But if the end user (aka sales) is still in the bronze age while the marketing team is in the gold, you have an inefficient and unoptimized process that could be chronically losing your company revenue over time. It’s important to realize the gravity of these situations and to make sure you have both teams aligned on both technological and strategic levels. At the end of the day, revenue is what it’s all about. Empowering your sales team will dramatically increase their output and inevitably, your revenue.

Here are a few tips to make sure your marketing ops and sales teams stay technologically in sync:

1. Get in tune with your sales team

Immerse yourself into the happenings of your sales team. Join their meetings from time to time to get a feel for what’s happening in their world. There might be things that stick out that you can help with or provide guidance to that will be of great help. Plus, it’s always a good idea to keep abreast on all the happenings of sales; this can determine how you steer marketing in the right direction too.

2. Schedule a monthly or quarterly sync up meeting

By having a regular meeting with sales, you’ll ensure that there is a dedicated open forum for questions/concerns/comments that they may have. Let them know what’s new and how they can get up to speed on it. Also, any major initiatives in either department can be voiced as well to ensure parallel tracking and transparency for all.

3. Build a good rapport with specific members of the sales team

I cannot stress enough the importance of having a great relationship with core members of the team to keep up to date on all the things they’re working or struggling with. You will have eyes and ears everywhere if you can build a good rapport with some members of the sales team. This in turn will help you spot problems earlier.

4. Learn the funnel from end to end

Want to know how to become invaluable to an organization from a marketing operations perspective? Learn not only marketing’s piece of the pie, but sales’ too. Knowing only one half (your half) of the puzzle is fine, but if you can master the entirety of it, you’ll not only be an asset to one department, but a major player in two. Don’t underestimate the gravity of this.

5. Have an open door policy

Be sure to stress to your sales department that they can come to you for help at any time. You want to be known as a beacon of help for them; they’re go-to person for things they need. Even if you hand it off to another team member, you can act as a filter as to the severity of the situation and once again, keep an eye on things that are happening.

The key takeaway

In conclusion, just remember this one key take away…the goal is revenue. If your foot soldiers are ill prepared for battle, the whole organization suffers. The beauty of marketing operations lies in its versatility and wide breadth of knowledge. Just because the word “marketing” is in the title, it doesn’t mean that you’re confined to only one department. Learn the funnel end-to-end, become a symbol of empowerment, and most important of all, always be a beacon of positivity and giving and you’ll never run out of exciting things to do in your career.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

Act-On Marketing Blog