How to Develop and Execute a Sales Plan That Actually Works

Episode Transcript

Steve: What if I told you that your sales team doesn’t actually need more leads? They need better leads, 

AnnieLaurie: or maybe they already have great leads, but your process is so disconnected that deals keep slipping away, 

Steve: and that gap, the messy middle, that’s where your revenue goes to die. Not because your people aren’t trying, but because your process or a lack of a process is working against them.

AnnieLaurie: Today, we’re digging into how to fix that. It’s not about chasing more, it’s about aligning what you’ve already got. When sales and marketing actually work together, the results speak for themselves. Hey there. I’m Steve Phipps. And I’m Annie Laurie Walters. You’re listening to the Growth-Minded Marketing podcast, where we give practical guidance to help you lead your marketing, grow your team, and scale your company with confidence.

Steve: We are working through our five part guide marketing framework, and today we are on step number four, which is develop and [00:01:00] execute a sales plan. 

AnnieLaurie: If you’re new to the podcast, go back and check out the episodes before on the first three steps. We started with an overview and then moved into G for generate Your Story and Strategy U for Upgrade your online presence.

AnnieLaurie: I for inform with content. Now you can go back and hear Those before you listen to today’s episode, just to provide context. It’ll Help everything make more sense. But you can also start here if this is the pain point. Keep listening. ’cause Today we’re going to dig into the deed, develop and execute your sales plan.

AnnieLaurie: But Steve, before we jump into the tactical side of things, I think we just gotta call out the elephant in the boardroom. Sales and marketing are notorious for not playing well together. 

Steve: Yeah, that’s, uh, that is incredibly true. Unfortunately a lot of times sales and marketing are like rival factions inside the same company.

Steve: Sales complaints that the leads are junk marketing says sales isn’t following up. Both sides are frustrated and nobody’s addressing the real [00:02:00] problem, and that’s the teams are misaligned. 

AnnieLaurie: We’ve seen it firsthand. Meetings that feel more like turf war, finger pointing instead of collaboration. At the end of the day, it’s the buyer who suffers and so does your bottom line.

Steve: Exactly. You could have great campaigns and a killer sales team. But if they aren’t working together, if they’re not in sync, you are losing deals, you’re losing revenue. And it’s not about who’s right. It’s how do you win together. 

AnnieLaurie: And I think an important thing to remember here is that if your sales and marketing teams aren’t aligned, they’re not singing off the same page, you can bet that one of your competitors are, and they’re the ones who are winning the business.

Steve: Absolutely. 

AnnieLaurie: So let’s break it down. What does alignment actually look like and where do you start if you know things are off? 

Steve: We’re gonna start with number one, and that is sales and marketing meet regularly. And so sales and marketing have to talk and consistently ongoing. [00:03:00] And it’s not just because a campaign went sideways or the leads are ghosting.

Steve: What I mean is structured, recurring conversations with shared goals. 

AnnieLaurie: When we say regular meetings, we mean conversations with purpose. This isn’t just checking in. It’s high value time where you’re reviewing leads, talking through buyer feedback, and making sure sales and marketing are aimed at the same target.

AnnieLaurie: Are we attracting the right leads? Is sales closing them? What’s working? What’s getting stuck? These meetings should drive action, not just be a box. You check, 

Steve: and when those conversations happen consistently, alignment becomes easier. Better decisions get made. Marketing improves campaigns and content based on real buyer feedback.

Steve: Sales gets clarity on messaging and other marketing efforts. It becomes a win-win. And this is also where having tool like HubSpot or Active Campaign, those are two that we use and recommend. It becomes [00:04:00] really useful because when those tools are set up correctly, they give you a single record of truth.

Steve: And so now both marketing and sales can see and watch the entire buyer’s journey from the first point of contact where they came in through a marketing campaign and as they journey through and get handed off to sales. Everybody’s working from the same information.

AnnieLaurie: So Steve, for a CEO listening, who doesn’t have a marketing department, or maybe sales is just one person, what does a regular meeting even look like in that kind of setup? Does it still apply 

Steve: 100%? You know, even if you have one person in each role, or maybe you are playing both roles. It’s still important to step back and evaluate both your marketing and your sales ’cause they’re still separate functions, even if they’re filled by the same person.

Steve: Are your marketing efforts leading to sales conversations? Are you getting appointments scheduled? Are you tracking and seeing what’s happening to the leads once proposals have been given? It’s [00:05:00] important to track that and look at that. The discipline here matters. Especially when you are the one person wearing all the hats, 

AnnieLaurie: and even if those meetings are happening, that’s just step one.

AnnieLaurie: The real question is, are those two teams actually working together or are they just coexisting? Steve, let’s talk about that next.

Steve: Okay. So number two is your sales and marketing teams actually work well together.

Steve: Ask yourself, do my sales and marketing teams actually work well together? One side thinks that leads are weak. The other side thinks that sales aren’t closing. If that’s what you’re encountering, that’s not collaboration, that’s not working well together, that’s a cold war. 

AnnieLaurie: So how do we break it down?

Steve: First of all, it’s starting with empathy. Everybody thinks they’re doing what they know to do with what they’ve been given. But if those two teams aren’t aligned, there’s always going to be a natural conflict. When something’s not working well, the natural default is to shift blame to the other person, the other [00:06:00] team.

Steve: And so just first of all, start with empathy. Assuming that your team is working hard, come in with that approach.. So have marketing, listen in and shadow on sales calls.

Steve: If you’re recording your sales calls, let marketing have access to those so they can hear what questions the buyers are asking. That becomes a seed bed for content. We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but also let sales listen in on how campaigns are built. It’s easy for anyone outside of marketing to assume that marketing’s just playing and goofing off. They’re just doing graphic stuff, they’re not really doing the heavy lifting. So it’s important that each group understands the challenges that the other team is encountering and facing.

Steve: And so when we have those conversations, when we can work through frustrations together, then if you’ve got the right people in place. You can start [00:07:00] building some mutual respect for what the other team, what the other person is doing. That’s where collaboration starts, getting them on the same page so that they have a clear picture of what’s actually happening.

AnnieLaurie: let’s say that the teams are talking, but there’s definitely tension. They’re working in silos. Maybe they’re paying lip service to all the things, but they’re still not truly like synergy and collaboration between the two departments. Where should a CEO step in Steve? How do you start to rebuild and trust when it’s already seen some fracturing or maybe even dare I say, passive aggressive attitudes?

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Not that you’d ever see that or encounter that, a lot of it comes down to reframing the responsibility. So rather than seeing, marketing and sales, separately, it’s reframing their responsibilities as a collective revenue team and that each has a part to play in helping [00:08:00] generate revenue.

Steve: Marketing’s responsibility is creating content campaigns and activities that create awareness, drive traffic, and start bringing some of those leads in. Building the trust and credibility, and then sales has the responsibility to take those leads and start conversations and take it across the finish line.

Steve: And so it’s not a clear cutoff point where all of a sudden marketing’s no longer involved and it’s just sales or vice versa. It’s the two working together. If you take your hands and put ‘ them together flat against each other, almost like prayer hands, your hands are pressed together, but that’s not collaboration.

Steve: Whereas if you interlace your fingers and your two hands are holding together, now you have a picture of collaboration where the two teams, or the two groups are, more intermeshed and working together. So the CEO, and the sales leader need to start reframing this as a team that’s working together with a [00:09:00] common goal.

Steve: Ultimately this isn’t just who owns the win per se, it’s about working together to get the win. 

AnnieLaurie: As you’re explaining all of this, at risk of sounding cliche, I’m picturing the whole football analogy.

AnnieLaurie: It’s like the CEO is the coach on the sidelines. You’ve Got your quarterback, you got your players, they all have to work together. They all have their role to play. A quarterback without the other players isn’t gonna do much good. And all the other players aren’t gonna do any good without the quarterback.

AnnieLaurie: I think that’s a neat picture of visualizing how this can work when it’s working well, 

Steve: It is. And just to jump from that for just a minute, in some cases what happens as on a football team, often the quarterback or a wide receiver or a running back, those tend to get the most attention.

Steve: Their positions are the most visible, especially if you have a star player in one of those roles. However, the best quarterback isn’t going to be successful if their offensive line isn’t able to protect him while he’s in the pocket. [00:10:00] So even some of those linemen who might not be household names, their role is critical.

Steve: And so it’s having that willingness to share the glory, if you will. And yes, you need some star players in some cases. You also need to have team players and getting rid of, the folks who think that it’s all about them and who aren’t willing to be a part of the team. 

AnnieLaurie: Following on this wonderful analogy Steve, you gotta have plays to run, right?

AnnieLaurie: And you gotta have a good, strong playbook so the coach can be calling those plays and everyone knows what their job is to me, that connects us straight into the next part of this, which is documenting your sales process. So once you have your relationships with your team moving in the right direction, it’s time to document the process so that you can all be operating off the same playbook.

Steve: Absolutely. A sales process, is a roadmap. Documenting a sales process can be super simple. It could be something that you sketch out on a whiteboard showing the [00:11:00] steps and what’s happening. At each stage of the buyer’s journey, who’s responsible, and what tools or content you’re using.

Steve: But the idea here is making sure that your marketing team and your sales team all have a clear understanding of what steps are involved in the process. And a lot of times, companies we interact with, they have a sales process, and these are air quotes here. They have a sales process, but it’s not written down anywhere.

Steve: It’s an assumed process, but there’s not clarity in terms of who is ultimately responsible for certain things. Again, it might be assumed, which can lead to the misalignment. And so what a sales process does is it helps keep things consistent. And of course, that’s critical for companies that wanna scale.

AnnieLaurie: So Steve, what exactly should go into a documented sales process? How detailed does this need to be to actually work? 

Steve: As I said a moment ago, it, I’m gonna say it [00:12:00] depends.

Steve: We’ve had some clients that their sales team was one person, and so the sales process could effectively be put on a whiteboard, and it gave them enough clarity so they knew where to go with a prospect, with a lead, depending on the situation and the scenario. In some cases, if you have a large sales team or a detailed sales process, then mapping something that we use a flowchart tool called Miro, MIRO, and maybe it’s using a tool like that to map out a more detailed sales process where it’s very clear what emails.

Steve: A lead is getting at a particular stage. Who’s responsible for what, what’s the content or the resources, that you’re bringing in? Where’s the proposal happening? All of these different types of things. But ultimately it needs to cover every step of the buyer’s journey from first point of contact, all the way through signing the contract.

Steve: It’s including things like qualification, needs, [00:13:00] discovery, proposal negotiation. The terminology is gonna vary. Tools like ActiveCampaign and CRM have built in predefined pipelines. But ultimately it’s making sure that you have clarity about what this looks like for you. And knowing at each stage, what’s the goal, what’s the next step, what are the tools that you need to support it?

Steve: And once you have that defined, that clarity saves you a lot of internal time. It helps you close more deals. Helps create some of this alignment because everybody knows what’s happening, when and how, and who’s responsible. 

AnnieLaurie: Thanks, Steve. That’s great. So when we have the process documented and everyone is on the same page, you have clarity on what to do.

AnnieLaurie: But now we need to make sure that we have everything that we need to support these steps. Especially when it comes to building trust and moving buyers forward, that’s where we start looking at content and creating content specifically to support sales conversations.

AnnieLaurie: I must admit. When I came across this, it was an [00:14:00] aha moment for me, and I think it could be an aha moment for a lot of our listeners because my bent is marketing and my background in sales isn’t as strong. And when I think about creating content to support sales conversations, when I listen to some of those sales conversations that you’ve had that you’ve shared with me, it definitely unlocks an entire new.

AnnieLaurie: Section of content opportunities That would be useful and multipurpose, not just for sales, but in other applications as well. This is where content becomes more than just a lead generating tool. It becomes a sales accelerator. 

Steve: Exactly. And so this point number four is that content supports sales conversations. Here’s what we mean by this one. Most companies, treat marketing content like,

Steve: a front end asset. In other words, it’s useful in the very beginning of the buyer’s journey and sales process. It tracks people in social media, email, marketing, whatever content, you’re using. And [00:15:00] once they’re handed off to sales, then marketing steps back, they’re hands off. But the reality is.

Steve: Even in that process, a lot of buyers are still deciding. they have questions, hesitations, sometimes they’re getting stuck in research mode that’s where content can step in and help guide the conversation. If you go back to our previous episode, where we talk about inform with content, one of the key things about this is.

Steve: Having the perspective that the best content is educational, informative, and building trust. It’s not salesy and pushy, but it’s educating the buyer. That’s why it becomes really important, not just at the beginning, but having content that. Your sales folks can use as they’re interacting to continue that education process, to continue to build that trust faster.

AnnieLaurie: You know, this reminds me of a concept I’ve heard you refer to as assignment selling. [00:16:00] That might be a new term for some, but can you unpack that for us? What is assignment selling? 

Steve: Absolutely. And so I am a certified coach for a marketing framework called They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan.

Steve: Recently he just put the third version of the framework out. His book just came out, a couple of weeks ago called Endless Customers. They ask you Answer 3.0, focuses on building trust through content, in both marketing and sales. Assignment selling is when you are interacting with a buyer, you assign them a homework task, if you will.

Steve: You send them an article to read, a video to watch. A guide to go through, or an assessment to complete all for the purpose of helping educate them. For instance, when we’re working with somebody to create content that.

Steve: The sales team can use in the sales process. One of the questions I like to ask is, what do you, as a salesperson, what do you wish your [00:17:00] buyer already knew before you had your first conversation with them? And immediately. I’ll hear several different things. Well, I wish they knew this. I wish they knew that.

Steve: I wish they knew this. So an example of assignment selling would be before you have that first meeting, the salesperson sends over, an article that answers those questions. Here are the top three questions that buyers have about accounting services. Send them that ahead of time. Ask them to read it so that when you get into the course of your conversation.

Steve: Some of those things have already been answered, and you can get into more of the specifics of what they’re looking for, and that could be done throughout the entire sales process using videos and different. Content formats. But again, the idea is you’re assigning them, you’re asking them to do something.

Steve: And to be honest with you, especially for a lot of the B2B companies we work with, we’re talking about higher dollar services and products. So if they’re not willing to take five or 10 minutes to read an article to educate themselves, [00:18:00] how qualified of a buyer are they going to be? But that’s the idea.

Steve: That’s the concept of assignment selling. 

AnnieLaurie: We actually have a blog in our learning center on our website titled how to Write Marketing Content That Accelerates Sales and Closes More Deals. If you go to our website and visit the Learning Center, sort the articles, and click on sales to sort by sales, this blog post will come right up along with a few others that are relevant to this discussion and we’ll be sure to include that in the show notes.

AnnieLaurie: So check that out. for More context on these. Concepts. Okay, so what kind of content are we talking about here, Steve? We’re not just handing over blog posts and calling it a day. What does it mean when we start writing content that will accelerate sales? 

Steve: One example is what I just mentioned a moment ago what are the things that you wish your buyer knew before you had your first conversation?

Steve: But sometimes people want to know how your process works. or they want to know about pricing. What kinds of results can they expect? Sometimes we’ll get the question, who are your best competitors? There are All [00:19:00] numbers of questions. A lot of times sharing case studies is a really useful piece of content because that lets.

Steve: Buyers, see what you do, how you do, it, who you do it for, and what kinds of results they might be able to expect. I’m pulling this directly from, they ask you Answer, which is a fantastic framework that we use with our client’s, part of the Guide framework, This is what’s called an 80% video.

Steve: And the 80% represents the top questions that. 80% of your buyers are going to ask and you create a video that answers those questions, and send it to ‘ them ahead of time. It lets you get into the specifics of what they’re looking for by the time you actually are having a conversation with them

Steve: when, a salesperson, is using content like this intentionally, it saves them time. It helps increase close rates. They’re not having to answer the same questions over and over and over, and they are equipping the qualified buyers to move [00:20:00] forward faster.

AnnieLaurie: And let’s be honest, a lot of salespeople don’t know what content they have. Or they’re not sure how to use it. Here’s a question for you, Steve. What’s a practical first step a CEO can take to help their sales team start using content more strategically, especially if it hasn’t been part of their rhythm before?

Steve: I would say start by auditing what content you already have. Do you have content that’s organized? Do you have FAQs on your website, internal FAQs? Do you have. Email templates that you’ve already created, whether intentionally as a team or maybe individual sales folks have created a template, of answers they give commonly, have some of those internal conversations to see what you already have.

Steve: If you don’t have anything, start by asking your sales team are the the questions that you’re answering all the time? What do you wish people knew? Before you had your first call, what is it that people are consistently getting stuck on? Then create content for those questions. Keep it simple.

Steve: It could be a one page [00:21:00] PDF, it could be a short video using a tool like Loom or Vineyard. It doesn’t have to be overly produced, but even some of these simple pieces of content can do a lot of heavy lifting. 

AnnieLaurie: We’ve talked about how content can help your sales team close deals, but here’s the next level.

AnnieLaurie: What if the content your sales team is using was actually built with their input? This brings us to point number five, sales and marketing plan content together. Steve, this just feels like, like hearts and rainbow unicorns and sprinkles and glitter, is this actually reality? Can this happen? 

Steve: This can be, I know it sounds too good to be true.

Steve: Let me also say we’re not naive, getting alignment between sales and marketing. For some teams is going to be a difficult process because it’s gonna require internal shifting. It’s gonna require having some difficult conversations and in some cases it might mean finding that some of the folks on your team aren’t the right people because they’re not [00:22:00] interested in alignment, they’re interested in what they can gain for themselves.

Steve: So again, simple, but it’s not always easy. However. When marketing and sales get aligned, and I’ve certainly seen that we have some of our clients that I’m thinking of one client in particular where I function as their CMO, where sales and marketing are aligned. It’s a smaller team, but I can tell you it makes all the difference between content that sounds good and content that actually works.

Steve: And so when sales and marketing are planning content together, then you get. Marketing materials, marketing content, and campaigns that speak directly to the buyer’s questions and objections. We can focus on decision making triggers because it’s all rooted in real conversations, not just something that marketing’s having to try to figure out and assume.

AnnieLaurie: And this really isn’t complicated. Your sales team is sitting on a gold mine of insight. They hear the unfiltered questions. They know where prospects get [00:23:00] stuck. When they’re involved in planning, the content becomes sharper, more relevant and way more effective. 

Steve: Exactly. And when sales can see their fingerprints in the content, there’s a higher likelihood that they’re actually going to use it because they helped shape it.

AnnieLaurie: Let’s say a CEO wants to start involving sales in their content marketing planning. Where’s a smart place to start that? Steve, what’s one way to make this feel easy and not like a whole new job? 

Steve: Start simple and. Ask your sales team.

Steve: What do you wish your buyers already understood before they talk to you? Start there. Those answers. If your sales team Is getting stuck, you can use chat, GPT,

Steve: to assist. Keep a log of questions they get asked. If you’ve recorded your sales calls and have the transcripts, toss them in Chat GPT and use it to analyze and identify what are the questions that we’re getting and asked by buyers. And if you don’t have any of that and you feel like you’re [00:24:00] starting from scratch.

Steve: Then , use chat, GPT or whatever AI tool you’re using, educate it on who your buyer is. Give it as much detail as you can, then ask it to provide questions it would have as your buyer. Ask it for the questions it would ask at different stages in the buyer’s journey. Share your sales process with it, there are a number of different ways.

Steve: There’s no reason why you cannot get these questions. And then when you do, even if you just get a small handful, use that to drive your content creation, your next blog post, your next video, your next sales asset, once you get started, create a recurring meeting. It doesn’t have to be every week, maybe it’s once a month where your sales and marketing team can meet and bring their insights to the table.

Steve: Here again, we’re not aiming for perfection, we’re aiming for practical and useful. 

AnnieLaurie: Okay. Steve, how about a little, coaching on stakeholder engagement. Let’s say marketing’s bought in, CEO wants [00:25:00] it, but sales is giving pushback. That’s your job. We’re not doing that. What would you say to help them overcome that objection?

Steve: I would start with questions. I’ve had some of these types of coaching conversations and sometimes it’s not that the sales team is opposed, they’re uncertain. They don’t have clarity on what this means. Why are we shifting something? Is this another meeting? If I have to move into another meeting, it means less time that I have available to be out selling, which means I’m potentially making less money.

Steve: So it’s having the conversation. It’s asking questions to help the sales team and the sales folks understand, Hey, would it be helpful if there was a way that we could reduce the amount of time that you had to spend answering the same questions over and over again on a sales call.

Steve: I don’t know a salesperson who’s gonna say no. That wouldn’t be helpful. I would rather keep answering the same questions over and over and over again. Right? Especially if it’s a 30 minute conversation, they’re spending the first 10 minutes answering the same questions. Wouldn’t you like to get that 10 minutes back?

Steve: Another question would be, it be [00:26:00] helpful to you if we could speed up the qualification process so that those that aren’t qualified got out of the pipeline faster. Would that be helpful so that way you can focus on more qualified buyers? Again, I don’t know any salesperson that’s gonna say, no, I wanna spend more time with poorly qualified leads.

Steve: It’s how it’s positioned, so that it is a benefit to them. It helps speed up the sales process. It can reduce closing time. It helps. Improve the number of qualified leads. And so again, it’s having some of these conversations I would even say just start small.

Steve: Set up an alignment meeting, find out what are some of the frustrations I remember in college, in a fraternity, we had, what we call roses and thorns. And sometimes it’s having an open, honest conversation about what are the frustrations, what are the thorns, what are these pain points?

Steve: If you need somebody to come in from the outside, maybe you have a business coach or somebody that can facilitate that conversation that might be helpful. Again, it’s situational, but ultimately [00:27:00] it’s starting small. Start the conversation and start it moving forward. 

AnnieLaurie: Okay. Just One last time. For the skeptics or those who think this is impossible and maybe not even worth the energy and effort, just talk us through what’s at stake for people who don’t take the time to make this work.

Steve: Well, I would respond back to them with how much time does. Your sales team, or if you’re the salesperson, how much time do you spend on leads that aren’t qualified? How much time do you spend doing the same things over and over and over again? I did this exercise with a sales team a couple of months ago, and we walked through and I asked the question, who is the better buyer?

Steve: The one who comes in well educated, understanding what you do, or the one who comes in and really doesn’t have a good understanding, which of those are you having to spend more time with? So, well, I’m having to spend more time with the one who’s not educated, answering lots of questions, and oftentimes, even if they do become a client, they’re not the best type of client.

Steve: A lot of times they could be high [00:28:00] maintenance versus the one who comes in. has Taken the time to educate themselves, they’ve asked the questions, they did the research, and they’ve decided that this is the best fit. Well, why spend more time on poorly qualified leads who aren’t fully educated on what you do?

Steve: Well, part of this is it may be they can’t find the information. So what if you provide them with the information? What if you help educate them? Accelerate that process without having to spend a bunch of time doing it because you’ve created content that does that for you. This is a very pragmatic thing, and it’s all about what?

Steve: What’s at stake. What’s at risk is you’re having to spend more time on less qualified leads, which slows down the sales process versus educating. Providing them with content that’s going to answer their questions. So it saves the amount of time that you have to spend doing that. It makes them a better buyer or helps them quickly decide and recognize they’re not the right fit.

Steve: So ultimately it’s your bottom line, ’cause you’re talking about your time, the quality of your leads, and the number of leads and buyers that you’re [00:29:00] gonna convert into customers. 

AnnieLaurie: This is great, Steve. This is so good. Thank you for unpacking this for all of us we’ve covered a lot, right? So we’ve covered alignment, process, content collab, conflict resolution, all of it.

AnnieLaurie: Let’s bring it home for the CEO, who’s listening right now and realizing we have a long way to go. Maybe we haven’t really done any of this. Where should they start? What’s the first move that creates momentum for them? Without turning this into just one more overwhelming thing on the to-do list, 

Steve: start small.

Steve: This is not just a one-time thing. For a lot of companies this is going to be a shift and in some regards, it’s, this is a culture shift. So this is not an overnight change. this is a shift in how you’re doing things, so give yourself some grace and recognize this is a long-term thing.

Steve: Start with an alignment meeting. Sit down with whoever’s involved in sales and marketing. Even if it’s you and you’re wearing both these hats, walk through the current process. What’s working? What’s getting stuck? [00:30:00] Where’s the communication falling apart? Then ask what’s one thing that you can clarify or document or fix this month?

Steve: And heck, I would just say, again, start with that simple question. Tell me three things that you wish every buyer knew before you had your first conversation. Get those questions written down and go write a few paragraphs that they can copy and paste into an email and send ahead of time.

Steve: Again, start small. It doesn’t have to be anything huge and ginormous.

Steve: Even that and some of the clarity that comes with that can help start moving things forward. And the other thing I’ll give you two more action items here. One is you can reach out to us. These are the types of conversations that we help people have. When we take on a coaching role with a client.

Steve: But the other thing I’ll mention is get a copy of Marcus Sheridan’s book, endless Customers, because that’s where he goes into a lot of detail. We coach people through this, but you can read for yourself. You can find information about assignment selling annual, you’ve already mentioned the article we have on our learning center, on our website.

Steve: [00:31:00] Start somewhere. Start educating yourself and make the commitment that you’re gonna get your sales and marketing teams aligned. As a revenue team,

Steve: this episode is brought to you by Wayfind Marketing. If you are trying to align your sales and marketing teams, but you don’t know where to start, that’s exactly what

Steve: we can help you with 

AnnieLaurie: our free guide marketing assessment gives you a clear picture of what’s working, what’s missing, and where you can make practical improvements without guessing.

Steve: It is a 25 question assessment that will take you five minutes. Once you complete it, you’ll get a score and you’ll walk away with next steps in the form of our Guide Marketing Playbook. So that it’s tailored to your business and your assessment score, head over to wayfind marketing.com and you can take the free assessment there.

AnnieLaurie: So your next step this week, take what we’ve talked about today and start mapping out your sales process. [00:32:00] Pull out a whiteboard or a notebook and write it down. What are the stages? What happens at each one? Where do buyers tend to stall out? 

Steve: If you already have your sales process mapped out, sit down with your sales team and your marketing teams. are they using content that you already have? Does it match the stages in your sales process?

Steve: Where’s the gap? And if you don’t have content, then get those initial questions from your sales team and create content to answer those questions then have them start using that with buyers. 

AnnieLaurie: In our next episode, we’re wrapping up the guide framework with letter E. Evaluate and adjust. It’s all about measuring what’s working, fixing what’s not, and leading your marketing with clarity instead of guesswork. 

Steve: Alright, you have your homework, keep making progress, 

AnnieLaurie: If you’re feeling stuck or not sure what to fix first, reach out. That’s exactly why we are here. 

Steve: We’ll see you next week.