The challenges and benefits of sales and marketing alignment

How can sales and marketing teams work in unison?

On the 8^th of December, Engage Business Media held its Sales and Marketing Engagement Summits at the Victoria Park Plaza in London. The events took place at the same time and attracted experts in both fields, sparking important conversations about the alignment of sales and marketing teams.

This specific topic was explored in depth at a panel discussion led by the event’s host and the CEO of Flume Sales Training Raoul Monks. The panellists were Zendesk’s Marketing Director Marina Snegirjova, Spendesk’s Director Revenue Enablement Atossa Vaziri, Citi’s Director Victoria McLeod-Scott, and the B2B Marketing Consultant Alan Davis.

ALIGNING YOUR OBJECTIVES WITH THE COMPANY'S

Raoul kicked off the discussion by asking the four panellists what they see as the biggest obstacles to aligning sales and marketing teams. Marina was the first to respond, sharing that although marketing and sales teams are working towards achieving a common goal, they often lose sight of it when focusing on their day-to-day tasks. Expanding on this, she said:

“The biggest challenge is to lift our heads every once in a while, whether you’re in sales or you’re in marketing or you’re in enablement, and just double check yourself: is the goal of what you are doing right now aligning with the goal of the organisation or not?”

This was echoed by the other panellists as they all stressed the importance of collaborating and using common platforms that facilitate teamwork.

THE IMPACT OF ALIGNMENT

When asked about the impact and advantage of alignment, Victoria pointed to consistency of message. Going further, she explained how organisations working in different markets could face difficulties if they do not enable a cohesive message behind which the entire company can stand. That is, the brand could risk having teams in different countries working in completely different ways and having different values.

In addition to this, the panellists discussed topics such as lead qualification, tools that help teams work together, and strategies that promote the alignment of teams. Before concluding the discussion, Raoul asked the panellists an intriguing question: “What do you think the future of sales and marketing is?”

According to Marina, there will still be conflict when trying to align teams simply because this involves humans and teams working together. Meanwhile, Atossa shared that new technologies will appear and bring challenges that we cannot yet foresee.

Offering a different perspective, Alan advised us not to forget the basics as he explained that despite the modern times, people are still using models that have been around for 40-50 years. Finally, Victoria shared her thoughts on the future of security services, noting that saturation will most likely propel the evolution. Taking this further, she predicted that the social media element would become even more significant for this industry.

Watch the full panel discussion below: