SG Podcast - Episode 5
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[00:00:00] Richard: A 2020 study by LinkedIn revealed that 90 percent of sales and marketing professionals report misalignment between the teams across strategy, process, and culture. Today, we dive into sales and marketing misalignment, some root causes, and what you as a leader can do about it. Welcome to Some Goodness.
[00:00:26] Welcome to Some Goodness where we engage seasoned business leaders and experts to share practical guidance and tips to help new and future C level leaders maximize their impact. My guest today for the second time is Tracy Mustachio, multi time CXO. She's led companies as a chief product officer as well as a chief marketing officer, has lots of great experience to share with us.
[00:00:50] Tracy, welcome back.
[00:00:51] Tracey: Thank you. Happy to be here.
[00:00:54] Richard: All right. We teased in our last time that another important topic that That certainly comes our way and your way is just this idea of aligning sales and marketing. And so, let's dive into that. So when you think about, some of your recent roles as a CMO or CPO I think we'll focus mainly today as a CMO, right?
[00:01:18] And you shared that a lot of times, when you join an organization, it's to make a change, right? They're going through a transformation. They need to take things to the next level. So, in that context, why is sales and marketing alignment just so important to get right?
[00:01:35] Tracey: I think typically what we're trying to do is grow the company overall.
[00:01:38] And so to do that from the customer standpoint, sales and marketing have to be lockstep aligned, or the customer inevitably gets a bad experience. If marketing is doing one thing, messaging one thing and sales is doing another or vice versa the result is not good for the customer and they would typically probably rather deal with the competitor than you.
[00:02:00] So that's, that's just in general around the customer. But the second thing is, you know, when you talk about company revenue, there was a study done a couple of years ago by Aberdeen group and it's really around aligned teams produce more revenue, 32 percent more than teams that are not aligned.
[00:02:21] Richard: Yeah, that's a big stat. That's the opportunity, right? That we have in front of us. When I think about change, right? I think about pain and gain. So that's the game that we have out there in front of us, but the pain is something that we see in revenue enablement all the time, which is marketing teams frustrated because they're creating great.
[00:02:41] Right. Content and assets for the sales team could be positioning, could be conversational messaging, and the sales teams not using it. And then the sales teams over here saying, hey, you know, marketing's throwing all this stuff at us. That's not what I need. Right? And so when you think about kind of the pain side, what are some things in terms of misalignment that you're seeing as it manifests itself in the sales organization and with marketing and sales teams working together?
[00:03:10] Tracey: Well, I think it comes down to with shared goals and shared values, we're all working towards the same, the same goal. Getting there in different, getting there in different ways, but working towards the same goal. One of the experiences that I had early on in my career I was going for a promotion.
[00:03:27] I was in marketing and I was going for the, The top marketing position and my boss at the time was the COO and he refused to promote me. And his reason was Tracy. I just don't think the sales folks are going to respect you yet. You're doing a great job in marketing. But you haven't sat in their shoes and I was pretty young at the time, I probably like 26, 27.
[00:03:55] And he's just like, I think to really have the street cred, you need to sit in sales for a while. And so our deal was I would be in sales for at least a quarter. Hopefully two, and then get promoted after I proved myself in sales. And I was so upset because I didn't want to do it. I thought it was, a little bit ridiculous that he was making me switch roles.
[00:04:19] But it was the most valuable experience for me as a marketer because I felt firsthand the pain of trying to pull all of the Things together that are needed to have a successful sales journey. And I did see, honestly, that some of the marketing materials. Like maybe seemed great to marketing, but I wasn't using them and I don't know, just that that experience of being put in that situation changed the way that I looked at marketing.
[00:04:52] And I think if everybody in marketing could do that, it would be awesome. It's not possible usually. So I think the best thing is to train sales and marketing together. One of my early career experiences too was, you know, there's always sales kickoff events, and sometimes marketing attends and sometimes they don't.
[00:05:14] And one of the companies I was at, they actually renamed the sales kickoff event to SMOKE. It stood for sales marketing, official kickoff event, and we trained side by side. So the sales folks are getting trained on what marketing is getting trained on and vice versa.
[00:05:33] And it really helps with alignment and understanding of the needs of each team to meet the goals.
[00:05:40] Richard: I think that's a great practical idea and something that we, we see a lot is that a lot of times marketing doesn't attend some of the sales kickoffs, right? Or they're just behind the scenes, providing some of the materials. In the spirit of that, I love the learning, right? Put yourself as a CMO. In the seat of a CRO or a CSO, or even in the seat of a seller. Right. And so not everybody's going to have the opportunity to be forced into sitting in sales for a while or maybe even have the opportunity in the near term to, construct a great kickoff with sales and marketing together Any quick tips on just how to get you get to know your sales stakeholders their partners, right?
[00:06:24] And customers of marketing as well. And so, anything come to mind that can be just really practical.
[00:06:31] Tracey: Yeah, I think the maybe it's setting the groundwork or laying the groundwork when you first start a job, or, I mean, I guess it could happen at any time, but I think having just ground rules, you know, shared ground rules.
[00:06:43] This is our vision. These are our goals. We have different roles in that and we can accomplish them differently, but just that understanding of you know, the alignment on the goals. One of the things that comes up a lot is if a company doesn't have shared reporting, between sales and marketing, there are all these marketing reports and sales You're talking about these leads.
[00:07:05] We haven't seen all these leads. This is a common conversation. Um, so having one dashboard or one set of reports, one set of numbers. So, we're all looking at the same, the same reporting same set of numbers. I think the second thing is the commitment. I always try to get with any sales leader is if there's a big conversation, Assuming I'm leading marketing, if there's a big issue in marketing, I want to hear it from you.
[00:07:30] I don't want to hear it from somebody else in the company. We have to have that shared level of respect that you're going to come to me with it and it's not going to have traveled throughout the company through the grapevine before it gets to me. And I would commit the same thing, in return.
[00:07:45] So it's that shared set of I don't know, ground rules, expectations, respect, basically, because,
[00:07:51] Richard: you
[00:07:53] Tracey: know, we have to be partners. So we agree to handle issues.
[00:07:57] Richard: Yeah, and so there's from the reporting of the dashboards and a common framework of numbers and reporting, you know, you're getting that shared visibility, but then having the agreement and the trust with your counterparts to have that shared accountability as well.
[00:08:13] Tracey: Exactly.
[00:08:15] Richard: So we've talked about shared values and goals. Hey, we're all in this together. Here's our big north star. We've got these lofty, growth aspirations for the company that together sales and marketing have to enable us hitting, right? We've got some shared reporting and some shared accountability.
[00:08:32] All that sounds like great sales and marketing alignment. Where is there kind of some misconceptions on alignment, right? Where is there alignment that you, I don't know that you don't need, or, you're, you're trying to try and do hard.
[00:08:44] Tracey: But I think one of the misconceptions is that marketing just generates leads and then sales closes them.
[00:08:52] That might've been true many years ago, but now that the customer journey has changed so much marketing has to be involved in the overall customer life cycle. Same with sales, but we have different roles in that. So I think sometimes people think of alignment as. The same thing.
[00:09:11] We're doing the same things. We're not. We have the same goals, but we're going about them in different ways. We have different responsibilities along the journey. There's this move, or at least I've seen it a few times now where people start talking about sales and marketing should join together and becomes "smarketing".
[00:09:30] And I think it's cool. I think it's a catchy name and all that, but we don't have the exact same roles. It's a very complimentary symbiotic type relationship and understanding how we help make sales successful and help make the overall company successful and have different roles in each of the steps of the funnel and beyond.
[00:09:52] I think it's really important. So we're not the same. We just have the right. We have similar goals,
[00:09:58] Richard: right? It's "smarketing". I'm still kind of thinking about that. I have not heard that very often. so that's a new one. Let's talk about what leaders can do to just get it right or avoid the missteps, right?
[00:10:09] In terms of, establishing that, that shared vision, and then contributing to the overall goal. In, in their wheelhouse, right? If you will.
[00:10:20] Tracey: Well, you had mentioned it the last time we talked, but I love the three legged stool analogy. It's what has to be balanced in an organization for success.
[00:10:30] And I, I really do believe in the organizations that I've been in that have been really successful, have had this three legged stool of sales, product, and marketing. And by three legged stool, it's. Equal, equal shares, equal investment in the success, equal respect. And if any of those legs of the stool is shorter the stool is going to topple.
[00:10:54] So I do think it's really important to have the right seats at the leadership table. One of the things that I've seen recently a couple of times is this move towards marketing reporting into sales. And I can't think of many times when that would really be a good idea. There might be some times when marketing is just really about leads or just really about field events or so forth.
[00:11:22] But in general sales is very quarterly. Goal based think of commissions, think of, everything they do. I'm not saying that sales isn't strategic. There's a lot of strategy that goes into sales, but when you look at how someone's compensated, it's very quarterly based where marketing's goals are quarterly and longer term.
[00:11:44] And I think the danger with having marketing report into sales is that you lose some of that strategy and you lose. Things that don't produce an immediate effect, like let's just say brand story, brand value, but are very important over time to the success of the company. So I think that's something that goes wrong.
[00:12:06] Some companies try to align sales and marketing by putting them together and it doesn't, it doesn't always work well that way.
[00:12:14] Richard: That makes a lot of sense. And certainly a lot of marketing's responsibilities aren't just to support direct sales right? It's also indirect channel.
[00:12:23] Right? And so they have to care about enabling the channel. And then, of course, the upfront, branding, positioning and air cover to, generate interests, right? And differentiate before you even have that opportunity to talk to a prospect. Well, as we get to the close of our time today any any kind of final takeaways that let's say we've got some leaders that, they're getting promoted up into marketing or maybe taking their 1st CMO job.
[00:12:50] Do you have any practical advice on what you would do for 2nd 3rd or anything like that?
[00:12:55] Tracey: Well, I think 1st, Yeah. If you're considering taking a CMO job, let's say you're not being promoted inside a company, you're taking a new role. I would spend as much time with the CRO ahead of time as possible.
[00:13:12] It's going to be one of the most important relationships that you have in the company. And if you Can't align pretty quickly. It's not, you're not going to have a good outcome. It's, building a relationship, building trust having the clear lines of communication. I had 1 in 1 interview I had several years ago.
[00:13:32] I had a that said, are you going to answer me on the very first call. Yeah. And I said, yes, so long as you answer me on the very first call. Right. I mean, that's the, yes, of course, but it's a very important relationship. I also had a situation where I was interviewing and it was during COVID, so, so there might be, some reason for this, but the company was in Florida.
[00:14:01] And I kept pushing to meet with the CRO in person, we could meet outside whatever. We don't have to, to meet inside. Cause they were having their company meetings outside, but he wouldn't take the time. He couldn't take the time. It wasn't working out for him to meet with me.
[00:14:17] So I just dropped out of, that recruitment process, because I thought if I can't, If I can't develop that relationship, if I can't work with him ahead of time
[00:14:27] Richard: during the
[00:14:28] Tracey: interview process, it's, this is not going to work out.
[00:14:30] Richard: Right. What's it going to be like when you get on board? Yeah,
[00:14:33] Tracey: I think it's important to set that up from the beginning, you know, strong, strong relationship, strong communication.
[00:14:39] Yeah,
[00:14:41] Richard: That is really smart. I think that's awesome guidance before you take a job, right? Partner up with that CRO that CSO quickly, right? Get to know them. What about okay now? You like him or her, right? You get along, there's transparency, shared accountability. You think things are going to go well.
[00:14:59] What's the first thing you do with your team? New marketing leader comes in, people are probably anxious, right? Changes upon them. Any any guidance there?
[00:15:10] Tracey: I think that there's another great book. I mentioned a book last time, but there's another great book. The CMO manifesto is 1 and the 1st, 90 days is another and they both have this mapping of what to make sure you do when you start your role and both start with, and this is what I've done as well. That's a listening tour. You need to go meet your direct reports and most of it initially is listening. What's working, what's not working, what are our opportunities? What are the objectives? So a lot of it is listening and then quickly coming up with some quick wins.
[00:15:45] A cadence for communication a cadence for additional meetings so that you continue to be informed That means meetings with customers, meetings with partners all of your constituents and then really getting the buy in from your peers on. This is what I see. This is my change agenda and, getting there.Their buying or their objections. So you can
[00:16:10] Richard: either
[00:16:11] Tracey: sell them, sell them that your plan is right. Just your plan.
[00:16:14] Richard: Right. That's wonderful. Well, that's great. And it's a great way to end. And so, let's go ahead and wrap up our time today. As you know, we like to share goodness. And so,
[00:16:24] here's what I'd like to tee you up with we've worked together. For a number of years. And so, I know you work harder than almost anybody I know. So what do you do to decompress, to recharge, right? Any advice or any fun stories about how do you get away from the work?
[00:16:41] Tracey: So how do I get away from the work? I, I like to I read a lot. I enjoy it. I am a big orange theory fan. I don't know if they have those in Texas, but you know, like the hit workouts, but in general I work so much because I really love what I do. I mean, you always do need a break and you do need to get away from it, but there have been very few situations where I don't find the work energizing.
[00:17:08] There are teams that are tough. There are bosses that are tough, but in general, like, I think I'm 1 of those people. I don't know that I'll retire. I hope I don't have to. Right? Because I love it. I love what I do.
[00:17:19] Richard: That's awesome. That's awesome. And that leads to a lot of work, but, sometimes you have to recharge your batteries and I love the exercise. I mean, we got to take care of our bodies and the healthier we are, the more we can support those that, that we're supposed to support in our organization, whether it's customers or teams or peers. So. Thank you for that.
[00:17:40] And thank you again for sharing your time with us today. Hope we'll have you back in the near future.
[00:17:46] Tracey: Sounds good. Thank you. It was fun. Some Goodness is a creation of Revenue Innovations. Visit us at revenueinnovations. com and subscribe to our newsletter.
