The Secret to Seamless Marketing and Sales Collaboration

Speaker A: Marketing and sales holding on, um, that baton at the same time between today, Friday and Tuesday and 10 and all the things that could come up for you and other prospects. That's where this concept and execution of the relay is so important so that we're both taking responsibility into it. This is Digital Market.

Speaker B: Uh, everyone, this is Mark DeGrasse, the president of Digital Marketer. And this is the podcast that keeps you updated on everything you need to know when it comes to digital marketing, from the platforms you'd be focused on to the kind of tactics and tools they're working today. Today our guest is Neil Tricarico, the co founder of Sales Magic and actually former executive here at Digital Marketer, as well as Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra. So he's led all of those teams to record breaking results. So I thought we could bring him on and kind of talk about one of the sticking points that we really have as, which is friction between the marketing and sales teams, which Neil is going to provide us with an awesome answer and some tips to solve, uh, your problem with the same issue. So welcome Neal.

Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you, Mark. It's glad to be back, Glad to be back on the podcast with you.

Speaker B: Glad to have you. You know, we got to hang out a few weeks ago in San Diego. That was, uh, that was awesome. Uh, and I thought, hey, you know, why not bring you back on the show and start talking about some of these issues that, you know, just the regular issues that you as a marketer and I think that that whole sales connection is always an issue because you, you know, as marketers were like, hey, we're going to get you all the traffic, get you all the leads. But you know, for companies that are selling something especially higher priced items, it all comes down to how do you pass that baton off to, uh, you know, the sales team?

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. And I'm so, I'm so glad to connect about that. And even looking at our screen with the two of us, it's like this is that confluence, right? The most, the best possible results any organization can create is that confluence between marketing and sales. But oftentimes what happens is those two organizations are siloed, they're separated and each individual is focused on their own results and then their own outcomes. They've done their jobs. Marketing strip and leads, sales has made sales. And that's fine when everything works out well, but what happens when it's not working out well? Now we're pointing fingers at each other.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, and that's, uh, it's an easy thing. To do because you'll be like, well, they wasn't my fault. I did my job. And you know, at the end of the day, like, it doesn't matter whose job it is because if the company's not doing well, it's everybody's fault as far as I'm concerned.

Speaker A: For sure, I agree with you. That's right. That speaks to our topic today, the importance of a team.

Speaker B: Awesome. So let's just kind of start with uh, maybe you know, a story behind like how, how you kind of saw this in a past situation and kind of the steps that allowed you to, you know, have that baton passed off.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, so great. You know, so inevitably, whether it's been in my own career as a, as a sales professional or it's been in any of these executive sales leadership roles, whether it's for Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra or when we work together, you know, with Ryan at uh, Digital Marketer, there tends to be this disconnect between marketing and sales. And for marketing and sales to fully realize their results, it's just like you said, Mark, it's got to be a team. And so what we came to realize, and I think the best example we can share with folks is what we created at Digital Marketer was the idea or concept, we named it, of building a relay team together. So not marketing and sales as individual competitors or runners or performers, but marketing and sales together in a relay race. And the ultimate service, the finish line, if you will, is serving the end user or the client.

Speaker B: I love, you know, customer focused decisions because a lot of times it is very easy to just get into the product that you're selling or the objectives that you want to achieve and then you completely forget that the entire purpose is really to help your customers.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: So I mean, with that, uh, shall I dive into kind of what we experienced?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Just kind of give it, you know, top down view of the uh, the situation and then kind of how you corrected the situation, some steps that people might be able to apply to, to go through the same process.

Speaker A: That's great. So what we found was, you know, when, when, when I came in, I mean Digital Marketer is, is a behemoth in terms of generating results for its clients and customers for, for many, many, many years. Its track record speaks for itself. And so, you know, I was brought in to build out a team that was going to sell, you, uh, know, and did successfully end up successfully selling high ticket items. But what we found was we hit a threshold where Our success was limited to the individual's team's performance, marketing's ability to drive leads, sales ability to enroll or close those leads. And only when we realized a plateau or a threshold did we start to understand that the problem we identified the problem was that marketing and sales were siloed. So what happened is marketing would have a scorecard. You're all familiar with the scorecard of the things that, you know, it needed to do to generate leads. And then those leads would go over the proverbial fence to sales. And then, you know, there would either be results or there wouldn't be results. When there were results, no problem. If there weren't results, what happened? Marketing would look to sales and say, hey, you had these leads. What happened to these leads? And sales would look to marketing and say, well, I don't know. Those, some of those weren't leads. Right. So the first thing that I identified was that we needed to share and collaborate around something we could all get our heads around. And that was the solution of the relay race. Again. So if you think about a relay race, it's, let's just take the, you know, the four by 100. It's four teammates, four. Four competitors, if you will, that, uh, are running together, but the race isn't one on any one of those individuals ability to win their leg. The race is won and lost in the effective optimization of the handoff. So if there's an effective handoff, that is going to have more to do than anything for the success of winning that race, that, that race is won and lost in that handoff. But notice in the moment of the handoff what's happening here in that moment, there's two hands on it, right? They're not throwing the baton over the fence right there, stick. And they're holding it. So in that moment, we're both responsible for the passing of the baton. So in our world, in the marketing and sales world, that baton is the prospect and the race is that handoff to get them to be a client.

Speaker B: Uh, uh, I love the analogy too, because it's, you know, if you do look at, you know, track racing or relay racing, like, and you'll see, you'll see some people drop it, other people get the pace wrong and they're running at different paces or one's too fast, you know, and that could be the sales team is going off before the market team actually hands it off. And it all leads to problems and, you know, lost ground. So I think that's, uh, that's an excellent way to Phrase it. So why don't we just get into what does that mean? Because I think for, you know, this is sales and marketers, you know, we're all about automation too. And so it's like, well, I got the lead, press the button. Not my problem anymore. Uh, is that the right way to do it or the wrong way?

Speaker A: Well, the right way to do it and is exemplified by the growth scorecards that, you know, uh, digital marketers become so well known for. And the right way to do that is to make sure at each step of the relay race. So again, you have, you have a prospect in their baton, right? So what is happening with marketing that moves them through? Right? So how do we define a marketing qualified lead? How do we define a sales qualified lead? And you know, I'm not your best expert on defining the marketing qualified lead, but marketing is responsible sort of for this, that leg of the race, whatever's being done in terms of generating leads, all the strategies that you teach to generate leads. But once that lead converts from a marketing qualified lead to a sales qualified lead, instead of tossing the baton over the fence, now you, you, you, you get it over to sales, whether that's a, uh, sales development rep or an actual account executive, a sales professional. And again, in that moment that they're both holding onto it instead of what was happening in the past, marketing would say, okay, now they're on the calendar, that's a lead. And then sales would say, well, it's not really actually a lead until they complete the call. In this case, we'll go leg by leg. But in this case the first aspect is to say, well, now wait a minute, we're both holding onto it and we both need and are committed to that prospect showing. So what is marketing doing with their hand on the baton to ensure the prospect shows for the strategy session or sales call? So those may be reminders or sending and adding pieces of value. But one of the things we implemented on the sales end instead of just waiting till Tuesday at 10am and saying the call showed or didn't, was to have the professional each night send out a video text, right? So they'd look at their calendar for tomorrow and they would literally take their phones and introduce themselves. Hey Mark, it's Neil from Digital Marketer. I see we're on at 10am tomorrow. Listen, my commitment to you is this is going to be the best call you've had all year to grow your marketing results. Now I'm going to be there, I'm going to be on time and be Present. My request of you is that you show up on time as well, ready to go, so that we can meet that standard together. In the event you can't make it, please drop me a text below and reschedule. Otherwise, barring an emergency, I'll see you there. So now you've both participated in your own rescue, if you will, uh, or in increasing the likelihood of that show. So for that first handoff being the show, um, now we've got collaboration on that before it goes. Now the sales rep has it. So I'll pause there for a moment.

Speaker B: Oh, man, that, that's a, that's a fantastic tip. Because it's, it's something that's so easy, you know, like, especially if you script it and you practice it a few times. Like, you can spit that out. You can spit out 10 of those in what, five minutes or something.

Speaker A: Oh, yes.

Speaker B: Yeah. And nobody does this, by the way, because I have a lot of salespeople pitching me all the time. And even if I do say, hey, here's an appointment, like, I think I may have gotten something like that maybe like once in the last two years. And, and for me, a lot of times I'm looking at that calendar being like, oh, it's a sales call. I know I should do it, but maybe you won't show up. Maybe it's okay if I don't show up. And I, he didn't send me an email, so maybe I already forgot about it. And then you start to, you know, kind of justify you flaking out before it actually had. Uh, but that would stop me right there.

Speaker A: That would. Right.

Speaker B: Hey, everyone. I, uh, wanted to quickly interrupt the podcast for a special announcement. If you're listening to this podcast because you want to become a better marketer, then I want to share with you what I believe to be the most comprehensive digital marketing program on the market today. It's called the Digital Marketing Mastery Certification. You'll learn to leverage the tools and channels to predictably and profitably drive awareness, leads, sales and referrals. Everything you need to know to become a true master of digital marketing. We'll take an in depth look at the core digital marketing competencies, including content, email, social media community, digital advertising, data and optimization, and more. After earning your digital Marketing strategist certificate, you'll have the tools to effectively reach your target audience through a full scope marketing strategy. Get started today@, uh, digitalmarketer.com strategysert.

Speaker A: Uh, I think there's an important distinction in that as well for our listeners and our viewers. Is whether there's marketing is setting the call or there's some in between where there's an appointment setter. So marketing drives the baton to an appointment setter and then they're doing certain things to qualify and set the appointment or marketing is setting the call straight to the professional. What you've just described there is the most important moment for the prospect because once they've committed to that day and time, in essence that's a commitment in that moment. But what happens is anything that happens between now and Tuesday at 10am that is perceived by the prospect to be of greater importance than showing up for that call at 10 or will impact their showing for that call at 10, does that make sense? So marketing and sales holding on, um, that baton at the same time between today, Friday and Tuesday and 10 and all the things that could come up for you and other prospects, that's where this concept and execution of the relay is so important so that we're both taking responsibility into it.

Speaker B: I uh, love that. Yeah, and it's totally true too because I'll say yes and I'll know like I committed to this, of course I'm going to go and blah, blah, blah. But yeah, you're right. If I, if anything comes up that's more important than I'll be like, okay, well that's just a sales call. He'll, if he's a good salesman, he'll hit me up. And if he's not, then we're done here. So no, I think that's, that's a huge tip and I'm sure it's uh, well, obviously it's very successful.

Speaker A: Well, cool. I appreciate that. So then we've got the next, we've got the next leg of the race. Right? So if marketing's the first leg and uh, SDR is the second leg and then account professional or marketing to account professional, it's either the second or third leg. But now the sales professional is, is holding the baton exclusively themselves. Right. So what's happening on this call? What's important to understand for the sales professionals is what I call the ten pack. Right? There's a ten pack of opportunities. On any given day, any given strategy session, this occurs naturally. I've seen it over the course of two decades. But what I'm saying here is sales professional gets on with prospect and there's a 10 pack of leads lead type, nine or 10. It's, it's like a lay down. Like my, my, my 12 year old daughter back here could take the credit card or maybe Even her little doggy down there. It's a layup. So you should be looking over to marketing and saying, gosh, thank you so much. That was an easy one. Right. Then on the other end of the spectrums, you got the one or two. You're like, how did this person wind up in my calendar? Right. So you ought to also be looking at, uh, marketing and thanking them because for every nine and 10, there's going to be a one and two. But the sales rep's real impact now on that call is that six in between.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Their ability to influence and impact the prospect to make a buying decision when they're able to make that buying decision. Now you have the handoff to fulfillment, whether that's some course or certification, something that's happening online, to a coaching program or a consulting, um, that fulfillment piece. You know, happy to explore that handoff as well. I just wanted to, you know, check in on the. The. Now we've talked a bit about the sales professional's responsibility. It is for them to influence, not the lay downs, because those are easy and not the DQs, because they're DQ'd. But how are you gonna move a, uh, three to enrollment? How are you gonna move an eight to enrollment? That's where their talent and strengths come in.

Speaker B: I love that. Well, and I love how you, you describe the different types of leads. Cause I think for, yeah, for marketers, you have the lead metric. Like, okay, well, we generated some leads. Like, what the heck? That's not our fault. But, you know, understanding that there's different levels, you know, quality levels of the lead is really important. As marketers, it's easy to forget that. Just be like, you know, wipe your hands off it. I'm, um, good. But really, the level and how good they are, not good. They are maybe the percentage of each type because there are some leads that you're just like, this seems like a perfect lead. This person is perfect in all the different stats, you know, all the different, uh, you know, check items we have on our customer avatar canvas, it's all of them. And sometimes it just doesn't matter because that could be a three or two or a one. And as the marketer, you don't know that. So it's important for marketers just to be understanding that you can't even understand what the level is until sales talks to them. So love that and gives a much better idea of like, you know, the role of both marketing and sales in terms of the quality of the leads.

Speaker A: Well, and that's such an Important distinction. Right. Because then you've got some, maybe rare instances where somebody's filling out an application or form or saying things that don't quite prove out on it. But again, what a relay team will do, uh, is meet frequently and break down the tape.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: What was happening on the canvas? Do we need to adjust anything? Or maybe the prospect wasn't truthful on it, or what's happening on the sales call. Everything on the canvas was right, but maybe we didn't ask the best possible questions to keep in line where our value really actually lives. Or as we turn and look to fulfillment, we've got to understand, is there alignment between what we're really actually delivering on what's been sold and what's been marketed? Right. So it's not just running a relay race, but it's having team meetings. Right. Um, I forget what we called it. Do you remember what we called it? I'm blocking on it now, but it

Speaker B: was, uh, the growth team meetings, or.

Speaker A: No, there was that one too. But this was like marketing and sales and, um, fulfillment. But as I'm getting at that next handoff right now, you've got the handoff. Ah. If you have an enrollment or when you have an enrollment, Sales has the baton. They're handing it off to fulfillment. Now, if that's an online course or program, uh, or certification, everything that goes into the CRM or whatever's happened to set that person up to realize the success of the certification or the course, or if it's going to coaching or a mastermind or an accelerator, and maybe there's some human fulfillment component, they're getting on an intake call, they're working with a coach. It's so important that the sales rep holds themselves to the standard of getting all the information that they need to not result in a closed sale, but to result in a successful enrollment. So now we're at the point where sales has an enrollment that they're handing off to fulfillment. And so the, the. The two hands here are, uh, that fulfillment has been really clear with sales and marketing and the entire organization, everything that they need to set up the client for success. The sales rep clearly understands all the, the components of a successful enrollment. They've executed on it. They've entered it into the system. Not taking notes in a CRM for notes, but so that they're set up. I mean, how many times have you enrolled for a, uh, program or service? And you get on your intake call, uh, and someone's like, okay, tell me about yourself. What's your business why are you here? What are you trying to achieve? And you're like, well, that was the whole process for the enrollment. It actually breaks rapport. But if the fulfillment person can start with a handoff of that established rapport and take them here now, we can focus not on what they bought, the features and benefits, but how is their participation in the program, the certification, or their mastermind going to achieve the results that they articulated in the sales call?

Speaker B: Oh, man, that's. That's a huge tip too, because I think, you know, as humans, we're, we're subconsciously building, you know, kind of our vision of an organization or a person or a product, and, and we don't even realize we're doing it. But if you set up the expectation and that's been supported, say through two departments going from marketing to sales, and then it just falls apart with fulfillment, there's nothing more jarring or disappointing or. I, uh, don't know. It spikes your, uh, like warning signs. It's like a red flag, like, oh my God, I just spent a lot of money and now I'm getting questioned by somebody who, I thought I already established a relationship with this company and now I'm talking to the person who's going to be fulfilling it. And they have no idea who I am. And everybody up till this point made me feel special. And this person doesn't give a crap or that's my perception of it. So now I'm like, okay, well now the whole company's a lie. Like, uh, everybody I talked to so far is a liar. And then you just get very wary and suspicious.

Speaker A: Very wary. Right. And that's where you have buyer's remorse or worse yet, a refund. Right? A request for refund. But the challenge is, was it that the, the fulfillment lead or human being wasn't prepared, or was it that they didn't get what they were supposed to get from the sales rep to set that up for success? So when you talk about automations and things like that, that's where, you know, you know, Keenan and, and others were so involved to make sure that when we ran successful sales calls, that information was captured, went into the system to set the person up for success. Because we don't want to set up our teammates to, to look like they're unprepared or they don't know what they're doing, which you've just described. That's, that's a terrible teammate. That's, that's akin to just like marketing throwing the baton over the fence. Sales reps like, um, I'm m done, I got a sale. Throw it over. And now you, you have to pick up the baton off the ground and start fresh. Not cool.

Speaker B: No. Well, and it's, you know, like I said, it's well, and I say this all the time, but retention is the name of the game moving forward for business. It has nothing to do with, I mean it's always has to do with acquisition. But I think for, you know, the last 10, 15 years or so, it's just been so easy. Just get the sale to get the sale. It's fine. Whatever happens to them, that's fine. There's more people. We'll get the sale next time if you don't get it this time. But I think how things are moving and how, you know, businesses are cutting back and how everybody's kind of contracting a little bit now, the expectation is going to be no. Well, number one, if I think that I made a bad decision with money, I'm getting that money back. And that sounds crazy because you think that every situation is that and it's like, no, there's situations where you're like you're going to eat it just because, uh, it's too much work. It's too much work to even deal with this. I'm not m going to try. That's going to end too. So now you're going to have people who are very guarded with their money and have an expectation that, hey, this is a big decision for me because I don't make, I don't spend money lightly anymore. And so you make me feel really good about this at every stage, especially the beginning or I'm going to leave quickly and I'm not going to recommend you to anyone. So I love that whole process. Okay, so now we have, uh, marketing does a good job preparing the client. They have set those expectations really well, made the client feel special. They passed the baton off to sales, who has now been prepped with all the information that was found. And marketing understands that it might be different levels of leads. So their understanding of the salespeople's job. Sales people, you know, do everything that you said that salespeople do. Get them farther down the path, make sure you're catering to the different levels again to make sure that you're getting those kind of mid range, iffy people, get them over the line. And now you pass it off to fulfillment, who has been prepared with all the data the marketing and sales collected in order to start them on the onboarding path. That's going to make them, you know, feel very secure about their decision.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean now in that scenario, and a, uh, true enrollment has happened, the relay race has been won and the prospect should have everything he or she needs to participate in their own rescue or the achievement of their own results. So whether again, they're getting a certification, consuming an online course, or actively participating in coaching or a mastermind, now it's up to them. Now the team, the race, if you will, the relay has shifted from fulfillment to fulfillment and client in service of clients. Most important, results that were uncovered in the sales process.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. Well, you know, I think we just uh, solve sales, uh, with one podcast.

Speaker A: That's all it takes, you know, and, and the, the biggest outcome of that is, is sales is a team effort. You know, in, in too many cultures it's sales is either, um, I can't name names here, but some of the cultures I've been at, sales is the be all, end all. They're celebrated and, and, and championed as the reason why they're clients. Right. And that marketing is just, just here to drive leads and fulfillment is just here to fulfill. And in other organizations like, you know, digital marketer or marketing driven organizations, it's like the focus is marketing. You know, if you've got a business that's, you know, product or inventor heavy, it's fulfillment. But the truth is the winning isn't something that any individual in one of those departments has done or any of those individual departments have done. The winning occurs when that client achieves the results that they set out for themselves by making the investment with us. And that happens through a team effort. So sales aren't won or lost by marketing, sales or fulfillment. The real winner or loser is the prospect. We have to come together as a team and understand the brand is enrolling the prospect to be a client through the relay race of marketing, sales and fulfillment.

Speaker B: Ah. Uh, I love that. Well, and you just said brand. That was the only thing I was going to add was that the entire process, this cohesive vision for the process is branding. Because if you don't, if you don't, then it's really just three departments and there's some people working together to, you know, do a checklist and whatever, but the process and the execution of the brand image, that's what you just described and I think it's uh, it's genius. So everybody needs to do that. We'll definitely have you back on, uh, soon to actually talk about these more of the specific steps and how to break down the process. But I think if anybody doesn't know how those three departments kind of fit together, uh, you did an excellent job describing that and the importance of making it happen. Because a lot of people, like you said, it's like, okay, well, marketers just think of like, oh, uh, you gotta get the leads. The leads are, if I don't do the marketing, then nothing can happen. And it's like, no, everybody's take a step back, understand that no man is an island, and let's just work together and we'll all make money and the customers will be happy and we'll all move forward with our lives. So thank you, Neil. That was, that was super helpful.

Speaker A: You're welcome. It's just, be a good teammate, right? We're a team. We're on a relay race. Be a good teammate.

Speaker B: Love it. Now somebody wants you to put together, uh, their sales team. Uh, how can they find out more?

Speaker A: Yeah, they, they could find out more. I'm really excited I shared with you in San Diego a few weeks ago, uh, Keenan Shaw, my co founder, and I have launched c. Salesmagic AI. Right. So Salesmagic AI. And that's magic with an iq. So we'll, we'll probably put the, the link in there for you. But SalesMagic AI is a platform that we've built that's revolutionizing sales enablement for sustained business growth. So we are solving for and have created, imagine a, uh, match platform where organizations can come and find their dream talent, their dream sales profess, and at the same time, sales professionals can come and find their dream organization to work with. So a recruiting platform for businesses and a training platform for sales professionals who may need to close some gaps along the way to be placed at their dream position.

Speaker B: That sounds amazing. You know, that's, uh, you know, I'm so glad you guys did that because it's a big deal trying to find salespeople and form departments and everything is just so risky. And there's so much, you know, potential turnover and cost and time and energy and all those different things, uh, where if they just come to, to you guys, hopefully they can find somebody much faster and better and that will, you know, have the same kind, uh, of methods and principles, uh, that you do, which I think is, uh, what everybody. So, uh, thank you for that and I hope you guys are super successful.

Speaker A: Thank you. And the only other thing I'd offer because the, you know, the digital marketer clients are near and dear to my heart. I've, uh, stayed in touch with so many of you and understanding marketing may be a little bit different for some of you. You might be your own salesperson. So like I don't have a sales pro or I don't need a sales pro. Just, just Find me on LinkedIn. Happy to answer any questions for you and close some gaps. I, I appreciate everything you've built over there, Mark, and anything I can do to support your clients would be an honor for me.

Speaker B: No, that's fantastic. Well, I'll definitely send some people your way and thank uh, you for coming on and we'll have to have you back soon because I think, you know, you know, your understanding of marketing really lend to, you know, making these connections between the two departments. And, and uh, like I said, I think moving forward every company is going to need to get really serious about the sales process. But then the connection between the fulfillment and how it all fits together into a cohesive system which is pretty soon it's just going to be expected and I think the tolerance for companies that aren't like this is going to drop to zero very soon. And, and it's good, good thing everybody's tired and they want it to be better.

Speaker A: Tired of being sold for sure.

Speaker B: Exactly. So, so thanks again. We'll have you on soon. And uh, everybody check out Neil, uh, on uh, LinkedIn and his new uh, brand website and uh, you know, get help if you need it. And in the meantime, keep on listening to the podcast. All right, so be sure to hit that follow button so you get notified when all of our new episodes release. Please share this with that friend who's clueless about digital marketing. And don't Forget to visit digitalmarketer.com where you can access all of our courses, certifications and programs. Thanks again everyone and we'll see you next time.

Speaker A: This is digital marketing.

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