Guiding Principles for Sales Professionals

 

 

How many of you are married with children or had brothers and sisters?  I’m sure you noticed the personality differences despite the almost identical upbringing.  

Family life closely resembles a scientific experiment without the control factors.  Testing and research proves that certain aspects of our personality are inherited.  Gene research has proved how amazingly similar we all are, but yet how a little rearranging of the DNA makes us uniquely different.

 

We know by observation and previous studies that people often fall into four distinct personality styles. 

 

1.  Outgoing

2.  Domineering

3.  Perfectionists 

4.  Low key

 

Let’s accept as a premise that some people have a little leg up in our culture by personality style.  In the business culture that exists, the domineering types and perfectionists tend to do better than the fun loving/outgoing or low key personality types. And yes of course there are exceptions!  Now let’s complicate the issue by revealing that the primary emotional and learning capabilities we have, are established between the ages of 1 and 5.  The most revealing fact here is that you are emotionally established by your environment at a very early age.  

 

Remember the obligatory computer programming course you had to take in High School or College?  G. I. G. O., Garbage In Garbage Out.  It looks like our lifestyle has the same premise.

 

What if we changed the programming to E. I. E. O?  Excellence In Excellence Out.

 

Could that make a difference?          

 

Now we have established that we are pre-wired, but to a large extent we are like a brand new computer.  The basic operating programs are installed, but the hard drive still has a tremendous capacity for more programs.

 

You may have some obstacles to overcome or you may have had a tremendously nurturing, joyful childhood.  But the truth is as adults, we all have a choice about how we are going to act.  Some old negative programming can be overwritten with enough diligence.  The human mind has amazing capacity if it is stretched. All of us have a tremendous capability to change if the right energy and discipline is applied.

 

Here is a little tip to help you during a time of transition.  Remember the old remedy for controlling anger?  Count to 10 before you speak?  Think of life’s daily events as an A-B-C event sequence.  Instead of potentially explosive incident A leading to negative reaction C.  Insert the filter B into the thought process.  B is the filtering thought that allows us to consider the consequences of our actions. That will be one small step in reprogramming our thinking.

 

If we want to develop an internal source of motivation, then I suggest we adopt a model used by many wise individuals and companies.

 

Establish 3-6 guiding principles for your life and develop a mission statement that addresses the goals you have set for yourself.  The principles should be the guiding beacons that direct the mission statement you develop.

 

The principles should be axioms that will not change due to circumstances or time.  Therefore, they are long term value statements on the way to run your life.  Principles should be statements such as:

 

1.     I will treat others with respect, dignity and deep concern for their well being. (Golden Rule Mentality)

2.     I will practice truthfulness and integrity at all times.

3.     I will not give my commitment to anything that I cannot or will not keep.

4.     I will give 100% to anything I commit to.

5.     I will practice the highest quality and fairness in all my endeavors.

6.     My primary motivation is a God centered relationship.

 

The principles guide the mission statement.  The mission statements can be short or long term goals.  Goals may be actions or activities such as:

 

•        I will earn my MBA within 3-4 years

•        I will lose 15 lbs by years end

•        My company will achieve the agreed upon sales and profitability goals for this fiscal year.

•        My company will earn an ISO 9001 rating within 10 months

•        I will learn enough Spanish to have a working vocabulary within the next 24 months

 

Does it sound to simple to be true, can it really be that easy?  How do you produce a habit, and eliminate old thinking styles?

 

Work hard to eliminate or reduce the old ingrained thought patterns that had a negative impact on your personal and business life, realizing that they are punitive to you and others around you.  Replace the old self diminishing thoughts with your set of guiding principles.  Print out a copy or jot your principles on a note card and place it in your day timer or wallet.  Read that list of principles before you go to work in the morning, noon and night.  Review your daily conduct in light of the principles you have set for yourself. 

Strive to correct any conduct deficiencies.

 

Your principles will direct the approach you take to achieve your goals.  Set logical, step by step approaches to the accomplishment of these goals in reasonable time periods.  Check your progress periodically and you will be pleasantly surprised at the accomplishments.

 

In addition to your repetitive review of the guiding principles, try these things to assist with your new internal motivation goal.

 

•        Read books that provide insight into admirable character

•        Memorize your principles and focus on them to guide your plans

•        Develop a positive, can do attitude

•        Develop and conduct action oriented objectives

•        Be aware, your self-value is secure in God’s love, failures are learning events

•        Focus on the important, leave the trivial behind

•        Deeply value relationships 

•        Be other centered

•        Surround yourself with can do people

•        Avoid anger and judgmental thinking

•        Seek out positive personal growth

•        Get a proper diet, rest and exercise

•        Enjoy life

 

In conclusion, success has three important components:

 

1.     Drive: The internal desire to obtain a goal

2.     Personal focus: The ability to focus on your goals and avoid trivial activities

3.     Discipline: Working through difficult issues that will help us obtain our goals

 

Application: 

 

Apply these principles to build the motivation that will carry you to success in your life. Replace the old with the new and positive.  Remember; you determine your attitude, not life’s circumstances.  Focus on the things within your control and don’t let those outside your control bother you.  Utilize your principles and goals to direct your life to new levels of achievement.

 

 

 

Goal- Setting Guide

Brian Tracy
12 Step Goal-Setting Guide

1. Decide exactly what you want in every key area of your life. Start off by Idealizing. Imagine that there are no limitations on what you can be, have or do. Imagine that you have all the time and money, all the friends and contacts, all the education and experience that you need to accomplish any goal you can set for yourself.
Imagine that you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect in each of the four key areas of life. If your life was perfect in each area, what would it look like?

1. Income – how much do you want to earn this year, next year and five years from today?
2. Family – what kind of a lifestyle do you want to create for yourself and your family?
3. Health – how would your health be different if it was perfect in every way?
4. Net Worth – how much do you want to save and accumulate in the course of your working lifetime?

Three Goal Method – in less than 30 seconds, write down your three most important goals in life, right now. Write quickly. Whatever your answer to this “Quick List Method” way of writing three goals it is probably an accurate picture of what you really want in life.

2. Write it down. Your goals must be in writing. They must be clear, specific, detailed and measurable. You must write out your goals as if you were placing an order for your goal to be manufactured in a factory at a great distance. Make your description clear and detailed in every sense.
Only 3% of adults have written goals, and everyone else works for them.

3. Set a deadline. Your subconscious mind uses deadlines as “forcing systems” to drive you, consciously and unconsciously toward achieving your goal on schedule. If your goal is big enough, set sub-deadlines. If you want to achieve financial independence, you may set a 10 or 20-year goal, and then break it down, year by year, so that you know how much you have to save and invest each year.

If for some reason you don’t achieve your goal by the deadline, simply set a new deadline. There are no unreasonable goals, only unreasonable deadlines.

4. Identify the obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve your goal. Why aren’t you already at your goal?
The Theory of Constraints – there is always one limiting factor or constraint that sets the speed at which you achieve your goal. What is it for you?

The 80/20 Rule applies to constraints. Fully 80% of the reasons that are holding you back from achieving your goal are inside yourself. They are the lack of a skill, a quality or a body of knowledge. Only 20% of the reasons you are not achieving your goal are on the outside. Always start with yourself.

5. Identify the knowledge, information and skills you will need to achieve your goal. Especially, identify the skills that you will have to develop to be in the top 10% of your field.
Greatest Discovery: Your weakest key skill sets the height of your income and your success. You can make more progress by going to work on the one skill that is holding you back more than any other.
Key Question: “What one skill, if you developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on your life?”
What one skill, if you developed and did it consistently, in an excellent fashion, would help you the most to achieve your most important goal? Whatever the skill, write it down, make a plan and work on it every single day.

6. Identify the people whose help and cooperation you will require to achieve your goal. Make a list of every person in your life that you will have to work with or work around to achieve your goal. Start with the members of your family, whose cooperation and support you will require. List your boss, coworkers and subordinates. Especially, identify the customers whose support you will need to sell enough of your product or service to make the kind of money that you want.
Once you have identified the key people whose help you will require, ask yourself this question, “What’s in it for them?” Be a “go-giver” rather than a “go-getter.”
To achieve big goals you will have to have the help and support of lots of people. One key person at a certain time and place in your life will make all the difference. The most successful people are those who build and maintain the largest networks of other people whom they can help and who can help them in return.

7. Make a list of everything you will have to do to achieve your goal. Combine the obstacles that you will have to overcome, the knowledge and skills you will have to develop, and the people whose cooperation you will require. List every single step that you can think of that you will have to follow to ultimately achieve your goal.
As you think of new items, add them to your list until your list is complete.
When you make out a list of all the things you will need to do to achieve your goal, you begin to see that this goal is far more attainable than you thought. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” You can build the biggest wall in the world one brick at a time.

8. Organize your list into a plan. You organize this list by arranging the steps that you have identified by sequence and priority.
Sequence – what do you have to do before you do something else, and in what order?
Priority – what is more important and what is less important?
The 80/20 Rule says that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities.
The 20/80 Rule says that the first 20% of time that you spend planning your goal and organizing your plan will be worth 80% of the time and effort required to achieve the goal. Planning is very important.

9. Make a plan. Organize your list into a series of steps from the beginning all the way through to the completion of your goal.

When you have a Goal and a Plan, you increase the likelihood of achieving your goals by 10 times, by 1000%!

■ Plan each day, week and month in advance.
■ Plan each month at the beginning of the month.
■ Plan each week the weekend before.
■ Plan each day the evening before.

The more careful and detailed you are when you plan your activities, the more you will accomplish in less time. The rule is that each minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution. This means that you get a 1000% return on your investment of time in planning your days, weeks and months in advance.

10. Select your number one, most important task for each day. Set priorities on your list using the 80/20 Rule.
Ask yourself this question: “If I could only do one thing on this list, which one activity is most important?” Whatever you answer to that question, put a number “1” next to that activity.

Then, ask yourself, “If I could only do one other task on this list, which one task would be the most valuable use of my time?” Then write a number “2” next to that task.
Keep asking this question, “What is the most valuable use of my
time on this list?” until you have your seven top tasks, organized
by sequence and priority.

Here is another question you can ask, “If I could only do one thing all day long, which one activity would contribute the most value to my work and to my goals?

Focus and Concentration are the keys to success. Focus means that you know exactly what it is that you want to accomplish and concentration requires that you dedicate yourself to doing only those things that move you toward your goal.”

11.  Develop the habit of self-discipline. Once you have decided on your most important task, resolve to concentrate single-mindedly on that one task until it is 100% complete.

Your ability to select your most important task and then to work on it single mindedly, without diversion or distraction, will double and triple the quality and quantity of your output and your productivity.
Single Handling is one of the most powerful of all time management techniques. This means that when you start with the task, you avoid all distractions and stay with that task until it is done. Once you have developed the habit of completing your tasks, you will earn two and three and even five times as much as other people.

12. Practice visualization on your goals. Create clear, vivid, exciting, emotional pictures of your goals as if they were already a reality.

See your goal as though it were already achieved. Imagine yourself enjoying the accomplishment of this goal. If it is a car, imagine yourself driving this car. If it is a vacation, see yourself on the vacation already. If it is a beautiful home that you want, see yourself living in a beautiful home.
In visualizing, take a few moments to create the emotions that would accompany the successful achievement of your goal. A mental picture combined with an emotion has an enormous impact on your subconscious and your superconscious mind.

Visualization is perhaps the most powerful faculty available to you to help you achieve your goals faster than you ever thought possible.

When you use a combination of clear goals, combined with visualization and emotionalization, you activate your superconscious mind. Your superconscious mind then solves every problem on the way to your goal. Your superconscious mind activates the Law of Attraction and begins attracting into your life people, circumstances, ideas and resources that will help you to achieve your goals even faster.

Goal-Setting Exercise

1. Take a clean sheet of paper and write the word “Goals” at the top of the page along with today’s date.
Discipline yourself to write out at least 10 goals that you would like to accomplish in the next year, or in the foreseeable future.
Begin each goal with the word “I.” Only you can use the word “I.” Follow the word “I” with an action verb that acts as a command from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.

Describe your goals in the present tense, as though they had already been achieved. If your goal is to earn a certain amount of money in a certain year, you would say, “I earn this number of dollars by the end of this year.”
If your goal is to get a new car, you would say, “I drive such and such a new car by such and such a date.”
Finally, when you write down your goals, always write them in the positive tense. Instead of saying, “I will quit smoking,” you would say, “I am a non-smoker.”

Always state your goals as though they were already a reality, as though you had already accomplished them. This activates your subconscious and superconscious minds to change your external reality so it is consistent with your inner commands.

STEP 2. Decide upon your major definite purpose. Once you have written out a list of 10 goals, ask yourself this question, “If I could wave a magic wand and achieve any goal on this list within 24 hours, which one goal would have the greatest positive impact on my life?”

Whatever your answer to that question, put a circle around that goal. Then, transfer the goal to the top of a clean sheet of paper.

1. Write it down clearly and in detail.
2. Set a deadline on your goal and set sub deadlines if necessary.
3. Identify the obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve your goal, and identify the most important one, internal or external.
4. Identify the knowledge and skills you will need to achieve your goal, and the most important skill that you will have to become excellent in.
5. Identify the people whose help and cooperation you will require, and think about what you can do to deserve their help.
6. Make a list of everything you will have to do to achieve your goal. Add to the list as you think of new things to do.
7. Organize your list by sequence and priority, by what you have to do first, and by what is most important.
8. Make a plan by organizing your list into steps from the first to the last, and then resolve to take action on your plan, every single day.
9. Plan your goal in terms of the activities that you will have to engage in to achieve it, daily, weekly and monthly, in advance.
10. Set priorities on your list and identify the most important thing that you can do every single day to move most rapidly toward your goal.
11. Discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on the most important thing that you can do today until it is 100% complete. Practice single-handling with every major task.

 

Taking a Long-Term Perspective

 Having spent over half of my post college working career working in the industrial distribution business, I found the prevailing culture among the rank and file employees to be one of survival.  From my experience and conversations with people in other industries this experience is not radically different.

In economically perfectly competitive businesses such as distribution, there are normally multiple outlets for essentially the same products.  This makes it exceedingly difficult to differentiate yourself.  And now in the age of internet commerce and increased information availability, it is even more difficult for providers of similar products to separate themselves from the pack.

The short-term perspective driven by the competitive nature of industry causes many daily mistakes.  However, there have been some benefits to the customer in the form of rapid responses to requests for quotes, more rapid technical responses, prompt deliveries, product innovations and more efficient supply programs.

The felt need for instant responses from the suppliers causes people burnout, lost profit margins, lost business, inaccurate responses, compromised integrity and strife inside the company and outside the firm with all levels of stakeholders.

There are several ways to combat the pressure you may feel from the need to compress as much activity into as short amount of time as possible.  Number one is to do the most thorough, quality job possible in the time allowed and trust God to provide for your well-being.  This type of attitude and conduct will honor God and significantly help in reducing time pressured errors.

Another way to combat the stress and errors driven by a short-term viewpoint is to get a firm grasp on the long term impact of your decisions.  You must ask yourself if the value of delivering an unqualified technical response, a poorly researched bid, a partially developed product, a poorly written report or unprepared sales call is worth the risk.

These are just a few examples of rushing through a process in business that demands a quality effort.  I’m sure you can think of many others in your area of expertise.  Simply stated, the risk of losing your integrity, reputation, concern for others and business opportunities is in no way compensated for by the time gained by cutting corners.

Try this proof of short term versus a long-term perspective by grabbing a calculator and performing some simple math.

Fifty two weeks a year yield 260 working days.  Subtract 9 paid holidays and 10 days of vacation to yield 241 days.  Then begin to determine what percentage a week, a day, four hours and one hour represent as a percentage of that working year.

One Week = (5/241)	.02074 %	Or 2.1%     year.
One Day   = (1/241)	.00414 %	Or .004 %  year
4 Hours = (4/1928)	.00207 %	Or .002 %  year
1 Hour = (1/1928)	.0005186 %	Or .0005% year

Then begin to determine the time required to get the job done properly versus the rushed job that was perceived as necessary.  Look at the chart or perform the calculation yourself.  What appeared to be a true crisis of time is in effect just a small fraction of the time available to accomplish the task.  This exercise will help you get a perspective on time when you are bogged down in a tedious but necessary task.  In addition, the proper amount of time can be allocated to truly important tasks.

Finally, step back and look at the importance of the task as if it took place one year ago.  With that perspective, what impact will the completion of the task have on the bottom line?  I am not recommending that workers ignore any task that does not make their personal priority list, but rather that tasks are given a level of importance commensurate with their long-term importance.

 Yes, haste truly does make waste.  From poor designs, scrapped products, wasted time, and damaged reputations, the consequences run the gamut of tangible and intangible costs.

 

Sales and Marketing Alignment

 

Sales and marketing team alignment makes a lot of sense, and in most small-sized professional services firms, they go hand-in-hand. But as companies continue to grow, it’s not uncommon for sales and marketing to fall out of sync, and this can lead to significant losses in visibility, profitability, and growth. 

In fact, a recent study showed that sales and marketing misalignment can prevent nearly 75% of leads from converting into sales. On the other hand, professional services firms can increase sales by 38% when they bring sales and marketing into alignment.

So, how do you reap the benefits of alignment by getting the left hand of sales to talk with the right hand of marketing — without triggering an arm-wrestling match? 

At Hinge, we’ve developed actionable strategies to help our clients receive the transformative benefits of sales and marketing alignment – and we’re excited to share them in this handy 10-minute guide. 

But before we jump into the strategies, let’s explore the fine-grained difference between your sales and marketing teams, and how they get disconnected in the first place.

Please use the following links to navigate this guide:

• What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?
• How Sales and Marketing Disconnect
• 4 Proven Strategies That Boost Sales and Marketing Performance
• Final Thoughts About Sales and Marketing Alignment

What’s the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?

Both your sales team and marketing team are essential for growing your firm’s client base, increasing profits, boosting sales, and improving visibility. However, each of these teams will fulfill different roles in support of those goals. 

Here’s how sales and marketing teams are different:

WHAT ARE SALES TEAMS?

Sales teams are defined as primarily being concerned with nurturing client relationships, closing deals, and helping customers see the benefits of buying your products and services. To support these efforts, sales teams need to evaluate the suitability of potential new clients and customers, educate them about your products and services, and eventually seal a commitment to buy. 

Also, depending on the sales strategy – and the needs of the firm – your sales team could be involved in the process of identifying and creating new business opportunities and writing detailed proposals for new clients and customers. 

WHAT ARE MARKETING TEAMS?

Marketing teams on the other hand are defined as primarily being concerned with identifying and understanding your marketplace, customers, and competitors. After identifying and understanding these elements, marketing teams showcase your strategies and services in a way that reflects the unique attributes of your marketplace, customers, and competitors. This allows your marketing team to strategically promote the visibility of products and services while communicating how potential new customers will benefit from working with your firm. 

Also, depending on the marketing strategy – and the needs of the firm – your marketing team could be involved in educating clients and referral sources, strengthening client relationships, connecting with referral sources, creating new business opportunities, and writing detailed proposals for new clients and customers.   

OBSERVATIONS OF SALES AND MARKETING IN THE FIELD

It’s common for certain roles to flip-flop between marketing and sales. For example, in Hinge’s Visibility program, we’ve seen marketing departments performing lead generation or proposal writing activities at some firms, while at other firms, we’ve seen sales departments fulfilling those roles. 

Another thing we’ve noticed is the fact that many sales and marketing strategies are highly “reactive” at professional services firms. Instead of proactively engaging in sales or marketing efforts, these firms wait for customers to approach them with requests for proposals (RFPs). Then, the marketing or sales team will “react” by writing the proposals and hoping to win the jobs. Most of these firms don’t have a clear sales or marketing strategy beyond waiting for RFPs and writing proposals. Although this can work for some organizations, a lack of proactivity can significantly hinder visibility, profitability, and growth. 

At the end of the day, sales and marketing teams share the same goal of driving growth and profitability. They just have different methods and motivations behind their work – and in too many cases, they’re disconnected in their efforts to achieve those goals.  

Download the Marketing Planning Guide: Third Edition

How Sales and Marketing Disconnect

According to Hinge research, only a small majority (54%) of professional services firms maintain strong coordination between their sales and marketing efforts. In the rest of the firms (46%), lost opportunities and wasted effort result from sales and marketing team misalignment. 

In the vast majority of cases, sales and marketing teams lack alignment due to the following three reasons:

• Habitual pattern of organizing workflows: Many firms have been operating with disconnected sales and marketing teams for years – or sales and marketing simply grew apart as the size of their teams began to grow –  and no one sees how this lack of alignment could be counterproductive
• Lack of effort and planning to ensure alignment: No processes or intentional activities are in place to support communication between sales and marketing teams. In other words, decision-makers have not made sales and marketing alignment a priority. 
• Lack of knowledge: Neither team realizes the importance of sales and marketing alignment. They have not considered the potential benefits of alignment, and they simply don’t know that the disconnect is hurting the entire company.

IS YOUR FIRM SUFFERING FROM A SALES AND MARKETING DISCONNECT?

Disconnected sales and marketing teams can cause poor performance, low sales, inefficient resource allocation, reduced visibility, and wasted marketing content. Even worse, misaligned sales and marketing teams can work against each other, inadvertently blocking each other’s success. Unfortunately, most professional services firms do not realize that a lack of alignment is the source of these challenges.

If you’re questioning whether your firm is suffering from a sales and marketing disconnect, listen to what each team is saying about the other. The marketing department could say, “We’re bringing in plenty of leads but the sales team isn’t closing the deals.” Or, the sales department could say, “We’re not closing any deals because marketing isn’t bringing in the qualified leads we need.” Either way, this kind of finger-pointing is a hallmark sign of a disconnect.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SALES AND MARKETING ALIGNMENT

To help you understand why sales and marketing alignment is important, imagine that your marketing department is busy developing messaging, content, and collateral to boost your firm’s visibility to suitable clients. However, the marketing team hasn’t met with sales to learn about the unique pain points and defining characteristics of the clients who are the most likely to purchase your services. This lack of communication between sales and marketing is a problem because it can lead to marketing efforts that convey the wrong message, attract the wrong leads, and fail to highlight the most attractive elements of your brand. 

Since your sales team connects with clients daily, there is no better resource for your marketing team to learn about industry trends and the defining characteristics and pain points of your clients. Therefore, it makes sense for your marketing team to work closely with sales while creating customer profiles and fine-tuning its messaging. Your sales department can provide golden nuggets of information that will radically improve all marketing and lead generation efforts.

Despite the potential benefits, a surprising number of professional services firms don’t try to align their sales and marketing teams. Instead, they allow their sales and marketing departments to silo themselves, resulting in setbacks to growth and profitability.  

4 Proven Strategies That Boost Sales and Marketing Alignment

Now that we understand each team’s role, how marketing and sales can grow apart, and why collaboration is important, the next question is: In what ways can they work together? 

Fortunately, sales and marketing have plenty of opportunities to align across joint activities with client-focused priorities. Here are a few:

1.  TEAM CONFIGURATION: RETHINK THE TRADITIONAL RAINMAKER MODEL AND BUILD YOUR MARKETING AND SALES TEAMS

Instead of using sales and marketing teams to attract and secure customers, a lot of firms rely on one or more “rainmakers” to pound the pavement, network in the community, and bring in the bulk of their business. These individuals are usually founders, partners, advisors, board members, or star salespeople who close deals on behalf of the firm. They’re the reason some firms don’t engage in sales or marketing, but simply wait for new RFPs to roll into the office.

Although rainmakers are extremely valuable assets, contemporary sales and marketing is becoming more complex and requires a much broader skill set than rainmakers alone – especially if you want to thrive in today’s digitally-driven marketplace. 

In this respect, evolving beyond the rainmaker model into the “team” model is a much better way of structuring your business development strategy. For firms that haven’t already done so, this involves the building of your sales and marketing teams. Once they’re assembled, you can start aligning their efforts through a mutually collaborative relationship. 

Let’s take a look at how you can build a team-oriented marketing structure at a firm that doesn’t already have a marketing team:

• Present the “Why Change Argument”: A shift from the rainmaker model to a team-oriented marketing strategy is going to impact a lot of people at your organization. So you’ll need to develop and present good reasons for the change to others at your organization. This way, others will join you and support the effort. For example, what will your marketing team look like after the configuration? Why are these changes going to be good for the organization? 
• Get policy buy-in to test the team model first: Some organizations will immediately see the benefit of the team model. But if that’s not the case at your organization, we’ve found that it’s a lot easier to get buy-in to test the team model instead of jumping directly into a wholesale change. 
• Identify the gaps in skills: As for building the marketing team, first, identify your strengths. Do any team members have good speaking, writing, or digital design skills? What skills are you missing? Maybe you’re lacking skills in marketing automation and client research. Write down your skills gaps and start engaging the resources needed to close those gaps. Often, those human resources are already in your organization!
• Develop an operation plan: Decide which team members will fulfill which marketing roles and how often. Then, iron out any inefficiencies or incentives that could be working against you. Once you’ve put it all together, you’ll find that the team-based marketing model is more flexible, resilient, and productive than just relying on rainmakers alone. 

If your firm is also lacking a defined sales team, here’s an additional resource on developing a sales team structure.

Download the Marketing Planning Guide: Third Edition

2.  STRATEGY ALIGNMENT: ALIGNING SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGIES 

Both your marketing and sales teams know that attracting new clients is essential to the health of your business. But are your sales and marketing teams implementing the same kind of approach to achieve this goal? Or, could they be working against one another and not even realize it? 

Many firms don’t know the range of sales and marketing strategies available, and they might not have taken the time to identify the unique strategies their sales and marketing teams are currently leveraging. This can result in the sales team choosing an approach that isn’t compatible with that of the marketing team.

In this respect, aligning your sales and marketing strategies starts with identifying the strategies each team is currently using. Next, the teams should discuss what they’re doing. Then, they can align their efforts and eliminate inefficiencies to achieve better results. 

Here are the most common strategies that sales and marketing teams are using today:

• Seller-doer strategy: This is the most common strategy in smaller firms. The person making the sale is the person doing the work. Not only is this team member finding new prospects and closing deals, but he or she is also performing the actual service. 
• Traditional seller strategy: This strategy involves a specific person who is responsible for creating and closing opportunities. After closing the deal, another employee – the “doer” – performs the work. In this strategy, the seller maintains a relationship with the client to find and close new opportunities. This isn’t the most common strategy in professional services firms because the client can’t evaluate the “doers” expertise or establish trust – which is usually a critical element in closing the deal. 
• Seller and expert strategy: This strategy is needed when extensive proposal and contract negotiation phases are required before closing a sale, which is usually the case with government contracts and large construction projects. This strategy requires a salesperson who manages the relationship and an expert who helps create the proposal and contract and will likely manage the actual work. This strategy is typically limited to large-budget projects.
• Business developer and closer-doer strategy: This model uses a salesperson to create opportunities and nurture leads, but they don’t provide an in-depth technical perspective to the client – nor do they close the sale. Many professional services firms label this role as a “business developer” as opposed to a salesperson. This frees up the doer’s schedule to spend more time on doing the job as opposed to finding and nurturing new client relationships. 

After reviewing the above sales and marketing strategies, you can align your sales and marketing efforts by holding a meeting — with both teams in the same room — to answer the following questions: 

• What sales and marketing strategies does our firm use to boost profitability, visibility, and growth? 
• Do we use different strategies at different times depending on the job?
• Would it be better to use different strategies than we’re already using?
• What roles do the sales team and the marketing team carry out to support the current strategies? Where do these roles align to support each other, and where do they conflict? 
• What changes can we make to bring sales and marketing efforts into better alignment around these strategies? 
• Or, if we change strategies, how can we align sales and marketing efforts to support the changes?

When you bring sales and marketing into a meeting to conduct discussions like this, a lot of creative solutions and “aha moments” rise to the surface. Soon enough, both teams will harmonize their strategies toward dramatically better results.

3.  ALIGNING FORCES: BEST PRACTICE FOR GETTING SALES AND MARKETING ON THE SAME PAGE

The previous section touched on the benefits of bringing representatives of sales and marketing into the same meetings. In this section, we’ll dive into the specific topics that sales and marketing should regularly discuss. Holding joint meetings on the following topics is a great way to keep the teams in sync:

• Strategy development meetings: First and foremost, sales and marketing should continually collaborate on determining the best strategy for communicating the firm’s messages, pursuing leads, nurturing client relationships, and measuring the results of these efforts.
• Content development meetings: Marketing teams spend a lot of time developing educational content such as blog posts, articles, webinars, and whitepapers. When the sales team participates in content development meetings with the marketing department, salespeople can provide valuable topic ideas based on their first-hand knowledge of what resonates with the target audience.
• Campaign development meetings: Marketing teams also spend time on creating and promoting new campaigns – such as events, ads, and speaking engagements – to boost visibility and attract new leads. Since it’s the sales team that will be communicating with those leads, the sales team should be involved in campaign development meetings to ensure that the marketing team is attracting the right clients.
• KPI meetings: Finally, it’s crucial that sales and marketing teams review the same key performance indicators (KPIs), and they should meet to review them at the same time and in the same room.

4.  ALIGNING METRICS: WHAT KPIS SHOULD SALES AND MARKETING REVIEW TOGETHER?

One of the most common reasons for misalignment happens when sales and marketing teams track different success metrics. That’s why it’s important for sales and marketing to hold regular KPI meetings where they review, discuss, and understand the latest KPIs together.

Here are the most important metrics that sales and marketing should review together:

• Implementation metrics: These figures relate to the various sales and marketing techniques and technologies your teams are implementing. They reveal the time, cost, and energy required for different strategies. Examples of implementation metrics might include statistics on CRM software – for example, how many team members are using it, how are they using it, and how much does it cost to use. It could also include figures related to sales tactics like the time and cost of reaching out to potential clients with personalized emails and phone calls. 
• Visibility metrics: These figures reveal how visible your firm and its services are to the target audience. Examples of visibility metrics include total website traffic, social media metrics, attendance numbers at events, Google search rankings for your website, and other stats that reveal how many people are seeing and interacting with your brand. 
• Expertise metrics: These numbers show the degree to which your potential customers are seeing and interacting with your thought leadership content. In other words, how successful has your firm been at demonstrating its expertise? Examples of expertise metrics include blog views, premium content downloads, guest post metrics, webinar attendee figures, and attendance at speaking engagements. 
• Impact metrics: These figures show the impact and success of your marketing and sales campaigns. In other words, they tell marketing and sales how worthwhile their efforts have been. Examples of impact metrics include figures on new leads and inquiries, sales pipeline stats related to different lead stages (i.e., raw leads, sales-ready leads, etc.), sales wins and losses, and monthly revenue figures to show how sales and marketing efforts are contributing to the bottom line.

Ultimately, if sales and marketing aren’t looking at the same KPIs in regular meetings, they’re not going to align their strategies to overcome challenges, and they could be creating more setbacks and challenges along the way. 

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Final Thoughts About Sales and Marketing Alignment

Thanks for staying with us and reading through this guide. At Hinge, we’ve held the hands of countless firms along the journey toward better sales and marketing alignment – and to our delight, we’ve watched our clients radically transform their businesses by implementing the simple tips and perspectives outlined above.

If you’d like to grow your business with lasting momentum, focusing your marketing and sales teams on the same goal makes sense. After all, better alignment between these two departments allows them to work together to attract the type of clients who are desperately seeking your services — and your company’s unique style of delivering them. 

Do you want to start the journey toward better sales and marketing alignment? Schedule a strategy session with Hinge, and we’ll show you exactly how to do it!

ELIZABETH HARR Elizabeth is an accomplished entrepreneur and experienced executive with a background in strategic planning, branding and growth for professional services. Elizabeth co-founded and ran a successful tech firm, which gives her critical insights into our professional services clients’ challe