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Sales 🤝 Marketing
There’s two ways the sales/marketing relationship can function: the two can be at odds, pointing fingers and blaming the other, or they can work closely together, problem-solving in tandem.
I’m adamant that the latter is possible at any company. There are a few key metrics (and one monthly meeting) that need to be met, but sales and marketing love can still exist!
LET’S GO →
Truth Seeker 🔍
The Bottom of the Funnel Is Where the Truth Lives
Top-of-funnel metrics can flatter you. More followers, more traffic, more email subscribers feel good, but they don't tell you whether anyone is buying. Bottom-of-funnel metrics are less forgiving. They tell you what's actually converting and what's falling apart right before the finish line.
The six metrics worth tracking at this stage are:
Demo request volume
Time to first response
Discovery-to-proposal rate
Win rate
Closed-lost reason
Average sales cycle length
Each one tells you something different about where revenue is getting made or lost.
The One That Most Teams Skip
Closed-lost reason is the most underused metric in early-stage marketing. Most CRMs have a field for it, and yet many teams leave it blank or fill it in with something vague like, “not interested.”
Done properly, with a required field and a defined list of reasons, this metric tells you exactly what objections your marketing isn't addressing before the sales call. Lost on price means you need better ROI content. Lost to a competitor means you need explicit comparison content. Lost to timing means you need a long-tail nurture track…and the list goes on.
Continuing Education
Everything we read and loved this week.
Action of the Week
Open your CRM and check whether the closed-lost reason is a required field on your deal records. If it's not, make it one today. Then look at the last 10 closed-lost deals and tag each one with a reason. The patterns you find in those 30 minutes of tagging will be worth more than a month of content brainstorming.
Until next time!
