6 ways to close the gap between sales and marketing

In B2B organisations, technology means that the gap between marketing and sales is closing. To find out how the marketing and sales departments are aligning to the benefit of both, Marketing spoke to KP Unnikrishnan, marketing director, Asia Pacific & Japan at NYSE-listed network security company Palo Alto Networks.

Marketing: Is it right to say that in B2B companies, the long purchase cycle means sales is seen as the driving force and marketing a support function?

Unnikrishnan: It was until recently. I've been part of both sales and marketing for almost two decades, so I have personally seen marketing's role transform. Till recently, marketing was just about branding and events. Sales felt marketing could only help getting posters made, do direct mailers or organize events. According to sales, none of these impacted the bottom line. There were also constant tussles between sales and marketing over lead generation. Sales would not accept the leads marketing provided as valuable enough. Now, technology is providing marketing the right tools to demonstrate ROI.

We’re also seeing some sales organizations adopting target account models, and they want marketing to help in building and nurturing relationships with these potential customers, besides supporting them in closing the deal. It's really up to marketers to develop a good understanding of how sales works, and align its role to the way different team members manage accounts.

Marketing will continue to be the eyes and ears of the organization. Sales will continue to be drivers of deals, and marketing must work closely to drive sales to emerging opportunities.

Marketing: What prompted you to move from sales to marketing? How do the pressure points differ?

Unnikrishnan: I wasn’t looking to move to marketing, but when I got the opportunity it got me thinking. I thought by moving from sales to marketing I would escape the daily grind of numbers and focus instead on strategic initiatives, brand building and thought leadership. I ended up doing all this, including monitoring and driving the numbers.

Now I have a clear understanding of what sales wants and what marketing can provide. I’d argue that some of the most successful transitions have been from sales to marketing, especially in B2B situations. And I would say pressure points also match. There are six reasons for that:

1. A good marketing organization has similar numbers pressure on marketing teams. This helps them be more metrics-driven, and hence has a better defined and focused approach. The difference between marketing and sales is that a marketer works towards the corporate goal, while sales works towards their income. When marketing compensation is linked to numbers, the approach changes. “Compensation drives behavior” – that should be the way.
2. Lead generation is a means and not an end in itself. Marketers must drive the process till the deal is closed and numbers have been met. A background in sales helps develop this mentality.
3. Not many salespeople will admit it, but many times they are just testing the water – how to sell more, how to upsell etc. Similarly, a marketing person must keep trying different approaches. A ‘no’ is always ‘not now’ in marketing. You start every quarter with zero and it’s these ‘not nows’ that can be your potential leads (like any sales guy going for a new deal).
4. The aggression and urgency with which a salesperson operates is sometimes missing in marketing. But somebody who has been in sales will also be hungry for numbers, whether their salary depends on it now or not.
5. Good salespeople spend more time listening than talking. Similarly in marketing, it pays to be a good listener, as it allows you to understand your customer's (and salesperson's) needs well.
6. In sales, there is a wealth of information and insights to be gathered by reading and learning.
   The way you sold 10 years back is not how you do it today. Marketing is exactly the same. If you are not learning, pretty soon you and your strategies will be outdated.

Marketing: Have you noticed a large divide between marketing and sales?

Unnikrishnan: I’ve been fortunate to not have experienced it much. In the organizations that I worked for, marketing has been highly valued and there has been strong alignment between the marketing and sales. Most parts of my career I did have sales stakeholders who knew how to leverage marketing (which is a skill too!) I have consciously worked on ensuring that I don’t allow any gaps to widen or wounds to fester. My philosophy has been that you are not in marketing to win a popularity contest; work is cut out for marketing and that’s to impact the sales team’s compensation. My advice to marketers would be as follows:

1. Adopt a stop-and-think approach before deploying a marketing program. Strike a balance between short-term impact and long-term potential while planning programs. Always stop and think before you deploy a program to gauge its potential. The salesperson working with you will develop higher confidence in your ability to design effective programs.
2. Maintain realistic expectations. Don’t expect results of this month’s initiative to show next month, and do not make unrealistic promises to the sales team.
3. Define the market well. Slice the sales universe and help the sales team focus on larger opportunities with easy-to-close deals as well as small opportunities with good margins.
4. Test your market, media and offer before investing. Before starting any marketing program, conduct a thorough analysis of your market, the communication platforms, pricing and the differentiators you expect to build. Careful spending of marketing dollars is a big step towards impacting sales.
5. Measure your results. Don’t launch any activity without first establishing a measurement mechanism for it. Conduct measurements by cost-per-opportunity or cost-per-deal basis. These metrics are grounded in opportunity quality, conversion ability, and revenue generated on program investment, much better ways to determine if efforts are worthwhile.
6. Don’t have a siloed vision – ensure you have a good understanding of overall business.

Marketing Magazine’s first B2B marketing forum will be held on 28 November at Four Seasons Hotel Singapore.  Hear from Unnikrishnan and other senior marketers at the event. More details here.

To book your seats for the conference contact Carlo Reston at carlor@marketing-interactive.com or +65 6423 0329, +65 9727 0291.

For sponsorship opportunities, contact Che Winstrom at chew@marketing-interactive.com or +65 6423 0329.