Walk a Mile in Those SMarketing Shoes
 I am throwing down a gauntlet and asking you dear readers to take it up. Every day I have conversations with vendors, consultants, analysts and clients about Sales & Marketing alignment. You can’t swing a cat without finding some blog or another talking about the very same thing. But, when does the rubber meets the road? Yes, we can get all cerebral and plan, strategize, define and measure but if you really want your Sales & Marketing organizations to understand each other’s challenges – they need to walk a mile in each other’s shoes. So, here is my “put your money where your mouth is” challenge: If you are a Marketing Executive, are you willing to take 100 random leads that you generated and jump on the phone to qualify them? Track the process you used, the time it took and the results you derived and then report back to Sales. All the meetings and brainstorming sessions in the world will not give you the same level of visibility into the quality of your leads that this exercise will. Oh, and if you are fortunate enough to have a staff, they have to grab 100 as well. If you are a Sales Executive, you have to design a marketing campaign and execute it. You have to target the audience, write the message/offer and pick the medium for communication. You also have to track the process you used, the time it took and the results you derived and then report back to Marketing. Oh, and everyone who ever used the words “I need more leads or these leads stink”, they have to design campaigns as well. So, who will volunteer for this? If you volunteer it would be our pleasure to post the results and what you learned about each other through the process. C’mon, a mile isn't so far is it? (Image credit: Watt_Dabney)
COMMENTS
Nice one Trish I love the idea, I cant say I know too many companies or people for that matter who would be willing to try something as :radical" as you are suggesting. I would suspect however if they did , the retuns would be astanomical. Great post
I love your idea Trish! But, you know I have to say this..... we already do this at HubSpot everyday. Sales and Marketing share the same nervous system. We track, measure, analyze, and report on everything. Maybe we are ahead of the curve, but your challenge is still pretty cool. Let's see if you get any offers!
I coined the phrase SMARKETING, that Prof. Thomas Steenburg, wrote about in the Harvard Business School, case study about HubSpot :-) I will take the Trish Bertuzzi/SMARKETING Challenge. How do we start?
Dan, you are on! I have to say that Hubspot is not the typical company in this regard but we should get a good use case from this exercise. It could provide benchmarks that others could compare themselves against. I will reach out to you under seperate cover and we will get the ball rolling. Thanks!
I read a similar set of questions on another blog some time back. A head of sales was venting "why can't they do it", "why can't they design this feature", etc. A lot of "why can't they..." At times it's difficult to see the larger picture when you have a deadline to meet, and numbers to achieve. We do at times need to step back and walk in another persons shoes to understand the intricacies. http://blog.insideview.com/2010/04/27/connecting-the-dots-how-sales-2-0-can-help-you-connect-with-prospects/
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