The CMO Council recently published a report entitled “Closing the Gap: The Sales and Marketing Alignment Imperative.” Among other key findings, the study revealed that “…there is an urgent need for marketing, sales, and channel management to align and embrace technologies, processes, and programs that enable wider and deeper customer conversations, as well as leverage the knowledge, influence, and access of the channel and continuously refine the delivery of products and services in the most painless, seamless, and satisfying way.”
Although that’s definitely more than a mouthful, the points made are important ones and likely resonate with most marketers.
In this week’s #B2BChat, we will share ideas and thoughts on sales and marketing alignment. We will be joined by three of the leading sales and marketing alignment experts, Rod Sloane (@RodSloane), Ardath Albee (@Ardath421), and John Cousineau (@JCousineau).
Some questions we will pose to help guide the conversation include:
- Why is sales and marketing alignment difficult for most organizations?
- Who should take the lead in the alignment process—marketing or sales?
- What are marketing’s main complaints about sales?
- What are sales’ main complaints about marketing?
- What role do leads play in the effort to align marketing and sales?
- Does automated lead management help or hinder sales and marketing alignment?
- Should the marketing and sales teams share common goals and compensation plans?
- How do you measure sales and marketing alignment?
- How can sales and marketing alignment impact the bottom line?
Join us for this week’s #B2Bchat on sales and marketing alignment on Thursday, April 15 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (5:00 p.m. Pacific). Follow @B2B_chat for updates.
About the B2Bblogger: Kent Huffman is the CMO at BearCom Wireless, America’s only nationwide wireless equipment dealer and integrator. Kent is the Co-Publisher of a new digital publication for marketers, Social Media Marketing Magazine. He is a published author and has been featured in Forbes, Marketing News, BtoB, Computerworld, and Texas Technology magazines. Kent also serves in advisory roles for the CMO Council, MetricsBoard, and Social2B. You can follow him on Twitter at @KentHuffman.
