TL;DR

• What the hell is WordPress doing? Take our <5min survey and let us know how the WP vs. WP Engine nonsense is impacting your shop.​
• Many digital agencies have dismal or non-existent support between sales, marketing, and account management. (especially at the big agencies)
• When you get above 50-ish FTEs and are competing with bigger shops, you have to get more sophisticated on the revgen front.
• Cross-functional collaboration is a major way to improve your revgen game.
• Sales can support marketing and AM by sharing insights, sharing common objections, and assisting in client onboarding.
• Marketing can support sales and AM by generating quality leads and creating effective collateral for both groups.
• AM can support sales and marketing by providing case study data, testimonials, and assisting sales on key accounts.
• The benefits of this kind of work include faster growth, improved client satisfaction, shorter sales cycles, and more effective/efficient marketing spend.
• Take it slow. Start with the vision/growth strategy. Give them agency over implementation and don't skimp on resources.

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Elegant Revgen Support

Today, we’re discussing everyone’s favorite topic: cross-functional collaboration elegant revgen support!

Don't go!

It isn't as dull as the business-speak makes it sound.

This is something that crops up all the time, and it’s typically a lot worse at larger shops.

One agency in particular comes to mind (they said it’s cool to talk about as long as I don’t name them).

This was a project I wrapped up a little over a year ago.

They had around 120 employees, with 5 in sales, 7 in marketing, 1 in bizdev, and then a group of account managers. I only worked with the lead AM, so I’m not sure how many actual AMs they had.

They were having a hell of a time with revgen.

• On the sales side, they never seemed to have the right case study, even though they had a bunch published.
• On the marketing side, their messaging never really hit the mark, resulting in poor conversion rates.
• Their AMs could retain accounts without a problem, but they had trouble growing them.
• I’m still not clear on what the bizdev guy was doing, and I don’t think anyone else knew either.

All this culminated in a garbage growth rate and a LOT of frustration.

Something I ask in all of my discovery calls with revgen leaders is:

I got a lot of blank stares from this team.

There was almost zero cross-functional support.

There wasn’t any elegance to their revgen strategy.

Just a bunch of sub-groups running around doing their own thing without much success.

Sure, you can operate like this for a while, but at this level, you’re playing against some sophisticated competitors.

Competitors that DO have elegant revgen strategies where each group knows their role, the other roles, and how they support one another.

We eventually got them back on track, but it was a slow process.

When you get to that size, or any size over about 50FTEs, tribalism gets ingrained quickly and deeply.

The solution started with a cohesive growth strategy.

A vision they could all get behind.

An understanding of their individual roles and the group's goals.

This led to an understanding of where they needed support and how they could support one another.

These support networks need to be customized to each specific agency since you'll have your own vision and support needs. Even so, there are some pretty standard ways revgen groups can work together. Here's some low hanging fruit:

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Sales Support for Marketing and Account Management

Sharing market and competitive insights they uncover throughout their interactions with prospects. During their calls, sales professionals get a TON of primary data on client needs, pains, trends, and competitor offerings. Sharing this with marketing can help them fine-tune their ICPs and buyer personas, which can lead to more effective campaigns.

More sharing – this time, sharing common objections and frequently asked questions with marketing. This kind of insight allows marketing to create targeted content to address these with prospects before they ever get to a salesperson.

Assist in onboarding. Many times, the relationship handoff from sales to AM is abrupt. The salespeople who built trust with your client do a quick intro and then bounce. Sales can participate in the initial stages of client onboarding to ensure a smooth transition to account management, clarifying expectations and any unique client requirements discussed during the sales process. This should probably last a bit longer than what most leaders feel is necessary, but it yields better long-term relationships.

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Marketing Support for Sales and Account Management

Generate quality leads. The simplest way for marketing to aid sales is by keeping them busy with quality leads. There are a million ways to do this, but by being good at their job, marketing can make sales infinitely easier. Key parts of this include properly researched and focused ICPs, buyer personas, consistent brand messaging, and campaigns that speak to persona pain points that are delivered where those personas seek information.

Create content and collateral for both sales and AM. Marketing sits at the perfect place to create compelling one-sheets, service expansion campaigns, ROI calculators (in collaboration with AM), and other collateral that sales and AM can use to be more effective.

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Account Management Support for Sales and Marketing

Provide case study and testimonial data. AM is perfectly suited to know which clients to approach at the right time to get data and stories for case studies and testimonials. By leveraging the relationships they already have with the client teams, they can get everything necessary for marketing to write a compelling case study.

Assist sales in high-level calls with similar clients. AM can bring their wealth of client knowledge to sales conversations with similar clients. Sure, sales can do some of this, but AM will likely have more compelling details on client success stories.

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An Argument for Elegance

This kind of cross-functional collaborative approach creates an environment where each team benefits from the success of one another.

There are too many agencies out there where marketing and sales fight back and forth about “low-quality leads” and “poor close rates.”

In fact, that friction will be one of the main barriers to implementing this.

Some people will see this as just more work.

Therefore, it’s important to build these relationships slowly. Walk them through the benefits of doing this. Give them agency in how they collaborate and in designing the implementation plan.

As it begins to work, make sure you give them the resources necessary for them to really shine.

Once you implement something like this, the benefits appear quickly.

Faster growth is almost a given, but you also have things like improved client satisfaction and retention, shorter sales cycles, and more effective/efficient marketing spend.

This elegance is something that could benefit a ton of agencies, big and small.

- Nick

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In other news, what the hell is WordPress doing?

​WordPress and WP Engine are fighting, and it’s (maybe) impacting a lot of agencies.

Wanna learn how? Us too. So we launched a quick (<5min) survey to find out. Let us know your thoughts on the whole thing and how it’s affecting you, and we’ll share the results with everyone.

Also, the Bureau of Digital is hosting a call on the topic on Friday, 10/18, at noon ET.