August 21, 2018
Generally speaking, the end of summer is very bittersweet, for while we are saying goodbye to long summer evenings and perhaps an extended period of re-charging, many organizations are dusting off their planning caps and hosting the first of many forecasting sessions to begin outlining the business plans, objectives and resources required to conquer the upcoming calendar year.
And what’s usually first up on these agendas? Budgets.
Almost all organizations of scale are structured with separate marketing and sales teams, which works well functionally to account for certain divisions of labor, but operationally can lead to consternation and even contention when it comes to allocating budgets. Inevitably, each department will jockey for more funding, pitting two symbiotic business units against each other, errantly believing that the one with more dollars is the one driving more value to the business.
The proliferation of digital, mobile and social platforms increases the immediacy and intimacy businesses can have when sharing content with their current and potential customers in a 24/7 cycle of availability and access. Couple this reality with the ever-present e-commerce opportunities afforded by this proliferation, and you’ll see that marketing and sales are frequently getting squeezed together.
Given this paradigm, many clients have posed the following question to us: how do you appropriately resource these critical functions? Through evaluation and partnership, we collaborate with clients to ensure both departments are set up for success, and encourage them to:
- Understand where each department maps against the customer funnel: Be honest and open about when and where customers will most likely engage with the function, and then how it relates to other organizational departments.
- Outline – and align – on clear KPIs for both departments: With clear goals come clear expectations and demands upfront for accountability and feasibility.
- Reward synergistic processes: Dollars will go further if each department can identify where there might be shared goals, or at least shared resources to each achieve separate goals, encouraging collective thinking around products, ideas and outcomes.
By addressing these organizational questions, you’ll be better positioned to drive efficiencies within the sales and marketing teams, and accelerate achievement toward your own KPIs – you can bet your bottom dollar.
If you would like to speak further about where Dix & Eaton can support your own forecasting and marketing efforts, please drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you.
