Author: Jessica Manna, Chief Marketing Officer, Residential Finance Corp.

If you’re a marketer you undoubtedly face complaints from sales about many things, especially leads.  Let’s face it, from sales vantage point, there are really just two things wrong with leads: (1.) there are never enough, and (2.) the quality could always be better!

As a consultant at a marketing agency in a prior life, I saw many companies where this relationship was either adversarial, at worst, or non-communicative, at best.  In most organizations, marketing is a black-box – no one knows how or why marketing decisions are made.  In rarer instances, the relationship is akin to a bad divorce with blame and finger-pointing.

Now, while I’m sure neither of these describes your marketing & sales relationship, I have to ask: is it a truly a collaboration?  If you had to rate your relationship on a scale from zero-to-ten, with 0-Bad Divorce and 10-True Collaboration, where does it rank?

The proposition is this:  By fostering a truly collaborative relationship you can transform your organization – AND – this is easier than we think, doesn’t cost anything, and best of all – you can start right now!

1.      Start a Help Desk. What’s a Help Desk?  A Help Desk is traditionally used by your IT department to track support requests.  Implement a Marketing Help Desk and create a process for responding. Why?  Find out about issues, answer questions, create a process and expectation-level for responding to sales with (a.) a sense of urgency, and (b.) a high-level of accuracy. For example, last year the RFC marketing department responded to over 1,500 Help Desk requests in less than two hours.

2.      Form a User Group. Are you responsible for the Lead Management System? The ACD/call center suite?  Or, any system or process that touches sales?  Form a user group or committee that meets regularly.  Bring in sales people and sales managers to provide feedback and help shape changes.

3.      Ask the Audience. Wondering what people love versus what needs improvement?  Ask!  SurveyMonkey.com is free and easy to use.  Send surveys to sales to get feedback.  Need ideas on what to ask?  We’ve done everything from branding surveys to find out how they feel about our brand positioning, value propositions, and competitive position in the market place to simple “Rate-my-Meeting” surveys to get feedback on meeting format and content.

4.      Teach Them. Launching a new program or product?  Have a Lunch & Learn session where you can feed them (that’s the key!) and teach them all about it – knowledge is power!

5.      Be Taught. Not sure how to use a system that they interact with?  Don’t fully understand a part of the sales process?  Schedule a meeting with a sales person or manager and ask them to train you.  They’ll love the opportunity to train you for a change and you can learn something new in the process – win / win!

6.      Report to Them. Often, sales may have an issue with a certain type of lead because the conversion rate is low.  As a marketer, you look at another number – ROI – and know it’s a great lead source.  Meet with sales managers – share your data and decision process.

7.      Be Visible. Where do you sit – in an office away from sales?  Here’s my pitch:  move your office – even temporarily – to the sales floor.  If you think you have a good relationship now and that sales comes to you with questions and problems… it’s only the beginning.  When they can see you every day on the sales floor you’ll be amazed how many “drop by” questions and suggestions you’ll receive.

8.      Take a Day Off. Block off an entire day on your calendar – set an Out of Office reply – and spend the day on the sales floor.  Go from desk to desk just asking questions, taking notes, listening to people.  Spend most of your time talking to them – not observing them.  Ask what they like, what they don’t like.  Have them show you how they use a system.  Use Leads360?  Ask them what they like and what is frustrating.  Teach a someone a neat trick to save them time.

9.      Choose Your Battles. Do you have an amazing idea that could transform your organization but can’t get buy-in from sales?  Either get their buy-in or put it on the back burner.  It doesn’t mean you have to give it up entirely, just come back to it when the support is there.

10.  Recognize their Wins. Did someone have an exceptionally great month?  All it takes is a Congratulations card and a $5 Starbucks gift card to say WOW!  Know who’s doing great, congratulate them, and recognize their