Minding the Gap – 3 tips on how to Mind the Gap between Sales & Marketing.

By Nelia Roberts.

Have you ever been on the underground in the UK? Then you will know what they are all talking about when they warn you to “mind the gap”. Before they are sued for millions of Pounds the Underground operating company is making a statement that you will notice & remember the gap between the platform and the train’s carriages in case you fall through it. Some of these gaps are rather huge & you would be fast asleep for missing them, but because that little voice in your head is repeating itself your attention is drawn to it – always.

When communicating with our prospective clients in sales we often hear only the negative. “No, I’m only doing research”, or “Thank you, I am only comparing pricing right now” or ”No thank you, we are not interested.” It is very discouraging when it is our umpteenth call and we keep hearing the same objections & we feel we are wasting our time by then too. But, this is sales – you need to strive forward, collecting all the “no’s” to get to the “yes’s”. Is it the “gap” between Sales & Marketing that could be the problem here?

What can we do to “mind the gap”?
It is always easy to say “persistency prevails – keep following up, especially when the prospect expects the follow-up call”, or to communicate success stories of current happy clients and case studies. But do we follow through? Does it actually happen? How easy will it be?

Here are 3 quick tips to consider:
Tip 1: Look into applying a system in your sales & marketing teams that they can work together with.
First step would be to use a system that allows for Marketing Campaign Management. Combine this with a lead generation system. This means that once the sales team receives the prospects information to follow up with, they are actually ready for the sales call from us. Maximizer CRM allows for this with the Marketing Campaign Manager Module & the Opportunities (Sales) Module. A prospective client is captured in the database as a new marketing lead, communicated with via the marketing campaign manager after which they might have responded to the mailer and the lead is passed on to the sales team as a sales lead for further follow up.

Tip 2: A sales person’s biggest test out there in the field is to listen. Understand what the customer wants. Are they just “window shopping” or are they sales-ready? Understand what the needs of their business is right now, even if they are telling you they are not sales-ready – ensure a sales follow up call within 3 months to ensure they know you are keeping you sales prospects’ interest in mind. If that fails and they are still negative, ensure to ask important market-related questions to report this back to the marketing team for future marketing.

Tip 3: Ensure that you have your marketing integrated into a CRM system to assist the sales team with their sales pipeline. The prospect that was captured as a marketing lead already has good history information with regards to what marketing they have received. The sales person can from here already get an understanding of the prospect’s needs & what they are interested in. This information is all automatically saved for sales to pick up on and build a further relationship with the prospect. They are able to see the communication from day one, a full timeline of communication – to assist the sales staff with the sales call, confident in understanding the prospect and hopefully also their buying timeframes.

This prospect now becomes a sales lead and is out of marketing until a new product comes along for the client to be interested in. If not, the sales team will not understand if there is a new delay, which if they did they could pass the prospect back for marketing communication – closing the gap & improving sales conversions in the long run.