Brand Alignment | Managing Marketing & Sales Teams

 

EPISODE 123           

The Visionary Chronicles Podcast

CHRONICLE: August 2nd, 2023

 

PODCAST: Brand Alignment | Managing Marketing & Sales Teams

 

" Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people.”

   Wisdom from Steve Jobs

 

With over 88% of companies indicating a misalignment between marketing and sales on items such as; strategy, branding, and creation, it is an area that needs vast improvement across almost every brand.

Our clients at LiquidMind (LiquidMindsite.com), both large-cap through start-up, face the same issues, and most do not either recognize the misalignment or understand the process to improve the alignment. In addition, as more brands move to DTC, the sales cycle becomes more tangible on the direct-to-consumer side and with your retailers as they fight for both dollars and time. As a result, this alignment becomes more critical to a company's short and long-term success.

With most brands, you will find these two functional areas run independently when they should be working in parallel, ensuring the brand is in complete alignment across all channels and modes of communication. However, they need each other, and frustration, inefficiency, and misalignment set in when separated.

So how does a brand work to correct this misalignment?

At LiquidMind, we work with our brands on the following areas, and step by step, piece by piece, the alignment becomes a reality.

 

Content Creation

Based on the brand positioning, creative assets, and channels, marketing often makes assumptions that what they are creating is valuable to the sales teams, buyers, and customers. You must understand where, when, who, and how you create and communicate to define what is needed.

Is this content a valuable tool for the sales team, and does the marketing strategy take a regular "pulse" check with your brand community, buyers, and sales team? Creating for the sake of producing is not a strategy. Moving does not mean you are making progress.

To create alignment with Content Creation, ensure the sales team is mapping your creative strategy, both online and in-store. Also, provide your community with engaging with your content, and they find something "beyond" the product helpful.

 

Understand Need

More often than not, these two areas do not understand each other's needs. Always start with Marketing, and end with Sales. Just because you "create" something does not mean it is an effective tool for the sales force.

To better understand the need, have the sales team provide regular input on tangible tools to make their lives easier and provide branding, tools, and communications to make your communities' lives easier. Understanding and balancing both is critical to marketing your brand and ensuring you maintain brand equity and loyalty with both sales and customers.

 

Mind Merge

Regular sessions with the sales team, communicating marketing efforts, and applying the strategy daily builds trust with both organizations.

Merging ideas and concepts with reality will bring the Marketing Strategy to a more tangible level for the sales team. So get them involved, but sales must also understand their role in the process NOT to create, but rather provide details on NEEDS.

 

Tool Generation

Ensure marketing has laid out the sales team's tools, resources, and integrated brand strategy. The sales team needs to be seamless with "messaging" to buyers and consumers and the lead driven by marketing.

Without a clear strategy, vision, or plan, you can imagine how quickly this alignment can break down.

Ensure you provide online and offline marketing tools that both internal sales and external buyers or customers can use.

 

With the fast-paced, digital world we live in, aligning with everyone inside a brand is critical to the successful execution of your strategy. Frustration and misalignment can be replaced by an authentic, genuine passion and excitement for what your brand is doing and yet to accomplish. Together, lock arms, understand shared needs, complement one another strengths, and work on your weaknesses to better the brand!

 

Stay True, Stay Authentic, be Different, and be Great!

Enjoy the Journey!

 

Bryan Smeltzer, President

LiquidMind Inc.

#TheVisionaryChroniclesPodcast

#TheVisionaryBrandBook

 

@LiquidMindsite.com

@BryanSmeltzer.com

 

 © All rights reserved, Bryan Smeltzer, 2023

 

Bryan Smeltzer is a consumer products business executive and entrepreneur. He has held executive-level roles in business development, product, and marketing with some of the world's most prestigious brands, including; Oakley, TaylorMade, Adidas, K-Swiss, and Schutt Sports, among other international brands. He also founded a men's apparel brand, successfully running a profitable business for ten years, eventually selling to a VC firm.

 

He also hosts a podcast called The Visionary Chronicles. The Visionary Chronicles podcast is the #1 Global Visionary podcast and Top 50 Marketing podcast for 2022 & 2023, ranked by Feedspot.

In addition, he recently finished his first bestselling book, The Visionary Brand, The Success Formula Behind the World's Most Visionary Brands. He received the prestigious Readers Favorite Award for BEST Non-fiction, Marketing Genre book.

 

He is a member of the Board of Advisors at UCI's BCIE along with their New Venture Program, an Innovation Advisor at the UCI's Applied Innovation program at the Cove, a Mentor/Advisor to UCLA's Price Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and the UCLA Media, Entertainment and Sports programs, and the San Diego Sports Innovators Accelerator (SDSI) center.

Bryan oversees LiquidMind Inc., a global brand strategy firm that partners with start-ups and established mid to large-cap consumer brands to empower businesses to think differently, be different, drive a passionate culture, and execute relentlessly.

 

 e-mail | bryan@LiquidMindsite.com

Facebook | @bryansmeltzer33

Instagram |  @bryan_smeltzer

Twitter | @bryansmeltzer

LinkedIn | linkedin.com/in/bryansmeltzer/