Going from 0 to 1 on sales & marketing alignment #greatCMO

Here goes nothing…

Since I moved back from North America to Paris a year ago, lots of people have reached out to get insights on why American startups operate so much more efficiently than their French counterpart. The conversation usually touches on the topic of sales & marketing efficiency. It seems like an endemic problem in our country as I keep on hearing at local conferences talks about the mis-alignement between Marketing & Sales, and how to fix it (hint: SLA, talk to each other, seat in the same room). Same stuff I’ve been hearing since Hubspot coined the smarketing term years ago.

I give the same answer every time:

1. your CMO/VP/Head of Marketing (you pick the title) needs to have sales DNA
2. she/he needs to own part of the revenue quota,
3. she/he needs to be tied up (literally ? …) to your CRO/VP/Head of Sales

But hey, don’t just take my word for it. Intercom interviewed Heather Zynczak the CMO of Pluralsight and she nailed that coffin shut (and that topic) once and for all: https://www.intercom.com/blog/podcasts/scale-what-makes-a-world-class-cmo-in-2019-and-what-makes-them-fail/

Selected quotes

“if there’s a wall between sales and marketing, you’ve already lost the battle”

“There is no wall between myself and our CRO. We are attached at the hip, and we are partners, arm in arm on the same journey”

“I’ve jokingly been called the Chief Pipeline Officer. So the way I think of marketing is this: marketing is what’s most vital to the company at that point in time. And 90% of the time it’s revenue”

Want to have your sales & marketing department at your rocking startup/saas hum like a symphonic orchestra? Follow the 3 simple steps above (but hard to implement for those afraid of change) and you will be on your way!

Thanks for reading