In many midsize organizations, sales and marketing are completely dysfunctional.
And why wouldn’t they be? We organize our companies two have two distinct departments that perform the exact same function: driving revenue growth while competing for critical resources like budget, personnel, and recognition for their accomplishments.
The philosophy that I teach aligns marketing and sales on five important dimensions:
investment
It's not only important to understand what sort of budget is necessary to fund our growth but also have agreement throughout the organization as to what value we believe we are going to realize as a result of that investment. This agreement needs to be explicit.
ingredients
Everything we produce as a marketing and sales organization is going to be based on two critical resources (beyond money): our team and the assets we have available, like our brand equity, our digital presence, our sales presentations and proposals. Understanding what we have in our arsenal and how that arsenal needs top be improved upon in order to achieve success is crucial.
success
All too often — especially as department, individuals, and even tasks get siloed — we lose track of the big picture. Success requires that we have more than just documented goals that everyone understands and is working towards: we also need for everyone to measure success the same way and agree on what constitutes accomplishment. While this definition of success may feel like common sense, it's also routinely ignored in many organizations.
execution
In order for the rubber to meet the road we need an actionable plan and we need to execute on a set of tactics. What's often forgotten is that the tactics we choose to invest our time and money in need to align with our plan which needs to align with our success. We're not here just to produce "stuff" after all, we're here to achieve something for the business as a whole.
ecosystem
Nothing we do happens in a bubble... Whether we want to believe it or not, our companies are involved in a constant give and take with potential customers, with competitors, with vendors and delivery partners, and those stakeholders have the ability to impact our success in a significant way. Understanding our place in this ecosystem and learning to use the behaviors of those key stakeholders as an asset can be transformative.
As an approved speaker for Vistage CEO and peer groups, I speak to business leaders nationwide on the following topic:
Question Marketing (How to Challenge Frustrations and Raise Expectations)
To say that many business leaders are frustrated with marketing is an understatement: they are confounded by chronic failure, poor conversion rates, mounting costs, reams of seemingly meaningless data, and broken promises— and all without a path to measurable ROI.
Each and every one of these issues can be solved easily, however, by facing that frustration head-on and embracing a new understanding of marketing. In this workshop, marketer and author Erik Wolf will break down the reasons marketing fails and demonstrate how to create a profitable future by challenging preconceived notions and embracing new perspectives.
Value to Member
I’m going to provide simple solutions to a number of marketing issues that cost business leaders time, money, and frustration. Key learnings include:
- Understanding failure points in marketing
- Developing healthy, functional relationships with marketing employees and vendors with HIGHER expectations and MORE accountability
- How to connect with your marketplace
- How to effectively “make your case” to your target audience and increase chances of success
- How to delegate responsibility effectively within your marketing roles
- How to align sales and marketing
- How to set, prioritize and communicate marketing goals
I would give '6s' if I could on 'take home value' and 'added great value'. I've been a Vistage member in this same group for about 5 years now. Erik's presentation is in my top 3."
VISTAGE MEMBER
Erik helped me develop a deeper understanding of marketing and the relationship it has with every function of the company."
VISTAGE MEMBER
My talks by the numbers:
My workshops help executives learn and quickly implement critical skills
Working directly with CEOs and high-level executives lets me quickly break down barriers between preconceived notions of what sales and marketing do and how we can actually use them as strategic levers for growth.
Specifically, I deliver three important tools that business leaders can use to immediately change their fortunes in revenue and marketing management:
- A framework for effective decision-making in the service of company goals
- Budgeting guidelines for aligning dollars with objectives and tactics
- Prioritization techniques to better manage tasks and team members and create accountability
Erik's straightforward approach and well-formulated framework were enlightening. He was able to take various marketing concepts and ideas that I knew from prior experiences and package them in a way that allowed me to create a comprehensive marketing strategy and executable plan with a unified message."
BOYD BELL (Founder, Useful Rocket Science)
Teaching and mentoring is a fundamental part of what I do
I’ve been teaching and mentoring marketers for years, both in my professional practice and as an adjunct professor of marketing at Metropolitan State University in Denver.
Helping business owners and executives grow in the way they understand and manage marketing and create accountability is important — but it only addresses part of what causes ineffectiveness in sales and marketing.
The other part of the equation is developing more effective managers and practitioners to deliver work in marketing and sales. These individuals often work in silos, sometimes even as a “department of one”, without role models or peers.
Working with current and future professionals to give them new skills and better opportunities is core to my values and part of my professional mission.
About Erik Wolf
Erik Wolf founded the award-winning marketing firm Estound in 2006 and is also a Vistage speaker and a Professor of Marketing at Metro State University in Denver. Along with his team, Erik has helped executives plan and execute strategies to connect with their markets, grow revenue, create lasting and predictable ROI, and facilitate lucrative exits. More than anything though, Erik excels at helping business leaders find breakthroughs and new success where sales and marketing have become stagnant and revenue has plateaued. Erik has written 3 books and spoken at SXSW, Ignite Denver, the Colorado Nonprofit Association, and Digital Atlanta among others.
