Poor sales after a company expansion may be (sometimes unfairly) blamed solely on an inadequate sales team. But in fact, communication and unified messaging can play a bigger role in sales when executing a strong growth strategy.
Executives who wish to bring their companies to the next level in terms of their national or global presence must understand that the strength of their salespeople alone will not guarantee success. As Kurt Andersen argues for Destination CRM, organizations need to focus on sales enablement so that those who are meeting with potential clients can do their jobs.
Citing research from IDC, Andersen notes that companies could be missing out on up to 10 percent of their annual revenues because of underperformance due to sales and marketing misalignments. In order to avoid a situation such as this, businesses need to make sure they are considering methods of harmonizing the sales and marketing functions and giving everyone across the organization access to the necessary knowledge.
A Consistent Approach
Rather than blindly jumping into a sales enablement program, executives should take time to create an overall strategy “designed to align different activities within the organization to optimize the chance of achieving corporate initiatives,” Andersen says. The investment of time and resources before launching a program will help organizations avoid the patchwork enablement approach that can result from a lack of planning.
Joining the disparate departments together in order to merge their goals may also require sharing buyer profiles and customer intelligence, according to Marketing Profs. Create a process for how marketers can make information – such as the last time a prospect was contacted or when a client made a purchase – available to sales teams, wherever they may be, at the time they need the data. Having an easy-to-navigate database for marketing content that also allows salespeople to update the assets to their specific selling needs can assist the lead-to-revenue cycle, the source points out.
Ensuring a consistent marketing message will be vital to any growth initiative. Pursuing an option such as marketing automation and sales enablement software will be helpful in guaranteeing that your salespeople across the country or around the world are aligning their work with the same corporate marketing strategy, all while giving it a local flavor.