Key 2: Service Level Agreement (SLA) between teams

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There's no point setting goals if teams aren't meeting them. One of the most common points of friction between marketing and sales teams is the perception that the other team isn't doing their job properly.

As explained above, it is very common for the sales department to think that the marketing department is not creating enough high-quality leads and... conversely, for the marketing department to feel that the sales team is not doing their job to follow up on the leads that have just arrived.

This lack of alignment is not new, rest assured, it is normal.

At Stratenet, we have seen this problem repeated countless times since 2009 in all the companies and sectors we have worked with and for companies of all sizes: from SMEs to multinationals, from Belgian SMEs to large B2C brands like Zalando and even at the largest B2B: McKInsey & Company.

To avoid disagreements between your Marketing & Sales departments, it is essential to create an SLA, a Service Level Agreement, i.e., a contract that holds both teams accountable for agreed expectations.

Under a service level agreement (SLA), marketing departments will be assigned a quota for the number of qualified leads they must generate, and sales departments will be given guidelines for following up on those leads, such as a minimum number of approach attempts and a timeline for how quickly they must reach out to prospects.

Additionally, service level agreements include a definition of what constitutes a qualified lead, so marketing and sales can ensure they're both pursuing the same type of prospects. Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas, as well as what triggers your readiness to sell.

Key 3: A technology stack that centralizes tools, data and teams
Your tech stack should enable your thailand mobile database and sales teams to achieve their goals and measure their progress. For example, you should have a way to mark leads as qualified in your CRM and track sales reps' outreach/prospecting actions for each contact.

Automation and the right software should make the job of marketing and sales teams easier.

Instead of telling salespeople they need to contact every lead assigned to them within 32 hours and follow up at least seven times, leaving it up to them to do that work, you can automate notifications and tasks so that when a sales rep is assigned a lead, they're instantly notified, and the work they need to do is scheduled.

In 2021, when your prospects are mainly going online to find you, this work is essential.

At Stratenet , we have encountered salespeople in charge of a telephone list of "outbound" prospects to call every day (120 calls / day), or even a follow-up of qualified leads at 14 stages in 2 months. Let's be realistic ... A prospect who has not asked for anything will probably hang up on you.

Asking a salesperson to follow up on a large number of prospects in 14 steps over 2 months... is impossible for the human brain (If 5 prospects / Day X 20 days X 2 months X 14 steps = 2800 actions... over 2 months... email, telephone, appointment scheduling, LinkedIn contact, etc.) It is therefore essential to automate as much as possible.
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Implementing an automated lead scoring system can make it easier to determine the level of qualification or maturity of leads.

You can create scores that measure both fit and interest. So, if a lead comes from a company that matches your ideal customer profile and has read through a lot of your content and communications, marketing can determine, based on the lead's score, that the lead is ready to be passed to sales.

Reporting tools with dashboards can help ensure visibility and maintain accountability. For example, you can allow everyone to see the average number of follow-up messages, the number of uncontacted leads a representative has on their behalf, or the number of qualified leads generated during the current period.