Sales & Marketing Alignment: The Power Couple that Enables Sales Performance

Season 2 launches with Episode 9, where Dani and Shaye deep dive into "The Power Couple," which is sales and marketing, and how together, when in alignment, can be powerful for sales performance, specifically sales enablement, inbound marketing, and lead generation.

Shaye Smith is the Marketing Manager for LeadG2, The Center for Sales Strategy, and Up Your Culture, three divisions that work together to help companies and organizations achieve total revenue performance, and she shares real-life examples and cases where she aligns her marketing efforts with the sales division to ensure both are aligned and working towards improved sales performance.

Tune in now or keep reading for a brief overview.

About Shaye Smith

Shaye Smith is the Marketing Manager for The Center for Sales Strategy, LeadG2, and Up Your Culture. She oversees all marketing, public relationship, and promotional efforts, including three blogs, and is the producer for two livecasts – including this one!   

Her motto is, “If you love what you do, is it really work?”  

She enjoys seeing new ideas come to fruition then tracking them to improve upon them for future projects and campaigns, as well as helping fellow co-workers grow their thought leadership, and seeing the company and its divisions improve sales performance. 

Shaye lives in Destin, Florida, with her son Josiah and two pups – Bella and Nina. She is very active in the Florida Public Relations Association – and just served as past President of the Northwest Florida Coast Chapter.  

She enjoys volunteering at her church and was also recently chosen as United Way’s 2021 “40 Under 40” Emerging Leaders!  

What is Sales and Marketing Alignment?

When Shaye thinks of alignment, she thinks of parallel lines or putting two things going in the same direction.

"I define sales and marketing alignment as syncing both sales and marketing strategies and tactics to align with the organization's overall business goals. Both teams share the same goals and objectives," she states.

Marketing is a sales initiative; it's there to help meet sales growth goals. In B2B marketing, Shaye says, "If you're not marketing for sales, then you're not doing your job. If the marketing strategy does not align with the sales strategy, and you're not working to drive revenue, then you're not doing your job."

Benefits of Sales and Marketing Alignment

During the interview, Dani asks Shaye what kind of results will an organization see and what kind of problems will sales and marketing alignment solve.

Streamlining strategies is a huge benefit because when working towards the same goal, you achieve higher revenue, growth, and better performance," Shaye explains. "You also set your sales team up for success."

Some examples of setting your sales team up for success are:

• Helping the sales team be in the know and utilize sales enablement content.

• If aligned, marketing content help salespeople establish themselves as thought leaders. This helps establish trust with prospects and leads.

A benefit of sales and marketing alignment for both teams is that it saves time. "When marketing creates content, there's a planning process. If you just plan for marketing, then the sales team comes along with ideas and changes, then the content strategy has to be redefined," explains Shaye.

If using a CRM like HubSpot, then another added benefit of alignment is the analytics you get. "You can directly see where content and campaigns are coming into play in the buyer's journey," Shaye states. "You can see the attribution of content, what helped gain a lead, and at what point sales is using content."

If sales and marketing are aligned, you should see more qualified leads coming in because you're talking directly to the right person from the beginning. And after the leads come in, your sales team should be able to properly nurture those leads and close more deals faster.

How Marketing Can Ensure Alignment with Sales

Sales and marketing alignment is an ambiguous idea.

With that in mind, Dani asks Shaye specific things she has done as a Marketing Manager to help ensure marketing is aligning with sales.

"One thing we've done is ensure both teams are up to speed on target personas," explains Shaye. "Through sales and marketing alignment, we understand who our target persona is, and we ensure that the sales team is involved in the target persona process."

To help keep sales and marketing alignment top of mind, Shaye recommends talking to all key leaders and the sales team often. "Interview your subject matter experts, or even top clients, to create a target persona. Keeping that document up to date and in front of the content team is crucial."

Shaye also advises marketing managers to:

• Set up meetings between the sales and marketing teams.

• Involve both teams in content and campaign planning.

• Define what content is needed upfront.

• Build a relationship with the sales team.

• Think past form fills.

Tune in now for specific examples and tips to help align marketing and sales.

During the livecast, Shaye also discusses a few ways in which sales leaders can ensure sales and marketing alignment. Some of her tips include:

• Being upfront about needs in the sales process.

• Thinking of how to repurpose content.

• Giving feedback on what's working and what isn't.

• Communicating often.

Don’t miss another episode of the Sell Smarter. Sell Faster. where Dani Buckley, VP/GM of LeadG2 speaks with experts and thought leaders across a variety of industries and learn how they implementer of some of the most proven sales enablement and inbound marketing tactics and strategies. Visit SellSmarterSellFaster.com to learn more.

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