{"id":3980,"date":"2023-01-20T11:35:12","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T16:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/?p=3980"},"modified":"2024-04-18T19:44:16","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T23:44:16","slug":"3-easy-ways-to-break-down-silos-between-product-and-sales-orgs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/3-easy-ways-to-break-down-silos-between-product-and-sales-orgs\/","title":{"rendered":"3 easy ways to break down silos between product and sales orgs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When product and sales teams work well together, everyone wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Product builds what customers actually want and need. Sales follows up with lost leads with product updates. Product improves. Sales close. And customers are happy. Wouldn\u2019t that be wonderful? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, there are often misaligned goals, conflicting priorities, and miscommunication between these two departments. So here\u2019s how to prevent that (or fix it)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The sales-product disconnect<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In small companies, it\u2019s generally easy to work together. You can always hop on a call; you know what others are working on; and communication is flowing. But, as the company grows and more people join, it gets harder to figure out who\u2019s actually responsible for what. Product and sales, ops and marketing, finance and legal \u2013 all of a sudden there are many departments and\u2026disconnects between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, let’s understand where the disconnect is coming from. It could be a number of reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Lack of communication<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Conflicting priorities<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Low visibility into each other\u2019s work<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Disconnected data silos<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    All that prevents product and sales teams from supporting each other\u2019s work and generating better results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Product teams\u2019 focus<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    A product manager generally focuses on the product lifecycle, market share, competitive positioning, and understanding users’ motivations. In other words, they really are all about the product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They explore the industry, interview current users, and examine the competition. Their biggest task is identifying the user\u2019s need<\/strong>. And they\u2019re constantly looking for a gap in the market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Product managers often rely on idea boards, customer interviews, and user feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    They focus on managing user feedback, identifying user pain points, and finding ways to address them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PMs trust the sales team to recognize the best features of the existing product, translate them into benefits, and sell the product based on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    While the product team can be awesome at analyzing feedback from existing customers, they may lose sight of the competitive landscape. That vital input comes from day-to-day customer conversations. Without input from the sales team, they won’t know why they’re not closing deals and losing potential customers to the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Further reading<\/strong> \u2014 how to build your marketing roadmap<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sales teams\u2019 focus<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Sales managers gain as much product knowledge as they can to engage leads and move them through the sales cycle. That said, it’s tough for them to know as much about the product as the team who built it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The sales process usually focuses on addressing common pain points, offering a solution, and highlighting product’s benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Even when a sales rep receives solid product training, they can still lose sight of what’s happening in product development right now. While they develop their sales goals, product strategy could be going in a completely different direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Here\u2019s an example: the product team identified a feature that some users have requested. It\u2019s also a feature that certain competitors offer. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? And current users might be very happy when this feature goes live. And yet, it doesn\u2019t help the sales team bring in new business<\/strong>. And here comes the disconnect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Sales might be losing tons of deals due to a different missing feature. Building that first might represent more revenue to the organization, and likely be a bigger priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Lack of feedback management<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    We’ve seen many companies struggle with customer feedback. Some didn’t collect it at all. Some didn’t manage it properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Joshua Berkowitz, <\/strong>Head of Product at Bench<\/a>, mentioned that: “It felt like a black box to the rest of the company. Nobody knew what was happening. Requests would come in and nobody would see what happened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Overall, customer experience suffers without a good feedback management strategy. And so do internal teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Conflicting priorities<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    When there’s a lack of visibility into who’s working on what, misalignment occurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Imagine this. You’re working on an exciting new product. You’ve gathered feedback and know that customers really want a particular feature. You’ll soon announce a product launch and the sales reps will take it away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In reality, the sales team might be losing deals because a very important feature is missing. And they’d really love to see this particular feature developed. Then they’d be able to follow up with some prospects (who requested this important feature) and let them know about it. And possibly win a sale, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It works vice versa too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Let’s say that a sales rep hears about a missing feature on client calls over and over again. But, they don’t report it back to the product team. They just assume that their product doesn’t offer this feature, so there’s nothing they can do. Their priority is to sell what already exists, not what may or may not get built in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    There’s so much opportunity here. What’s missing is proper communication and collaboration between the teams. This blends into our next point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Lack of trust<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Even if the salesperson identifies a gap in the current product, they may simply not feel like their voice matters. There’s a way to combat this though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    If a sales rep had a way to communicate customer feedback<\/a> to the product team (and the rest of the company too), they wouldn’t really need to convince anyone. If feedback or a feature request is coming directly from a potential customer, then it’s definitely worth looking into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Similarly, if a product strategy is informed by feedback from both customers and leads, that new feature or update will be that much easier to sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    3 ways to break down the silos<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    When a customer, a user, or a prospect communicates something to you, it’s already a goldmine. It lets you know exactly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n