Sales and Marketing: Building a Two-Way Street

If the sales playbook helps transfer accumulated knowledge from Marketing to Sales, how do you see the knowledge that Sales gains from its customers making its way back to Marketing for revitalizing and improving marketing assets? How do you institutionalize this two-way street?

This was one of the most compelling questions we received in our recent Webinar, "The Essential Sales Playbook." Here's  how experts Bill Golder of Miller Heiman and Christian Patrik of Bulldog Solutions responded.

Bill Golder, Miller Heiman: Well, I think the answer is the same, which is making sure that there's some established routine between Sales and Marketing to share what happens when we win and what happens when we lose, and what are the steps I'm having to take as a salesperson based on buying behaviors to win deals? And also sharing those observations such as: What tools did I use to help me? What tools are not useful or need to be updated? That kind of regular tempo of meetings to talk about real deals, real sales meetings, with regular milestones established, whether it's monthly or quarterly, to have those conversations, allows Marketing to get the voice of the customer through the eyes and the mouths of the salespeople.

Christian Patrik, Bulldog Solutions: I couldn't agree with you more, Bill. I discussed that in larger organizations, we've seen the rise of the sales enablement role. In the past we've probably seen some people in Marketing who have acted as "interlopers" in Sales, a kind of Marketing "inside person." Having Sales and Marketing work together on a revenue committee or having Marketing come to sales forecast meetings on a weekly basis is a great way to start. Being able to view where opportunities are within the funnel—how they came in—makes it easier for Marketing to reverse-engineer tactics to get more of those people who are falling deeper in the funnel after first or second touches.

See the Webinar, "The Essential Sales Playbook."