When I asked members of the B2B Lead Generation Roundtable on LinkedIn how companies can improve alignment between sales and marketing, our discussion board was inundated with keen insight and brutal honesty. Marketers and sales professionals were clearly eager to square off about why we too often miss the mark and what we can do about it.
This was precisely the frontline reality I was seeking before presenting “Playbook
for Marketing and Sales Alignment: How to Collaborate to Optimize Lead Generation Programs,” at Frost & Sullivan’s Growth, Innovation and Leadership Conference last month in San Francisco.
Even though, as most of you know, I intensely study this issue, business transforms itself at light speed; that’s why I appreciate the thousands of professionals who make up the B2B Lead Generation Roundtable. They’re in the thick of it, dealing with the challenges, seizing the opportunities. For them, there’s no time for philosophizing; it’s all about driving revenue. That’s why the roundtable is my favorite sounding board and a powerful source of inspiration.
If you review the pages of responses – they’re a lively read, trust me – they all point to what Doug Kessler, Creative Director of Velocity Partners, UK, summed up in his statement, “This feels like the next big frontier in B2B.”
Doug nailed it: where there’s room for improvement there’s room for opportunity and the revenues that come with it.
If the discussion is any indication, savvy marketers and sales professionals are well on their way to making the most of that opportunity: they know when they’ve gone off track, but they definitely know how to get to where they need to go. Here is a small sampling of some juicier tidbits:
If you don’t have strong leadership, you won’t stay on track. “It starts at the top,” explains Andrea Courtin, Marketing Consultant for TrusteSolutions in Houston, TX. “For sales and marketing teams to truly align, they need a mandate from the executive team.”
