It's a tale as old as time: the Sales and Marketing teams are rivals. They're like twins separated at birth, growing up to be different people with different personalities and interests. Sure, they love each other. But they just don't understand each other very well. This confusion can lead to problems, especially when Sales and Marketing aren't on the same page about product launches. If your organization is struggling to bring these teams together, consider these easy-to-implement tips that will get you there faster:
Amit Ashwini
Make sure your organizations are aligned.
The first step to aligning your sales and product marketing teams is to make sure they are on the same page. Define what you're working toward together and get everyone committed to achieving those goals.
To start off, write down your organization's overall goal in one sentence or less. For example: "Our company wants to increase revenue by $50 million over the next year." Once you've got this down on paper, it will be easier for you and others in your organization to visualize how all of your actions relate back to that statement.
The next step is defining each person's role within this larger framework. Try writing out two separate documents: one from a product-marketing perspective, another from a sales perspective (or vice versa). Focus on specific metrics like revenue growth or CAC (customer acquisition cost) reduction—things that can be measured objectively instead of relying on subjective ideas such as "building great products" or "creating happy customers." This way, everyone knows exactly what their job entails without having any room for error or confusion about whether their work fits into the bigger picture of success for the company as a whole!
Use project management tools to track sales and marketing work.
To build better products, make sure you have a common understanding of what "better" means. Whether you're tracking sales and product marketing work individually or across an entire team, it's important to keep track of the different types of tasks that need to be completed to drive growth.
I've seen teams use Jira or Asana as project management tools for this purpose, creating checklists and task lists that outline all the steps involved in each stage of product development (e.g., research & planning; ideation; prototyping; testing; etc.). It can be especially useful when combined with a communication channel like Slack—or even just spreadsheets—to help get everyone on the same page regarding deadlines and deliverables.
Create a shared knowledge base.
You need a knowledge base, a place where you can store and organize all of the information related to your products. A tool like Trello or Asana is useful here. It can help you break down each product into its individual parts, then group those parts into logical categories (e.g., "user experience" and "product specifications"). Once you've broken down each product into these smaller chunks, it's much easier to find what you need when your team needs it.
This also means that instead of having different people in different departments remember different pieces of data about the same thing and having those people communicate with each other constantly so they can keep their information accurate—everyone now is on the same page at all times by storing everything in one place.
Dedicate time to sales training.
Sales training is a critical part of building successful products. When salespeople have access to the right information, they can speak confidently about your product and its value proposition. This will help them close more deals, which means you'll see higher revenue and better metrics overall.
Be consistent with your sales training efforts: You should offer at least one sales training event per quarter for your entire team, but there's no reason why you can't have multiple sessions in a single quarter or even every week if you want to take things to the next level! By offering constant support and guidance, you're giving people new ways of thinking about their roles and responsibilities—and helping them become more efficient at what they do best (selling).
Make sure it's specific to your product: Whether it's an all-hands meeting or an individual call with each member of your team (or both), make sure each session includes information specific enough that everyone feels like they're getting something out of it without being overwhelmed by details they don't need right now.
Assign one person to help coordinate between teams.
It's time to bring Sales and Product Marketing together to build better products.
Get a dedicated person on your team who works with sales and marketing. This person should be respected by both teams, has a good understanding of the product, and can translate between them. They don't need to be an expert in either field; they just need to be able to understand the needs of both teams, help ensure that information is shared effectively between them, and motivate each team toward success (and they should definitely not tell anyone who doesn't want their opinion heard how wrong they are).
You can integrate your sales and product marketing teams by using the right tools, communicating clearly, and working together.
- Use the right tools
- Have clear communication
- Measure impact
Conclusion
We encourage you to try using these tips for yourself. We've found that having a coordinated effort between product marketing and sales makes it easier for us to work together on projects and stay in sync when we're working independently. Having both teams involved in the process from start to finish means better products overall, which is our end goal.
