One alignment tactic every B2B company should implement

Sales and marketing alignment fails when teams optimize for different metrics. Kelly Hopping, CMO of Demandbase, explains how shared pipeline accountability transforms B2B revenue operations. She details moving SDR teams under marketing leadership while aligning both organizations to pipeline metrics instead of separate SQL and closed-won targets. The discussion covers implementing weekly funnel reviews and restructuring compensation models to create true cross-functional partnership. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro and joining me today is Kelly Hopping, the CMO of Demandbase. And today Kelly will reveal the secrets to creating sales and marketing alignment that drives measurable growth. All right, last question I have for you. If you could wave your magic wand and implement just one alignment tactic for every B2B company tomorrow, what would it be?

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  I'd say weekly funnel reviews would be the number one, but my second, even though you didn't ask for one, would be CEOs holding their CMOs to pipeline, period. That would be the only thing. Forget the one, I'm now on like three.

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  Talk it out, let's go. You can work your way down to one, it's fine.

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  My other one would be you have to have a counterpart in sales that owns Pipeline as their metric. I think that's the biggest thing. When you are held for Pipeline, I hit a wall this year and am now off of lightning round. I was realizing that I was held to Pipeline. The SDRs were sitting in another organization and held to SQLs, and then Sales was held to Closed One. And I was like, there's no one on the other side of the fence who owns Pipeline. So who in the world is going to help me partner to make sure it happens? And it wasn't. So we moved the SDRs over and we changed their goals to SQLs and Pipeline. So we said, okay, if your goal is Pipeline, my goal is Pipeline, Sales has a Pipeline goal, then we're all driving towards that. So having one shared metric on both sides of the aisle, that's my one thing.

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  I'm going to answer your question after having talked to you for a half an hour of the one thing that you would do to wave your magic wand. There's a great sense of balance in everything you're talking about with how marketing and sales work together. There's a handshake and we are looking at the same metric. When something goes over the fence from Sales, we get all the way to Pipeline with our marketing efforts, and then Sales starts with Pipeline and goes to Closed One. And to be able to use that metric and have that sort of balance of we connect at the same point, it needs to be equally weighted on both sides. You need a VP of Field Marketing that is working with your ABM, Sales, whatever the organizations. But basically, it's sort of similarly structured organizations on

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  both sides that make things feel aligned and actually balanced. There is connective tissue between the organizations. How's that for putting words in your mouth?

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  I like your one thing.

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  Which is, in fairness, three or four things, but the questions aren't perfect either. All right. Well, I think we've landed the plane here on we need balance for us to have marketing and sales alignment. And I appreciate you coming on the Martech Podcast and telling us a little bit about how we find that sort of perfect weight between the Sales and Marketing team.

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  Absolutely. I mean, we're figuring it out every day. We're still humans in the process, right? It's not that you can use metrics and dashboards and meetings to solve. Like, you still have to be, as humans, show up with the right intention, show up as a partner, show up as a good human being, and that'll help, too. I think those are really required steps.

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  In the age of AI, turns out being human still really matters. And that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Kelly Hopping, CMO of Demandbase, for joining us. If you'd like to contact Kelly, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or on martechpod.com. You can visit her company's website, which is demandbase.com. She's also the host of the Next Gen CMO Podcast and the co-author of the book, Yes, It's Your Fault. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube, and we'll be back in your feed next week. That's it for today. But until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.