How to Foster Collaboration with Strategic Alignment

Over the years, I've discovered the truth: Game-changing products won't succeed unless they have a unified vision across sales, marketing, and product teams. When these key functions pull in different directions, it's a death knell for go-to-market execution. Without alignment on positioning and buyer messaging, we fail to communicate value and create disjointed experiences. So, how do I foster collaboration across these functions? 1) Set shared goals and incentivize unity towards that North Star metric, be it revenue, activations, or retention. 2) Encourage team members to work closely together, building empathy rather than skepticism of other groups' intentions and contributions. 3) Regularly conduct cross-functional roadmapping sessions to cascade priorities across departments and highlight dependencies. 4) Create an environment where teams can constructively debate assumptions and strategies without politics or blame. 5) Provide clarity for sales on target personas and value propositions to equip them for deal conversations. 6) Involve all functions early in establishing positioning and messaging frameworks. Co-create when possible. By rallying together around customers’ needs, we block and tackle as one team towards product-market fit. The magic truly happens when teams unite towards a shared mission to delight users!

How I help SaaS teams find alignment For a BOFU content strategy Without driving myself crazy Marketing and Sales alignment is achieved when: - Sales - Customer Success - Product - Marketing Agree on: - What the product is - Who the product helps - How the product helps I help content teams achieve this faster by: - Getting information from every team - Creating a collaborative working environment - Addressing any misalignments early Here are some questions you can ask each team Sales: - How do they use [PRODUCT] during their day-to-day activities? - What are the most used features of the product? - Of all product or service features, are there one or two that people seem to be attracted to when buying? Customer Success: - What customers need low support? - Who are your largest accounts? - Who do you view as your “best” customers? - What companies have you been able to sell additional services to? Product: - How is our product positioned in the market? - What are our customer’s needs? - How can we create features that addresses those needs? - What does our roadmap look like? Marketing: - What are our customers searching for when looking for a solution like ours? - How are we tracking inbound leads and revenue from content? - Are we positioning our product based on the ICP that’s making the search? Alignment is critical because it expands across all of your collateral, sales channels and messaging. It’s why I start here when working with teams. Achieving alignment will not always be this straightforward especially at bigger companies where you have: - More opinions - More red-tape - Scattered priorities But this is a good first step.

As a leader, one of the most crucial elements to monitor for the success of your endeavors is team alignment. As cheesy as it sounds, it truly is the glue that holds everything together, ensuring that every member is moving in sync towards shared goals. After realizing that there was opportunity for alignment, in August, I began regular check-ins with my leadership team. The group meetings, like the one in this photo, are still important. However, individual structured meetings have proven to be the cornerstone of maintaining this alignment. It provides an opportunity to assess progress, clarify objectives, and address any discrepancies before they snowball into larger issues. However, it's essential to approach these meetings with intentionality to reap their full benefits. Far too often, well-intentioned check-ins devolve into daily stand-ups that function as mere status updates, where team members recite their tasks without meaningful engagement. This not only wastes everyone's time but also fails to foster the alignment necessary for collective success. Instead, here are some tips to ensure your check-ins are effective in promoting team alignment: 1. Set a clear objective: Before each meeting, define specific objectives or topics to be discussed. This provides focus and ensures that conversations are purposeful and productive. 2. Focus on goals, not tasks: Rather than dwelling on individual tasks, steer the conversation towards broader goals and objectives. This helps contextualize individual contributions within the larger picture, promoting alignment towards overarching targets. 3. Address roadblocks proactively: Use check-ins as an opportunity to identify and address any obstacles or challenges hindering progress. By proactively tackling issues, you can prevent them from derailing the team's alignment and momentum. These strategies have helped transform "quick conversation in passing" into powerful tools for fostering team alignment and driving collective success. Effective alignment doesn't happen by chance – it requires intentional effort and consistent communication. So what does your team do to stay aligned?

Stuck in a project that felt like trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces? That was me. → In my days as a Quality Assurance Manager, I used to work with complex oil and gas projects. While I was proud of my work, I often hit a wall: my toolbox was limited, and I struggled to get everyone on the same page, tackling the right problem at the right time. ✨ Then came a turning point when I joined Australia's leading energy producer. There, I was introduced to the art of opportunity framing, roadmaps and facilitating strategy and engagement workshops with contractors and communities. 🌈 This was more than just a new job; it was a revelation that changed how I approached projects entirely. → So, what did I learn? It's not just about finding problems but framing them correctly with your team at the start. And execution? It's about strategic alignment from the get-go, ensuring every piece fits perfectly in the project puzzle. Here's what I propose to avoid project pitfalls (best before the execution starts): - Framing Strategy to develop a clear, actionable plan for every phase of the project lifecycle - Strong Kickoff before execution with contractors, aligning vision and execution strategy - Conduct thorough Root Cause Analysis to uncover the real issues - Perform Decisions Assessment to understand past choices - Ensure Solution Validity by aligning solutions with actual problems - Evaluate Problem Relevance to confirm the urgency and clarity of the issue - Check Team Alignment and involvement to guarantee everyone is on the same page and engaged at the right time - Explore all possible Options and review Data Quality to inform decisions - Identify and understand the Trade-offs made and assess the Execution on Commitments Let’s stop rushing into execution without a clear plan. If you’re curious about how opportunity framing workshops can redefine your approach to project management and lead to sustainable success, DM me. #opportunityframing #projects #projectmanagers #engagement #alignment #nonprofits #oilandgas #renewables #mining

Three things I say regularly to help drive alignment with stakeholders across teams… 1. “Begin with the end in mind” What do you want you reports to look like? How would you ideally want to see your business unit measured? Having trouble thinking about that? Then: 2. “Have a hypothesis for your GTM” You don’t need to have the “right” way to GTM. Driving alignment can be about a test you want to run. The test, is about your hypothesis for your GTM activity. If you create that with your team, you’ll drive alignment. Struggling with what the hypothesis should be? Then… 3. “Aim small, miss small” - I definitely borrowed this from a movie. 😅 Your hypothesis can be really simple and should be based on your ICP while incorporating some level of your GTM plan. Your GTM plan is either based on marketing/selling a specific product or service or about testing the vehicles to market/sell your products and services. Product/Service Hypothesis Example: “We believe selling product/service ‘A’ to {{this ONE industry}}, to the {{Mid Market, Enterprise, SMB (pick one)}} to these {{role level/persona}} professionals will yield pipeline and closed won deals.” Vehicle Hypothesis Example: “We know selling product/service ‘A’ in {{industry vertical(s)}}, at the {{company sizes}} to these {{roles/personas}} professionals works. Now our team believes {{webinars/field events/paid ads/influencer campaigns (pick one)}} about will yield pipeline and closed won deals.” Go through these as a GTM team. As you are all collectively thinking about the end results you want to see, and creating a hypothesis that is as focused as possible; you will not only get aligned, you also will have some fun watching for the results. Also (and perhaps most importantly 😆) your Marketing Ops team will love you because you’ve dramatically reduced the cognitive load and helped them understand the data that will need to be captured/measured and the tech that might be needed to support your GTM hypothesis! What do you think? How do you approach alignment? #marketingops #marketingandsalesalignment #marketing #marketingoperations