Seems like every time I turn around there is somebody talking about sales and marketing alignment, but the people doing the talking know what to do and the people doing the listening are faint of heart. The faint of heart never go for the royal flush.
It’s usually the marketing managers doing the listening but something happens when they close out the webinar or get back home from the seminar. They’ve been told that if they can only reach alignment with the sales department life will be grand. They’ve been told they can overcome being overhead if they start acting like they’re holding a royal flush and sit down with the sales manager and work on common problems. They been told they’ll win the “Alignment” hand if only they’ll do this, or if only they do that.
But for most marketing managers they refuse to draw the next card, refuse to take a risk, and refuse to be confident in their own abilities. They go back to doing what they’ve done in the past which will inevitably give them the same results. A cowboy once said, “If you keep doin what you’ve been doin you’ll keep getting what you got.”
So I ask the marketing manager who is frustrated enough to change jobs because no one is listening to him/her to believe in yourself to make one more try. Get back into the game. The one thing to do that always, without a doubt, hands-down-works-every time is to prove the ROI for just one marketing-lead-generating program. Just one. If you have to call every single lead from a trade show six months after the show, do it. Slam your door, pick up the phone and ask the prospect if they bought, what they bought, who they bought from or how soon they’ll be buying. If you have to do an on-line survey for every inquirer of a direct mail campaign, do it.
Do this just once and you’ll do it again and again and again. When this happens a new respect will emerge for you in the company. Alignment will come naturally because you know to play the game. You’ll be known as the marketing manager that consistently draws a royal flush and is never happy with betting on a pair. Ah, the sweetness of laying down a royal flush, the excitement of knowing you’ll win the hand, can only be compared to a marketing manager who can confidently prove the ROI for lead generation program. Seems like a stretch? Not really.
