The 7 Growth Killers Y


Growth Killer #3: Sales & Marketing Misalignment


by Tim Kinney, Strategic Growth Planner


ou may have experienced this before: you are driving down a nice straight road when your car


starts to slowly pull to the right. You gently steer left to correct and get back on course. But, sure enough, the car begins to pull again to the right. You need an alignment. It’s not serious. But, if not addressed, it can become dangerous and lead to other problems. Much like a car, your sales and


marketing can fall out of alignment, too. Or even worse, they can start working against each other like two opposing forces in physics. When your sales and marketing efforts become misaligned, your growth plan may veer off course or may stall out completely. Let’s take a closer look under the


hood of Growth Killer #3 (before I drive this car analogy into the ground). There are a number of interrelated factors of sales and marketing misalignment. To start, let’s revisit the classic new business development


funnel, or in modern


parlance, the customer journey funnel. Most business development funnels follow a similar flow: new leads are attracted into the top of the wide mouth funnel and converted into customers through a process of awareness/ attraction, engagement, nurturing, priming and closing. Typically, marketing focuses their efforts on the top half of the funnel, generating awareness, engaging and nurturing leads. Then, there’s a natural hand-off to the sales team who will prime and close the lead. Well- designed funnels have systems in place to automate processes, recycle leads and accelerate the cycle through the funnel and optimize the overall performance. But things don’t always go as planned. For instance, let’s address the issue


of lead qualification, which is often a sore spot between sales and marketing.


24 ❘ June 2019 ®


Ultimately, it comes down to different criteria used to qualify a new business lead. Sales qualified lead criteria is often much tighter than marketing qualified lead criteria. That makes sense – your sales team wants to focus their time and energy on decision makers who are ready to buy which is a much smaller set of leads than marketing, which might include decision influencers and those who are only researching solutions but not yet buying. This usually works fine, unless qualification criteria on either side become too loose or too narrow. Marketers tend to take a broader


view and have multiple target audiences which includes potential customers as well as thought leaders, influencers, government officials and community leaders, investors, job seekers, vendors, etc. Very large global companies may even consider anyone seeking products, services or information about the company as a target audience. Their net can be very wide so rather than a single funnel, they are managing multiple funnels. The target audience for sales is much more focused and specific. Your sales team wants a motivated decision- maker who wants to buy within a short time frame (now!) with a total value mindset (not just price shopping) and has the money to pay. Time frame is also a big factor. Marketers take the long view and are willing to invest in lead nurturing activity that may span several years from initial point of awareness through several deepening steps of engagement before handing off a qualified lead. Time frame for sales is typically shorter since most sales professionals are measured on production, new revenue monthly, quarterly annually, etc.


Product/ Service promotion is another factor. If your marketing campaigns are


Over the past 28 years, Tim Kinney has helped companies generate hundreds of millions in new growth. He is the Vice President of Accident & Health Marketing for Sirius Group, a global reinsurance company. Tim is also a writer, trainer and consultant specializing in strategic growth planning. He is the editor of the blog Growth Monitor Weekly and recently produced an online course, “How To Build Your Growth Strategy.” His book, the Growth Strategist’s Guidebook, is available on Amazon.com.


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