Author: Ellie Mirman / Source: hubspot.com At most companies, it can feel like marketing and sales are far from being on the same team. A
At most companies, it can feel like marketing and sales are far from being on the same team. According to the 2017 State of Inbound report, fewer than half of marketers would describe their respective companies’ Sales and Marketing teams as “generally aligned.”
And that’s a problem.
Here at HubSpot, we’re lucky to have a strong, healthy relationship between marketing and sales. Our marketing and sales executives started out on the same team in the company’s earliest days, and that collaboration has trickled down throughout the organization as it continues to grow. But it wasn’t just luck, of course.
That alignment — which we call “Smarketing” — is largely the result of a conscious decision to work together, set goals, and create agreements between both teams.
One of the most critical steps, it turns out, is creating a service level agreement (SLA). Traditionally, an SLA serves to clearly define exactly what a customer will receive from a service provider.
But we suggest creating a Sales and Marketing SLA: An agreement that details both marketing goals (like number of leads or revenue pipeline) and the sales activities that will follow and support them, like following up on leads qualified by marketing. Both teams use this document as a commitment to support each other, based on concrete, numerical goals. And guess what — 81% of marketers whose companies have this type of SLA have an effective marketing strategy.
But if you don’t have a Sales and Marketing SLA in place, fear not: We’ve outlined four steps to create one below, as well as ways to get started on aligning your sales and marketing teams.
How to Create a Sales & Marketing Service Level Agreement
Aligning Marketing and Sales
Before you begin to draft your SLA, you’ll have to make sure your Sales and Marketing teams are aligned — or, as we put it before, achieve harmonious Smarketing. That’s accomplished in two main parts.
1) Have Marketing commit to a number.
As a marketing department, not only should you have a concrete strategy and reporting goal, but also, you should have a concrete numerical one that aligns with the sales team’s mentality.
Sales professionals are greatly driven by their quotas — the numerical goals that correlate with their compensation and job security. If Marketing commits to a similar, related numerical goal, it shows that the team is being held accountable in a manner similar to Sales.
2) Communicate, celebrate, and address the achievement — or lack thereof.
Maintaining strong communication regarding how each team is performing on goals boosts transparency. If either team isn’t reaching their goals, addressing that confirms their importance, while celebrating hitting those goals can aid motivation.
If you’re not sure where to begin when it comes to setting these goals, check out our free Marketing & Sales Lead Goal Calculator, designed to help you determine and track the goals that will eventually become part of your SLA.
How to Make an SLA
1) Calculate the Marketing Figures and Goals
In order to calculate the marketing side of your SLA, you’ll need the following four metrics:
- Total sales goal (in terms of revenue quota)
- % of revenue that comes from marketing-generated leads (as opposed to sales-generated ones)
- Average sales deal size
- Average lead-to-customer close %
Then, it’s time to do some calculations.
- Sales quota * % of revenue from marketing-generated leads = Marketing-sourced revenue goal
- Marketing-sourced revenue goal / average sales deal size = # of customers needed
- Customers / average lead-to-customer close % = # of leads needed
It might also be a good idea to reevaluate the marketing side of the SLA each month, as a variety of factors can change the numbers used in your calculations over time. To do so, create a…
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