they think that sales is the key driver of Topline, but it’s really in the marketing and sales.

01:51
working together that helps to generate all of that exposure, all of the leads, and then ultimately working together to translate those into actual sales. So we’re going to get into all of that too, but when you make this work well, it actually benefits on all sides of your P&O. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So let’s jump into how to drive synergies between marketing and sales. So the first way to drive synergies is by getting clear on what you are selling.

02:20
All right, so this is a really big place where marketing and sales tends to kind of think of this very, very differently. So traditionally, sales will think about what they’re selling in terms of like a product service. And even on the marketing side, when they’re trying to market, they try to really focus in or hone in on the benefit of the product service. But when you can actually elevate what you are selling to that emotional benefit,

02:47
of what your product service delivers to your client, customer, or consumer at the end of the day, you find a foundation that you guys can align on and then create all of your materials from because the emotional benefit is actually what provides meaningful value to a business. So it helps you to command higher prices, it helps you differentiate from your competition, it helps you to scale more quickly, it helps you to get more customers and consumers because at the end of the day,

03:16
We are all humans and we care about what all of these things do to our personal life. So by being able to tap into that, you can then have like a one-two punch, right? And so that’s really what’s the critical nature of this. And this is what the opportunity is. Because once you set that foundation, then you can develop your sales and your marketing collateral, really hone in and kind of collaborate on a process for outreach and all those sorts of things which we’re gonna get to in a second.

03:44
But when you’re too focused in the weeds, then you have a lot of people, your customer, client, consumer, kind of going, well, why should I even care? And that’s really the fundamental question that we want you guys to address, and what are you selling? It’s like, why don’t we even, why don’t you even care about you? What is it that you’re gonna provide that nobody else can provide? And again, I 1000% guarantee that it is that emotional benefit. So this applies no matter.

04:11
who you’re talking to, but I’m going to get into a little example, recent example, but April, what do you have to say about this one? Yeah, I mean, I think this is really one of the like points of beauty, if you call it, or like the art meeting the science when you pair marketing and sales together, because from a marketing standpoint, those of us that are marketers, we think inherently through this lens, right? Like we think about what are we

04:39
actually foundationally providing to people. And when it’s done right from a marketing perspective, it brings those outside audiences in and speaks through their language. I think on the sales side, the sales teams historically, right, are the ones that are actually going and selling to these people, right? So like they know and are so in it what actually gets them or hooks them or works from those conversations, but they don’t always have that like,

05:09
higher level purview then as a result of that, to encapsulate or capture that from a more profile perspective. And so what I think and what I’ve seen work really well is when you have the marketing team who this is kind of a natural way and something that they have the skills by which to do this work, and then you have the sales kind of feeding what the feedback loop is in real time, the things that they’re hearing, so that they can not only develop

05:36
what is that emotional benefit of what you are selling to people, but constantly be refining the messaging and other things, which I know we’ll get into some of this later. But I think there is just the way we’re built, the way we’re trained, the way our brains work, right? It’s different and there are different strengths and different points of view. And I think historically, unfortunately, like you said at the beginning, Anne, the traditional point of view was always the sales makes the money, right? The sales is what drives the thing, all those things that you said.

06:05
Whereas when you can put these teams together and they can actually work back and forth on this, that’s where I’ve just seen it do so well, because then you reach that clarity of what exactly are you selling that then is connecting to those people at a deeper level? And then the narrative kind of goes from there. Yeah, so I’ll give an example of that. I think it’s a really good summary of.

06:31
kind of the current state of things and then what’s the opportunity beyond that. So Tony, my husband went to go buy a new computer. And so we went to Cincinnati Micro Center, just for all intents and purposes, it’s kind of like the big warehouse of computers. So if you walk in, there’s gotta be at least, I don’t know, 40 laptops out, and you’re kind of like, now what? I have no idea what to pick. They all sound the same.

06:59
So like all the brands are there, the whole like gamut of the product itself is there with all of these options. But somebody who’s like doesn’t know what they want yet, if you think about what you’re selling in that environment, it’s probably not just a computer. It’s the ease of being able to select a computer, it’s the ability to actually help somebody navigate to find the right one for them. And that’s exactly what Cincinnati Micro Center sells. So when Tony got in there,

07:29
a guy kind of took him aside and he goes, what are you looking for? So Tony kind of gave him like a price point and kind of what he needs to do on it, what kind of functionality. And so this guy puts all those things at his computer and then spit out three options. Wow. That was it, three options, right? And so he goes, these are the three that are gonna probably best work for you. You might like this one because of this reason or this one by this reason. Which one you want to select? Tony had that selection done in less than 60 seconds.

07:57
Right? As opposed to having all this choice, which is a lot of times, but when we think about what we were trying to sell, we think we’re selling lots of different options. Yeah. But really at the end of the day, even though they put the price tag on the computers, what they’re really selling with the experiential benefit of being able to quickly get to something that I can say yes to and feel good about that. Right? And so that’s the different kind of context. And that starts from the marketing side.

08:27
of what you should expect when you come into the store, all the way to the sales guy in the store and the way he executed through that, right? Which totally differentiates them from going to a Best Buy or going to the Apple store even, which is still continues to be very, very complex and hard to find. I mean, you know I love my Apple, but I find the store really overwhelming. It’s really overwhelming, right? And so, and then even just trying to get into the Apple store, right? In order to be able to find a computer or select it can be. I mean,

08:55
So think about that and especially when you’re thinking about how I’m gonna differentiate from others, what you’re selling, like I said before, becomes that key point. And instead of just kind of generalizing it to something like customer service or some of those other more commoditized benefits, think about explicitly and specifically what it is that you feel you do better than anybody else. I love that example because I think it’s just so easy.

09:23
to understand and to see, and we’ve all been in those positions. But if we flip it to the other direction about how we were talking about getting to an emotional benefit of these people, funny enough, the people that are in the computer industry, they probably would love to go in there as people that work there or part of that company or whatever. And they’re like, oh, 40 options? Sweet. I can go in there and like, you know. But they probably already know what they kind of want. And they know the difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean.

09:52
if they were doing more of the company approach, right? The people that are developing those computers and all of that sort of thing, they’re the ones that are really excited about their own, what they provide, right? Whereas this was the perfect solution because they’re looking at Tony and they’re like, okay, this is our typical consumer. The reason they come to our store, the reason this person walks in the doors here is because they don’t know all those things. So my expertise is in…

10:20
asking them what they’re looking for and then bringing forward the three options versus walking them through all 40 computers because I have that knowledge because I’m an employee of this store. Well, and I think that is really nicely into the next synergy, which is to get really clear on the ecosystem that’s around your target client, customer, consumer. I was trying not to preempt this. No, but I mean, it’s a good segue. I’ll give it to you and collaborate on your engagement strategy because if you really understand what they are there for.

10:48
you can become very strategic in the way that you’re going to connect with them and you can do it in the right way. So if I was just gonna take, back to the example of, since I’m at Micro Center for a second, and I was thinking strategically from a marketing and sales point about, again, as April said, who is my client? Some of my clients are coming in, they already know what they want. They have all these choices here, they’re gonna navigate and they’re going to self-select based on what they already are looking for, right? Then there’s gonna be this one who’s like, I need a computer, right? Right on the very end of it. I don’t want anything,

11:18
expensive, I just want the cheapest one you have, and you have that person on the other spectrum. 80% of your clientele is probably somewhere in the middle. Yeah, right. So what must be true, my favorite question, in order to get them to select something today, right? And if they were thinking, if I was over there sitting in CISN and Micro Center, and I was thinking about how I’m going to get somebody to come in my store and close them today, which is a sales question, I would backtrack that to, all right, well, what do I know about my consumer?

11:48
What do I know about what their needs are? How are they gonna be feeling when they come in? What is it gonna take in order for them to say yes? And of course- And why would they say no? What would it take for them to say no? And why would they say no, right? And so of course that leads to a lot of the things that we’re naturally inclined to, like having a lot of options, but it also inclines itself to helping them make the decision, right? And I think that is a core basis for a lot of the marketing sales that we come together with.

12:17
And this is where if you guys can really think strategically about what that path to purchase looks like, you’re gonna see something that looks very much like marketing at the beginning to really assess and really put out there the awareness, the demand, you know, and really try to drive that interest. And then you’re gonna get to someplace in the middle, which is about belief. How do I make them decide that I’m the one that’s best for them?

12:43
And then at the end you get to the closure, which is more sales oriented, which is about, okay, how do I make them say yes right now? What is it gonna get them to say yes right now? And when you can orchestrate all these things together intentionally, you really drive a lot of efficiency because you’re all going at it in the same way because a lot of times your customer, consumer client needs to hear something or experience it six to seven times before they’re ready to take an action on it.

13:11
So making sure all those things are working in concert, we can share all those things are working together. This helps them to make that decision faster. And it helps make sure everything is holding together. Otherwise, a lot of times what happens is things start showing up in silos. So the marketing feels like it’s kind of over here. It’s maybe addressing something that is a need over here. And then the sales is trying to close on something that it’s not connected.

13:37
So this happens a ton, ton, ton, especially on bigger brands and advertising. I mean, it happened to us a lot of times in PEG, especially when you have multiple different streams of advertising that you’re trying to communicate to different consumers and different customers and different targets, it starts to look very, very fragmented. Now the basis and the focus of a lot of those campaigns was all based on whatever that benefit was.

14:05
But that being said, the way that you differentiate was based on the experience you’re trying to communicate. So there’s a couple of different ways that you can actually attack it. But if you really get very clear about what your person, your whoever that target is, what they’re looking for, how they need to hear that message, the best way to reach them, you can orchestrate this in a very symbiotic way. Yeah, I mean, I think this is another one where

14:34
the ecosystem has gotten, or the options of the ecosystem, how about that, have gotten so large that again, I feel like I’ll be the marketing broker record on this episode. But not that I haven’t done my fair share of sales, but in any case, when you have the team that’s really understanding the possibilities of the ecosystem and then making those choices with intention, like Anne said, through a strategic lens.

15:01
you’re thinking about that path to purchase of, okay, what are those touch points like Anne said that we need to hit? But then also, what’s the message we need to do? And you’ve heard us say, right message to the right person at the right time, right? And so that’s really what you’re trying to get to with this one. And again, it comes back to pulling up and looking higher level because there are…

15:27
tons of instances you can pull from the people that are in the computer example, right? The boots on the ground. Like we said, what sale did you make? When did somebody leave? You know, do they not make a sale because this is the first touch point for them? You know, what are all of those different inputs? But you have to be able to pull that up and kind of dissect it and then turn it into something where you can be proactive in the experience you’re creating.

15:52
and being intentional about what you’re putting to these customers or consumers or clients so that you’re able to manage their experience and guide them through the whole experience that you want them to have versus just relying on chance or they suddenly need a computer so they look up the closest store or whatever those things might be to continue the analogy.

16:13
Yeah, I mean, I think the feedback loop is really, really important because it really helps to make sure that you’re staying in touch, which is another issue that a lot of times people have is, especially if you’re talking from a marketing and a sales standpoint, is that what we tend to hear is the salespeople think the marketers are kind of too up in the clouds, right? And the salespeople are really the boots on the ground. But really, are they talking to really understand what the two are trying to achieve?

16:43
that at the end of the day is going to help really create this ecosystem in a way that’s going to make it very, very productive. Each team should be really soliciting that feedback. They really should be thinking about what is working, what’s not working, what generated that sale today, what didn’t generate that sale, why somebody walk away and really understand at the root level.

17:06
where the breakdown is actually occurring because it takes the entire ecosystem to really draw in your client, your lead client. And so I think that’s, it is super important. I liked what you said about the feedback because I don’t think people look for feedback in the way that they should. Well, and when you, and you know, I know we’re gonna talk about kind of the more culture of these teams together in a minute, but I think a lot of times the reason that doesn’t happen is because people think they’re gonna quote unquote, get in trouble.

17:33
or if the feedback’s not positive or whatever, but it should always just be looked at through that lens of learning, right? And I know you’re gonna talk KPI’s and all of that coming up here, but I think that, yeah, it has to be looked at as a data point and where you always say, we’re trying to be curious and learn to be better, that’s really the vein by which we’re doing this because I think you’re also right when you put these two groups together, and I said it before, marketers and salespeople are inherently very different in the way that they view their work.

18:02
And so they have to lean in and respect each other and be willing to learn from each other and know that it’s not right or wrong, better or worse expertise. But again, it’s all that the data and inputs that then are gonna get us to a really good place, not only working together as a team, but going back to the very beginning, those results we’re looking for for our business. Yeah, and I mean, that’s why also I think as I was gonna get to here in the next point.

18:28
exactly what you said April, the importance of really looking at it all together. Yes. Right? So to measure, report, review, and optimize all the efforts holistically, because we tend to look at marketing in its silo and sales in its silo. And ultimately, we hope everything leads to business growth or whatever business metric you’re looking at, but we can’t usually tease out which is which. Right.

18:53
So then usually marketing gets the bad rep because they’re too far upstream to really tie anything directly to sales. And sales is like, well, I’m doing all the hard work. Oh, I just had one of these conversations with a client the other day. Yeah, and I mean, I think when, but when you’re working together and you’re putting together as a team and you’re working from that team aspect, you can then start to orchestrate then also the impact as a team effort. So,

19:22
putting the business goals in front of both teams, you develop then the KPIs that address that impact of the combined efforts. We’ve talked about this, how you make highly effective teams. We talked about how do you create and make sure everybody is invested in the ultimate solution. And that is by having a goal that supersedes any one of the individual KPIs of those two different functions. So for example, if I’m a marketer and I’m looking at my social engagement,

19:50
and I’m looking to see how many likes I got, just saying. Now, my marketing KPI, my sales KPI is probably how many people I close. The two work together, you guys. So the objective then is like, okay, if ultimately I’m trying to close people, my method for being able to close people may be my social engagement. Understanding the conversion is where the rubber meets the road here, right? So that’s where both people need to actually understand

20:20
cooperatively because these leads out here, if they’re not good leads, if they’re arbitrary leads, if I don’t know how then to take the second step with them in order to get to the actual closure place, I’ve lost a ton of opportunity. Or I might be doing something on the sales side, which has no bearing on the marketing, which is fine to some extent. But if you’re constantly going rogue on the sales side doing these one-offs, you’re going

20:47
then you’re not being efficient, you’re not being productive, it’s hard to scale, but there might be an opportunity to scale on the sales side of what’s working and work that into the marketing side, but knowing kind of how it funnels through, again, we call it that path to purchase, helps you identify the sweet point in the middle where both need to come together. Like I said, that’s the belief part in order to make sure you’re getting qualified leads that are going into your sales funnel that then you’re able to close. And…

21:16
In that example, conversion would be something that both would recognize as being important. Or maybe it’s qualified leads. It takes the intentionality to actually set up whatever dashboards, whatever tracking, all those things you need to actually understand those points. And I’ll tell you, a lot of you won’t do that. A lot of you guys are going to take the easy way out and you’re going to look for some sort of analytic.

21:42
that some agency is going to give you and it’s gonna make you feel either all warm and fuzzy about the fact that you’re measuring something, but you’re not paying attention to measuring the right things. And then measuring them in the context of, what am I doing that’s feeding into this that is impacting what kind of results that I’m getting? And so it’s really important, like I said, to go back to the beginning that you’re re-looking at them cooperatively, that you’re looking at them collaboratively, that you’re looking at them together.

22:11
So you can really dissect, well, why do we think we got this? What is it about what we were, we were doing from a marketing side that is helping to funnel in the right thing. What did we do on the sales side to really get that closure? And as April said, continue to feed the feedback loop. I mean, when we were trying to develop these ecosystems at P&G, we put almost everything on the wall. Like we rock the wall and then we put the results on and we would go back and we go back to the beginning of the wall and we, and we would.

22:38
you know, measure from the middle of the wall. And then we would kind of just go back and forth just to kind of see, Hey, is there something in here that is unique? Is there something in here that’s different? Is there something in here we don’t know? Do we need to go and know that and how we’re going to go find that out? So it gives a more team-styled effort that actually is going to really, really help to drive to that closure, to drive to those business goals a whole lot more quickly. Well, and this relies on leadership.

23:07
leading the charge on this too. Because as you were talking, I’m going through the Rolodex of case studies, I feel like in my head of where this worked well and where it didn’t. And I think your comment about a salesperson going rogue, I’m not just trying to pick on the salespeople in this one, but I think that is a symptom of when that’s not happening. When you don’t have leadership really upholding that higher level of vision and then…

23:34
getting to the point of creating things like the metrics and the way you’re gonna report and the transparency of that so that everybody understands, one, how it all works together, two, that we’re in it for the long haul as an organization, and three, that we are gonna be held to the expectation of working together. Because I think too often when, and this is especially true when companies aren’t meeting their numbers or individuals aren’t meeting their numbers from the sales organization, right?

24:02
then everybody kind of goes into panic mode. And I was just that conversation I was referencing before, right? I was talking to someone the other day and the conversation number one was a bit short-sighted because it was just, how are we gonna hit Q4 sales? And this is an organization whose numbers are pretty big by the end of Q2. So to me, I was like, but that…

24:27
isn’t like an overall approach or why are we now knee-jerk to this wall? It’s because we haven’t met our numbers, right? And so there’s panic throughout the organization. So people are just throwing things at the wall, not having the wall and walking it intentionally and making it a continued strategic exercise. But it’s just kind of like everyone out for themselves, individually trying to meet certain numbers, but then at the organizational level, this panic is ensuing. And so instead of saying,

24:55
okay, let’s be realistic about what we are. Of course, if there are places we can impact, let’s do it. But what we should be doing is setting up next year, right? Which is all the things that you’ve just talked about here, Anne, it’s like, all right, well, what have we learned? What did not work? What is the journey that we’ve been putting out there? One of the major things we identified with this particular client was that they actually have maybe never asked for feedback, like their salespeople boots on the ground. It’s like, I get the no and I just walk away.

25:24
Right? So it’s like, how do we spend Q4 actually learning, getting the learnings involving marketing, thinking about those bigger insights, looking at where we may be missing the mark, and then recalibrating and reformulating so that as we head into the beginning of next year, we feel really good about how we’re going to address these things again, collectively as a team.

25:47
instead of everybody kind of running around, running their own agenda frenetically for Q4, which to me, I’m like, you know, that’s only gonna further erode what’s going on in the organization. It’s definitely not gonna build the camaraderie when that’s the way it’s going, but also you’re not setting yourself up for success and learning from all the data you have from this year. Like let’s do a year in review now instead.

26:10
I think you bring up a couple of really, really good points. Because like you said, the system gets really exacerbated when there’s tension in the system. And there’s usually tension in the system when there’s things like that where you don’t meet the numbers, something dramatic has happened in the infrastructure, lose a big client, sales are down, somebody at top is left or something like that that happens that drives some level of turmoil into the system. And when that happens, everything seems to go out.

26:40
the door because what everybody in those situations, and actually I think the common human nature of these functions and the way they’re set up is everyone wants to be the hero and nobody wants to be the scapegoat. So everybody’s going to be like, well, I’m going to try to save the day, but it’s not going to be me if this ship goes down. Instead of kind of looking across the board and say, what can we collectively do? Now a lot of people will say, well, that’s not going to work in my organization because sales and marketing are rewarded differently. Yep.

27:08
That is an internal problem, guys. That can be fixed. That can be fixed through more co-incentivizing both groups and saying, hey, you guys fix this together, everybody wins. Yes. I get a solution where it’s marketing and sales isn’t considered or sales and marketing is not considered. I don’t even want to hear it. Automatically no. So this happens at the leadership level, and you get to define that. And so even if it’s not, you don’t necessarily need to change your whole entire structure in order to make this happen, guys, too. But you can set up that.

27:36
that expectation of what that looks like from the way that you run your team, from the way that you set up expectations for how you are gonna organize your team and make sure that everybody realizes that’s the case. It also helps to define what the work is actually is. Because as April says, it tends to be kind of like a fire drill and everybody’s just kind of going off and they’re trying to do a bunch of different things and they’re trying to.

28:02
you know, do some sort of sales initiative here where we’re going to significantly lower prices or we’re gonna offer some sort of promotion, which marketing is like, what are you even doing? Out here, we’re trying to go after a new customer or a new consumer in order to solve for this solution. The two might not necessarily be cooperatively aligned. Instead, if, you know, marketing and sales get together, it’s like, we might, we need to go after another consumer in order to be able to grow, in order to be able to solve for this problem. Sales could be like, oh great,

28:32
in order to do that, we might wanna have a promotion in order to ties into that. Then you have the conversation back and forth. Well, what should that promotion look like? How should it be structured? Where should we be promoting it? So that’s who we want to hear it actually hears it. And so those things start to come together in a symbiotic way that then offers all that efficiency and the productivity that we said before. And it then also kind of gets to more the tactical things because I can tell you what tends to happen on the marketing side is they become a catchall for all the things.

29:00
We have to hit this at some point. Yeah, thousand percent. And so sales is like, well, I need a sales sheet. Marketing makes a sales sheet. Well, I need a different sales sheet. Marketing makes a different sales sheet. Instead of sitting down like, why do we need the sales sheet? What is the sales sheet for? How are we going to actually leverage what we’re putting in the sales sheet to actually drive the upper side of the funnel, the beginning part of the funnel, in order to make what your sales sheet is selling actually make sense? These are the opportunities. And I know it can be really hard.

29:29
if this is not how you currently operate, and it’s not gonna change overnight, but it will change if you as a leader start setting the expectations for how you want your team to operate. Or if you’re in it, if you’re a middle person in it, you start to voluntarily have to start having those communications. I mean, I had to do that when I was in communications and PR. My sales team was kind of dictating to me what they needed from a communication standpoint. I’m like, why do you need that? What is it for?

29:59
How can it work harder for itself? Can I go get more publicity behind it? Am I allowed to use this message track for more than one retailer? All those sorts of things instead of being an order taker of just continuing to be doing the things. Well, and that’s where I think it does get really dangerous because then marketing is looked at as just almost like an administrative support, right? Like, I’ll just give you whatever you need.

30:28
But then the other pieces, that’s where you head into the cycle of being reactionary and things not working. And so I think that there is also, when we get in this sort of swirl or there’s a fire drill or whatever, it’s like we go to like the minimum, right, of what might help. So it’s like, well, what do I need? Well, I need a thing to take with me to this meeting to go and sell this to the new client or whatever, right? Instead of thinking like Anne’s example, all right, well, let’s take a step back.

30:56
actually we think there’s this hole in the marketplace where we could be serving this new client and nobody’s there and what does that look like? And oh, by the way, we might need a sell sheet, but right now that’s not what we’re talking about. And that may or may not be true when we get there. And so I think that that is a major piece of things too, is like making sure that we have both the leadership, but also the definition by the leadership team of the value of marketing.

31:25
in the organization so that everybody understands. Because I think the catch-all thing happens when marketing isn’t clearly defined from the onset. Because it’s not necessarily tied to numbers directly all the time, all of those kinds of things, then it’s sort of home in the organization and people don’t know what to do with it is so muddy that then it’s like, well, we’ll just go have them create this stuff that whatever my definition is of marketing, whether it’s a sales sheet or…

31:54
sweatshirts for the company swag or the signage for whatever and it just then becomes about the things instead of the overall strategy. And what really good marketers do so well is keep the pulse on the bigger picture to work with the organization to get all of the tactics right once we have that big strategic plan. Yeah, and I think that’s at the heart of the final synergy, which is really to build respect and understanding for the other’s role. Yes. So

32:21
Was it Kyle Schlegel who said, when there’s tension, teach? I think that’s really, really important here. Previous guest, yeah. Yeah. One of the fantastic guests we have for our creative series. If you haven’t heard that, you need to go back and listen to that little plug for that. I thought it was really well said because a lot of times we’ll get frustrated because we don’t feel like the other people in this case, if you’re marketing and sales and sales and marketing.

32:48
understand us, understand what we’re trying to do. Well, there’s a very obvious solution to that. And that is to teach the other person what that’s like. As a leader, how do you help facilitate this? One, you make them sit together. Can’t avoid each other then. Can’t avoid each other, it’s proximity. You just naturally are gonna hear things and be part of things. And somebody is gonna say, well, they’re sitting right there, might as well ask them. As opposed to being able to intentionally or unintentionally avoid somebody. Yeah, well, that’s what I mean.

33:18
You can’t avoid them if they sit right next to you. You can’t, right? They kind of have to be there and there’s no excuse for not engaging that person, right? Then have them like actually experience each other’s lives. So marketers should go on sales calls. I did. Uh-huh, I did too. I went on sales calls. Sales folks who participate in marketing campaign creations, they should be coming to some of the campaign or the creative sessions, right? Understand how those people talk with the conversations, what they consider, because then I guarantee you, there’s a hot home of them, it’s like, oh.

33:47
Well, we have an insight there that’s going to could help that that would benefit us. Yep. And the same thing on the marketing to the sales side is like, oh, that customer’s really looking for this. I get how I can be able to better deliver that. It creates a proximity of firsthand knowledge that then allows you to more directly implement that into whatever you’re trying to develop. And then as a leader to make them present together. Yes. Don’t have a sales meeting and American meeting. Make them present.

34:16
again, that walk the wall kind of concept of what it looks like from start to finish and what are we solving for? Always ask, what are we solving for? And you should be able to hear the perspective of both the marketing side and the sales side and how that solution is gonna come to fruition. And with all of that, it starts to kind of build, again, that kind of symbiotic, like, I need you, you need me, because again, as I mentioned before, breakdowns usually occur because

34:44
marketing is generally creating stuff that salespeople don’t think matters, or they can’t use, or sales doesn’t understand what to ask for from the marketers because they don’t know what they develop or actually what they do. Or what they’re capable of. Yeah. So start to kind of forge those conversations. You might have to really force it initially, but then once they start seeing, as April said, the value, the mutual value creation, and that especially if you’ve co-incentivized them and you’ve told them, hey, you win this big thing, you all win.

35:13
but if you don’t, nobody wins. I’m not hearing, well, we did this and that person didn’t do that, so was that person’s fault? It’s like, nope. So you can start to kind of drive that by force initially, but then I guarantee you, it starts to kind of take on an organic nature as they start to see the benefit that each one is providing. Well, and I mean, I think, yeah, okay, you’re forcing it, but you’re moving the organization to a place where it will be better in the long run.

35:42
I mean, side note, I think this is also a way that you can weed out potentially some folks that aren’t able to get on board or don’t necessarily agree with this approach. We’ve seen that happen when we get organizations to this place, it’s a better place for everybody, but it’s okay if some folks go. But I think it’s not easy work, but it happens easier than I think people have in their mind.

36:08
Like when we set out and we explain why it’s valuable and whatever, I think this is one of the exercises where people are like, oh, that feels like a lot of work. And so I think to Anne’s point, it’s not that it’s going to change overnight, but I think if you can get clear on why we’re doing this, how it’s going to better the organization, what each person’s role is within the team, and then what the expectations are and what the non-negotiables are, some of that does initially have to be mandated. But I think.

36:37
you start to see pockets fairly quickly of where things are working and that tends to turn people’s heads like, oh wait, they’re doing that better or that sales and marketing pod together is making this work and oh now we’re behind the eight ball or whatever that is. Or even more broadly in the organization we’ve seen it where people are like, oh well how do I get a piece of that, right? Like HR might you know be like, oh we could be doing this better. So it’s

37:04
I think when people hear this because it’s not the natural way you think and it’s ingrained to be separate groups, it feels overwhelming, but the change can occur quickly with the right level of leadership and discipline. Yeah, I thousand percent agree. This is where you kind of have to decide for yourself that you are going to operate your group in the way that’s going to best benefit your company or your business. Do the hard thing. Yeah, exactly. Because…

37:32
it’s going to take some of that mindset shift. And the way that you get around that is by explaining the why. Yeah. And you are- And make it meaningful for people. I mean, people understand if you give them a real meaning. Yeah, and what we think it’s gonna do. And then you test and learn your way into it. And then you continue to keep engaged with your people to kind of see how it’s going. And you then massage it and you-

37:56
optimize it and then you kind of go again. But there are just some certain principles that are necessary in order to make these things work. And then you as a leader just you have to be ready to adopt them. So as we think about them and kind of go back and summarize this a little bit, I’m just going to hit on the key points here so you guys can take them away and put those in the action. First way of driving synergies is by getting clear on what you’re selling. Like we said, it’s not just the thing that you’re putting the price tag on, it’s that emotional benefit. And when both can…

38:25
orient and anchor around that. You build potential based on that foundation and then it just exemplifies and exponentially drives whatever you guys are be able to do independently. Another way is to get clear on the ecosystem that surrounds your target client, customer and consumer and collaborate on your engagement strategy. Again, this is the walk the wall. It’s understanding every point in the funnel, but then also being very clear about where the collaboration needs to happen in order to drive the most amount of benefit.

38:54
And then also it’s to report, measure, review, optimize holistically. Again, like we said, create incentives that everybody needs to be able to contribute to in order to actually deliver, but then also make sure that everybody’s coming together as a team, walk that wall, understand where the different points of opportunity and the gaps are, create KPIs that both actually have to contribute to and have meaning for the overall business.

39:24
And then the final way to drive synergies is to build respect and understanding for the other’s role. Like we said before, make them present together initially, make them sit together, make them teach each other. Eventually it’ll organically take over, but you’re gonna have to initially do the uncomfortable piece for hopefully a shorter period of time, but maybe longer depending on the nature of your organization in order to start driving those synergies. So hopefully that this was helpful. If there’s…

39:52
wanting to know how did you put this in the place for your own organization, always reach out to us. We’re here for you guys. And remember, Strategic Counsel is only effective if you put into action. So take something from this podcast episode and put into action today. Did we spark something with this episode that you wanna talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, fort We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business. And make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform.