I spend a lot of my time talking to IT Reseller business owners and I am starting to hear a common theme – “there is a major disconnect between our sales and marketing departments.”  As I dig deeper into the root of the problem, I hear them say “marketing creates leads, but our sales team does a poor job of converting leads into opportunities, and we aren’t sure why.”

With a little probing, It does not take a “rocket surgeon” to figure out that there is a fundamental alignment issue between sales and marketing departments, and at the root of the problem is the fact that they are usually run autonomously.

To date, Marketing has performed three roles for most Technology resellers:  Content Development, Brand Awareness, and providing cool trinkets that we can give to our customers (and occasionally our kids).  Is it time for a paradigm shift?

2013 has been dubbed “The year of the CMO.” We see more an more companies putting together big budgets for “Big Data” solutions that will align their market strategies with their sales performance metrics.  Can you say “business analytics and intelligence?” IT resellers are chomping at the bit to get engaged in the “Big Data” conversations with their customers because it gives them an opportunity to sell more infrastructure.  But are they taking advantage of these new “business trends” within their own business? Do they drink their own energy drinks?

One of the most common questions I ask business owners is “how many active buying accounts did you have last year?”  The common answer is shocking.  Most don’t know and cannot produce the answer.  Hummmm

Probing further, I typically ask for the segmentation of technologies they sold (by vendor) and where the greatest demand is coming from within their customer base and market.  Ironically enough, we can get closer to that answer, but only because the Manufacturers provide this data back to the reseller. Again – hummmm

So where should marketing fit into this equation to provide greater value?

I believe this is a two part answer:

1 – Data – I won’t call it “Big Data,” but marketing has to start collecting and “USING” data about their customers to be effective.  Who is buying what?  What have you quoted? What have you sold?  What does the customer have in their environment? What can we learn from this and what should we be talking to them about?

2 – Sales AND Marketing – Marketing has to get “closer” to sales – and should have a “process” for moving customers through the “chasms” of engagement.  Simply stated – build awareness and implement ways to measure their interest or “consideration” and build a framework for engagement with your sales teams.

What tools should we implement?

CRM – When I was a sales manager, I used to say to my sales reps – “if you don’t have a coach in your customer’s environment, get one!” when discussing customer opportunities.  My newest saying to business owners is “if you don’t have a CRM system, get one!”  And be sure to integrate all aspects of your business, including marketing and all available customer data.  CRM is not the magic bullet for a business, but it is the first step in building visibility into the business.

Data – Every week your business is, or should be, producing quotes, doing registrations, conducting discoveries, and hopefully selling stuff to your customers.  HOW useable and available is this data to the business?  If you are letting this data drip through the cracks, well, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities – both current and future.

Most marketing departments are measured at a 10:1 investment level.  Every $1 put in, should produce $10 in return.  If we cannot answer the question of “how many buying accounts we had last year,” do we think we are effectively going to hit that 10:1 return?

The only plug I will put into this post for our company is…We have a Methodology and tool-set to solve these, and many other challenges that IT resellers are facing today.  You can find out more by e-mailing us at results@call-to-action.com

I do hope the article is useful insight above and beyond our plug, and that you find insight that you can use to scale your business.