Working with some sales teams is kind of like coaching youth soccer. There’s lots of activity and good intentions, but that doesn’t always add up to a win. And that’s where sales enablement comes in.
In the very youngest leagues, coaching begins with getting kids just to focus on the ball. They’re excited to be on the field. They hit the ground running–in any direction. And why not? It feels good to run. There’s movement. There’s action. But not a lot of balls land in the net.
Sales teams who work without the benefit of mutually agreed-upon definitions for what is a Sales Accepted Lead (SAL) or a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) are like that too. There’s plenty of activity, but little focus. Any lead, the logic goes, might be worth following up on. An opportunity comes in, and off they go.
Who’s on point?
As kids get older, they begin to understand the rules of the game. They know which goal is theirs, and they do their best to get the ball in. Working together as a team, though, is harder to figure out. Who’s on point to make the final kick and what’s the play to make it happen? At this stage in the game, there may be more points earned, but there’s also lots of wasted energy.
Sales teams who work without the benefit of true marketing and sales alignment are like this too. When marketing and sales don’t work together, the chance of closing deals efficiently and effectively drops off dramatically. There may be agreement on which leads are most promising, but any intelligence that marketing has gathered about these prospects before handing them off to sales often gets lost in the mix.
A 2012 report from Aberdeen Group revealed that the average sales rep spends more than 20% of his or her time looking for sales intelligence rather than selling. Particularly with today’s empowered buyer, by the time a lead is ready to talk to sales, timeliness and relevancy are critical. Marketing and sales alignment helps bridge this gap. By the time a lead gets to the SAL stage, sales should know a lot about their prospective buyer.
Know the score
Intelligent lead nurturing, informed with knowledge of the buyer’s journey and enabled by marketing automation, results in leads rich with information. Sales doesn’t have to spend time figuring out what a particular prospective buyer is interested in, because every lead comes with a digital dossier of what materials they’ve downloaded, what webinars they’ve attended, and what parts of the website they’ve visited. And if strong actionable buyer personas are in play, that prospect’s role in the buying committee should be pretty well defined too.
When marketing and sales are aligned, the team works together toward a common goal. Like a mature soccer team, they know the play and together, they help each other score.
What kind of team are you on?
Image credit: USAG-Humphreys
Continue reading: Goal! What Youth Soccer and Sales Enablement Have in Common from Yesler | B2B Technology Marketing Agency
