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Pipeline Football Game: Sales v. Marketing

Posted by Trish Bertuzzi on Tue, Nov 04, 2008
 

I think we have reached a milestone in the challenge of "who has responsibility for the pipeline?". 

The Olden Days: Sales was Responsible
Back in the olden days, sales was responsible for the pipeline.  They knocked on doors, they cold called, they networked at trade shows, they did whatever it took to find prospects and get them into the pipeline.  Then that changed.....

The Not-so Distant Past: Marketing was Responsible
This change made Marketing not only responsible for getting the prospects to self identify but also for nurturing them till they are ready to buy. 

So how did that happen? The availability of marketing automation certainly played a part in the shift.  There are a number of vendors in the market with the message "if you build it they will come".  And hopefully they are correct, the prospects will come.  But turning those prospects into customers is where the rubber meets the road.  Who owns that piece of the puzzle?

Pete Caputa wrote a great post on How Your Sales Team Can Support Your Online Marketing(Note: Pete is a rabid inbound marketing guy who happens to be in sales so his perspective is interesting.)  Here is an excerpt:

So, now that marketing is accountable. Sales has to be accountable. Sales doesn't have any more excuses.

  • Sales can't complain about lack of leads to call when each salesperson has 100 untouched leads. OR 1,000 that haven't been "closed lost" or "unqualified".

  • Sales can't really complain that these prospects aren't engaged or interested enough. They've opted-in to a sales process. If their interest can't be piqued, how the heck did your salespeople close anything from cold calling?

  • Sales can't complain that these prospects aren't really ready to buy yet. Sales should be nurturing them, identifying urgency and presenting appropriate solutions at the appropriate time.

  • Sales can't complain that these prospects just don't fit our typical customer profile. There's 100 untouched ones. Sales should call the next lead. Even better. Maybe sales can help develop additional profiles that need the company's expertise and/or help product management come up with products and services that serve another segment of the market. 

Ok. So, now that marketing is kicking butt - generating leads - literally "taking names" and sales has no more excuses. What's next?

Today and Future: Sales & Marketing Share Responsibility
So, what is Pete trying to communicate?  That Sales + Marketing = Pipeline.  No one group owns responsibility.  You have to work as a team, building a plan that integrates marketing messaging with sales relationship building.

 Here are a few quick tips on how to do that:

  1. Work together to develop your Ideal Customer Profile. What do high probability accounts look like? Get specific - if you say Fortune 500 feel free to shoot yourself in the foot! This will allow marketing to very specifically target only those prospects you want to end up in your pipeline.

  2. Build outbound campaigns that integrate marketing touches with sales interaction. The ball should be passed back and forth like in basketball and not just run down the field by the quarterback like in football. (Please note I stink at sports analogies!)

  3. Communicate to both organizations that they are each responsible for the pipeline. You have to stop pointing fingers and start joining hands!

Would love to hear from you!  How are your sales & marketing organizations working together to build pipeline and generate revenue?

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COMMENTS

I think it is great that marketing is taking more of a role of gathering qualified leads for the Sales Department. This is happening in a very few companies.  
 
But anyone who has been in Sales a good period of time knows that there is more to closing a sale then just be handed a qualified lead.  
 
Even if Sales is given a 100 qualified leads I wonder what the percentage of those lead close?  
 
The number is going to be better then 100 cold call leads. Yes. But there are still issues (price, product and how your features fit into the clients marketing plans).  
 
Is this just Sales fault if all 100 qualified leads don't buy? Of course not.  
 
Again it is great some (and this is a small percentage) of Marketing Departments are handing over qualified leads to Sales.  
 
But even if they did Sales didn't close all the leads is that totaly Sales fault?

posted @ Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:06 AM by John Flynn


John, thanks for joining the conversation! The point I was getting at is that sales and marketing need to partner to be successful. There should be no finger pointing...only an integrated strategy that drives optimal results. A "no fault" situation so to speak.

posted @ Tuesday, November 04, 2008 10:39 AM by trish bertuzzi


Is it okay for me to say that "this is an awesome post"? I feel a bit vain saying that since it looks like I played a part in inspiring it.  
 
But, I appreciate you guys carrying the torch on your blog. I know you guys live and breathe this stuff for yourselves. I'm really glad to see it get aired on your blog.  
 
I think John is right that very few marketing organizations actually contribute to qualified lead generation for their sales team.  
 
But, if they don't start figuring it out, I think they should be canned. The world is changing. The best prospects are searching, browsing and asking their contacts (through linkedin, etc) about what solutions to use. If your marketing and sales teams aren't getting you visibility there, you have less opportunities to talk to interested prospects and close deals.  
 
The world is definitely changing and marketing and sales have the opportunity to collaborate like they never did before. Smart sales and marketing pros are figuring that out now.

posted @ Tuesday, November 04, 2008 4:47 PM by peter caputa


Peter has a post on the Hubspot blog (http://tinyurl.com/5n49b9) titled 5 Steps for Successful Social Media Marketing. My original thought after reading this post is that the steps should be taken by Marketing, but after reading Trish's post, the steps in Peter's post should be done by both Sales and Marketing together. Great insight! 

posted @ Tuesday, November 04, 2008 6:52 PM by David Criswell


I agree, David. 
 
Sales and marketing should both be using social media effectively.

posted @ Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:45 AM by peter caputa


-------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Trish: good post. I must confess that I've never seen a pipeline owned by marketing. However, I do believe that Marketing has a responsibility to fill the pipeline. Marketing and Sales need to work together to make sure that only qualified leads make it into the pipeline. Just like John said, 100 leads does not mean that you have 100 customers.... 
 
- Dr. Jim Anderson 
The Accidental Negotiator Blog 
"Learn The Secrets of Side-By-Side Negotiating To Get The Most Value Out Of Every Negotiation" 
--------------------------------------------------------------------

posted @ Wednesday, November 05, 2008 8:19 PM by Dr. Jim Anderson


Wow, thanks for your nice great tips here

posted @ Thursday, November 06, 2008 12:09 AM by Sales and Marketing Consultant Firm


Guys , I have worked both the dark and the light side , you are on the right track but I believe you need to develop it further. So long as there is an "us and them" mindset in sales and marketing there will not be much progress. Marketing can develop as many leads as they want but until sales feeds back on the progress of the calls and further develops and defines the ideal leads required, the previous scenarios described apply. Sales and marketing especially below the line need to work together to define demand generation strategies and constantly learn and improve them. 
 
After all as a salesman I lived for well qualified leads. In marketing I need o know what defines a well qualified lead. 
 
I trust I make sense, feel free to contact me for further discussions.

posted @ Thursday, November 06, 2008 3:01 PM by Richard Simpkins


Trish,  
It's great to hear the "shared responsibility" message from you - I've been promoting thjios message for some time now to my clients in the UK and I do believe that more and more companies have bought into the message.  
 
The tougher question I've had to grapple with recently is how to measure the effectiveness of Sales and the effectiveness of Marketing - without double counting and without setting Sales against Marketing.  
 
Brian  
Achieve Sales Ltd

posted @ Friday, November 07, 2008 1:39 PM by Brian Ashley


It is helpful to look at the sales pipeline in segments. The wider early part of the pipeline is primarily the responsibility of marketing, as the lead becomes more and more qualified and moves down the pipleine, it moves into the purveiw of the sales department. The actual sale is almost completely the responsibility of the sales department. 
 
 
 
In effective organizations, a well funded marketing department will generate qualified leads, a certain percentage of which will turn into sales opportunities, a certain percentage of which will turn into sales. It has been my experience that turning 10% of your qualified leads into actual sales (be advised I work in a business to business sales model) is doing extremely well. 
 
 
 

posted @ Friday, November 07, 2008 4:01 PM by Shawn Bezzant


I find it helpful to look at the stats that Sirius Decisions and others have been publishing the last few years. Using 1000 new "inquiries" as the starting point, let's look at the difference between the a company with an average marketing and sales team vs one that is market leading: 
Avg Best 
Inquiries 1000 1000 
MQL 50 100 
Closed 3 14 
 
This is just the abbreviated stats from the last SD study earlier this year. They key takeaways are that market leading companies with well established marketing <> sales lead qualification processes are able to: 
1. Deliver double the number of MQLs (market qualified leads) than average firms 
2. Close over 4x the number of deals from the original 1000 inquiries.  
 
What this shows is that for most B2B companies, their problem is not at generating more leads at the top of the funnel. Its about marketing and sales working together to execute processes through the funnel. No finger pointing, no "us" vs "them". Just collaborating to understand what a sales-ready opportunity looks and acts like and evolving the qualification and nurturing processes until they work right.  
 
It takes leadership from both the marketing and sales chiefs to make it happen. But the numbers don't lie about why companies should focus on making alignment and collaboration happen. 
 
Henry Bruce 
@hebruce 

posted @ Wednesday, November 24, 2010 4:50 PM by Henry Bruce


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