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INTRODUCTION
Marketing and Sales are really two sides of the same coin. They are both responsible for generating revenue for the company. Revenue is a result of a straightforward equation [Rev=(PipeOpp × Avg Deal × WinRate)/CycleTime) × Sellers]: Opportunities in the pipeline multiplied by the average deal size multiplied by the win rate and then this product is divided by the sales cycle time. This result multiplied by all the sellers in your organization determines your revenue. Even a small increase in any of these variables can make a huge difference. The better marketing and sales are aligned, the more likely each of these factors can be improved thereby increasing the company's revenue. Yet the lack of alignment between Marketing and Sales inhibits many companies from achieving their revenue goals.
As a point of reference, some of the most recent research conducted by CSO Insights and IDC reveal four issues that are a result of this lack of alignment:
Longer sales cycles : Today's sales cycles are 25 per cent longer than they were a year ago.
Missed quotas : Only about 43 per cent of sales representatives (reps) made quota in 2006.
Productivity : Sales staff use up to 40 per cent of their time each week developing materials to support their sales efforts.
Sales efficiency : Fewer than 25 per cent of CMOs and 14 per cent of Senior Sales Executives are satisfied with their ability to optimize sales efficiency and effectiveness.
A CMO Study conducted by The Red Herring found that 42 per cent of the respondents gave marketing and sales alignment a nine or a ten (probably should include what the scale meant was 9 or 10 considered high or low and what was the max, etc) in terms of being one of the top crucial issues they need to address.
This issue of marketing and sales alignment is not new. Most marketing and sales people have been in organizations where Marketing has been known to accuse Sales of not following up on leads and refusing to track leads through the sales cycle, and Sales has been known to accuse Marketing of not providing viable qualified leads. This misalignment is often attributed to a variety of factors, such as different...