Highspot Report: Misalignment of Sales and Marketing Reduces Revenue

Today sales enablement platform, Highspot, launched its new report titled European State of Sales and Marketing Alignment 2022. The whitepaper identifies trends and issues that impact alignment between sales and marketing teams, by looking at key confidence indicators and barriers to success.

The report, which surveyed those in sales and marketing roles in the UK, France and Germany, finds alignment, communication and collaboration between sales and marketing teams are crucial to sales success and bottom line ROI. In fact, according to the research, the vast majority (71%) of sales and marketing professionals in Europe agree that a lack of alignment between their two functions has a negative impact on revenue for their business.

Only 36% of sales and marketing respondents across all markets believe they have full visibility and ability to prove the impact their function is having on company revenue. A further 30% of salespeople alone also state that lacking visibility over which behaviours and assets are contributing to closed deals is a barrier to their success. In the UK alone, 43% of sales and marketing respondents believe too many overlapping and different systems between the two functions is a major issue in their success and collaboration.

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The report shows this lack of clarity around results and revenue is having a negative impact on confidence.

With just over half (53%) of sales respondents saying they feel ‘somewhat confident’ in hitting their targets over the next 12 months, and only 28% ‘very confident’ in doing the same, it’s clear sellers need more support and better tools to be successful in their roles. Of those who are confident in hitting their targets, 46% say good collaboration and alignment with the marketing team is the reason behind their confidence, further supporting the importance of alignment for success.

Of course, it’s not just internal issues that affect the ability to hit targets. Macro economic events were identified to have an impact on sales and marketing confidence as well. Across all markets, well over half (58%) of sales and marketing professionals identify the cost of living crisis as one of their top concerns when it comes to hitting their targets in the next 12 months.

In the UK, this concern rises to 67%, with a national recession (38%) and Brexit (31%) also identified as problematic issues for sales success over the next 12 months.

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Andy Champion, VP & GM for EMEA at Highspot says: “The next 12 months will be challenging for businesses across Europe. Sales and marketing teams have an opportunity to drive real change, but in order to succeed, you need to understand the barriers to seller success. From revenue visibility to training and onboarding, our latest research identifies key pain points that you can address with sales enablement to empower your people, strengthen alignment and drive efficient business growth. Economic turbulence is on the horizon – now is the time to equip your teams with the tools they need to weather the coming storm.”

Sales enablement is the strategic, ongoing process of equipping sales teams with the content, guidance, training and coaching they need to engage buyers. Alongside this it provides valuable insights to the marketing teams and bridges the gap to foster better collaboration between the two functions.

72% of those surveyed in sales and marketing roles agree that implementing sales enablement is something their company should consider in the near future.

Highspot’s latest report offers guidance to business leaders on how implementing sales enablement programs and initiatives can drive ROI.