Sales and marketing meeting template walk-through:
What is the goal of this meeting?
In many organizations sales and marketing teams clash because in a way, they’re pitted against each other. “Give us more leads” vs. “The leads are qualified, sell better.” Sound familiar?
That’s why it’s so important for sales and marketing teams to be aligned. That’s what this meeting is for: Continuously iterating on your service level agreement (SLA), discussing new insights from marketing campaigns or sales calls, and learning about what’s working (and double down on it) versus what’s not.
1. Icebreaker
It may seem silly to start every meeting with an icebreaker, but doing this will help build better connections and relationships across both teams. By starting every meeting with an icebreaker, your team members will get to know each other as people first, employees second. This can help people feel more comfortable sharing ideas, which will also encourage collaboration.
2. News and updates
Use this time to share any major news or updates with the team. This can include things like sponsoring a conference, a big upcoming opportunity that will require all hands on deck, or to share when people will be out of the office (vacations, leave, etc).
3. Key dates to keep in mind
Every week, use this agenda item to remind both teams of any major dates to keep top of mind. This includes:
- Bottom-funnel webinars that will drive MQLs
- Big sales meetings that may require marketing materials
- When specific ABM campaigns will be launched
- Conference dates
4. Performance to SLAs
SLAs are common among sales and marketing teams. It's a contract that holds each team accountable to specific metrics and agreed-upon expectations that align with the team's goals (usually revenue).
Use this time to review your SLAs and how each team is tracking against them. If there are any issues, discuss why and how to improve by the next meeting.
5. Highlight: Share key snippets of a recorded customer call
Every meeting, devote one sales rep to share a snippet of a customer call worth sharing with the marketing team. Here are a few examples of snippets to share:
- Was there an "A-ha" moment worth sharing with the marketing team?
- Are prospects describing your product differently than what's described on your homepage?
- Did you have a great call with a customer that can be used as a testimonial?
6. Feedback: Which campaigns are driving the best leads?
Whether it was a specific webinar, an ABM strategy, or a new eBook, use this time to have the sales team share what campaign drove the best, most-qualified leads. Consistently talking about what’s working and what isn’t will allow the marketing team to better understand what campaigns and channels to focus more on (and what to drop).
7. Feedback: What are prospects saying we should focus more on?
Are there any features or services that prospects rave about? Are prospects asking for information that’s targeted to a specific decision maker (I.e. VP, Finance)? As sales reps have more cold calls and demos they should continue to document what prospects are asking for to help marketing create more targeted pitch decks, sales enablement materials, content, and more.
8. Feedback: What materials would you like to see more of?
These meetings offer a great opportunity for the sales team to share with marketing what kind of content they’re lacking. When marketing has a better understanding of what sales needs, they can hyper-focus on prioritize their content calendar. Having these conversations also ensure that the sales team is made aware of all of the content available to them, giving them everything they need to close more deals.
