Aligning Sales Enablement and Marketing

What is your current role, and how did you get there? I’m the sales director across UKI and Nordics at sales enablement market leader, Showpad. I’ve held leadership and sales roles at Salesforce and ExactTarget, but I started my working life on a butcher’s stand in a supermarket. I wasn’t one to hang around, and 5 years later I’d worked my way up to become a store manager. Then I met a salesperson who tried to sell me a pension. I didn’t take them up on their ofer, but I did ask to meet their manager because I liked the idea of doing what they did for a living. Before I knew it, I was in sales.

What attracted you to the sales enablement sector? I was working for Pitney Bowes in 2011 and considering my next move. At that time marketing automation was the new SaaS technology, so I moved to ExactTarget, which was acquired by Salesforce, so I learned about both marketing automation (MA) and CRM in the same role. It was a fantastic experience, but after 7 years I felt there were new peaks to climb. When I considered my next move, I was conscious that the software industry had made great progress in the areas of CRM and MA, but sales itself still had a lot of room for improvement. Sales enablement was the new tech category that completed the triangle with CRM and MA, using AI to help salespeople have better conversations with prospects and ultimately increase conversions. As a clear disrupter and market leader, I felt Showpad was the right company for me to join. What was your biggest individual sales challenge and how did you overcome it? For a long time, I had imposter syndrome. Because of my background of working my way up through a supermarket to get into sales, I thought my successes were down to luck rather than skill or judgment. I was good at building relationships, negotiating, keeping my word and thinking about life from the customer’s perspective – but everyone else in the industry seemed to have more experience than me, and I sufered self-doubt over whether I belonged. It took many years for me to realise that my skills were what made me a good salesperson, and my experience had simply sharpened that. What has been your most satisfying achievement in sales? Earlier in my career, I would have said consistently exceeding my targets, but over time that has changed. I fnd it enormously satisfying to develop the next generation of salespeople and promote them to the next role. I’ve found that, at the same time, I’m developing in how I manage others as I start to see patterns of success. I thrive on getting 360-degree feedback, taking action accordingly, and sharing with my team “The sales industry still what has been achieved, how we will needs to listen more – develop, and how we need to change. customers are tired of Great ideas come from everywhere, and I being talked at rather have really learned to value EQ over IQ – than listened to” emotional intelligence over “traditional” intelligence. We’re in a people-driven industry, and we’re in it together – driving that change. I’m genuinely proud of supporting my team to achieve maximum impact. How important is culture to a sales team? Culture is vital for building successful teams. When we hire at Showpad, culture and talent are the two most important factors. We consider whether candidates have the natural skills and capabilities to perform well in the role, and whether they will ft in. We look at the current team and whether they will bring a fresh approach. Experience is useful, but it’s not the dominant factor in our hiring. What can everyone do straightaway to become better at selling? Build your network. You can learn a great deal from company resources and colleagues, but it’s vital to understand how the wider world works as well. Meet people in other industries, join associations like the ISM, stay in touch with former colleagues, and don’t ever burn your bridges – many of my roles and promotions came about because I spoke to the right person at the right time. You will learn a lot and it will be great for your career progression as well. Similarly, I believe that the sales industry still needs to listen more – customers are tired of being talked at rather than listened to – and many salespeople have a long way to go before they can truly say that they are consultants. In an ever more competitive market, being relevant and responding to buyer needs are essential to success. Read Jim Preston’s sales enablement feature on page 20.

ALIGNING SALES AND MARKETING

JIM PRESTON says sales must not be the forgotten marketing channel

Sixty percent of respondents to a need to be the end product of a collaboration recent study from LinkedIn and the between marketing and sales: dynamic, relevant, Content Marketing Institute say the shareable and tailored to buyer needs. misalignment between sales and marketing could damage fnancial CONTENT THAT CLOSES DEALS performance. Furthermore, research When reps don’t have efective content, sales by CSO Insights reveals that 46% of salespeople cycles are longer and deals are lost. In a 2018 missed their individual targets in 2018 – the ffth survey by my company, UK B2B buyers say that, consecutive year of decline. after price, the main barrier to making a purchase

What this research tells us is that a strong is insufcient, confusing or irrelevant content. connection between sales and marketing is However, all too often marketing teams produce essential for successful selling. They are the main what they think will be useful, then “throw it over drivers of an experience that will establish the the wall” to sales without having consulted them. value of a product or service to a prospect. When it comes to understanding which content

The core of this partnership should be sales really motivates prospects there’s a surprising enablement – the discipline of ensuring the sales dearth of data and performance insights. For team is provided in real-time with the knowledge, many marketers, the bottom of the funnel is a content, coaching, training and tools needed to black hole – which means they’re spending optimise buyer engagement. Content and substantial amounts of money with no way to messaging, the key ingredients of sales success, measure a return on that investment.

KEYS TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Although qualitative conversations with sales reps are useful, this approach isn’t scalable for large, global sales organisations. Nor does it give marketing any insights or analysis around how sales teams are using content. Technology has a vital role to play here, with CRM, marketing automation and sales enablement platforms able to deliver actionable performance insights. However, these systems will only be efective if they are implemented as part of a digital transformation programme, and integrated to ensure seamless data fow between the systems.

CRM and sales readiness technologies have helped B2B sales organisations improve predictability and efectiveness, just as marketing automation technologies have helped B2B marketers scale targeted campaigns. But because marketing technologies are at the top of the funnel and sales readiness technologies are at the bottom, there’s an inherent gap between the stacks. The answer is to add a SaaS platform specifcally designed with the needs of sales in mind. Implementing a shared digital sales enablement platform will help close the gap in the sales funnel and boost results.

The platform can provide a one-stop-shop for creating, sharing and measuring the efectiveness of content. Marketing can make it easy for sales to fnd the right content at the right time by ensuring they have access to the latest, on-brand versions. Organising information by business area, product or persona will enable reps to tailor it quickly to the buyer’s business, project, questions and specifc challenges. AI FOR MARKETING EFFICIENCY For many B2B marketers, the main beneft of marketing automation software is the ability to generate more and better leads, but they’re missing a trick. When incorporated into a sales enablement platform, artifcial intelligence (AI) through machine learning tracks which content works best in specifc scenarios, and then makes recommendations to reps in real-time.

The analytics will also inform the development of the content strategy, by enabling marketing to evaluate the impact of content on revenue. It will also make marketing more efective. Better visibility of what is being viewed and shared most often, and which content is tied to closed deals, means they can focus on creating content that works and “retire” anything that doesn’t. ANALYTICS FOR IMPROVED TRAINING Prospective customers increasingly conduct extensive online research before contacting a salesperson. But according to Showpad’s survey, 32% of B2B buyers say they struggle to fnd the

JIM PRESTON is sales director at Showpad, a sales enablement platform for the modern seller. He is responsible for leading the mid-market sales team and growing the business across the UK, Ireland and Nordics. He has over 15 years’ experience of business development, leading teams and building the pipeline for growth for top global SaaS companies including Salesforce, Pitney Bowes and Neopost. Read his profle on page 19. Showpad’s all-in-one platform empowers sales and marketing teams to engage buyers by integrating industry-leading training and coaching software with innovative content solutions. Visit www.showpad.com information they need, so reps still have a vital role to play. Once buyers do engage with sales teams they expect compelling information, insight and answers they can’t get on their own.

As well as enabling them to create and manage powerful content, advanced analytics and AI will provide organisations with insight into who their best performers are. Armed with this knowledge, they can leverage their star players’ successes across sales teams, as well as pinpoint where the skill gaps lie. Sales training programmes can then be tailored to target skill gaps and inefciencies.

JOINT SALES AND MARKETING PLANS Sales and marketing should be seamlessly aligned and work towards shared goals, with shared ownership of pipeline and revenue to optimise results while improving efciency. It is essential to develop joint plans to focus on target customers. Both parties should agree on who they are selling to, working together to defne ideal customer profles that all marketing and sales eforts will be focused on, and creating buyer personas that will inform all sales enablement activities and the content strategy.

Success for sales tends to be measured in closed deals, average deal size, average sales cycle and time to ramp up new reps. Marketing metrics tend to be aligned to raising awareness, driving leads and building the brand. Alongside goals, marketing and sales should work together to determine what metrics and KPIs are most important to track and how often. While revenue should be the top metric, you may well need to track pipeline, marketing qualifed leads, sales qualifed leads and sales qualifed opportunities. COMMIT TO ONGOING IMPROVEMENT Sales and marketing alignment is not a one-of activity; to drive better performance and growth it needs to be an ongoing relationship. To succeed, the two parties should have regular meetings to review results, trends and the pipeline; optimise performance; brainstorm; and discuss and agree on how to evolve current plans. Quarterly business reviews will provide an excellent opportunity for everyone to get together and feel like one team: aim to spend one-third of the time looking back and two-thirds looking forward.

Sales and marketing alignment has a major impact on sales maturity, the pipeline and, ultimately, business won. The two teams must work in partnership to ensure they reach key audiences with the right messaging and content, invest resources where they will have the most impact, and deliver a seamless buying experience that provides real value to today’s increasingly professional and more informed buyer.