Practical Ways Sales and Marketing Can Work to Increase Revenue in 2026 | Mark Kapczynski - 2023

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Speaker B: Sales and marketing. We've heard it before. They should work together. But I guarantee they're probably not in your organization, at least not to the level that they really should to generate the money that your pocketbook really needs. In this episode we're going to tackle that and we're going to share some ideas, some uh, some unusual uh, ideas when it comes to the discussion of sales and marketing working together. Check it out. Hey, hey, hey everyone. Welcome to another great episode of the Sales Evangelist podcast. I'm your host Donald C. Kelly, the sales evangelist and I'm so excited for another great episode. I'm so excited to be here with you today on this episode. I have a great guest. His name's Mark. Mark. And I got a chance to connect. Mark was the, he's a sales guy, his wife is in marketing and he worked, runs this a uh, great firm control uh, media and they teach and emphasize so much on the power of how marketing and sales can work together, how you could drive revenue for the organization. And he has some ideas that are, how would you say it? They're uh, they could be controversial to most Marketers, but the principles are remarkable. And, uh, salespeople sometimes may not necessarily want to work with marketers, but Mark has an idea that works, um, very well, and he's going to share us three points of how we can help sales and marketing work together fantastically. Now, if this is your first time listening to our show, please subscribe. We'll notify you every time we drop a new piece of episode. If you have been listening for a minute, I appreciate you. Thank you. Take this content. Share it with another teammate that can benefit from it. As we dive in, you're going to hear why Mark is so emphatic, um, about sales and marketing working together. And he may have a story about his wife or not. Check it out. Mark, welcome to the show.

Speaker C: Thanks for having me, Donald. Um, appreciate it.

Speaker B: Hey, appreciate it. Look forward to this conversation. And in the prep call, we talked about extensively about why this is such a big passion. I would love for you to tell our audience why you feel so strongly about sales and marketing being cohesive together.

Speaker C: Yeah, maybe because my wife is a hardcore marketer and.

Speaker B: Oh boy.

Speaker C: And more. I'm more in sales and so I have to, uh, you know, live the fight every day, not just at work, but at home.

Speaker B: Uh, uh, so you have a doctorate degree in this then?

Speaker C: Yes, I think I'm still studying for it though. Um, no, you know, but seriously on, uh, the work side, you know, sales and marketing are peanut butter and chocolate. Uh, they have to work well together. Otherwise, you know, you just have two silos going two different directions with two sets of goals. And no one's happy at the end of the day because, you know, marketing feels they're doing a great job. And then, you know, sales can't close anything. And sales is frustrated that, you know, they have to do all the heavy lifting and marketing just spends money willy nilly. So, you know, it's this, uh, constant battle between them and, you know, you have to bring them together so that, you know, you can ultimately accomplish the main goal for the company, which is grow the business. And, uh, you need both teams working together.

Speaker B: I feel like we've talked a lot about this over the past, like, 10 years as sales and marketing community. Why is it persistently still an issue? Is it just innately historically? This is what. I'm sorry to put words in your mouth.

Speaker C: Yeah, no, no, you know, I wish I, uh, just magically knew the answer and how to magically fix it. But, you know, I think, you know, it stems from traditional marketing has always been like, about building A brand messaging, brand awareness, and not really focused on lead generation and driving revenue. Right. It was like, you know, if you look at like kind of the old school definition of marketing, it's like brand awareness. And yeah, uh, it wasn't anything about sales or driving revenue. And over time, you know, certainly as marketers have become more performance oriented, they've had to learn, hey, there's revenue that has to be associated with what we do. We can't just spend money willy nilly and they're seeing the fact that their budgets are being cut. So I think a lot of this on marketing has to understand that they are part of the sales process. And then on the flip side, the sales side has to, I think, embrace, you know, what marketing is great at. You know, from storytelling to, I would just simply even put it at just nurturing. Right. You know, as a salesperson, I don't want to have to nurture 100 accounts. Right. But marketing, you know, that's what they do all day long and they're great at it. So it's, it's appreciating each other and finding each other's strengths to help the collective good.

Speaker B: Well, I feel like you're the passion that you have for it and some of these things that you establish, I think it would give us a good talk, good guidance and a good conversation and some great m direction that we can focus on. So maybe we won't fix it perfectly today for every company, but at least they'll know what path to go on. And the first one I want to look at, which I think is germane to it, and it's what we've talked about before, but it goes back to the goals that sales and marketing has. You said make sure sales and marketing have a common goal rather than separate goals. Yes. It sounds very basic, but enlighten us. Why is that one so critical for organizations? Or why is it such a detriment? Why is it that there's still separate two and separate goals? And what do those separate goals look like right now?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, you know, typically, you know, at, uh, most companies, even today. Right. Marketing has goals on driving awareness, getting people to the website, but no real ownership of, you know, leads that generate revenue. Right. They kind of draw the line there. And salespeople are chartered, you know, with like, you have to produce numbers, you know, that's beaten into them. And you know, you have to embrace kind of both things. Right. Which is salespeople have to understand that traffic leads to prospects, leads to opportunities that can be closed. So you need this sort of top of funnel kind of work to be able to drive enough interest into the company. And then on the marketing side, they have to take responsibility that they're spending money on behalf of the company. They have to play a role in the sales process and see their work transition into revenue generating contracts for the business. And so today, you know, they're, they're separate and so they have to be united. They have to uh, have shared revenue goals and shared new wins with new logos or increasing customer long term customer value. Right. Increasing revenue within a, uh, in a single customer. All of those things have to be shared. And maybe a lot of this is just the changes that marketing has to take on. But marketing needs to change the way they're compensated. Most marketers are just straight salary, right. And maybe a bonus at the end of the year for making it through the year. Salespeople as you know, are commission based. And so I think part of this is changing the economics of how marketers are compensated so that they feel a little bit of, uh, I'll say the pain, but also the love of closing deals and the upside and what they're working on.

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Speaker B: So here's my. I'm on the other side of that now. So I'm the marketer, let's just hear me out. And a CMO at this company and goes back to the historical problem. Like we did work together and we did a fantastic goal. And what would be the common goals? Revenue goal, maybe that's our common goal.

Speaker C: I think, you know, ultimately, uh, it leads to revenue. It could Be new logos, could be, you know, increasing revenue per customer, things like that.

Speaker B: So that's our goal. The states, the new logos, enterprise level deals that we're going to bring in for the organization. I give you the most perfect leads and you, my good friend Mark, trust you, love you. But there's some things out of your control. The deal doesn't close but in my view I feel that the salespeople aren't closing it. Why is my son's college tuition being tied to something I huh, have no m control over? So one, what's your reply on that? And then two, how do you if we are still going to work but sales is going to run motion on the back end, what can marketing still do to support sales?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think a big piece of this is you know, the teams have to meet and work together on a day by day basis. So like when I was going through some of this, you know, I would meet on a consistent, you know, sometimes two, three times a week as a marketer with the sales organization so that it isn't like, so throw it over. Like I generated the perfect lead, I threw it over the fence and they can't close it right. Because then the opposite on the sales side is like that lead wasn't a quality lead, I couldn't close it right. So you have to be more in sync day to day and you have to discuss the pipeline together. So it's like here's the leads that are coming in. What made this one better than that one? What gives this one higher intent or a higher score? So it could be closed right then if it didn't close like what were the factors that you know that influenced that? Non close. Right. So you know the deal lost, right? Was it the company just didn't have the money, did they? You know, the champion moved on. You know what changed that changed the situation. But you have to have buy in on a day to day basis. Not a uh, hey, we met with them once a month and you know, and we're just throwing things over the fence or populating them into the CRM and wishing them luck. It's a commitment on both sides to be fully engaged with each other that we are one team, we're not two teams.

Speaker B: And that's kind of like what you talked about before with us. Like you know the point number two the idea of working together. But I'm thinking like we're meeting together. What are we going to talk about though two, three times a week? Is it specific accounts or is it what marketing can do to help me in that account or.

Speaker C: Yeah, it starts with the pipeline review. So what's in the pipeline? You know, what came in this week, this day? You know, depending on the business, right. They may get only a couple leads a week, some get more per day, but it's basically constantly reviewing the pipeline and where accounts are within the pipeline and then having the common discussion on, you know, again, what made one lead higher quality than another. And then if something's stuck in the funnel, why is it stuck? And what can sales do, what can marketing do to try to push it through? Is it just some nurturing? Or maybe marketing has an event coming up and we're going to do a small dinner and we're going to invite prospects to it and then we're going to use that as a way of just driving engagement. Right. Marketing is great at driving engagement. Sales thrives off of engagement. So you know, that's a key point that if marketing can use its resources and levers to get the customers out to be actually face to face, one on one with the salesperson, then you know they're doing a big piece of their work to help that salesperson.

Speaker B: Right. Cause I've seen that piece before, like that work. But it, like you said, it takes a level of coordination which is not traditional. And in order for that it is, you have to think non traditional in this example. So I like that. So okay, I would.

Speaker C: And like I said, it even goes down to the comp plan for marketers, you know, changing from just being completely salary based to hey, you know, like here's some upside. If you get these, you know, if your MQLs turn into SQL that close, right. You're going to get a little piece of that action.

Speaker B: Are they still relevant though? Sorry? Those terms, mql, SQL, you know, whether

Speaker C: you like the term or not is maybe, uh, that's the bigger debate, but that's the semantic. The concept. Yeah, the concept is still the same which is marketers are driving some form of lead and sales want leads that can ultimately be closed. And so the closer the alignment between what good leads look like, what kind of person shows the right intent for your product, you know, what problems are those customer, uh, types or profiles facing that, then you know, the salesperson can leverage in their conversations. Marketing has all the messaging around, hey, you have this problem, we have this solution. Oh, and here's some case studies and examples of how we've done it with other folks. Right? You stack the deck in your favor at that point.

Speaker B: Interesting. Are there any other Metrics that we should be, uh, paying attention to or just, I mean, are those the two that you would feel that sales and marketing can really focus on? Obviously, besides the tie back to their goal, Right, Whatever their mutual accepted goals are?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think, um, you know, marketing plays into things like cac, customer acquisition cost and lifetime value. I mean, those are metrics that ultimately get shared between sales and marketing because especially, uh, in enterprise accounts, you know, the spend doesn't stop just when the lead is created. Right. That's not a closed deal. So in enterprise sales, you definitely need to look at a combined customer acquisition cost or cac and then the lifetime value. Right. And then, you know, there's a number of metrics like time to close, number of touch points. I would also, you know, on the macro level, look at a term called roas, a return on ad spend. So if you're investing heavy in paid media or paid events, you know, what's the return on that? Right. Are you seeing 4 or 5x? If you're not, something's happening. Right?

Speaker B: Do you feel the. I think I know your answer on this one. You're just, uh, going along the lines of, again, marketing helping sales. Can marketing really close deals? Can marketing really help sales close deals?

Speaker C: They can help. They're not going. They shouldn't be responsible for the close because ultimately there's more to it, right? There's paperwork, there's contracts, there's MSAs, you know, licensing agreements. And marketing's not expected to know all that and how to work with legal on that stuff or finance and how to fully price things out. So I don't think, you know, it's reasonable to expect marketing to take it all the way through to close, especially in enterprise sales. But certainly they have to take it all the way up to the point where the customer is given the verbal yes and that they're ready to close and play along with that salesperson to, you know, help them in any way they can.

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Speaker B: You tell me about some skills that marketing has and, uh, I probably should have prepped that first question a little more with this, but you told me, and I agree, marketing are great storytellers. How can that feature, that skill help a salesperson when they're in, I mean, post demo, you know, to close the last mile, so to speak.

Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, so marketers are great storytellers and salespeople usually are not great storytellers. They're, you know, very transactional. So I think it's, you know, maybe sharing the art with each other. And um, I think marketers can help salespeople build the relationship in a different way that's not just purely transactional. Right. Salespeople want to get to the close as quickly as possible. Ah, marketers can help them smooth that journey out so that they're able to build a better relationship with their client or prospect where they're able to exert influence over that client, but do it in a way where the client is not freaked out or concerned, uh, that they're being pressured into buying something that they don't need. Right. It's, it's building the trust between not just the salesperson, but the whole organization. Right. And the client then can feel better that like, wow, I'm hearing the same story from the sales team, the marketing team, the CEO, everyone involved in the process. And that consistency is something that marketing is really good at.

Speaker B: What else can marketers do to help salespeople or where else marketing marketers can help salespeople?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think a couple things, right? It's driving engagement. There always can do webinars or podcasts, or come out to events, uh, or host dinners. Just having lots of touch points for clients and prospects with the brand or the product team and so on. Sales team. And it kind of put that in that broader bucket of helping the sales organization nurture clients. I feel like in today's world, we've gone from, it's like, you know, uh, top of funnel right to the bottom of the funnel in the transaction and people are upset if it doesn't close that quickly. There's like a lost art of nurturing. Right. Some people just aren't ready. Ready to buy. Yes. Some people just aren't ready to buy today and have to be nurtured along. And marketing, uh, can play an. Absolutely. A great role in helping drive the nurturing process because salespeople can see that as tedious. Right. Why should I just keep emailing?

Speaker B: I was going to get it because you mentioned like how, uh, marketers don't have to be the one doing the negotiation or getting a contractor licensing agreement, stuff like that. The salespeople can do that and they probably thrive and get excited on that, get the adrenaline rush. But then again, it's also, I don't want to update the CRM, so we have AI to help me with that. I don't want to take notes in a meeting. I also definitely do not want to keep following up over and over and over and over again. And to become, um, a marketer. That's one of the things I hear. I, I don't want my salesperson to become a marketer, but I do want my marketer. My salesperson understands some of the marketing capabilities and skills that can help them improve. But to some extent, yeah, if you can get marketing to say, all right, where's this in the process? Where are these deals, you know, these ones that are the interest level, they're not necessarily abiding yet. What can we do to send them this podcast episode or let's share this, you know, piece of content with them or engage with them in retargeting like that will work great because they're going to bring them back to the table. Sales do their part, work together, add to pipeline and next thing you know, marketing is getting a piece of their commission as well.

Speaker C: So and marketing is great at uh, keeping, you know, the brand top of mind so that, you know, when a client, you know, or prospects not ready to buy today, but you know, maybe they're ready to buy in six months when they have budget approval and things like that, they're still going to remember, oh, I remember that brand. I liked working with those people. That's who we're going to go with. That's who I'm going to recommend as number one.

Speaker B: Yeah. Oh my goodness. We spoke about a lot today specifically having a common goal, some sales and market. Some marketing people listening to this episode might get a get riled up saying that their jobs are going to be based on this deal closing.

Speaker C: That just freaked them out.

Speaker B: We're going to get some emails to you now, some LinkedIn messages.

Speaker C: Yes, definitely.

Speaker B: Regular meetings, uh, what's working, what's not, Pipeline, review together MQL and SQL. And then the third point we spent a little time on was the close. Can marketers help with the close and if so, what can it do? Storytelling component, following up, nurturing, keep helping the seller. Those are some of the areas if there's one major takeaway you want listeners to this episode to walk away with, what's that? One major piece of advice from the content we ideas we discussed today.

Speaker C: Yeah, well, maybe it ties back to the book I wrote which is everyone sells. And so uh, you know, if folks across the organization don't understand that concept and that they play a role in sales, then the business is going to be underperforming where they could be. So everyone's got to sell, everyone's got to be a part of that process and contribute to it. You can't just expect a salesperson to do everything magically and everyone's just riding their coattails. Sales can only do so much on their own.

Speaker B: I love it. Listen, this is great. Your new book and some of the things you're doing. If folks want to get in touch with you, where can they find you and find the book and all that fun stuff?

Speaker C: Uh, so, uh, not many mark Kapsinski's on LinkedIn so I'm pretty, pretty easy to find on LinkedIn. So please connect with me and, and then uh, my company website is called controlmedia.com with a K. So K O N T R O L M E D I A and my book is called Everyone Sells and it's at everyone sells book.com. so definitely appreciate, uh, folks reaching out and sharing their feedback with me.

Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for the wisdom. Thanks for coming on the show. We'll put that in show notes, the book as well as your LinkedIn profile. We appreciate it. Thanks, Donald.

Speaker C: Appreciate it. Great conversation. I love it.

Speaker B: Same to you anytime.

Speaker C: See ya.

Speaker B: Listen, if you haven't connected with Mark as of yet, please go ahead and do so. His details are in the show notes. Tell him you heard him here on the Sales Evangelist podcast and tell him that the Donald C. Kelly man over here sent you to connect with him. You can check out his book as well. We have stuff down in the show notes as well as his LinkedIn profile. I literally want you to thrive. I want you to be successful. This is why we did the podcast. I mean, it's been going since 2013. My goal is to help you to be successful. If you're successful, you're going to keep coming back, you're going to tell people about it, we're all going to get benefit. Because no one was helping me at the early beginning stage. Uh, I was making mistakes. But having a resource like this, this is why we do it. So I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. If you're tired of trying to do LinkedIn on your own and you really want to get some help and you want to get some guidance, we have our cohort kicking off this week and we'd love to have you join us. You can find details by going to the show notes to sales evangelist.com LinkedIn thesalese evangelist.com LinkedIn if you missed the first week of the cohort, you can check out the others. But this is our first week kicking off this new module, uh, this new, uh, updated version, and boy, I'm telling you, we're pumped on this one. Listen, I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. But most importantly, I want you to raise your level of thinking. I want you to go out and do big things. See you on the next one.

Speaker A: The Sales Evangelist Podcast is created by the Sales Evangelist sales training organization. It is produced by TSE Studios. Our podcast production manager is Nancy Paul. Our audio engineer is Gershon Obayo. Our video engineer is Dasan Cunardo. Guest management is done by Jill Vito and Christy Vertus. Our content writer is Carlisa Galbraith. Our graphic designer is Yurvish Savalia. And I'm your host and executive producer, Donald C. Kelly.

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