For years, B2B marketers have been measured by the quantity of leads they generate for the sales team, whose job is to convert them into revenue. When leads don’t convert, the departments can blame each other for poor leads or bad sales efforts. Without resolution, the standoff can persist.
One chief marketing officer who has systematically diffused the tension between her counterparts in sales is Rashmi Vittal of Conversica, a provider of virtual assistant software. Vittal discusses how a simple but robust nine-square grid fully aligns her team with sales and eliminates potential conflicts before they start. Among the keys to this détente: making sure marketers walk in sales’ shoes, sales enablement playbooks, a commitment to continuous improvement and a shared set of performance metrics. In other words, there is no hand-off.
Conversica CMO discusses how an alignment grid keeps the departments' partnership on track.
Read the full Q&A on Ad Age: How a Software Company Ended the War between Marketing and Sales
Listen to the Episode: One CMO’s System for Aligning Sales and Marketing
