Speaker 1: 0:20

Thank you. With over two decades of experience, evan is not just a consultant. He's a force in sales, focusing on mindset planning and skill development. He's also the co-author of Selling Professional Services, the Sandler Way. Joining him is Craig Andrews, partner and CEO of Beholder Agency. An expert in growth marketing With 20 years under his belt, craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. His belt, craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. Together, evan and Craig are here to share their wisdom on winning strategies, best practices and transformative insights that will fuel your growth. Get ready to revolutionize your sales and marketing approach right here on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed and marketing approach right here on the sales and marketing playbook unleashed.

Speaker 2: 1:13

And welcome to the sales and marketing playbook unleashed. I'm craig andrews and this is my co-host dang it. This is my co-host, evan paul from the poland performance group. Uh, today, evan, we are going to have a guest with us today. Uh, who's going to be another cog in our wheel. Of all the things that we talk about in terms of sales and marketing, earlier in our episodes we talked about the importance of alignment between sales and marketing, but I think the one thing we didn't really talk about is the people that's involved with the sales and marketing and how they work together, and I think that, when it comes to our guests, he's going to give us a nice little insight in terms of the importance of the people who are doing the work that's going to create the synergy between our two worlds. Wait, there we go Our two worlds.

Speaker 3: 1:58

So everybody tune in to season six when Craig finally figures out which way to point.

Speaker 2: 2:04

I'm still working on it, evan. You know that I'm still working on it. Every time we switch it, we switch it all around. So, to say the least, I'm going to introduce our guest, anthony Constantini. Anthony, how are you today? Fantastic, doing great, awesome. Before we really get deep into this conversation, why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you do?

Speaker 4: 2:25

Absolutely so, anthony Costantini. I'm a principal advisor with Surf HR. I am a fractional HR leader that helps small businesses solve their people challenges. I have a long history of about 21 years in HR leadership and I have.

Speaker 2: 2:54

I feel I started this venture about four months ago and I really feel like my background can help small business leaders improve the strategies around talent acquisition, retention, engagement and development Awesome. So, anthony, evan and I speak a lot about the importance of aligning sales and marketing with the people involved and we've been speaking actually from a perspective of the ownership. But one of the reasons we wanted to have you on is because obviously you're in HR. What would you say from your HR perspective, the importance of aligning sales and marketing?

Speaker 4: 3:17

I think you hit on the keyboard alignment and it's simply stated sometimes, but it's missed and too often in functions like sales and marketing, the objectives and key results are often misaligned or they reward different behaviors. So a perfect example of that misalignment comes between these two functions are goals and competencies, especially when you're looking at evaluating performance. Too often I've seen sales maybe focused on revenue growth straight revenue growth year over year where marketing is focused on revenue growth in new markets. So this causes that conflict in priorities and really will be unproductive in meeting the objectives and key results. The expectations and targets have to be aligned, clear and simple.

Speaker 3: 4:00

So, anthony, from your perspective, from an HR perspective, what does it look like? So, anthony, from your perspective, from an HR perspective, what does it look like? What have you seen Maybe even some examples you can give of when the sales goals and the marketing goals aren't aligned, or where salespeople feel like they're being rewarded to do one thing which may be different from how marketing is involved? And, typically, how do you get involved in something like that? How do you involve ownership when sometimes those two sides may not be aligned?

Speaker 4: 4:26

Yeah, and you see that often because it's almost that vocal the voice you hear from both functions, that it's oh well, sales isn't closing the leads that I'm providing, or how can I sell when my funnel is just incomplete or these leads are no good? So that's when you start to see a crack in the coherence and the alignment specifically. So right then, and there you should be really looked at. Ok, what exactly are the goals for each of these functions? Are they aligned? Like I said, either, whether it's one has straight revenue growth, the other may have be focused and open to new markets. They really have to be fully aligned and it's not something that has to be a forever alignment, it really has to be year over year.

Speaker 4: 5:10

What is everybody's goal? How are you making sure everybody's growing in the same direction for that year? So that's number one, and number two is really the competencies. What makes somebody successful in these roles for your company? And it's too often where the competencies are just kind of overlooked in terms of, oh well, it's just an HR thing, it's just somebody just needs somebody to show up on time, make sure they're getting everything done. It's like no, what are the true competencies that make a sales and marketing professional successful at your organization and how do they align with your core values? They have to be very specific in terms of how they are aligning with your company and its culture.

Speaker 3: 5:50

And Anthony, between you and I, the marketing folks aren't listening. We know it's usually marketing's fault, not sales fault.

Speaker 2: 5:56

Yeah, I beg to differ. Thank you, I beg to differ. Thank you very much. So when it comes to things like that you speak about, anthony, I'm a big data guy. If you've listened to the podcast before. Data, data, data, data, data, data data helps drive me forward in terms of me being successful. Every one of us, whether it be sales or be marketing, we have a set KPIs that we follow from an HR perspective, seeing what our two worlds are, what type of KPIs would an HR professional be looking at, seeing what our two worlds are.

Speaker 4: 6:25

What type of KPIs would an HR professional be looking at? So I think it depends on the organization. Whatever those exactly, like you said, specific KPIs Now that's one area where HR can help guide a little bit. But really the sales and marketing team because they're the professionals and they have the full background in it should be driving exactly what KPIs make your teams tick. And, and the other thing is it has to be aligned again with the overall organizational goals. So does the organization just want to steadily kind of grow year over year and focus just on revenue growth in the areas that they're focused on, or do they want to start opening up new markets? Look at key accounts, what do they want to do from an organizational standpoint that'll drive the overall growth? So, making sure that sales and marketing are both pointed in that direction. So I think that's where HR can really help guide that discussion about.

Speaker 4: 7:15

Ok, here's your KPI sales and marketing. How are each of your team members evaluated on? Again, this is something that is looked at as that HR thing over there. How are we truly evaluating performance based on their goals, targets and their competencies, to make sure that the objectives and key results are really where the company needs them to be. So that's really what I see, where HR's focus is not only on the evaluating performance, but also on the compensation strategy. How are sales professionals being compensated? How are marketing professionals being compensated to make? Are marketing professionals being compensated To make sure it's aligned with the behaviors and the results you want to see?

Speaker 3: 7:51

And Anthony, what things might a small to mid-sized business owner hear to let them know that things are not in alignment and to let them know that things may need to be addressed?

Speaker 4: 8:02

Yeah, it's the finger pointing. First You'll start to see the finger pointing because one team may be held accountable to numbers that they're not hitting and they might start finger pointing on the other side. Typically in a smaller business, there's one leader over sales and marketing, so that individual really has to identify those key players in both areas and make sure they are fully aligned and talking. That's the biggest piece communication. So any company and not even sales and marketing, just overall companies struggle with accountability and communication and that is key in these areas, especially to get these very closely aligned kind of functions operating in the same direction. First you have to talk about how are you talking as a group? The first thing I see when I, the first thing I ask when there's finger pointing, is why are you talking as a group? The first thing I see when I, the first thing I ask when there's finger pointing, is why are you having two separate conversations? Why is it not just one conversation focused on sales and marketing, sales, kind of working and owning the sales funnel and marketing. How are you filling the sales funnel? I mean very simple, but it's it's and just having that healthy dialogue on an ongoing basis, whatever that looks like weekly, biweekly, and really establishing that.

Speaker 4: 9:09

The last thing I'll mention is is because sometimes HR is looked at as that touchy, feely policy police. But HR can really help provide a framework of healthy conflict. So conflict is going to happen. You can't, you can't say, oh well, conflict isn't going to happen because our culture is so strong. That tells me you don't have a good culture. You have to, you have to kind of, you have to have that conflict and healthy conflict, productive conflict, not not to tear and not attacking conflict. So HR can help provide that framework and training on how people can hold each other accountable. It's very important.

Speaker 2: 9:49

So I think Anthony's heard us talk before, because one of the stats in one of our first episodes actually we talked about if sales and marketing are on the same page, that you can almost. I think. The stat that we looked up said a 208% increase in revenue and only because the left hand and the right hand are working together to move forward and you touched upon the communication piece. Can you give us an example of maybe in your practice I know we probably could where the communication was really the linchpin to somebody taking that next step, that next step forward?

Speaker 4: 10:24

Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 10:25

And really so one organization, one particular organization. I had success with kind of cheating, because we built it from the ground up. It was kind of an organic growth, and we really are not organic. We really acquired a lot of talent to build up the sales and marketing in North America, and we were able to start from the ground. But the biggest thing was okay, what is the communication structure? What is the cadence here? Is it going to be bi-weekly? We settled on bi-weekly cadence where everybody there's a report out, and the report out is very structured. Sales professionals here's what you're reporting out on. Marketing professionals here's where you're reporting out in terms of what those KPIs or what those drivers are, what the gap is, and if there is a gap, how are you closing the gap? That way it's a very structured, very effective, efficient. People have to be prepared. If they're not sorry to say this, you kick them out. You got to kind of get. You have to have everybody prepared. It has to be important, impactful and meaningful. So these two organizations they have to be talking, and it got to a great cadence.

Speaker 4: 11:24

The one thing that was kind of critical, though, is there were two separate leaders in this. The really critical part was if they differ. If there was conflict, they didn't hash it out on that call. There was a separate offline conversation that they came back and said, ok, we're aligned, this is how we're moving forward. It wasn't a disagreement or the team seeing this disagreement saying, well, there's a misalignment here, so this is a struggle, and kind of you lose some attention and some engagement. That was huge. And then those leaders also held their people accountable as well. And then one thing we did do effectively that I haven't really touched on is engaging those teams. So, talking to those teams, what is important to them when it comes to evaluating their performance? What do they see as the main? How, the how people can be successful in that organization, what's important to them from a compensation perspective? And then we're able to develop a lot of different processes and programs around that, using the feedback. I can't stress the importance of that enough.

Speaker 3: 12:28

And Anthony along those lines. And talking about leadership, I know that you've worked within a number of organizations. Can you kind of give an example of how strong leadership, how strong ownership, can help to get everybody on the same page and what kind of challenges that come up when companies have a weak leader or a wishy-washy leader or someone who just tells everybody what they want to hear?

Speaker 4: 12:52

Absolutely. It's the accountability piece. As a leader, you have to take accountability for you, your team, your team especially. There's no pointing fingers, it's the buck stops with me. I'm going to own this and this is how we're going to move, going forward.

Speaker 4: 13:05

Also, addressing poor performance. That is critical for a good leader, because I can't think, now even more so than in the past High performers, they don't want to be covering for bad performers. They want to do their job, do it well and get rewarded for it. They don't want to pick up the slack for poor performers. So a leader has to address that poor performance, especially in the sales and marketing realm, because it's a glaring, it's staring you right in the face and they have to be able to address that.

Speaker 4: 13:37

The other thing I'll say and it's harder to do than it actually is to say, but even in one-on-one conversations. So, evan, you're kind of one of my sales team members. You're talking to me, I'm kind of talking to you about your performance, just one-on-one, and you're like marketing, they're killing me, really struggling, they're not giving me the good leads, they're just not communicative. You have to shut that down. As a leader, there's things you can take from that, but you have to shut it down because the second those conversations happen behind doors, it starts to fester and foster and really come out in a really unproductive, negative way in kind of that group setting. So those are things that I've seen good leaders do.

Speaker 2: 14:16

I like that and I'll tell you, the one point that you brought up that really strung home with me is how you were referencing that if there's a conflict, we set up another meeting to resolve that conflict, to bring it back to the team. Because what we're kind of talking about here is company culture, which gets kind of broad. It's a broad term. The reality behind it is that he said, she said that goes on in corporations, even the small ones. It becomes I can't do my job because marketing didn't get whatever, because I gave you leads I can take a break so that Evan can go sell them. But that's where the productivity kind of slows down a lot.

Speaker 2: 14:55

And I think that the ability to be able to say we're going to be adults here, we're going to go on to another meeting, we're going to hash this out productively and we're going to bring it back to the team and create a sense of synergy is a beautiful thing. That's a great tip to be able to bring to an organization On top of that. I'm sorry you wanted to say something, evan.

Speaker 3: 15:15

I was just going to say. I've seen some toxic organizations mid-size large where the entire marketing team gets together and all they do is complain about the sales team, and the entire sales team gets together and all they do is complain about the marketing team. The leaders aren't communicating. Each team is blaming the other team for why they're not productive, and that's a recipe for complete disaster.

Speaker 2: 15:38

And I think the end game here is we're all trying to grow businesses, whether it be me marketing to try to get them more, you know, more marketing efforts because it's not always sales for us or, in Evan's case, where he's training people to become better salespeople. At the end of the day, that end game is always lost in the gossip. The one other thing I wanted to touch upon here is let's talk about your recruitment and training. So obviously, evan offers sales training. What type of things do you do that helps with the training and recruitment for businesses? When it comes to sales and marketing?

Speaker 4: 16:12

Yeah, these are two absolutely critical functions and two things that will really drive the right behaviors and the right performance. One, on the recruiting side, I talked about competencies. You have to know what a successful sales and marketing person looks like in your organization. If you don't, how are you going to hire that person? You have to have that down. Don't, how are you going to hire that person? I, you have to have that down. And everybody on the interview team, everybody that touches candidates, has to understand what that, what those competencies are, and it has to lead to the right hiring criteria.

Speaker 4: 16:42

Um, if you don't, if you're just spinning your wheels, you don't have a structured, efficient process and everybody knows exactly what they're judging characters on or candidates on, you're you're going to fail. You're going to spin your wheels. You're going to you're going to fail. You're going to spin your wheels, you're going to hire the wrong candidate and it's going to set you back months and you're going to lose revenue, lose money, everything and frustrate the team as well. So, on the training development side, very similar. You focus on those competencies. Those are things that you want to either build or develop in all of your employees and all of your teams. So you develop learning and training programs around them, from onboarding to just regular ongoing training, development. And it's not just HR putting this on, it's finding those tools and resources that may be experts in those areas to bring into the organization. Because, look, hr, I've never been in sales and marketing. I'm not going to teach anybody anything about that, I'm just regurgitating what I read, but what I?

Speaker 4: 17:34

can do is bring in a professional and bring in a leader in those areas that somebody can truly learn from. And then it's about the follow-up. But the one thing I'll say is too often, especially with the training and development, people get focused on the shiny objects over here. So, oh, have you tried this behavioral assessment? It's great. Or have you read this book? It'll change the way you think about hiring. It's like look, those can help be a supplement, but until you have the criteria and the right process, it's that's just useless garbage. You need to be make that part, make it more valuable, and so until you have that process down, it's not going to work. Focus on your people and what makes your make successful sales and marketing pros in your company. Don't let the outside dictate what you should be looking for.

Speaker 3: 18:28

Anthony a question. A lot of the companies that are listening to this podcast, people who are listening to this podcast are in growth mode and one of the things I've heard anecdotally is how much different recruiting is, how much different hiring is pre-COVID versus post-COVID.

Speaker 4: 18:46

Could you share any insights and, for people who are actively looking to recruit now, whether it's sales, marketing or other roles any best practices that you have to help ensure that people are finding the right people and doing the right things in this environment, Absolutely Very passionate about this, Because if you're an organization where your leaders are saying, oh, this new generation doesn't want to work, or this or that, Look, I'm sorry, that's that's the workforce right now, Just drop it. Drop that, because everything you're saying your team is getting hanging on to and that's coming through the candidates in one way or another. Just drop it. That's the way the workforce is now. That's that's just what we are. That's what we just have to find.

Speaker 4: 19:31

What makes a new candidate tick? Now? It's not always just about here's our compensation, and this is areas where you don't have to spend a lot of money to build your brand. What does your brand stand for? If I'm a candidate, I think the data is something like 70% of candidates go out and research a company before they apply to a job. Where's your brand? Where are they finding your brand? Is it Glassdoor? Is it LinkedIn? Is it Indeed? And look, Glassdoor. Nobody wants to deal with Glassdoor, but you have to. It's something you have to put time and effort into because your competitor is, so you better do that too, and it's oftentimes free. So make sure that your brand online is. You don't have to be going out there and just kind of doing things you're not comfortable doing, but let people know what you're about.

Speaker 4: 20:16

And then, on the structure and the process side, don't be unorganized. Don't have Evan to your point. The one thing I see a lot is a leader will have an opening and they'll bring in a recruit, a hiring team, interviewing team. That interviewing team one won't be aligned on what the criteria is, so everybody will have different opinions on what success looks like. And two, you'll have different people in that process ask the same questions over and over and over again. You're going to lose that candidate through the process. It has to be efficient and you can't have. You have to have your interviewing team know what their role is, what questions they're supposed to be asking, Because the second you're like rehashing the same questions and the same content. Candidates are like these people are out of it. The candidate experience is the most critical thing in recruiting right now.

Speaker 2: 21:05

What I would say is is that, again, you touched upon a very beautiful point. Ultimately, the branding piece, which is in my space. The branding piece is part of the steps that are missing in today, because technology makes everything move so fast. I've dealt with a lot of people and I'll say the young ones, because I don't get old, right, who will go? Eh, I've already looked into that, I already did, and I'm amazed by it. Right, because they have access to information that we would have never dreamed about in our times coming up. So, yes, your point is very valid. You have to learn how to brand within the spaces that they're in anyway, because where else are you picking up that talent? I love that point. So what we usually do about this time in the show is we have a drill down. So give us three things that you would tell our audience about the importance of your business in their space.

Speaker 4: 22:03

I would say one leaders have to be accountable, they have to be accountable, they have to be accountable and they have to drive accountability within their teams. That's, I think, the most critical thing. Communications, number two how are leaders communicating with their teams? To one, set expectations. And then two, follow through on expectations so that team members know exactly what to expect. And then three, just make sure the alignment piece.

Speaker 4: 22:26

It is critical to make sure that everything, especially sales and marketing, those two functions, are going in the same direction. They are first to have the same goals from a. What is it Revenue growth? Is it new business? Is it key accounts? What does that look like? Make sure everybody is driving in the same direction, to the objectives. And then, what makes what makes a good part, a good employee? So those competencies are important because that's how you're going to measure performance, outside of just attaining goals. Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of companies that say, uh, oh, well, teamwork is really important. But then you have a sales, sales professional burning down bridges, trying to get to the number and it's like, okay, you just destroyed a lot of internal relationships because of that. Are you going to do anything about it or not, and if it says it, you better do something about it.

Speaker 2: 23:15

I love it. I love it. Evan, before we take off, do you have anything that you want to add to the mix?

Speaker 3: 23:21

I think Anthony did a great job covering the importance of the people part of all of this. And as a last thing, can you tell people how they can get in touch with you?

Speaker 4: 23:30

Absolutely so. Linkedin I'm all over LinkedIn, but email is great. Anthony Costantini at ServeHR SRVHRcom. We're just doing a call. It's great.

Speaker 2: 23:43

And tell them your website.

Speaker 4: 23:45

So website is it's's servehrcom and Anthony Costantini, so you can find an advisor and I'm on there. That's my full details. You can also go through there.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Awesome. And speaking of LinkedIn, if you guys are listening, follow us on LinkedIn. We're at the sales and you said ampersand, right, evan? Sales and playbook. You can also follow us on Apple. We're also on Spotify. We're also on Amazon music. Follow us if you have any questions, feedback to us. What were you gonna hit?

Speaker 3: 24:17

I said, and if you want to watch us for a real treat, you can go to YouTube and look for the sales marketing playbook and you can see where I made the mistake all day.

Speaker 4: 24:27

You won't see that on the podcast, but you'll see how silly I was trying to figure out which way I'm pointing.

Speaker 2: 24:32

I'm Craig Andrews, this is Anthony and that's Evan, and we will talk to you guys next time. Have a great day, thanks, guys.

Speaker 1: 25:05

Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world of I'll get it unprecedented levels of success. Don't forget to subscribe to the sales and marketing playbook unleashed on all major podcast platforms, and follow us on YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content. Until next time, keep hustling and keep winning.