Tie Marketing’s Compensation to Sales’ Performance

Posted by Christine on November 14, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Aligning sales and marketing is a three-part initiative and each part is essential: culture change,implement  supporting technology, and process change.  Counter to the popular belief by many software vendors, adopting automated lead management alone will not result in alignment. Without the requisite culture and process changes, these systems will go through the same adoption challenges as CRM and SFA systems: Sales and marketing teams won’t use them no matter what carrots and sticks are applied.

One of the ways to change corporate cultures so that alignment becomes sticky is to change marketing’s compensation structure.  Ask any CMO and they’ll tell you that is a sensitive subject. People don’t like it when you ‘mess with their money’.   But we need to make these changes if marketing is going to dramatically and systematically improve the top line.   Rod Sloane and I recorded a Podcast on this subject which you can access at:

Not everyone in marketing should be compensated on revenue and the metrics that drive the new compensation structure also change based on marketing function or role.  Take a listen and look for my next article to be on this subject.  I’m writing about the ‘how’ and for ‘whom’ compensation should change and some lessons I’ve learned in implementing this.

As a side note, I’m pleased with my interview with Investors Business Daily that ran on November 9th.  It was a thrill to be interviewed by Sonja Carberry.  She’s a smart cookie and we had a good time talking about the merits of living in Omaha. http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=511606&Ntt=christine+crandell

Doing Double Time

Posted by Christine on November 6, 2009 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Aligning Sales and Marketing is on the top of every CEO’s list.  The state of the economy demands it, competitiveness requires it, and employees expect a healthy, collaborative company culture.   Alignment is achieved through culture, process and technology.  Much progress has been made in the last area – technology – with automated lead management and marketing automation systems.  Yet technology is not the cure all, you still need to transform your culture and processes.

There is a way to do double time on the road to alignment.  The heart of sales and marketing strife is this: of all the leads that Marketing brings into the pipeline, not that many actually result in booked revenue.  Collaborative Sales/Marketing councils which create and implement marketing campaigns can yield huge benefits. The councils change behavior through new processes and improve the top line at the same time.  

Read more about it in my latest article “Getting Sales to Improve Marketing’s Leads” published by Product Strategy Network. http://www.productstrategynetwork.com/content/view/511/1