What can marketing and sales learn from a Super Bowl winning team?

Just like offense, defense and special teams all need to do their job to ensure victory on the football field, your Sales and Marketing teams can work together to ensure leads get qualified, converted and everyone goes home happy. Here are some tips from my decade of marketing experience collaborating effectively with sales. These tips are most relevant for a multi-step, complex sale environment.

For Marketers

1. Qualify, qualify, qualify. The worst thing you could do as a marketer is not give sales enough relevant information. Don't be lazy - when they win, you win. When you qualify a good lead and pass them on to sales, provide as much information as possible to make their job easy.

2. Stay on Top of the Industry. Keep on the look out for new competitors, keep track of what your competition is doing well and do it better. Setting up Google Alerts for key search terms or a news from a key competitor is an easy and automated way of doing this.

3. Adapt to Feedback. Sales needs to communicate what's working and what's not. Just like a coach making half time adjustments to his strategy, marketing needs to use the new data to adapt their approach when necessary. Don't get defensive or stubborn - take advice and it will benefit everyone.

For Sales Reps

1. Communicate Results. There's nothing worst for a marketer than doing a good job qualifying someone, providing valuable background information to Sales, and then hearing nothing about the results. You care about results, so does your Marketing team. Don't just share the wins.

2. Give Feedback. Share the good, bad and ugly. Has your best customer persona changed? Even if you don't get to the next step or close the deal, specific feedback on who is buying (or not) matters. We want to know how we can do better in marketing land.

3. Use Content. Content marketing is hard work and requires a lot of time and effort to make sure it lands. We do this to help you close deals. Please use what we provide or offer feedback on what can be done differently.

Forgive me for one last football metaphor, but we all win and lose as a team. If sales people and marketers leveraged these simple tips, there would be more accountability, the lights will stay on and everyone's life will be a little bit easier.

About the Author

Mike Kennedy has a decade of experience as a marketer able to collaborate effectively with sales for strong results. Follow Mike on twitter @mekncl.