30. Can marketing and sales be friends? With William Redick

Transcript: Can Marketing and Sales be friends?

[00:00:00] Marketing and sales tend to have a tumultuous relationship. Sales is mad at marketing because they aren't getting good leads. Marketing is mad at sales because they aren't following up on leads or communicating any details about the interactions they're having with prospects. Obviously, from my examples, you can see most of my experiences on the marketing side.

[00:00:22] Today we're talking with William Reddick about how to align marketing and sales, so the business win. Obviously we know that everybody fails if the business fails. And by aligning marketing and sales, stopping that boxing match and really becoming a secular relationship where marketing is supporting the sales process and helping to close those deals, everybody wins.

[00:00:49] It's a win-win. So stay tuned and listen to all of these lovely little nuggets from William. Hello, and welcome to Tiny Marketing. I'm [00:01:00] Sarah No Block and I teach small marketing departments that are tired of feeling overwhelmed and under-resourced. How to build and manage effective and efficient marketing strategies that work for them.

[00:01:10] Get ready. It's time to dig in and get a big impact with your tiny team.

[00:01:22] Marketing and sales teams seem to constantly be in a boxing match, trying to knock each other out. Marketing's not bringing in enough leads, and sales isn't closing the leads that marketing is bringing in. How do we move from enemies to friends? Today I'm talking to William Reddick of Global Performance Group, who is a sales expert, and he's going to talk to us today about how marketing and sales can work better together.

[00:01:48] So stay. My name is William Reddick. I am the Vice President of Marketing and Sales Enablement for Global Performance Group. Global Performance Group. We consider ourselves a revenue improvement company, [00:02:00] so we impact sustainable success for sales organizations by maximizing margins, revenue and profitability.

[00:02:07] We use a hybrid ecosystem of application focused solutions to do that, to make sure that it's scalable through technology, and also that our clients have expert coaching. So our objective is to spark a revenue generating fluency regardless of the size of your organization. So you could be a smaller organization with one to two sales people.

[00:02:26] Or a larger organization like we work with on on a regular basis as well. Either way, our programs help to transform companies in the way that they operate and the way that they generate revenue. So that's Global Performance Group and what we do. Thank you so much for joining me. Let's talk a little bit about how we met.

[00:02:42] We were on your podcast. Can you maybe just do a little pitch on your podcast and where they can find. Definitely. Yeah, it was great meeting you through that as the B2B Sales Trends podcast. And that podcast is hosted by Global Performance Group. That's the company that I work for. [00:03:00] And you know, it was great having you on to be able to talk about all kinds of things from sales enablement hubs and content strategy and lead generation, and your insights there that you had on on marketing.

[00:03:09] You could find that podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify podcasts, or Google Play. Yeah, it was a good time. I don't talk. Sales a lot because I don't feel like a great seller. , I'm not a salesperson at all, and as like the leader of my shop, I should probably be better at it. . . It feels so awkward. I just can't do it.

[00:03:34] No, you did great. Your insights were awesome Also. Yeah, I'm an educator at heart. I think I sell through teaching, but today we're gonna talk about a topic that's. Near and dear to my heart because I was working in corporate America for a really long time, and I would team up with the salespeople as I was the one person marketing department.

[00:03:54] So I was their person for their support, and I was able to have a [00:04:00] pretty good relationship with sales. But that isn't always the case a lot of times. Volume whose fault it is that goals aren't being met. So today we're gonna talk about sales enablement and how marketing and sales can work together better.

[00:04:14] So let's start there. What is the biggest challenge of getting marketing and sales to work together? . Yeah, so I have a few thoughts on that actually. So to start, I think we talked about this a little bit to some degree before, but I think it is that lack of alignment on goals and key performance indicators.

[00:04:35] I think a lot of times the sales team feels like that the marketing team doesn't necessarily have the same objective as them in terms of like closing the deal in the same. Like level of commitment to that. And so I think in order to improve upon that, I think it's the case. Value. What value can we provide them as marketers?

[00:04:55] What value can we provide the sales team to show that we are also committed to that [00:05:00] same objective, that we're also aligned in the same way that they are. So it's really about, in my mind, showing them how we can be valuable to them and accomplishing their goals. And then along with that, a few other things like a lack of feedback.

[00:05:12] on what working and what isn't. So maybe marketing and sales. They're not communicating back and forth about, Hey, you know, this collateral doesn't really, you know, do it for this persona or, that's a good point. Let's talk about that a little bit further. Where do you think communication is missing the mark?

[00:05:29] Like at what point should it be happening? Should they be collaborating during like the content strategy phase, content planning, or is it. Reactive feedback. That's really helpful. Like, all right, we've tested this out and it isn't working. . Yeah. In my experience, I think it's both. . I think marketing and sales should be hand in hand.

[00:05:51] Yeah. Considering the way that the sales cycles work, their use of collateral, their help, you know, with messaging, with all kinds of things. And you know, marketers [00:06:00] were the experts in those areas, right? Yeah. So truly I think sales should be leaning on us for that. And we should be leaning on sales to get their feedback on their customers.

[00:06:09] Cause they're talking to the customers all the time. So how valuable is that to us as marketers? To be able to better position what our offerings are in our messaging and in everything that we're doing on the website to, to social, to everywhere. Yes. I think it can be reactive, but I also think the more that we can communicate earlier in the processes of even developing new content, uh, I think it, that's critical too.

[00:06:32] Yeah, I think you're spot on with that. I think that where marketers are missing the mark with sales is they aren't using sales as a customer research tool. They are talking to the customers every single day and they can really collaborate so much more if they were able to be a fly on the wall on those conversations.

[00:06:54] Maybes could invite marketing in on those calls just as a listener so they can better [00:07:00] understand what customers are asking for and how they can support them better. That in itself should trigger content ideas when you're listening to that, like, oh yes, I'm gonna jot that down. Definitely. Yeah, a hundred percent agree with that.

[00:07:17] So we talked a little bit on your podcast about how marketers can better support sales. Let's talk about that. We talked about sales enablement and sales enablement hubs. How can marketers create the best sales enablement possible for sales? I think first it starts with what you were just talking about.

[00:07:39] Sit in on sales. Learn how they're talking to clients, what objections are they facing on a regular basis. I think that could help you to better position your own content, but then also be able to any type of collateral that you're providing them that can help to overcome those objections before they're even objections when they have their collateral.

[00:07:56] Yeah. Think about as you're sitting on these sales calls or even just watching the [00:08:00] recordings, cause a lot of sales teams do that. They record their sales calls. How are they positioning the product? To the different personas. Obviously as marketers, we should know, right, who our ideal customer profile is, and so within that, who are the personas?

[00:08:14] Who are the stakeholders that they're consistently pitching to? And so how do we position the product to those different personas? What collateral could be helpful to them in each one of these conversations with these different personas? I think those are all things to be thinking about as you're listening in on sales calls.

[00:08:31] So I think that's one way that we can help better support sales. Is through that and then ensuring that the sales team sees your value. How can you help them throughout the sales process? That's another, another area I think a lot of conversation, checking in with them constantly to see, Hey, what are some big deals that you're working on?

[00:08:47] Yeah. What big deals do you have in the funnel right now? And so how can I support you? Let's collaborate on this As marketers, we do a lot of brainstorming, right? There's a lot of creative. Let's throw some ideas at the wall and see what sticks. I don't think salespeople are really used to [00:09:00] that. You know what I mean?

[00:09:01] So bring them into the fold a little bit. What kind of custom tailored content can I create? For this big account that you have coming up that can help you. What kind of campaigns can we launch for this potential big deal that you're getting ready to close? And I think that right there improves on what we talked about in the beginning, which is how do we increase the collaboration between marketers and sales?

[00:09:21] And once they see, hey, you're providing that value, you're using your creativity to help me close my deal, that's gonna get a huge commission. Hey, I'm all in. And then also checking in with the experienced salespeople to ensure that collateral messaging is aligned with the personas that they're dealing with on a regular basis.

[00:09:36] So I think those are a few things. I'm taking notes on what you're saying right now, so it looks like I'm distracted in emailing somebody right now, but I'm taking notes because I want to make sure to highlight for our. These action steps that they should be taking. So I'm just gonna highlight them right now.

[00:09:54] they need to find out what these objections are that salespeople are getting on their calls so they [00:10:00] can create content around them and create the rebuttal before the objections happen. And when sales are getting those objections on the calls, they have that content ready to shoot out for them. Another action step.

[00:10:14] record the sales calls so marketing can listen to them. and then action. Step three, ask what accounts sales are working on right now so you can really create an account-based marketing plan for them and collaborate on those campaigns. Check in with sales and see what they need. Probably one more action step, we'll do a four.

[00:10:34] The last one would be create regular. Calls between sales and marketing so you can have those check-ins, find out what leads really worked out for them and what leads aren't making sense, and you can reverse engineer that. Look at your HubSpot or whatever marketing automation tool you're using to find out where the good leads came from and where the bad leads came from so you can figure out what really [00:11:00] works.

[00:11:00] All testing, definitely. Okay, last question on sales. , how does content play a role in sales enablement? Yeah, so I think it's all about making sure that everything that the sales team needs to be successful is readily available to them. It's like what we talked about before, different types of collateral for different types of personas.

[00:11:22] Having that readily available to them, categorize so they could go in somewhere, whether that's in your sales enablement hub, a Google Drive, whatever it is, that they can just easily access it. They know where it's different types of collateral for different stages in the sales process and with recommendations even, Hey, use this brochure.

[00:11:39] In this situation versus this brochure when this situation arises, a recorded demo would be great. One pagers, slide decks, case studies, proposals, templates, all of those things. Making sure that all of those things are accessible to your sales team and that it's what we talked about before, that you're getting feedback from them on what's working and what's not working.

[00:11:59] And so something that [00:12:00] I've found helpful, particularly with our sales team at Global Performance Group is, you know, kind of having a messaging matrix as well with that. So not just necessarily like the content that's ready, plug and play collateral throughout the sales process, but also. , what about for their conversations or what about for their outreach and their messaging that they're doing that they're not always checking in with marketing on?

[00:12:21] So having persona specific, what we call nuggets of value, because you know, it's their job throughout the process as they're nurturing leads to be providing information. Right. And kinda the teaching moments, like you talked about to their prospects. So what kinds of things are interesting? And valuable to different personas, plug and play that they could just, these are messaging nuggets that would make sense in certain situations, and then they can insert.

[00:12:47] Exactly. Yeah. And then obviously like they should be doing their own research as well, the sales team. But if they're finding new things that are valuable that they're getting great results with, they should be adding that to the resource that you've created. Yeah, [00:13:00] and a lot of times, at least in my experience, sales is they're better at.

[00:13:06] Like verbal communication where marketers are more used to written communication. So while sales knows exactly what to say, marketing will be able to refine those in those little bite size, plug and play nuggets and make the message super clear. Definitely. Yeah, I've gotten a lot of that in working with sales teams, you know, helping them with their writing efforts.

[00:13:29] So that's another way that as marketers, we can provide a lot of value to the sales team, is helping them a little bit with their written communications. So, yeah. All right. I'm gonna do a call back to the sales enablement hub that we were talking about a second ago. Okay. What I wanted to talk about is a lot of these sales enablement hubs, you can see the analytics of how often these tools are being used, each of those content pieces, and there's reports that you can find in these sales enablement.

[00:13:57] So when sales are [00:14:00] using your marketing, you'll be able to know what's working and what's not. So you can further refine later on. Always look at those analytics . Definitely. Yeah. Analytics are important for sure. Is there anything that you wanna add about sales enablement? Ultimately, it's just helping the sales team to be as successful as possible.

[00:14:19] It's setting them up for success by providing them with resources and your support to make sure that they're effective. I think that's really what it boils down to. Yeah. Sales and marketing, they're supposed to be best friends. , right? Marketing is a support role to sales because in the end, the whole business is going to thrive or die based on the sales that come in.

[00:14:42] How can people find you online and do you have any lead gens that you want to? Share with the audience. Sure, yeah. Audience can find me online on LinkedIn, William Reddick, you'll find me there. You could also find me through the global performance group.com website and yeah, be sure to check out the B2B Sales Trends podcast.

[00:14:59] [00:15:00] It's a great podcast, I think, for marketers and salespeople, regardless of the size of your organization, to kind of give you tips and tricks and kind of see what the larger organizations are doing to be successful in their sales operat. Thank you so much for joining me today. I had my notebook out. I was taking tons of notes from William.

[00:15:21] I really loved what he had to say about sales enablement and account-based marketing. I think those are real wins on how to create a marketing system that serve sales and increases sales. It's a win for everybody. Now if you enjoy this episode, don't forget to follow and tell all your friends about the Tiny Marketing Show.

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