Although the roles of the sales and marketing departments have different functions – marketing generates leads and sales converts leads – collaboration between the two teams is crucial in generating new business.

Here’s why.

If sales and marketing work in parallel with each other and never integrate their efforts, there will be disconnect and the overall success of team and business goals will be impacted.

Here’s a scenario.

The marketing team identifies a warm lead – they have recognized that this particular lead has shown a high level of interest with the marketing tactics including email and paid advertisements. The lead is then pushed to the sales team who will follow-up and nurture them toward conversion. But if the teams never talk, the sales could speak on a product that doesn’t pertain to the lead. Or vice versa, the sales team might already say this lead is a highly-engaged prospect and the marketing team is reaching out to them about something completely different. Ultimately, the teams not being aligned could cause the lead to be frustrated and decide to no longer be interested – no new business would be generated.

A few reasons that can attribute to the separation between sales and marketing includes:

• Lack of communication
• No standard process in place
• Lack of adoption from team members

Here’s how to fix it.

Identify: Recognize that there is a disconnect between the sales and marketing efforts and there are opportunities to make the process more efficient.

• Are there avoidable interruptions in the hand-off process?
• Are there inconsistencies across team members with the internal processes?
• Have there been missed opportunities for increased conversions?

Plan: Outline actionable steps that will help get the sales and marketing teams synced up.

• What are the gaps in the current process?
• How can processes become more efficient?
• How can we ensure that everyone is following these processes?
• What materials can we use to help achieve our goals?

Execute: Make it happen! Identify a point person on both the sales and marketing team that will be in charge of ensuring the plan is executed on.

• How will I know our plan is being accomplished?
• What will we do to make it happen?

Recap: How did it go? For continued growth, it is important to reflect on how things went.

• Did you see improvements?
• Where are the growth areas? What can we do next time to improve on these growth areas?
• How do members of the team feel about the process?

Having the sales and marketing teams aligned is crucial to help create efficient internal processes and successful business. Ask yourself – do you know if your sales and marketing teams work together?