Welcome everyone. So my name is Marta Kovic. And today I will share with you some tips and uh best practices and lessons learned on um alignment uh of uh different teams like marketing sales and customer access teams.So uh if you work in the marketing area or the sales, you have probably have heard this assumption or the myth that there is the constant mm blame game between marketing and sales teams. So uh there is the assumption that the marketing doesn't provide a good quality leads to the sales team. Therefore, sales team cannot close any deals. And on the other hand, there is this black, I'm blaming on the market on the sales team that they don't know how to close the deals and the marketing team provides them with really proper quality leads. But uh the sales team is too picky and they cannot do anything to close the deals. So uh I'm not a fan of this uh assumption nor this myth that there is the need to have this constant war. However, if you take a look at this uh number of Google search results, uh it does something, it proves that uh this myth is pretty, uh, widespread and many people, not only, uh, believe that this is, uh, something that, uh, is part of our reality, but they also what is worse that some of them also believe that this is necessary for a proper, uh, marketing and sales team to be at this constant war.

However, I completely disagree with this, uh, approach and I think that it not only doesn't support the business goals of any organization, but it also really hurts the well being of the team of the team members and generally of the whole organization. So, uh today, I would like to share with you the best practices on how to do it differently and they uh they are really practical. So the idea is that uh each of you could implement them pretty easily or at least uh try to implement them in your organization with the support or of a senior person or of a manager of yours. And uh what's important is the context that I'm speaking uh from. So, uh I, I uh I work at the Montreal. We are a software development agency. So it means that we are a B to B agency and uh we've been on the market for more than 11 years now. So during this time, we grow to over 120 people. And uh we also have managed to establish marketing sales and account managers in our team. So we have experts in all of these fields. So it's really important for you to understand that this is the perspective that I'm speaking uh from. And I'm a head of growth here at Montreal. So uh I will share you with you in a minute.

What does it mean growth team in our setup? And uh as mentioned, I will share some best practices and uh the lessons learned uh here at Montreal. And uh I am sure that uh at least some of them will be relevant to you and your organization as well. So, first of all, the, something that really helped us was the creation of a single team. So we implemented, we introduced this growth team over two years ago. Uh Before that, we had people who were marketing experts, they work in the marketing team. There were people who were sales experts and they were working in the sales team and they, there were account manager is working in the account managers team and uh it worked, it worked pretty well. However, after some time, we realized that we need to work closer that we are still working in the silos and the marketing team doesn't talk too much uh with the sales team. They don't have any common meetings, they don't uh provide uh feedback to each other. So we decided that uh this is a good opportunity to change it. And we started with uh a naming but uh the naming also influenced many other uh areas of uh how we work and uh how our operations look like. So we created a single team. This is the growth team, at least this is some part of our growth team because unfortunately not everyone is in the this picture. Uh And uh we still do have marketing team, customer success team.

So people who are in the account management and the sales team, but what's important is that all of these teams, they are part of this bigger team, the growth team. So this name change, this creation of this implementation of the new team really helped us shift the mindset of each person who is in the team. Because now it's easier to understand that you are not a part of the sales team or marketing team or a customer success team. But what is more you are part of the growth team. So it means that you are this team member and this all these people, they are your teammates. So you work with sales, you work with marketing, you work with account managers and uh what's really important uh with uh this growth in creation, we also introduced one common goal for all growth team. So before that, we worked in a way that is pretty common that uh there is uh the one goal for the salesperson, there is uh the other goal for the marketing team and uh the other goal or maybe no goals at all for the account managers and uh this solution is not that bad because all in all people uh see the goal, they know what they should focus on, they know uh what is of them.

However, when you have one common goal for this team, it really allows everyone to understand that they contribute to this final result and to see how the everyday struggles, challenges and you know, hard work, how it contributes to this common goal. So we have uh the sales plan that is uh introduced for each year and then it's divided into quarters and it's available for everyone in the growth team. So, and one can check it and can analyze what's the progress, how are we doing? Is it better, is it worse than we assumed? And uh also we meet once every month to discuss the results and see what's the current situation, what's the forecast for the next few months? Uh And then to have some discussions, whether there are some changes to be implemented, whether we want to put some activities on hold, or maybe we want to introduce some other activities like marketing campaigns or new sales tactics. So not only we do have this one team, the growth team, but also there is this one common goal for the whole growth team for the inbound sales, for the outbound sales for the uh any other sales uh channel that we uh uh have here at Montreal and also for the customers access team.

Uh this one is one of my favorite, I would say uh because it's uh really important. And for me as the head of this uh team to make sure that everyone understands what the other people, what do they do? How do they uh everyday work look like? And uh what are the um what is the, the general overview of their areas of expertise? So let me show you some example. A few weeks ago, I, I was on a call with one of our clients to consult the growth strategy because this is something that uh I do from time to time that I have this call with one of our clients to find out whether they had some marketing needs, maybe they have some help, but maybe they need some help when it comes to the, the, the content strategy or anything else.

Uh So I was on this call with uh a sales manager from our team and I was surprised because we received uh mm a few questions on how does the marketing work? What do you do in marketing team? Uh What are the most common tactics that you use, etcetera, etcetera? And the sales manager person, Jane from my him, he was able to uh uh address all these questions without any help from my side. So it proves that he really understands how does the marketing work? What do we do in marketing team? So he is able to communicate with the marketing team using the proper language. He knows when to expect the return on investment. He knows uh what are the, you know, ge general daily uh activities that marketing team use in their uh work. So he knows what is lead magnet. He understands uh you know how long does it take for people to convert from leads uh from visitors to leads, et cetera, et cetera. And on the other hands, applies to add. So also the marketing team members, they also understand what is the sales panel, what is the progress in sales panel? What are the life cycle stages of our leads? Obviously, they know what is the lead, what's the deal, et cetera, et cetera.

So they have this common language, even though they don't work in the same areas, they have different areas of expertise, they are still able to communicate and understand each other. So it really helps and uh what also supports this common understanding and this uh uh um atmosphere or vibe of uh uh you know, this partnership in the team is making sure that uh there is the transparency in the team. So there are no uh silos, there are no uh I don't know, spreadsheets forecast or uh plans that are available only to one team because it doesn't contribute to this common goal. So, first of all, we use one customer relationship management tool and uh everyone can log in into this tool and see what's the progress in the sales panel. How is uh the customer success team doing? What are the next steps planned for each of the uh leads that we have in uh our panel? So there are no secrets. Everyone uh has an access to it. Everyone in the growth team can log in and check and see, you know, what the client wrote to us. What are they asking about? And uh they can also, you know, support someone, they can provide some feedback.

But what's the most important is that they have an access to it. So they can understand how others are doing what they are focusing on. And uh what's the general situation of the sales panel. We also uh have this one knowledge based tool. As you may see, it's not really that complex. It's the really simplest uh spreadsheet file. Uh But what is important, we make sure that all of the useful and important uh files that are being created for each of the teams. So the sale is the marketing, the customer system that uh all of them are uh updated in this file. So uh then when I am in the sales team, I can check, you know, what are the marketing plans for this quarter? Uh What are the campaigns that the team is working on? What is the framework that they are implementing? So everything is here and it also really helps when we are uh on boarding a new team member. So then they can spend some time going through this uh spreadsheet and they can be updated, they can have uh this general overview of all the activities happening in each of the teams. And uh we also use Slack uh probably many of the teams around the world. And uh we have this growth uh channel on the Slack and we use it pretty extensively uh for sharing different updates. So as you may see, we have this uh video updates sometimes when we do fancy it.

And uh we uh you know, share some uh plans in forms of uh videos. Sometimes we uh just put some simple text update, especially when we want to, you know, share with the rest of the team that there is a new case study which are really important for the sales team uh in our setup. And we also use the Slack Channel for this uh celebration moment because uh especially now when we are all working remotely, uh it's really important uh not to, you know, forget about this moment of celebration when everyone is really excited. And we see that, yeah, our, our struggles really are paying off. So uh we are sharing that we received a new review from the client, but also we are sharing some more uh some more serious. Let's let's call it this way, updates on the tools that we use. So I've seen that one of you asked about the CRM tool that we use. So we use P drive. And uh if you are interested in P graph, I may elaborate on this in a minute. Uh However, we uh also make sure that if there is any big change in the setup of the tool that we use, if we, if we implement a new integration between the tools that we use, we also put this update on uh the slack channel so anyone can read it and they can enjoy or just be informed.

And also when we are planning some events internal one with our clients or we are introducing new new campaign, we also make sure to put this update every once in a, I don't know, once or twice every month. Uh So everyone on the channel will be updated even if they don't go into too many details, even if they don't uh create into the links that we provide them with. It's OK because the, the general idea is there in the Slack uh Slack Post so they can be informed and they can uh I have this feeling of belonging that they understand what is happening in the team and what are the area of focus for other teams. And last but not least, uh there is this mirror board that we use for the quarter and quarterly and uh even longer plans. So, uh again, everyone in the team has access to this tool and they can check what are the priorities for this quarter or for the second half of the year for marketing, customer access or sales. And what's in for you may see is that uh we use the same structure. So there are the strategic pillars that we focus on and there are the structure on priorities and the priorities.

So anyone can check what are the recruitments that we are planning uh for this quarter in the sales or they can check what are the diversity activities that we plan in the customer success scheme. And they can comment on it, they can provide their feedback, they can uh share some insights, they can uh share some input from their side. So it's really helpful as well. And uh the last uh practice that I want to speak about is, you know, making sure to provide this con to take, take care of this constant feedback loop. So, first of all, we have uh each mandate, the the whole growth team is meeting. Uh and we discuss what's the current situation of the sales panel. So the sales team, they elaborate on each lead and they uh answer marketing teams uh questions. So they need to know uh how did did this lead find us? What uh was for them? So interesting about us that they decided to reach out to us over, you know, dozens of other agencies in the world. So it's really important that the sales team, they uh have this ability, they have this opportunity to provide the marketing team with uh really meaningful feedback.

Therefore, the marketing team knows what is uh what's working, what should should we do more? And maybe there are some activities that we should put on hold because they don't provide the leads uh of the highest quality. And uh we also do have one other slack channel is growth, marketing. And as you may see there is this feedback for marketing. So once uh a person from the sales team finds out something interesting from the lead or from the client, they hear something that is worth sharing, they add it to our CRM, but it's also integrated with Slack. So uh every time that there is new update in the Pip drive, so the CCRM that we use the, the feedback also appears also on the Slack Channel and uh sometimes it's uh a moment for a ce celebration. Sometimes it's a moment, you know, for a reflection on what to do about this feedback and how, where we might implement uh this into the marketing activities, marketing campaigns that uh we are planning. So to summarize uh the best practices that work for us is to create a single team. Make sure that everyone knows how other team mates. What's the uh what's their area of expertise?

How do, what does it mean that uh how does it, how does marketing or sales or customer success team work? Make sure that there is one common goal or goals for the team, uh ensure the transparency and uh enabling the constant feedback loop to everyone in the team. So that's it from my side. And uh thank you very much. Do you have any questions? So I will be happy to answer them. Uh OK. So I see that there is a question about CRM. So as mentioned before, we are using P drive and uh there is a P drive uh case study on our website montreal.com. If you Google Montreal and uh P drive, you will receive mm the more information on how we implemented P drive and how do we use it in our service activities? And why did we decided to switch to Piri? Because before that we were using another CRM. So we have this uh comparison uh on our side. Uh I don't see any other questions. So that's it from my side. Thank you very much, everyone.