August 12, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode, we're exploring how a company successfully aligned their sales and marketing teams to maximize their efforts of their sellers.
The great Andrew Sims, CRO at SentriLock, and Trey Morris, VP/Senior Consultant here at CSS, are joining me to break down that journey.
Both bring such great points to the table, like:
- Why you don't have to make Mount Everest-sized changes in order to achieve sales and marketing alignment
- How marketing should help prepare your sales team for battle
- Why all great companies have a singular mission from which all marketing, branding and content can be drawn from.
LINKS:
Andrew Sims
SentriLock
Trey Morris
Matt Sunshine
The Center for Sales Strategy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Sunshine (00:05):
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.
(00:27):
In this episode, we'reexploring how a company
successfully aligned their salesand marketing teams to maximize
their efforts of their sellers.
The great Andrew Sims, CRO atSentriLock, and Trey Morris, VP/
Senior Consultant here at CSS,are joining me to break down
(00:51):
that journey.
Both bring such great points tothe table, like why you don't
have to make Mount Everest-sizedchanges in order to achieve
sales and marketing alignment,how marketing should help
prepare your sales team forbattle and, finally, why all
great companies have a singularmission from which all marketing
(01:13):
, branding and content can bedrawn from.
With that, let's get theconversation going.
So, andrew, in your experience,what were some of the initial
(01:34):
signs that you saw that salesand marketing were not aligned
in your company?
Did and did this?
Did this lead to any specificchallenges that you were having
to deal with?
Andrew Sims (01:48):
CLock I had a really, I think, unique
perspective when I came in toSentriLock as the head of sales,
because I had been a customerof journey and the sales cycle
myself.
But then I had also gone andworked at a organization that
(02:09):
had had SentriLock for a while,so I knew it from both the
having navigated the onboardingand new customer process, as
well as the retention andrenewing the contract process
and renewing the contractprocess.
And so when I came in I had alot of perspective, I think, of
(02:34):
the good and the bad, about howwe approached conversations with
customers, how we brought upnegotiating and kind of working
through the retention as well asthe new business cycle, and I
also had, I think, a uniqueperspective about how people buy
products within organized realestate and technology products
for real estate.
So I think in the first threemonths we made a lot of changes
(02:55):
within the sales team, both froma personnel perspective as well
as kind of putting a process inplace that was more than go get
lead, go talk to lead, nurturelead, and if they say yes, great
, if they don't wait three, fouryears until they're ready again
.
And I think what I wanted to dowas be a lot more I don't want
(03:18):
to say forceful, but at least alot more persistent in how we
kind of found those validbusiness reasons for people and
also found people other thanjust the main gatekeeper to
express those valid businessreasons too, because in our
industry the gatekeeper doesn'tuse our product.
It's the people that thegatekeeper represents that
(03:39):
actually use our product right.
And so you know, if I'm sellingthem on how a lockbox works or
how our system works, they mightsay, oh, great, cool, sounds
good, whereas if I'm talking toa realtor or a broker or
somebody who uses it every day,they're going to have a
different perspective.
So we had none of that, we hadnone of that content, we had
(04:00):
none of that script, we had noneof that infrastructure of kind
of like how to have those typesof conversations.
And so you know, obviously Iknew of you guys and your agency
and the Center for SalesStrategy and had followed some
of the blogs and other thingsthat you guys had created, and I
was like you know, what theseguys are talking about is
(04:22):
infrastructure.
What they're talking about isprocess and procedure.
Trey's known me a long time.
I am not a process and procedurekind of guy, but I respect it,
and I respect the fact that youneed to have organization in
order to grow an organization.
So I think, when I realizedthat I had none of these things
before me, I needed to findsomebody or some people that
(04:44):
could come in and say, okay, wedon't have to rip out all the
plumbing here, we just maybeneed to like redo the tile in
the bathroom.
And I think what Trey and whatyour team brought to us as a
company was perspectivePerspective that this is not a
massive Mount Everest that youcan have to climb, that you can
(05:07):
make very small incrementalchanges, philosophically as well
as tactically, and get yourselfback on track.
Matt Sunshine (05:18):
Yeah, Trey, anything to add?
Yeah?
Trey Morris (05:21):
Yeah, so so when we , when we started, when we
engage and start workingtogether, you know, I went, went
to Birmingham and met withAndrew and the team and I and I
met the marketing people and itquickly became very apparent
that they were not on the samepage with Andrew and his sales
team.
And I went to Andrew and I saidwe need to get this aligned.
(05:44):
And he absolutely agreed.
And it was a struggle for abouta year of getting everything in
line to make sure that salesand marketing really understood
each other.
The sales team knew who theaudience was, who knew who the
prospect was, knew what theirneeds were.
Marketing didn't, and that wasa big problem in the
(06:04):
communication strategy that theywere putting out on behalf of
the sales team.
Matt Sunshine (06:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So doing enough of these typesof podcasts.
I hear sales doesn't understand, marketing doesn't understand.
Right, and both have theirperspective and from their
perspective they're 100 percentcorrect.
(06:30):
So let's, let's dive a littlebit deeper.
What were some of the biggestroadblocks that you faced in
fostering and nurturing thatcommunication and that
collaboration, thatcollaborative effort between
sales and marketing?
(06:51):
What were some of theroadblocks?
Andrew Sims (06:53):
Well, I think the biggest one was simply
organizational hierarchy.
At the time I was not managingthe marketing team directly.
They were housed underneath adifferent department completely
and you know, there wassometimes outside input, like
(07:18):
they would solicit input from meand the sales team, but it was
more of kind of like let's getsome suggestions from sales.
And I think also I tell peopleall the time I am in sales but I
am a marketer, like I classifymyself as a full stack marketing
person who just happens to bedecent at sales presentations.
(07:39):
But I always feel like I wearthe marketing hat first and
foremost.
Right.
And that's why I love this newera of revenue operations and
chief revenue and VP of revenueworld, because it's kind of like
those of us who are good atsales don't have to call
ourselves salespeople.
Some days we can still pretendthat we're marketing people but
(08:02):
we get to kind of own the wholecustomer journey there, which is
exciting, right.
But I think probably thebiggest obstacle was number one
they didn't have thatunderstanding of kind of who I
was and who I could be withinthe organization.
So I mean, trey and I basicallyhad to build what revenue
operations and Andrew, as thechief revenue officer was going
(08:22):
to be at SentriLock, right, wehad had, historically, sales and
marketing had been together andthen sales and marketing were
separate, and then they weretogether and then they were
separate.
There had never really beenthis kind of understanding
institutionally within thecompany of where and frankly,
(08:42):
marketing was treated as thecommunications department, make
a newsletter, send an emailblast.
And when I came in, I very muchtried to push this idea that you
know, there's communications,there's corporate communications
and then there's demandgeneration right, and that I
wanted the marketing team to besolely focused on demand gen and
(09:06):
sales enablement right.
And so we had to, kind of so Ihad to first gain control of the
marketing team, which I did.
You know, we had some movementon the management team and it
opened up that team to not havea leader, which I then quickly
grabbed it and pulled it into myorg and said you know, this
makes sense.
And my CEO at the time was like, yes, it makes sense, let's,
(09:29):
let's do it.
And and so we, we really lockedthat in.
But that was probably thebiggest hurdle was trying to
have these conversations aboutmarketing when I was not
directly leading that effort,and Trey remembers those days
where we felt like we werehaving to convince people to do
things.
(09:50):
I think the second thing wasthat at the time our marketing
team structure they and again Iwas not in charge we tried to
build out an internal agency.
We tried to put a person inevery single possible function
that we would just assembly,line and conveyor belt marketing
(10:12):
and it was not good from ahuman capital standpoint but it
was also just not productivefrom an output standpoint.
We just weren't getting thingsdone and our Monday board was
just growing and growing andgrowing and the backlog was
growing and so finally I wasjust like you know what, I've
(10:33):
got a really great agencypartner here in Birmingham, a
friend of mine.
I was like I'm going tooutsource like 75% of this and
we did it.
We pulled the trigger on it inthe kind of second quarter of
this year and we have not lookedback Like they've been a great
Dot Edison, they've been a greatpartner for us and just getting
creative work done right.
(10:56):
So that was not you know, thatwas not apparent at that time
that we didn't need a sevenperson marketing team inside of
SentriLock.
It just was not productive.
So I think, again to answeryour question, there were a lot
of internal roadblocks.
I think there was just a lot ofstructure and hierarchy, as
well as competing thoughts ofwhat marketing represented
(11:17):
within the company, and I thinkwe're past all that now.
I think we have absolutealignment here and I think we
all realize and we've allaccepted the fact which I'm sure
every marketing person wholistens to this podcast will be
like tell me your magic.
Yoda Sales has finally realizedthat marketing is going to tell
(11:37):
them what to say, who to say itto and when to say it, and that
the job of the salesperson isto deliver those messages, run
the sequence, keep the cadencealive and close the deal, but
that marketing is going toprepare you for battle and it's
your job to go capture the flag.
Matt Sunshine (12:01):
So I've been taking some notes because I know
that people that are listeningto this are probably going to
want to kind of break this downand go OK.
So what are the strategies thatI can implement?
Like, what are the?
What are the specific thingsthat if, as I'm listening to the
story, that I could take awayand do away and do so, let me
(12:26):
restate them and then Trey, ifyou want to comment on them,
maybe that's a good way to addsome life to what I'm saying or
add some color to what I'msaying.
So, andrew, a few of the thingsthat you did is you really
defined what the job is?
It's no longer the marketingrole, is no longer a corporate
(12:47):
communications job.
It's more of a demandgeneration job.
The second thing that you didis you took stock of what are we
really good at doing and whatare we not as good at doing, and
you outsourced and brought inexpertise where you needed to,
(13:07):
versus believing that, boy, wecan do everything on our own.
And then the third thing, thelast thing, is you implemented a
playbook that everyoneunderstands what their job is in
implementing this playbook Fair.
Trey Morris (13:27):
Trey yeah, no, that's exactly what he did, you
know, first of all, he had totake over marketing because the
person running marketing wasn'treally doing the marketing.
I mean, we would have so manyconversations where I felt like
I was talking Andrew off a ledgebecause of the frustration that
(13:47):
he had with, you know A thenumber of people they had, the
amount of money they wereinvesting in those people.
And then the thing that was akicker was he'd call and he'd be
like, okay, should it take amonth to put together a 15
second social media video?
And I'm like, no, it shouldtake a day or two.
(14:08):
He's like that's not right.
And then he would tell me howmuch it costs and I'm like, oh
no, that's not, that's not right.
And he was so frustrated and so.
But he finally was able to getin control.
He was able to move thoseresources around, he was able to
figure out what the messagingwas, get them on that, outsource
(14:30):
it to a very good agency inBirmingham that was going to be
more efficient, more effectiveand much faster, which would
give the tools and resourcesthat the sales team needed to
actually start to go after andhave the activity to their
prospects like they needed to.
And it's it's working so well.
Andrew Sims (14:48):
Yeah, and Trey, I'll just say Matt Trey.
I think I felt like Trey waslike the man on the Island he
was.
He was Tom Hanks on castaway,liking all of our Facebook posts
.
I would look at stuff and he'dbe like, well, there's Trey, he
liked it, trey liked it.
And I finally went back and youknow I was like, look, I love
Trey, but like I need morepeople to like our content than
(15:11):
we pay Trey to like our content.
Hey I did a good job, man, Iliked every single one of them.
He earned that top fan badge onFacebook very well, but but no,
you're, you're exactly right it.
It was tough.
There were some dark days whereI was just like I don't know if
I can break through this, youknow, and meanwhile, matt,
(15:31):
what's crazy about it is thatwe're closing so much business,
Like we're, we're, we'recontinuing to be sex successful
on the sales front, um, but wejust can't, we can't get it
right in the backend, which Ithink is what drove me crazy,
because it's like I want to feellike the machine is working and
we're not just like winging ithere, especially knowing that we
(15:55):
were looking at and are stilllooking at launching into
adjacent marketplaces.
Right, you know, I think, onething that it's worth noting for
anybody listening, because Ithink our business is very
unique.
I tell people all the time, youknow, when I recruit
salespeople, I'm like welcome tothe easiest sales job you'll
ever have.
You know, we're in a very nicheindustry with a very niche
(16:18):
product and there's a singularcompetitor, and so the only job
is that if they're not with you,they're with them.
So go, you know, go do salesRight and and so I think that's
(16:39):
what was going to be dauntingand have lots of competitors
where I can't rely on myinstitutional knowledge or my
baked in contacts from 10 yearsas a customer and in the
industry and I have to coldprospect and I have to run the
scripts and I have to do allthese things.
I don't have that written downanywhere.
(16:59):
There is no playbook, there isnothing for somebody to go out
and pitch SentriLock to anybodyoutside of realtor world, right.
So I think that's ultimatelywhere, you know, I had the
executive push, Andrew, go findnew ponds to fish in.
But then I had the reality ofthe fact that it's like well, I
(17:21):
can't build the blueprints, Ican't design the blueprints for
this because I don't have anycontrol over it.
So again, I think once we gotthat control in the world
changed and I think once we madethe organizational changes,
everything, the sun got a littlebit brighter.
And I think, sitting here now,two weeks into the tenure of my
(17:42):
new sales manager, because I wasgoing to say another thing that
you know people that arelooking for advice one thing is
that if you, if you ever findyourself holding holding the gun
, holding the bayonet, holdingthe flag, also handling the ammo
box, you need to fire yourselffrom one of those jobs and there
(18:02):
were many times where I feellike Trey was trying to very
passively tell me like youcannot be the sales leader and
the individual contributor atthe same time, like that is that
?
Trey Morris (18:13):
is not passive about my instructions on that.
Andrew Sims (18:20):
But but you know he was right and it took me some
maturation, it took me some kindof come to Jesus moments, as we
say here in Alabama, before Ifinally realized look, my skill
lies in organizing the RevOpsengine, not carrying out the
tactical side of it.
A lot of times, people inmarketing and sales, they are
(18:44):
multifaceted, they aremulti-talented, you know they
can sell, they can market, theycan do all these things and they
think that they can and should.
Right, but you have to buildthe team.
You have to build the team.
You know you have to build SEALTeam 6 around yourself, right,
and I think that's what Ifinally have now is that I have
a good sales leader.
(19:05):
I can focus on the, thetactical, like the, the strategy
side for once.
Like I can actually think aboutthose things because I know
that she is focused on.
Once I give the orders, youknow she's going to tell the
soldiers where to go, and, andso I think that's that again was
another roadblock was that Iwas trying to be 17 different
(19:27):
positions while mastering noneof them.
Matt Sunshine (19:32):
Yeah, I would.
I'll share that.
I think that this is areoccurring theme that we see
again and again, certainly onthis podcast, where the solution
to any challenge is oh, we justneed to hire somebody.
And so we hire people and then,over time, that job that they
were hired to do is no longernecessary.
(19:55):
But they're really good peopleand you like them, and so you
retrofit them into doingsomething else and then, before
you know it, everybody's doingeverything and nobody's really
excelling at anything, and Ithink that you're articulating
the real world of that in yourexamples.
(20:17):
So I do have a follow-upquestion so you're having
success, so you're havingsuccess.
Let's go a little deeper onthat.
How do you measure success, orkeep track of, or know, how do
you measure the impact of thisimproved sales and marketing
(20:39):
alignment that you've built?
Do you have any specificmetrics that you look at?
Andrew Sims (20:45):
Yes, hours of sleep , no, I'm not losing them
anymore.
No, I think the biggest thingit's a great question and I wish
I had an equally as greatanswer.
We're kind of at that point,we're kind of at that exact
(21:05):
moment where I'm kind of askingmyself all right, how can I show
quantitatively that I've donesomething around here, right,
like I mean, the obvious KPI is,you know, money.
Right, we've increased annualrevenue, we've added annual
revenue, we've increased ourmarket share.
Right, you know, we'veshortened the gap between us and
(21:29):
them.
Those are all easy,quantifiable kind of metrics to
have.
One thing that we are and Treyknows about this journey too,
and I guess, if I'm countingroadblocks, this is perfect
therapy in time for my therapytomorrow.
But to look back on this, wenever really had a CRM, we never
(21:59):
really had a kind of dashboardand kind of a place to look at
all this stuff.
Like, I mean, the people whocame before me were just kind of
dialing it in the spreadsheets,right, and I said I want to get
out of spreadsheets, I want toput everything in one place, I
want a single source of truth,and that in itself was a journey
, because we don't have, youknow, as maybe a sophisticated
BI, as I wish that we did, butwe have.
(22:20):
Finally.
I have finally committed toHubSpot.
I'm in love with HubSpot.
You guys, elise and Trey, havedone an amazing job, helping us
just kind of push that over theline, and maybe I was the one
holding out, but now I'm in lovewith it.
I'm absolutely in love with itand now I can't wait to spread
(22:41):
the gospel.
But you know, I think that wasanother major part of something
that we didn't have was a way totrack velocity, a way to track
how many emails it takes, howquickly we get from introduction
conversation to let's starttalking about that.
(23:04):
This marriage is going to happen, right, and so I think, as we
get more of that data inside ofHubSpot and we kind of capture
more of that kind of intent data, as I call it right, I think
we're going to learn a lot moreabout whether or not marketing
is having an impact, becauseright now, I couldn't tell you
(23:25):
that marketing has evercontributed to a sale, and I
want to be able to quantify that.
I want to be able because, like, if you look at my customer
acquisition costs, it's crazyright.
That I want to be able because,like, if you look at my
customer acquisition costs, it'scrazy, right, because I'm
looking at a whole marketingbudget versus, you know, perhaps
, individual accounts and thatyeah.
So I want to be able to getsome of those metrics there.
(23:47):
I think the eternal strugglebetween chief revenue and chief
finance is whether you reallyneeded to sponsor that event in
order to get that client, and soI want to be able to have that
number.
Trey Morris (24:05):
Trey anything to add to that?
No, I mean he definitely isworking on it.
It's been a struggle becauseoperationally they just didn't
do it, and so he is doing theright steps, he's bringing in
the right people, he's startingto measure the right activities
that will then give us theoutput, and so he I mean it's
(24:25):
definitely helped a lot and it'sjust going to get better,
especially the more he getsingrained with HubSpot and
really is able to measure everylittle activity that is going to
end up giving them meetings,proposals and sales.
Matt Sunshine (24:40):
Yeah, excellent, all right.
My last question, and while wewere talking, I was trying to
think of that quote from Mad Menabout how you know if
advertising works.
I'll find it later, maybe I'llput it in, oh yeah.
It just does Make your quoteyour quote 50 of my advertising
(25:01):
which which 50 yeah, no, it'snot that one, but that's also a
good one.
But it's like you do somethingand you see results happen, and
so you know it works.
Andrew Sims (25:12):
It was something just yeah, you never knew you
were at.
You never knew you were at, you, never knew you were marketed
to.
Matt Sunshine (25:17):
Right, you never knew, it just happened, right.
All right, let me finalquestion, and maybe you can both
chime in on this one.
So we've talked a lot aboutwhat you've done past.
We've talked to get to whereyou are today.
We've talked about the resultsthat you're seeing as a result
(25:41):
of the work that you've done.
Let's look forward.
Let's look forward.
How do you?
What sort of systems, process,tactics whatever that right word
is what sort of things have youput into place so that you can
(26:02):
remain aligned, sales andmarketing can remain aligned
going into the future?
Make sure that thatcommunication continues so that
you don't see drift happen?
Give us some wisdom on that.
Andrew Sims (26:19):
I'll start right where I ended on the last answer
.
I think unified under HubSpotor you know the platform.
That technology is massive,where I feel like everything's
going into one place.
We're able to write thesequences, we're able to assign
the cadence structure we want toleads and influencers and then
(26:40):
just have the sales team go anddo that.
That's what is exciting to me,right?
Because now I can focus on thestrategy and the writing and the
crafting of the message andknow that there is the
implementer in my sales managerto go and put that into action
(27:00):
on the battlefield, Right, likethat's.
That is going to be huge.
The second thing is that wefinally have this kind of
structure in place.
The biggest thing we have to donext is perfect the next stage
of the customer journey rightthe handoffs, the implementation
(27:20):
, the post-launch you knowcontinuing.
I mean it's interesting.
I just was on anotherconversation about the fact that
we have a 67 NPS right, whichis huge.
That's great.
We have a 96% satisfaction ratefrom our current customers
about their account manager,right.
(27:41):
But I also know that there areconversations that happen where
frustration and issues are stillpresent.
So I'm trying to get a handleon which narrative is true,
right, and again, my accountteam the account management team
is not recording thoseconversations within the
(28:02):
environment where we could thensee trends, right?
Hey, if 15 people are askingabout the same thing, we need to
make content about it.
You know, if that's an issuethat's out in the marketplace,
we need to make that part of oursales conversation.
Again, these are things thatbillion dollar companies do that
have this kind of sentiment andintimate knowledge of who their
(28:22):
customer and users are and thedata within that.
And our goal as a company is togo from a $40 million-a-year
company to a $100 million-a-yearcompany in the next five years,
right, well, all of thesethings that we're talking about
today are going to have to beflawless and perfect, I think,
in order to really take that tothe next step.
(28:43):
And that's not to mention theother parts of it product and
ops and all those other things.
But as much to my dismay, Idon't get to control the world.
To my dismay, I don't get tocontrol the world.
So you know, I think showingthat my house is in order will
go a long way culturally to kindof present to people you know,
hey, there is a promised land ofstability out there.
(29:07):
Yes, you're going to have tomake some tough decisions and
tough calls but at the same time, you know, getting to a place
of peace where I feel like wefinally are.
You know it will go a long way,but I think, to answer your
question, it's the processesthat we're going to put into
place, it's the platforms thatwe're going to put into place,
because, you know, I tell everysales rep, 80% of selling this
(29:30):
lockbox is that it opens.
The other 20% is that they likeyou, you're solving a problem
for them and you're bringingthem a solution that they didn't
have before.
So if I can perfect themessaging on that 20% for them,
as long as the box opens, I'mgoing to keep making money and
the box does open, by the way.
Matt Sunshine (29:51):
Trey anything to add on?
What are the necessary thingsthat need to be in place to
ensure that this sort of successcontinues into the future and
that drift doesn't happen andmodifications are made along the
way that need to be made?
Trey Morris (30:12):
Yeah, I like to say that all great companies can be
described as missional.
They have one objective, theyhave one mission, they have one
destination and everyone isworking together for that one
singular outcome, and everythingthey do can be drawn back from
the ultimate destination, sothat every ad campaign, every
(30:36):
sales call, every new client,every new branding piece, every
new handout, everything thatthey do must be focused on that
one thing, and there has to becontinual correction if they
ever get off track, because a 1%misalignment can end up being
thousands of miles away from theactual destination that you
(31:00):
wanted, and so everyone on theteam has to understand that,
they have to believe that andthey have to be a part of that.
Matt Sunshine (31:07):
Yeah, Excellent.
Andrew and Trey, thank you somuch for your time today.
I mean, this 30 minutes went bylike in a flash right.
I just looked up at the clockand I saw it was 30 minutes.
I was like, wow, that was superfast and that's because your
willingness to be so open andforthright with your experiences
(31:30):
just makes it so powerful.
So thank you so much forjoining us.
Anyone that would like to reachout to either Andrew or Trey,
we'll invite you to do so byputting their LinkedIn and
contact information in the shownotes so you'll be able to find
(31:53):
them there.
And again, thank you.
Everyone that has listened orwatched this Really appreciate
it, Love sharing great insightson how businesses are having
success on these episodes and welook forward to seeing you on
(32:13):
the next episode of ImprovingSales Performance.
And we look forward to seeingyou on the next episode of
Improving Sales Performance.
This has been Improving SalesPerformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button For more onthe topics covered in the show.
Visit our website,thecenterforsalesstrategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
(32:36):
improving your sales strategycom.
There, you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
improving your sales performance.
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.
(00:27):
In this episode, we'reexploring how a company
successfully aligned their salesand marketing teams to maximize
their efforts of their sellers.
The great Andrew Sims, CRO atSentriLock, and Trey Morris, VP/
Senior Consultant here at CSS,are joining me to break down
(00:51):
that journey.
Both bring such great points tothe table, like why you don't
have to make Mount Everest-sizedchanges in order to achieve
sales and marketing alignment,how marketing should help
prepare your sales team forbattle and, finally, why all
great companies have a singularmission from which all marketing
(01:13):
, branding and content can bedrawn from.
With that, let's get theconversation going.
So, andrew, in your experience,what were some of the initial
(01:34):
signs that you saw that salesand marketing were not aligned
in your company?
Did and did this?
Did this lead to any specificchallenges that you were having
to deal with?
Andrew Sims (01:48):
CLock I had a really, I think, unique
perspective when I came in toSentriLock as the head of sales,
because I had been a customerof journey and the sales cycle
myself.
But then I had also gone andworked at a organization that
(02:09):
had had SentriLock for a while,so I knew it from both the
having navigated the onboardingand new customer process, as
well as the retention andrenewing the contract process
and renewing the contractprocess.
And so when I came in I had alot of perspective, I think, of
(02:34):
the good and the bad, about howwe approached conversations with
customers, how we brought upnegotiating and kind of working
through the retention as well asthe new business cycle, and I
also had, I think, a uniqueperspective about how people buy
products within organized realestate and technology products
for real estate.
So I think in the first threemonths we made a lot of changes
(02:55):
within the sales team, both froma personnel perspective as well
as kind of putting a process inplace that was more than go get
lead, go talk to lead, nurturelead, and if they say yes, great
, if they don't wait three, fouryears until they're ready again
.
And I think what I wanted to dowas be a lot more I don't want
(03:18):
to say forceful, but at least alot more persistent in how we
kind of found those validbusiness reasons for people and
also found people other thanjust the main gatekeeper to
express those valid businessreasons too, because in our
industry the gatekeeper doesn'tuse our product.
It's the people that thegatekeeper represents that
(03:39):
actually use our product right.
And so you know, if I'm sellingthem on how a lockbox works or
how our system works, they mightsay, oh, great, cool, sounds
good, whereas if I'm talking toa realtor or a broker or
somebody who uses it every day,they're going to have a
different perspective.
So we had none of that, we hadnone of that content, we had
(04:00):
none of that script, we had noneof that infrastructure of kind
of like how to have those typesof conversations.
And so you know, obviously Iknew of you guys and your agency
and the Center for SalesStrategy and had followed some
of the blogs and other thingsthat you guys had created, and I
was like you know, what theseguys are talking about is
(04:22):
infrastructure.
What they're talking about isprocess and procedure.
Trey's known me a long time.
I am not a process and procedurekind of guy, but I respect it,
and I respect the fact that youneed to have organization in
order to grow an organization.
So I think, when I realizedthat I had none of these things
before me, I needed to findsomebody or some people that
(04:44):
could come in and say, okay, wedon't have to rip out all the
plumbing here, we just maybeneed to like redo the tile in
the bathroom.
And I think what Trey and whatyour team brought to us as a
company was perspectivePerspective that this is not a
massive Mount Everest that youcan have to climb, that you can
(05:07):
make very small incrementalchanges, philosophically as well
as tactically, and get yourselfback on track.
Matt Sunshine (05:18):
Yeah, Trey, anything to add?
Yeah?
Trey Morris (05:21):
Yeah, so so when we , when we started, when we
engage and start workingtogether, you know, I went, went
to Birmingham and met withAndrew and the team and I and I
met the marketing people and itquickly became very apparent
that they were not on the samepage with Andrew and his sales
team.
And I went to Andrew and I saidwe need to get this aligned.
(05:44):
And he absolutely agreed.
And it was a struggle for abouta year of getting everything in
line to make sure that salesand marketing really understood
each other.
The sales team knew who theaudience was, who knew who the
prospect was, knew what theirneeds were.
Marketing didn't, and that wasa big problem in the
(06:04):
communication strategy that theywere putting out on behalf of
the sales team.
Matt Sunshine (06:09):
Yeah, yeah.
So doing enough of these typesof podcasts.
I hear sales doesn't understand, marketing doesn't understand.
Right, and both have theirperspective and from their
perspective they're 100 percentcorrect.
(06:30):
So let's, let's dive a littlebit deeper.
What were some of the biggestroadblocks that you faced in
fostering and nurturing thatcommunication and that
collaboration, thatcollaborative effort between
sales and marketing?
(06:51):
What were some of theroadblocks?
Andrew Sims (06:53):
Well, I think the biggest one was simply
organizational hierarchy.
At the time I was not managingthe marketing team directly.
They were housed underneath adifferent department completely
and you know, there wassometimes outside input, like
(07:18):
they would solicit input from meand the sales team, but it was
more of kind of like let's getsome suggestions from sales.
And I think also I tell peopleall the time I am in sales but I
am a marketer, like I classifymyself as a full stack marketing
person who just happens to bedecent at sales presentations.
(07:39):
But I always feel like I wearthe marketing hat first and
foremost.
Right.
And that's why I love this newera of revenue operations and
chief revenue and VP of revenueworld, because it's kind of like
those of us who are good atsales don't have to call
ourselves salespeople.
Some days we can still pretendthat we're marketing people but
(08:02):
we get to kind of own the wholecustomer journey there, which is
exciting, right.
But I think probably thebiggest obstacle was number one
they didn't have thatunderstanding of kind of who I
was and who I could be withinthe organization.
So I mean, trey and I basicallyhad to build what revenue
operations and Andrew, as thechief revenue officer was going
(08:22):
to be at SentriLock, right, wehad had, historically, sales and
marketing had been together andthen sales and marketing were
separate, and then they weretogether and then they were
separate.
There had never really beenthis kind of understanding
institutionally within thecompany of where and frankly,
(08:42):
marketing was treated as thecommunications department, make
a newsletter, send an emailblast.
And when I came in, I very muchtried to push this idea that you
know, there's communications,there's corporate communications
and then there's demandgeneration right, and that I
wanted the marketing team to besolely focused on demand gen and
(09:06):
sales enablement right.
And so we had to, kind of so Ihad to first gain control of the
marketing team, which I did.
You know, we had some movementon the management team and it
opened up that team to not havea leader, which I then quickly
grabbed it and pulled it into myorg and said you know, this
makes sense.
And my CEO at the time was like, yes, it makes sense, let's,
(09:29):
let's do it.
And and so we, we really lockedthat in.
But that was probably thebiggest hurdle was trying to
have these conversations aboutmarketing when I was not
directly leading that effort,and Trey remembers those days
where we felt like we werehaving to convince people to do
things.
(09:50):
I think the second thing wasthat at the time our marketing
team structure they and again Iwas not in charge we tried to
build out an internal agency.
We tried to put a person inevery single possible function
that we would just assembly,line and conveyor belt marketing
(10:12):
and it was not good from ahuman capital standpoint but it
was also just not productivefrom an output standpoint.
We just weren't getting thingsdone and our Monday board was
just growing and growing andgrowing and the backlog was
growing and so finally I wasjust like you know what, I've
(10:33):
got a really great agencypartner here in Birmingham, a
friend of mine.
I was like I'm going tooutsource like 75% of this and
we did it.
We pulled the trigger on it inthe kind of second quarter of
this year and we have not lookedback Like they've been a great
Dot Edison, they've been a greatpartner for us and just getting
creative work done right.
(10:56):
So that was not you know, thatwas not apparent at that time
that we didn't need a sevenperson marketing team inside of
SentriLock.
It just was not productive.
So I think, again to answeryour question, there were a lot
of internal roadblocks.
I think there was just a lot ofstructure and hierarchy, as
well as competing thoughts ofwhat marketing represented
(11:17):
within the company, and I thinkwe're past all that now.
I think we have absolutealignment here and I think we
all realize and we've allaccepted the fact which I'm sure
every marketing person wholistens to this podcast will be
like tell me your magic.
Yoda Sales has finally realizedthat marketing is going to tell
(11:37):
them what to say, who to say itto and when to say it, and that
the job of the salesperson isto deliver those messages, run
the sequence, keep the cadencealive and close the deal, but
that marketing is going toprepare you for battle and it's
your job to go capture the flag.
Matt Sunshine (12:01):
So I've been taking some notes because I know
that people that are listeningto this are probably going to
want to kind of break this downand go OK.
So what are the strategies thatI can implement?
Like, what are the?
What are the specific thingsthat if, as I'm listening to the
story, that I could take awayand do away and do so, let me
(12:26):
restate them and then Trey, ifyou want to comment on them,
maybe that's a good way to addsome life to what I'm saying or
add some color to what I'msaying.
So, andrew, a few of the thingsthat you did is you really
defined what the job is?
It's no longer the marketingrole, is no longer a corporate
(12:47):
communications job.
It's more of a demandgeneration job.
The second thing that you didis you took stock of what are we
really good at doing and whatare we not as good at doing, and
you outsourced and brought inexpertise where you needed to,
(13:07):
versus believing that, boy, wecan do everything on our own.
And then the third thing, thelast thing, is you implemented a
playbook that everyoneunderstands what their job is in
implementing this playbook Fair.
Trey Morris (13:27):
Trey yeah, no, that's exactly what he did, you
know, first of all, he had totake over marketing because the
person running marketing wasn'treally doing the marketing.
I mean, we would have so manyconversations where I felt like
I was talking Andrew off a ledgebecause of the frustration that
(13:47):
he had with, you know A thenumber of people they had, the
amount of money they wereinvesting in those people.
And then the thing that was akicker was he'd call and he'd be
like, okay, should it take amonth to put together a 15
second social media video?
And I'm like, no, it shouldtake a day or two.
(14:08):
He's like that's not right.
And then he would tell me howmuch it costs and I'm like, oh
no, that's not, that's not right.
And he was so frustrated and so.
But he finally was able to getin control.
He was able to move thoseresources around, he was able to
figure out what the messagingwas, get them on that, outsource
(14:30):
it to a very good agency inBirmingham that was going to be
more efficient, more effectiveand much faster, which would
give the tools and resourcesthat the sales team needed to
actually start to go after andhave the activity to their
prospects like they needed to.
And it's it's working so well.
Andrew Sims (14:48):
Yeah, and Trey, I'll just say Matt Trey.
I think I felt like Trey waslike the man on the Island he
was.
He was Tom Hanks on castaway,liking all of our Facebook posts
.
I would look at stuff and he'dbe like, well, there's Trey, he
liked it, trey liked it.
And I finally went back and youknow I was like, look, I love
Trey, but like I need morepeople to like our content than
(15:11):
we pay Trey to like our content.
Hey I did a good job, man, Iliked every single one of them.
He earned that top fan badge onFacebook very well, but but no,
you're, you're exactly right it.
It was tough.
There were some dark days whereI was just like I don't know if
I can break through this, youknow, and meanwhile, matt,
(15:31):
what's crazy about it is thatwe're closing so much business,
Like we're, we're, we'recontinuing to be sex successful
on the sales front, um, but wejust can't, we can't get it
right in the backend, which Ithink is what drove me crazy,
because it's like I want to feellike the machine is working and
we're not just like winging ithere, especially knowing that we
(15:55):
were looking at and are stilllooking at launching into
adjacent marketplaces.
Right, you know, I think, onething that it's worth noting for
anybody listening, because Ithink our business is very
unique.
I tell people all the time, youknow, when I recruit
salespeople, I'm like welcome tothe easiest sales job you'll
ever have.
You know, we're in a very nicheindustry with a very niche
(16:18):
product and there's a singularcompetitor, and so the only job
is that if they're not with you,they're with them.
So go, you know, go do salesRight and and so I think that's
(16:39):
what was going to be dauntingand have lots of competitors
where I can't rely on myinstitutional knowledge or my
baked in contacts from 10 yearsas a customer and in the
industry and I have to coldprospect and I have to run the
scripts and I have to do allthese things.
I don't have that written downanywhere.
(16:59):
There is no playbook, there isnothing for somebody to go out
and pitch SentriLock to anybodyoutside of realtor world, right.
So I think that's ultimatelywhere, you know, I had the
executive push, Andrew, go findnew ponds to fish in.
But then I had the reality ofthe fact that it's like well, I
(17:21):
can't build the blueprints, Ican't design the blueprints for
this because I don't have anycontrol over it.
So again, I think once we gotthat control in the world
changed and I think once we madethe organizational changes,
everything, the sun got a littlebit brighter.
And I think, sitting here now,two weeks into the tenure of my
(17:42):
new sales manager, because I wasgoing to say another thing that
you know people that arelooking for advice one thing is
that if you, if you ever findyourself holding holding the gun
, holding the bayonet, holdingthe flag, also handling the ammo
box, you need to fire yourselffrom one of those jobs and there
(18:02):
were many times where I feellike Trey was trying to very
passively tell me like youcannot be the sales leader and
the individual contributor atthe same time, like that is that
?
Trey Morris (18:13):
is not passive about my instructions on that.
Andrew Sims (18:20):
But but you know he was right and it took me some
maturation, it took me some kindof come to Jesus moments, as we
say here in Alabama, before Ifinally realized look, my skill
lies in organizing the RevOpsengine, not carrying out the
tactical side of it.
A lot of times, people inmarketing and sales, they are
(18:44):
multifaceted, they aremulti-talented, you know they
can sell, they can market, theycan do all these things and they
think that they can and should.
Right, but you have to buildthe team.
You have to build the team.
You know you have to build SEALTeam 6 around yourself, right,
and I think that's what Ifinally have now is that I have
a good sales leader.
(19:05):
I can focus on the, thetactical, like the, the strategy
side for once.
Like I can actually think aboutthose things because I know
that she is focused on.
Once I give the orders, youknow she's going to tell the
soldiers where to go, and, andso I think that's that again was
another roadblock was that Iwas trying to be 17 different
(19:27):
positions while mastering noneof them.
Matt Sunshine (19:32):
Yeah, I would.
I'll share that.
I think that this is areoccurring theme that we see
again and again, certainly onthis podcast, where the solution
to any challenge is oh, we justneed to hire somebody.
And so we hire people and then,over time, that job that they
were hired to do is no longernecessary.
(19:55):
But they're really good peopleand you like them, and so you
retrofit them into doingsomething else and then, before
you know it, everybody's doingeverything and nobody's really
excelling at anything, and Ithink that you're articulating
the real world of that in yourexamples.
(20:17):
So I do have a follow-upquestion so you're having
success, so you're havingsuccess.
Let's go a little deeper onthat.
How do you measure success, orkeep track of, or know, how do
you measure the impact of thisimproved sales and marketing
(20:39):
alignment that you've built?
Do you have any specificmetrics that you look at?
Andrew Sims (20:45):
Yes, hours of sleep , no, I'm not losing them
anymore.
No, I think the biggest thingit's a great question and I wish
I had an equally as greatanswer.
We're kind of at that point,we're kind of at that exact
(21:05):
moment where I'm kind of askingmyself all right, how can I show
quantitatively that I've donesomething around here, right,
like I mean, the obvious KPI is,you know, money.
Right, we've increased annualrevenue, we've added annual
revenue, we've increased ourmarket share.
Right, you know, we'veshortened the gap between us and
(21:29):
them.
Those are all easy,quantifiable kind of metrics to
have.
One thing that we are and Treyknows about this journey too,
and I guess, if I'm countingroadblocks, this is perfect
therapy in time for my therapytomorrow.
But to look back on this, wenever really had a CRM, we never
(21:59):
really had a kind of dashboardand kind of a place to look at
all this stuff.
Like, I mean, the people whocame before me were just kind of
dialing it in the spreadsheets,right, and I said I want to get
out of spreadsheets, I want toput everything in one place, I
want a single source of truth,and that in itself was a journey
, because we don't have, youknow, as maybe a sophisticated
BI, as I wish that we did, butwe have.
(22:20):
Finally.
I have finally committed toHubSpot.
I'm in love with HubSpot.
You guys, elise and Trey, havedone an amazing job, helping us
just kind of push that over theline, and maybe I was the one
holding out, but now I'm in lovewith it.
I'm absolutely in love with itand now I can't wait to spread
(22:41):
the gospel.
But you know, I think that wasanother major part of something
that we didn't have was a way totrack velocity, a way to track
how many emails it takes, howquickly we get from introduction
conversation to let's starttalking about that.
(23:04):
This marriage is going to happen, right, and so I think, as we
get more of that data inside ofHubSpot and we kind of capture
more of that kind of intent data, as I call it right, I think
we're going to learn a lot moreabout whether or not marketing
is having an impact, becauseright now, I couldn't tell you
(23:25):
that marketing has evercontributed to a sale, and I
want to be able to quantify that.
I want to be able because, like, if you look at my customer
acquisition costs, it's crazyright.
That I want to be able because,like, if you look at my
customer acquisition costs, it'scrazy, right, because I'm
looking at a whole marketingbudget versus, you know, perhaps
, individual accounts and thatyeah.
So I want to be able to getsome of those metrics there.
(23:47):
I think the eternal strugglebetween chief revenue and chief
finance is whether you reallyneeded to sponsor that event in
order to get that client, and soI want to be able to have that
number.
Trey Morris (24:05):
Trey anything to add to that?
No, I mean he definitely isworking on it.
It's been a struggle becauseoperationally they just didn't
do it, and so he is doing theright steps, he's bringing in
the right people, he's startingto measure the right activities
that will then give us theoutput, and so he I mean it's
(24:25):
definitely helped a lot and it'sjust going to get better,
especially the more he getsingrained with HubSpot and
really is able to measure everylittle activity that is going to
end up giving them meetings,proposals and sales.
Matt Sunshine (24:40):
Yeah, excellent, all right.
My last question, and while wewere talking, I was trying to
think of that quote from Mad Menabout how you know if
advertising works.
I'll find it later, maybe I'llput it in, oh yeah.
It just does Make your quoteyour quote 50 of my advertising
(25:01):
which which 50 yeah, no, it'snot that one, but that's also a
good one.
But it's like you do somethingand you see results happen, and
so you know it works.
Andrew Sims (25:12):
It was something just yeah, you never knew you
were at.
You never knew you were at, you, never knew you were marketed
to.
Matt Sunshine (25:17):
Right, you never knew, it just happened, right.
All right, let me finalquestion, and maybe you can both
chime in on this one.
So we've talked a lot aboutwhat you've done past.
We've talked to get to whereyou are today.
We've talked about the resultsthat you're seeing as a result
(25:41):
of the work that you've done.
Let's look forward.
Let's look forward.
How do you?
What sort of systems, process,tactics whatever that right word
is what sort of things have youput into place so that you can
(26:02):
remain aligned, sales andmarketing can remain aligned
going into the future?
Make sure that thatcommunication continues so that
you don't see drift happen?
Give us some wisdom on that.
Andrew Sims (26:19):
I'll start right where I ended on the last answer
.
I think unified under HubSpotor you know the platform.
That technology is massive,where I feel like everything's
going into one place.
We're able to write thesequences, we're able to assign
the cadence structure we want toleads and influencers and then
(26:40):
just have the sales team go anddo that.
That's what is exciting to me,right?
Because now I can focus on thestrategy and the writing and the
crafting of the message andknow that there is the
implementer in my sales managerto go and put that into action
(27:00):
on the battlefield, Right, likethat's.
That is going to be huge.
The second thing is that wefinally have this kind of
structure in place.
The biggest thing we have to donext is perfect the next stage
of the customer journey rightthe handoffs, the implementation
(27:20):
, the post-launch you knowcontinuing.
I mean it's interesting.
I just was on anotherconversation about the fact that
we have a 67 NPS right, whichis huge.
That's great.
We have a 96% satisfaction ratefrom our current customers
about their account manager,right.
(27:41):
But I also know that there areconversations that happen where
frustration and issues are stillpresent.
So I'm trying to get a handleon which narrative is true,
right, and again, my accountteam the account management team
is not recording thoseconversations within the
(28:02):
environment where we could thensee trends, right?
Hey, if 15 people are askingabout the same thing, we need to
make content about it.
You know, if that's an issuethat's out in the marketplace,
we need to make that part of oursales conversation.
Again, these are things thatbillion dollar companies do that
have this kind of sentiment andintimate knowledge of who their
(28:22):
customer and users are and thedata within that.
And our goal as a company is togo from a $40 million-a-year
company to a $100 million-a-yearcompany in the next five years,
right, well, all of thesethings that we're talking about
today are going to have to beflawless and perfect, I think,
in order to really take that tothe next step.
(28:43):
And that's not to mention theother parts of it product and
ops and all those other things.
But as much to my dismay, Idon't get to control the world.
To my dismay, I don't get tocontrol the world.
So you know, I think showingthat my house is in order will
go a long way culturally to kindof present to people you know,
hey, there is a promised land ofstability out there.
(29:07):
Yes, you're going to have tomake some tough decisions and
tough calls but at the same time, you know, getting to a place
of peace where I feel like wefinally are.
You know it will go a long way,but I think, to answer your
question, it's the processesthat we're going to put into
place, it's the platforms thatwe're going to put into place,
because, you know, I tell everysales rep, 80% of selling this
(29:30):
lockbox is that it opens.
The other 20% is that they likeyou, you're solving a problem
for them and you're bringingthem a solution that they didn't
have before.
So if I can perfect themessaging on that 20% for them,
as long as the box opens, I'mgoing to keep making money and
the box does open, by the way.
Matt Sunshine (29:51):
Trey anything to add on?
What are the necessary thingsthat need to be in place to
ensure that this sort of successcontinues into the future and
that drift doesn't happen andmodifications are made along the
way that need to be made?
Trey Morris (30:12):
Yeah, I like to say that all great companies can be
described as missional.
They have one objective, theyhave one mission, they have one
destination and everyone isworking together for that one
singular outcome, and everythingthey do can be drawn back from
the ultimate destination, sothat every ad campaign, every
(30:36):
sales call, every new client,every new branding piece, every
new handout, everything thatthey do must be focused on that
one thing, and there has to becontinual correction if they
ever get off track, because a 1%misalignment can end up being
thousands of miles away from theactual destination that you
(31:00):
wanted, and so everyone on theteam has to understand that,
they have to believe that andthey have to be a part of that.
Matt Sunshine (31:07):
Yeah, Excellent.
Andrew and Trey, thank you somuch for your time today.
I mean, this 30 minutes went bylike in a flash right.
I just looked up at the clockand I saw it was 30 minutes.
I was like, wow, that was superfast and that's because your
willingness to be so open andforthright with your experiences
(31:30):
just makes it so powerful.
So thank you so much forjoining us.
Anyone that would like to reachout to either Andrew or Trey,
we'll invite you to do so byputting their LinkedIn and
contact information in the shownotes so you'll be able to find
(31:53):
them there.
And again, thank you.
Everyone that has listened orwatched this Really appreciate
it, Love sharing great insightson how businesses are having
success on these episodes and welook forward to seeing you on
(32:13):
the next episode of ImprovingSales Performance.
And we look forward to seeingyou on the next episode of
Improving Sales Performance.
This has been Improving SalesPerformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button For more onthe topics covered in the show.
Visit our website,thecenterforsalesstrategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
(32:36):
improving your sales strategycom.
There, you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
improving your sales performance.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!