Teresa Allan
Appearances
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Yeah, absolutely.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
I think it really was years of work. So I started off in client side and then, and actually my boss there, she made us do at least six months in insights and analytics before we could go and do anything else, which I, to this day, I'm always forever grateful for because it's a critical skill for marketers. But most people don't have that ability.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
But when I then moved to agencies where I stayed for a long time, what I was always struck with that whether it was B2C or B2B, you get a brief that comes in and you run with it. And but then you can get to the end and it's you're doing the wrong thing. The brief is wrong. Right. And there hasn't been that kind of in-depth understanding and analysis as a problem statement in the first place.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And as an agency, the truth is, you know, we're all pretty much yes men and be like, oh, yeah, great. We want to win it. So we'll say yes, we can do everything. And it's not going to have the business impact that was intended because ultimately you're doing the wrong thing and you haven't asked the right questions.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And often you give strategy away for free because you're desperate to get to kind of the end bit where the client, you know, sourced intangible output and that's where they saw the value. And after years and years of doing this, it just made me realize that there's a fundamental flaw and there's a gap.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
in that process and the other thing that triggered it was you know at the same time we were starting to see a lot of brands creating in-house agencies so again they were kind of going straight to their well we've got all these creatives and they they can do all this great stuff but it's like well you're missing the thinking piece first that's connecting the dots between the output and really kind of connecting up to the business strategy.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
I just found it frustrating because I feel like it was a waste of everyone's time and money if you're going to turn up and do something. And they were great things that you were doing. But were they the right things? Half the time, probably not.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Oh, I mean, totally. You know, the usual headaches have kicked in, which is to be expected. I've been going to bed at nine o'clock just so I can avoid eating. Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And it is just stopping the kind of the hamster wheel that everyone is on, you know, to hit those quarterly targets and to constantly be delivering to then go, actually, let's all get in the room maybe, which is hard to do. I mean, we all struggle to do it, right? It's really difficult.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
But I think it's incredibly important to be able to do that and to be, going back to Rosamund's response, to articulate that. this is my role, this is your role, this is how we work together and here is our process. And this is where we all feed into ultimately the business strategy. And I think there's a disconnect there, right? It's like, well, we're all doing this.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
We've all had examples in the past where we've worked with clients where They said, right, the brief is you need to help us acquire new customers. And we've gone, okay, fine. Let's just take a little step back and have a look at kind of the process and map it out and see what's going on.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Sleep has got better because the transformational Beth has been transformational. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's like without going into those details, but it's a guided kind of 20 minute piece where you have to then keep holding your breath after every 40 deep breaths. And by the end, you have to hold it for two minutes and 30 seconds longer.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And as we mapped the full end-to-end process, Matt, not just stopped at acquisition, what we realized was there was a huge hole in the bucket at the end. So we were filling it in, filling it in, filling it in. And then there was more people leaving than there were. So I was like, so we raised this and said, we appreciate that you were targeted on acquisition.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
But if we don't sort out the retention issue, we're just throwing money away. Yeah. And in that circumstance, they actually wouldn't, they couldn't get the senior leadership team to change their objectives. So we carried on. But at the end, it was like, we're wasting everyone's time.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
I don't think it is a destination. And there you go. We've done this. It's perfect because business is always evolving. You know, the continuous transformation world in which we find ourselves. And so does that constant evolution of sales, marketing, customer success working together? I don't think it's a project to then tick off the list.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
So when they first said this, I thought there's no way because you do this or you do the how many lengths can you swim into the swimming pool? We come up in that panic feeling and I was like, oh, no, I hate that feeling. I can usually do about 30 seconds. But through the whole process, by the end, you're so relaxed and your heartbeat is really slow.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
It's a constant need for those leaders to check in and say, is this working? How do we iterate and how do we optimise?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
I just want to balance the conversation out to make sure that we're also talking about brand. And we often go into organizations where that's the role of marketing, which is to drive leads. Now, that is one role of marketing, but we know the balance between having brand activity with balanced lead gen activity is really critically important to drive long-term growth and opportunity.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
But there's loads of
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
research out there that says that if you don't do brand then you're not going to perform as well from a revenue growth perspective so because you're only filling in those people that know you and you've got to go out there's the 95 percent five percent rule of 95 percent people aren't market yet and so you're only dealing with those five percent if you're only dealing with lead gen in marketing you've got to go to that 95 so when they jump over into potential to
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
to buy they're aware of you there's a really nice fact that i always come back to that when people do that when they jump from that 95 into the five percent bucket they don't go to search they don't go to an event they don't ask somebody to go and do the research for them they think about who they might be able to recall to aren't to help them and typically one of three that can be recalled will end up being the supplier so that's why it's really important to do brand
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
It's slightly like you're floating around the room. It's amazing.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
It's all right. I was there a week ago. Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
I'm going to start because it came up yesterday in a conversation I was having with a client. So CIM, Chartered Institute of Marketing, their definition of marketing is to identify, anticipate and satisfy customer demands profitably. Now, if you think about all of those things, if I said, what's the role of sales, you'd probably say something quite similar.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
If you said, what's the role of customer success, you'd also probably say something similar. So I think that firstly, there is a misunderstanding generally of what the role of marketing does, but I think also with sales and customer success.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Which is a drum that we've been banging for ages of it's, you know, at worst it's the colouring in department or they cut on events and make PowerPoints and everything else. We often see marketing being as a single person instead of an entire function. So I think the role of marketing is as it should be. I just don't think people truly understand what the role of marketing is.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
We talk about strategic growth drivers as marketing, which ultimately comes down to customer centricity. So really starting with much like the CIM's definition. So understanding who they are and what that opportunity is and anticipating those needs. Does that sit with marketing? Really, it sits with all three of those groups, right?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Because anyone who's kind of having interactions with them is generating insight and understanding. But ultimately, really identifying those opportunities and then feeding that into the organization to be able to connect in the right way at the right time with the right thing and with the right message. So for me, marketing needs to do some marketing on itself.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
From a customer's perspective, they shouldn't stop at functions to say, OK, I've done my job in marketing. I'm going to hand it over to sales now. And then suddenly something completely different happens. And then as soon as the deal's closed, it's like, you know, great, my job's done in sales and chuck it over to customer success. And I was trying to think of an analogy of this.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
You know when you have to phone a utility and you have to identify what your problem is. And then they say, oh, we can't help you, but we'll put you on to someone else. And you have to start all over again and give them all your details. And they say, oh, no, we can't help you. And you have to go on to someone else. And then by the end of it, you're like, why am I saying this?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
It's a really frustrating experience. And essentially... We want to bring all of those three together to stop that. It's all about customer experience and connecting the dots externally, which means under the skin internally, we have to connect all three together.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
So in terms of that, I suppose, where did it start, the misunderstanding? I think marketing is seen as the creative department, right? So which often can be not taken seriously. We're talking B2B, right? So often it's kind of like, well, they don't understand the business or they go and do the fun stuff at the end.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And I think that's, you know, if I'm being truly honest, when I first went into marketing over 25 years ago, I genuinely didn't really know what we were doing. And I was excited about all of that fun stuff.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
So it's that legacy, what marketing used to do. If you look at what marketing can do now with the access of data and insight, it's suddenly way more mature and it should have way more impact on a business in terms of being able to provide those insights on customers and make sure that it feeds into not only the commercial strategy, but also the business strategy.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Well, it's also hard to prove an ROI and it's also an expense. So with all of these things, it's like a cost center. It's hard to prove impact. And, you know, they seem to be having fun. So are they taken seriously? All of those things are different now, apart from the having fun. We can still have fun in our jobs.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Right. So you've either closed it or you've lost it. Whereas marketing start right upstream. So connecting it up has in the past been difficult.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Or one plus one plus one equals seven.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
I genuinely think the origin of misalignment comes from the fact that we all are identifying as different roles and different functions. We made a joke earlier about all being in the same room. We've genuinely had meetings in the last three weeks where we've had sales and marketing and customer success teams all sitting in the same room saying, this is the first time we've all sat together.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
How can you get aligned if you don't even know who they are or you're not even talking? So I think there is that, I'm in marketing, I'm in sales, I'm in customer success. Well, actually, we're all trying to do the same thing. So I think that labeling has always been an issue.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And I think the other piece that we all know is that if you're in different functions, you often have different targets and different KPIs. So you're not actually all working together to get towards ultimately kind of Sale and customer satisfaction and customer lifetime value. So without that alignment, there's never going to be people working together well.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
There's more of a respect for each other, right? Yes. And you're working together to be like, okay, understand the difficulties. Let's solve them together.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Absolutely. And that's why we're seeing, you know, obviously the... a new trend of a CGO, which is really the apex of marketing and sales together. But it's still up there at the top. And does it filter down? It's in behaviors in the culture. And one of the things when we go in, we're very conscious that we can't just tell people to change. Change doesn't happen in that way.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And they've got to be on the bus. But we've got to be really aware of What's going on behind the scenes? What are the challenges that people are facing day to day? What are the motivations to change?
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
There was a talk yesterday where it said actually people don't want to innovate because they're quite happy with the status quo because the risk of doing something that you can't quite tangibly see yet is greater than not doing it at all. Same goes for change, right? So really trying to understand what's the kind of risk versus reward motivation to doing things differently. Yeah.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
Um, and then the capacity and capability to change is a really critical factor that we look at when we go into, you know, see how well are we performing as a marketing function or as a commercial function and then build out a plan that's really relevant to that organization. Because there's no point, you know, there's no. here's the right structure for everybody. Off you go, let's do it tomorrow.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
This week, I'm embarking on a seven-week detox. I've signed up for a curated seven-week course that is not only about giving up all the fun things in life like alcohol and sugar and gluten and dairy and all of those things, but also transformational breathwork every day, ice baths every day, and a community to hold me to account. So, yeah, I'm enjoying it so far. Ask me in a few weeks.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
That's not going to work. So often when we come in, we don't obviously just talk to the marketing team. As you well know, we spend a lot of time talking to the sales teams, to the product teams, to the management, to the CFO, you know, to get their understanding of, well, what do you think the role of marketing should be? Or what do you think it is right now? We kind of start there and map it out.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And then we say, well, look, if we shifted it to here, this is the impact it could have on the organization. But here are the dependencies that sit under that. Do we feel ready to do it? And then start to kind of build out that change roadmap. But absolutely, it starts with empowerment of kind of top down, of getting people together.
The Growth Workshop Podcast
Episode 13, Part 1 - Aligning Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success with Teresa Allan
And even, you know, we've suggested in the past, go and shadow, you know, your counterpart in customer success or in sales and vice versa for a day, just to get some appreciation of, the pressure they're under and the targets that they're trying to hit and what they're doing on a day-to-day basis.