Key Highlights
- Navigating the current sales landscape poses significant challenges, with the efficacy of traditional methods, particularly email outreach, dwindling for sales teams.
- Just 5% of B2B buyers seek specific products or services at any moment. Furthermore, nearly half of companies struggle to align their sales and marketing efforts, leading to conflicts and conflicting priorities when the two functions are not in sync.
- Kelly and John dive into the critical topic of Sales and Marketing Alignment. Stressing that alignment begins at the leadership level, the discourse explores keys to achieving cohesion, emphasizing the importance of an efficient marketing-to-sales handoff, aligning both functions with measurable metrics, and fostering transparent communication.
- When you successfully align sales and marketing, your teams will see higher conversion rates, more successful wins, faster and smoother closures, and an increased influx of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).
Kelly Hopping
Kelly is the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for Demandbase where she is responsible for differentiating the go to market platform, increasing brand presence, and accelerating acquisition and conversion of potential customers. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University. Kelly is the author of the book Rising: How to Thrive as a Corporate Executive while Staying True to Yourself, which launched in 2023. She was also featured on the Center Stage, B2B Growth, Sunny Side Up, Authentic Energy, Powered by Search, and Marketing Trends podcasts. Kelly resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three children.
John Eitel
John is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Demandbase. He is a veteran of the SaaS industry with over two decades of experience in B2B Sales, operations, business development, analytics, marketing, and demand generation. Experienced in building high growth organizations specific to cloud technology, SaaS/PaaS, PLG, digital, and eCommerce both in startups and $1B+ publicly traded companies. Successful track record in turning around under-performing teams, creating and executing GTM strategies to attack new market opportunities, and operationalizing existing organizations to optimize for both growth and profitability. Having a diverse background in sales and customer success, marketing, and strategy creates a balanced approach to solving problems that uses both art and science.