[av_three_fourth first min_height='' vertical_alignment='' space='' custom_margin='' margin='0px' padding='0px' border='' border_color='' radius='0px' background_color='' src='' background_position='top left' background_repeat='no-repeat'] Why you should give a damn about Sales and Marketing alignment In late 2013, align.me and Marketo studied the sales and marketing alignment practices of 500 companies, and analyzed any improvements they saw as a result. In this sales and marketing webinar, align.me's Brett Bonser is joined by Chuck Besondy of Besondy Consulting, to share with you the highlights of our 2013 research into Sales and Marketing alignment. Team members from the Hardbits Corporation, of Leaky Funnel fame, wil also READ MORE ›

When George Bernard Shaw said that England and America were "two countries divided by a common language", he might as well have been talking about Marketing and Sales. In fact, he might have been talking just about different marketers themselves as a profession. Marketers are shocking for using the same phrase to mean very different things. A personal favourite is the confusion between branding and positioning. More on that later. We're going to have a go this week at building the definitive source of B2B marketing terminology and definitions. We'll offer up some phrases, with definitions, and invite you READ MORE ›

October 26th 2010, Melbourne, VIC, AU - align.me today announced the release of its latest B2B marketing white paper, The Strategy to Action Gap: How to Turn Good Ideas into Hard Sales Results, now available to download for free. In their many years of work with leading B2B companies worldwide, the team at align.me have witnessed first-hand the difficulties of translating marketing strategy into action. They have found that formulating a killer strategy is useless if it is executed poorly, or worse – not executed at all. Yet so many businesses still have difficulty translating their ideas READ MORE ›

We all recognise the power of loyalty programs, and enjoy the rewards of airlines, card providers, stores and other businesses who reward our loyalty. Be careful about starting one that you can't sustain though. This is a personal story, but perhaps salient to those of us who market for a living. Before starting align.me, I worked for the Australian arm of a large US company, and commuted from Melbourne to Sydney weekly. So I stayed in lots of hotels. I was delighted when the manager of my regular hotel presented me with a silver Tiffany key ring READ MORE ›

Charles Besondy, President of Besondy Consulting & Interim Management, writes... Every company, including my own firm, is working hard each day to find, keep, and grow customers. The urgency for revenue now is real.  But, I asked myself this morning a very direct question. Am I implementing strategies and tactics that are perpetuating this short-term thinking? Or, do I have strategies and tactics in place that will in good time create a consistent revenue flow? Sometimes I have to remind myself that if I don’t want to be in a hole, stop digging! If I want to READ MORE ›

I recently joined in a debate on LinkedIn about who owns Sales and Marketing alignment. My answer: um, Sales and Marketing do. Many argued the CEO must. But I disagree. The question was posed by Dan McDade on LinkedIn, and in full, Dan asked: "When sales and marketing are not on the same page (market definition, criteria for leads, definition of success / metrics), who owns the fix?" The arguments that the CEO owns this fix are compelling: Marketing lacks the 'ticker' to take Sales on (they usually lose) Lack of alignment is caused by disagreement or READ MORE ›