How to organise marketing teams to win more business

Transcript

Right. Welcome back. This is the transformation plan I mentioned in the previous video. Now, before I begin, if you haven't seen part one, you need to take a look at that one first. As this won't make much sense otherwise.

So if you've just watched it and you've got your coffee, well, let's get into it. Now we've taking care of marketing, we need to re-engineer the organisational structure. Now. Typically, businesses have got three departments that we're going to be talking about and that's I.T., sales and marketing. Over the decades, the technology systems we've used have changed. And the approach to generating new business has changed, too, especially with software and working practices. 

If we go back to the back to the 1950s, businesses had sales teams who went door to door and found new business and marketing was more like an advertising function, pretty much like the TV show Mad Men. So over the following decades, financiers and bankers, investors and accountants and so on expected businesses to have the rows in their accounts called Sales and marketing and naturally businesses complied because it made sense. However, I suppose I need to be sensitive about this, is the operability between sales and marketing became more and more disjointed.

To the point where it's commonly accepted that there's emnity or friction between these departments, I mean, the sales team say that the leads are no good. And in response, marketing says sales can't sell. If a business expects to generate more inquiries at a higher rate than before, then it stands to reason that the workforce and business processes need to be adjusted too. So to accommodate this change, I renamed the three departments currently called I.T. Sales and Marketing to Technology, Revenue and Content. And what I've got here is a screenshot from an Excel spreadsheet I prepared to show who works for who and their respective job titles.

So I've put a link in the description so you can download that and I'll mentioned it again at the end of the video. But the important point about the new structure is you're able to quickly see how it dovetails with the new approach to marketing.

So starting with Technology, obviously this was I.T. They're already taking care of your hardware and software. But now it's time to move the marketing related platforms there as well. And I've done this because (A) there's less churn in I.T. than there is in marketing.

And (B), people who have an affinity working with software can pick up and learn other packages if they have access to it or are aware of how processes naturally follow each other. Now the business objective is to generate profitable income.

But when key personnel are interrupted or are forced to take their eye off the ball and focus on technology and not income, it creates a significant problem. And the problems are performance related and financially related and potentially can create or cause ultimate failure.

So it's good business sense to get people who are good at something like software and technology to nurture them in those roles. So let technology work with technology and marketing or content work with content. Overall, the plan isn't to add more work to technology or to I.T. or that department, but to shift the existing personnel from marketing operations to technology in order that the company has a more effective internal workforce committed to supporting all the software and systems, as well as a greater opportunity for crossover training. The technology team takes care of infrastructure such as servers and personal computing and so on as it already does.

But also telecoms, voice recording, user documentation and internal user training. Now, also under the management of The Technology Team are things like, it's not necessarily that you've got all of these, but I'm saying this for everyone's benefit really, is content management relating to the repository of articles, documents, graphics and presentations and videos.

It's where you keep all your agreed content. The CRM content management, as in Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, and so on is looked after there. The marketing automation platform with all its integration with CRM, the website and email related activities. The e-commerce platform, if you have one.

And finally, the website or CMS content management systems and all those integrations. So technology also takes on the responsibility for internal user training and user experience. So if it's looking after the internal user experience and customer experience, the reason being is because the technology teams have got access to all of the necessary technical elements within the business. But I also see staff as being customers and not just the paying ones. So this means that the attitude towards internal training, should reflect that of helping a customer, no matter who they are. And this ensures that an approach of maintaining a highly trained and supported workforce is in place.

A few years ago, I published a dummies type book called the Business Technology Marketing Handbook, so I've got a copy here. It was to ensure that your business can exploit the technology of what you've already got, and it offers a workable structure for your staff to use when it comes to being trained or,

when you have to buy new systems. The plan is to make sure you achieve a return on investment from new purchases and it centres around your staff putting a supply company through its paces, making sure the supplier has an accurate and pre-planned training program that matches why you bought the kit in the first place.

So your staff end up being trained properly and you don't end up wasting time and money because of the inability or creativeness of the supplier. Next up, is Content, obviously formerly marketing. The head of content is now called the Editor-in-Chief because they're running a publishing and production operation.

So I'll run through who the teams are and how it all fits together. You have a content and schedule manager. They know what needs to be produced and where it's going to be placed. Copywriters, videographers, podcast and audio people, photographers, reporters, presenters.

Graphic designers, researchers, e-commerce and advertising people, a content placement manager. And any other creative type you can think of to help communicate the expertise and personality of your business. The objective of the content team is to create an interconnected framework of information and blogs and guides and supporting content in the form of written audible and visual content that accurately positions you and your business as experts. And the stuff appears, the content appears what your prospects are actually looking, marrying up with their search intent. So the content team helps present your business

as an authority in your space by creating this detailed and explanatory content to help people understand your products and how to use them. And at the end of the day, it's best done with insights from creative people working with salespeople.

So the content people are those who seek and find new business opportunities, they create the content to communicate to your desired vertical markets and personas the people within it. They create a process that elevates the company, makes it visible in its desired geographic area and draws in new business with a combined supporting information from the field insight team who operate under the umbrella of the revenue team.

Speaking of the revenue team, it won't come as a surprise that I believe the Chief Revenue Officer needs to be in charge of the new revenue team. And in charge of all the income related activities in the business.

This includes the sale of products and services, training, maintenance, subscription, support, basically any activity that relates to money changing hands, The Chief Revenue Officer is responsible for. The team or department descriptions are as follows. I'll put I'll put a list up here, but they're also in the spreadsheet I mentioned earlier.

So you've got field insights and product development, which covers exhibitions and partnerships, webinars, seminars and you've also got product evangelists in there. The new revenue team, no, the new revenue channel includes contact centre reps, BDRs, solution consultants, revenue directors and customer success directors.

New product insights includes customer analysts, product design and product launch specialists. And finally, there are the teams for installation and training and service and support. Now, the new revenue team connects with new business, and closes deals, but only when they're needed.

The main process is digital selling, however, if this doesn't happen exactly how you've planned and a typical and kind of recognized sales process would prevail, but nevertheless, the adoption of the revenue team structure, means sales could either be scaled up or scaled down.

Personnel could be potentially redeployed to help the content team. When you look at the spreadsheets. You can make a decision to either employ all the necessary personnel, or contract them in depending on the size of your business and the amount of work needed to implement this structure.

I mean, it's all about scaling up and increasing turnover and profitability. So I know you'll do whatever makes the most sense. Now, you may already be thinking you could issue new contracts of employment because bonuses and commissions would be recalculated.

And I believe transition would be very straightforward. However, if you have any resistance, I suggest you rename the existing sales team, The A-Team, and create another team called The New Team. The A-Team will continued to find business as they did before and to all the necessary work to close sales and be paid as they were before, because at the end of the day, they're not going to be a drain on the new mechanism. As long as they keep achieving their targets that you set them in the first place, the New Team, on the other hand, who now have new contracts of employment, work in conjunction with the Content Team and are available on hand when enquiries come in and need to be closed. So the new teams, salaries and bonuses are calculated on a group scheme. Where everyone benefits because they're all responsible for the success of the business and not just a fortuitous salesman who's in the right place at the right time.

I know that because I've been there myself! In terms of the different groups involved in the revenue team, first 'port-of-call' is the Field Insights and Product Development Teams, who help drive new inquiries to the Contact Centre Reps or BDRs.

Once the Contact Center Reps have completed the data fill the Field Insights Team together with the Contact Team, help the prospect on their journey through the company buying process until they're ready to buy. When they are, the New Revenue Team, or should I say, a Solutions Consultant or a Revenue Director arranges all the necessary demonstrations, proposals, analysis and data fill and ultimately asks for the order. Once the paperwork is signed, the sale is handed over and managed by the Installation and Training team or whatever implementation process you have, and in turn, when the installation is complete, the customer is handed over to a Customer Success Director and the Service and Support Team.

Overall, the new structure provides more flexibility, defining head-count, bonuses and commissions because the emphasis is on customer experience and self-service throughout the whole buying journey.

And finally, the individual who would oversee all three of these departments, that's Technology, Content and Revenue is The Chief Growth Officer. He or she is responsible to ensure that the three new business teams play nicely and work together as a well-oiled and well orchestrated machine that churns out happy customers and happy staff. So now, you can truly sell 24-7, whether you have a complex product or not.

The marketing function becomes proactive and sales becomes reactive without any expectation for them to find new business. And it's a genuine collaboration operation, and it will change your P&L and your forecasts. And if you look to raise investment, it will change your business plan narrative and projections.

So you're probably thinking, OK, how long will this take and how much is it going to cost? It could only take a few months. It depends on what you've got and what can be adapted. But at the end of the day, I mean, we can have a chat about that on a phone call or a Zoom call.

In terms of headcount, it'll depend if you want to employ them full time or if you want to get people in on a contract, I mean. But just a reminder, just going back to the content plan and the and Social 444, the whole thing about automatically posting the adverts! they only need to be updated every twelve to 18 months or so. So depending on the size of your business and the number of products and services that you offer, perhaps this will determine if you employ people or you contract them in.

Unlike the popular digital transformation strategies, this approach is not about jobs for the boys. Combined with a new marketing plan, it's to increase turnover and profitability, and at the same time, streamline operations to reflect the digital nature of the world we live in without reverting back to dated 1950 Sales and marketing workflows.

So adapting I.T., Sales and Marketing to Technology, Content and Revenue provides some exceptional alternative strategies to drive a business forward. Digital Selling is something that can be adopted wholesale and immediately, or it can be implemented over a period of time.

But I hope whatever you decide to do, you can now be confident that you now have a choice, and if you need any help with anything that I've talked about, anything that I've mentioned. I hope by now, you know me well enough, having seen all my videos, you can just pick up the phone or send me an email and we'll have a chat.

I've put a link in the description for the downloadable Excel spreadsheet that lists every position and responsibility. But that's it for me. I hope you found this interesting and I look forward to having a coffee and a chat in the near furture - bye for now.