All too often, organizations rely on either sales or marketing efforts to drive business growth and ensure customer satisfaction. However, when the best of both disciplines work in collaboration and focus on complete funnel development, companies begin to see real results. The complete sales and marketing funnel consists of one funnel that measures the impact and progression of integrated sales and marketing efforts.
FunnelWise hosted a “Driving Results With Funnel Metrics” event at Chicago’s hub for the city’s thriving technology and entrepreneurial ecosystem, 1871, to discuss how organizations leverage revenue funnel metrics to improve growth, planning and performance.
The event will include a panelist discussion — featuring SmarkLabs’ Founder and CEO, Brendan Flanigan — about how specific businesses use these metrics to foster collaboration between their marketing and sales teams and ultimately improve results.
SmarkLabs spoke with FunnelWise’s sales and marketing team about how they define true alignment:
Who is FunnelWise?
FunnelWise integrates with Salesforce and other leading marketing automation platforms to provide a comprehensive funnel view. With FunnelWise, organizations are able to see the impact of each sales and marketing touch, discover trends, answer forward-looking questions, and make data-backed decisions to drive revenue. FunnelWise doesn’t just offer software, it also leverages the Revenue Funnel Science methodology to provide built-in expertise and recommendations from a team of Revenue Funnel Experts.
What makes FunnelWise unique in the industry?
FunnelWise is unique in two ways. First, we are a platform that encourages alignment between marketing and sales through full funnel visibility and analytics, keeping both departments in the same platform with the same data. Second, we not only provide software, but also expertise through our dedicated team of Revenue Funnel Experts who help clients transform their data into insights and revenue-generating actions.
How would you describe FunnelWise’s culture as a company?
At FunnelWise, sales and marketing function as one unit. We understand that both teams have to collaborate together and work toward one overarching goal to generate business success. Our team members are afforded a great deal of freedom, from where they decide to work for the day to how they approach their individual tasks. However, the corresponding side to that autonomy is their accountability to the company, their team and themselves.
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Why is sales and marketing alignment so important in today’s business world?
Until marketing and sales are truly aligned, neither team can work towards a common goal. If marketing isn’t accountable for what they are delivering to sales, and sales isn’t accountable for what it is requesting from marketing, there is a huge disconnect between expectations and results.
What do you think is the greatest threat or challenge facing today’s sales/marketing industry?
While today’s marketing and sales teams are faced with a tremendous amount of challenges, the overwhelming theme we see is a lack of internal and external transparency. While many professionals are well aware of the issue, we continue to see a lack of transparency in strategic and tactical adjustment anticipation, revenue alignment and cost center accountability.
Do you think there are common misconceptions about marketing and sales alignment? If so, what are they?
Sales and marketing alignment often falls short regarding accountability between the two teams. While marketers care about the company hitting their revenue goal, they typically aren’t measured by how their efforts impact revenue. And while sales cares about receiving qualified leads, they’re usually not as involved with actually defining “quality.” It’s an issue when sales and marketing alignment is just a simple handoff of leads, and neither team has accountability for what the other team delivers before or after the exchange. Teams will not have true alignment until that handoff becomes a handshake, with equal accountability.
If you could predict the future, what would you guess to be the “next big thing” in sales and marketing?
With marketing spending quickly outpacing even the technology departments in most companies, top line revenue accountability is the next natural evolution. We believe tools that help attribute marketing’s impact to top line successes will be paramount to facilitate that next level of accountability.
Now that you’ve got the basics, it’s not too late to register for the “Driving Results With Funnel Metrics” event on September 29. To hear from more from FunnelWise and SmarkLabs’ very own Founder and CEO, Brendan Flanigan, register today!
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