Aligning sales and marketing techniques is a mandatory process for any SME. Indeed, the organization of the sales department constitutes the company's sales force, and is particularly essential in a B2B environment.
On this page, you'll find a step-by-step guide to the basics ofsme support.
Building a good team
Finding an efficient, motivated team is the first crucial step in bringing organization to your business.
Recruiting good salespeople
As a leader, you need to be able to target the right profiles, because you're the one who's going to coach them in their marketing strategies. Indeed, sales effectiveness will depend on the staff in charge of business development, hence the importance of the recruitment phase.
The best candidates are always those who are ambitious, and you can recognize them through your recruitment techniques by communicating your corporate vision, the prospects and career paths you offer, etc.
Successful integration
In addition to the benefits you offer new recruits, it's also essential to get them properly settled in to reinforce their motivation to work. This includes their integration into the team, briefings, training, coaching and so on.
Managing sales
As sales leader, you're in charge of the budget, and you have to make sure that each of your teams sets the right marketing targets in the sales process. Sales management will be the basis of the sales figures achieved, so it needs to be as efficient as possible.
Organizational processes
Assessing market potential
Once you've assembled a team capable of handling sales tasks, you'll need to make an assessment of your market, in terms of profitability, new customer acquisition and so on. You can draw on past results to identify any corrections or improvements you need to make.
Establish a clear sales process
The sales process will be the sequence of steps followed by your entire sales team. You'll organize everything from A to Z, starting with the prospecting plan, setting objectives and so on. To keep a close eye on your branch's progress, you'll need to organize weekly meetings with the whole team to make joint assessments and review sales alignment.
Use sales support tools
It's important to have a competent team, but that's not enough! You need to provide them with all the tools they need to achieve the best results. These include digitalization tools and all marketing accessories (business card, communication brochure, LinkedIn, CRM, productivity applications, communication support, etc.).
Audit and management development
Once you've aligned your sales and marketing techniques, you now need to conduct an audit and look for ways to develop your sales management.
The sales department needs to be evaluated by an internal diagnostic team, so you need to systematically review all the negative and positive points of your management, always with a view to improvement.
Points to assess :
they are often the number of opportunities seized and missed, contracts lost and signed, the fluidity of sales stages, etc.
In addition to the aforementioned tips for aligning your sales, especially in B2B terms, SQL and MQL concepts will also come in handy.
The notion of SQL
SQL or Sales Qualified Leads can be translated as wall leads. At this stage, they're already ready to buy the company's products. All you need to do is attract them through one of your teams, via a telephone conversation or by setting up an appointment. The product should provide them with complete satisfaction and solutions to their needs.
The concept of MQL
The MQL or Marketing Qualified Lead is the qualification of a visitor who has made contact with the company. This may be a request for an e-book or the provision of data to receive newsletters.
So, they're not yet a buyer, but a visitor who's interested in the company's products or services. So there's an opportunity here to establish a sales relationship, and that's where you need to adopt lead nurturing. The concept aims to enhance the brand image of your products to encourage the visitor to take the buying step.
The importance of leads
Having learnt the definitions and uses of SQL and MQL, we can see that leads play an important role in sales alignment! Not only do they enable the sales force to be strengthened by the marketing strategies adopted by the sales department, they are also the guarantors of the company's management development.
