Marketing Roadmaps

Integrated Sales & Marketing

Roadmaps Roundup – June 9

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Sorry for the lack of posts in the last week. As some of my readers know, I am in the early stages of building a consulting practice. This week I have been beyond busy, between client deliverables and new client prospecting. Anyway, some interesting stuff for this week’s Roadmaps’ Roundup.

First, be sure to check out the Revenue Roundtable — Brian Carroll is lead poster this week and has some good stuff on lead gen and thought leadership.

Frederik over at CorporateBloggingBlog has a GREAT analysis of corporate blogging policies. After reading his analysis, I am more than ever convinced that smart companies will figure out how to give media/sensitivity training for their employees who blog, whether or not the blog is company sponsored. It is far easier to help people understand how to deal with media attention than it is to deal with the repercussions of an employee who got it wrong, irrespective of company policy.  I’m really thinking about this… more to come….

Tris Hussey links to tips for the great 10-minute podcast. This is key for corporate marketers. One hour shows won’t make a lot of sense in the corporate space; how to maximize this new form in short bursts will.

Excellent post from BusinessLogs on full posts in RSS feeds. Mike Rundle makes some excellent points about how people will, and should, use RSS feeds as gateways into blogs. I scan Bloglines every day to read the 300 or so blogs I monitor. If a post really interests me, I almost always clock over to the blog, even if there is a full feed. Either I want to leave a comment or trackback to the post, or I am curious if comments have been left… No matter what, if I had to use favorites/bookmarks to accomplish same, I would be far less informed.  And btw I scanned the full post in Bloglines, but read it fully on the blog.

Super post from Mike Manuel on "Joe Blogger" and the importance of understanding that it is as (more?) valuable to reach the blogger with 5 (or even 50) readers who REALLY believe in the source as it is to reach the "Big Blogger" who may have lots of readers but no more (or even less)  buying influence than Joe Blogger. This is critical: marketers need to remember: it is about reaching buyers, not reaching everybody.

Communication between Sales & Marketing

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Today’s post is cross-posted from the Revenue Roundtable.

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Kevin’s post yesterday was spot on about Marketing with a capital "M" as the core of the business. At the root, the Marketing Plan is the Business Plan. The marketing team is simply a functional team responsible for carrying out actions that deliver to the business plan. And as Kevin points out, there are other functions also responsible for their part of the delivery:  sales, finance, operations, etc.

Quite frankly, I think the main reason we lose sight of the Marketing Plan being the Business Plan is fear that this gives too much organizational power to the marketing function.

But whatever the reason, it happens. Each of the separate but equal functions — sales, finance, marketing, operations, customer service — organize around their areas of responsibility and expertise into silos.  The measures of success of each function — lead volumes,  sales quotas, DSOs, call volumes etc etc.  – become their primary goals.  In the trenches, the teams lose sight of the macro orgainzational goals – Revenue and Profitability. And they lose sight of the fact that they are all on the same overall team, the company.

And worst of all, they stop talking TO each other, except in the executive suite, where organizational politics tends to hold sway, reducing the likelihood of actual meaningful exchanges of information.

So, if what we have here is a failure to communicate…. then what we need to do is start talking again. Easier said than done. It requires a deep organizational commitment and strong leadership to break down the barriers, eliminate politics and empire building, and reset everyone back to the shared business goals.

It is well beyond the scope of this post to provide a prescription for how to fix a broken organization. Every situation, every team  is different. One size does not fit all.

What I can do, however, is provide a simple suggestion on how to break down the barriers between the sales and marketing teams and get them more in sync with each other. It won’t fill in the sales and marketing chasm, but it will build a better bridge 🙂

Here goes.

The second most often heard complaint from sales reps (after #1, not enough leads) is that marketing never listens to all their good ideas for ads, direct mail campaigns etc. etc.

Marketing’s biggest complaint? That people are always telling them all their great ideas that would be so much better than what the marketing team has done/has planned. You know: everyone is an advertising expert 🙂

Net result: the marketing team tunes out everything from the sales reps, when instead it should be listening, filtering out the non-useful information, and using the data from the field to improve marketing programs. Remember the old cliche about advertising: I know 50 percent of my advertising works, I just don’t know which 50 percent. A similar rule applies to the feedback from sales teams: a good 50 percent is complaints and extraneous information. But buried in the bull is great information about what is actually happening in the field. We need to mine that information to improve marketing programs.

Here’s my recommendation: implement regular focus groups with the sales reps. You don’t have to do  expensive  "scientific" focus groups with third-party facilitators. A directed conversation facilitated by the marketing team can be just as (and sometimes more) productive, as it fosters conversation among the teams as well as delivering data. But.. the session has to follow fairly strict rules so it doesn’t degenerate into a  "bitch session."

You also have to go down to the rep level. I have found that sales managers don’t give the kind of unfiltered feedback about what is happening in the field that we need.

Here is a model that I have successfully used in the past:

– Once per quarter, within the first few weeks so as to not impinge on serious selling time, assemble a small group of sales reps. Rotate the groups quarter to quarter so you can get feedback from the largest number of reps possible. About 8 sales reps per session is a good number. Get buy-in and public commitment from the senior sales manager (VP, Director, whichever title is appropriate in your firm.) This ensures that the reps will participate and eliminates objections from line sales managers 🙂

– The session is one hour, with four directed questions, 15 minutes for each question.  The sales reps should clearly understand that the marketing team is NOT looking for their recommendations on the marketing plan, but rather feedback on specific questions which will be used to develop new marketing programs. This won’t prevent the reps from telling marketing what they should do, but it is clear warning that this is not the purpose of the session.

– The questions should be <strong>actionable </strong>. DO NOT ask about something that you will not be able to change, regardless of the sales and field feedback.

– Marketing managers are the facilitators. When marketing programs are attacked (and they will be), they can’t defend or get defensive. They have to soak up the feedback and deal with the negative offline from the focus group session. It is okay to be factual — if someone complains about something that has been or will shortly be changed, it is perfectly okay to share the factual information. Otherwise, the marketing guys need to stick with the program, and the four defined questions, and not get sidetracked into defending their record

– Sales managers and executives should NOT be present. Period. The results of the session can and should be shared, but the presence of the bosses will change the session. People will be worried about impressing the honchos, not giving unvarnished feedback. When the results are presented, the feedback must not be attributed.

– The results of the session, including any actions that will be taken as a result, should be shared with the sales participants as soon as possible. Once the sales reps believe that their feedback has made a difference in the marketing plan, the chasm will start to close.  They will start to buy-in, rather than complain. And the marketing team will be more open to the sales feedback. They will be better able to listen for the useful. The marketing programs will be better for it. And, over time, the relationship between your sales and marketing teams should improve.

If any of our readers decide to try this tactic, I would be happy to chat more about the model, just drop me a note. And I would most definitely love to hear your results.

Deep Throat, blogging tips, asking for the order (and lions and tigers and bears, oh my)

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As expected, I am really busy this week with the Revenue Roundtable and client work (hurrah), plus trying to jam everything in by COB Thursday as Friday is the Scottish Terrier Club of New England Specialty Show, and I will be there all day.

However, I do have a few things to share before I race off to prepare for a new prospect meeting tomorrow.

First, the big reveal of Deep Throat. I came of political age during Watergate. I think my first adult non-fiction book was All the President’s Men and I definitely remember going to see the movie on a hot summer day in whatever year it was. It is hard to believe that all that took place more than 30 years ago…. when it still colors so much of what we feel about politics, regardless of what we believe or how we vote.

For my part, I am glad that Mark Felt, and his family, didn’t wait until after his death. For whatever reason, and however it came about, I’m glad Felt will get the accolades due him while he lives. If his family benefits, that’s great. He did a courageous thing, whatever his personal reasons were, and he deserves to get the praise in life. He’ll certainly be criticized as well — I can see the revisionist wagons circling.

So often, we wait to honor great men and women until after their deaths. I for one am pleased when the subject of the praise actually gets to hear it themselves. I remember a few years ago, here in our town, the local chamber of commerce had an event to honor an elderly civic leader who had done a tremendous amount for the town and the area. Literally put us on the map.

As my husband and I were waiting in the long line to greet the man and his wife, it crossed my mind that the whole event was a bit like a wake, except in this case, the man who actually KNEW everybody was still alive, and could enjoy the love of his community. I thought it was wonderful, and wished that we as a society were better at thanking our elders in life, not just honoring them in death.

Wakes and funerals serve an important religious and grieving function. But they aren’t really for the person who has died. So… moral of the story: take time to thank and honor people today.

Thank you, Mr. Felt.

This story will be all over the blogosphere and the media today, tomorrow, the next day, but do read Dan Gillmor’s post, Deep Throat: America owes Gratitude.

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Now a few little housekeeping things, items that caught my interest over the last week. If I had more time, I’d write more about them, but the clock is ticking…..

Standing Out from the Blogging Crowd, an item on BusinessWeek’s Blogspotting, linked to tips for better blog writing from Robin Good.

Jim Logan on the importance of asking for the order.

Scottie Claiborne on links that drive search engine rankings (seen originally on Micro Persuasion). I need to get serious about promoting this blog … one of these days.

Back on the grid from Camp WorldWIT

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Well, I have been off the grid for the past few days at Camp WorldWIT in Lake Geneva Wisconsin. It was a terrific weekend of meeting smart successful women from all over the country, and in fact from overseas as well. Of course, I had withdrawal symptoms from not having Internet access until I hit the Admiral’s Club on Sunday morning before my flight home.

Some of my highlights:

All three keynote speakers were excellent: Sheila Cavanaugh, SVP at Fidelity, Dr. Sheila Dugan from Rush University Medical Center and Rosalyn Wesley, Director of Corporate HR at Fortune Brands.

Kathleen Ameche’s tale of the process to publish her new book, The Woman Road Warrior.

The wonderful women who attended the panel on which I was a speaker. They had terrific questions about blogging, and I really enjoyed meeting and speaking with them. Below I have posted the additional links I promised during the session.

Sunrise yoga.

Some really great sessions on sales and marketing issues. It is great to meet people of like mind who believe in a sales and marketing partnership, versus a war.

And last but not least, all the terrific women I met during the weekend.

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Links

Typepad  and Blogger,  two well known hosted services for blogs. Blogger is free, but I think less functional for business blogging. I use Typepad.

Two search engines for blogs: Technorati and PubSub

I also want include the WorldWIT blogs: Business Mom,  Networking for Success,  PRGirl,  The Customer Clique and The Male Perspective

As I start hearing back from the women I met at Camp WorldWIT  about their new blogs, I will create a new category on my blogroll, and include the WorldWIT ones as well.