It’s a battle as old as time…sales vs marketing: the showdown to end all showdowns.

We can all agree that when these teams work together, it benefits the whole company and drives more revenue. So why is alignment between sales and marketing so difficult to achieve?

That’s what we tackle in this episode of Let’s Talk Revenue Marketing. Our podcast host, Eve Chen is joined by a representative from each side of the battle to fight it out: Natalie Truong, CMO of Mercer in the Asia Pacific region, and John Smibert, best-selling author of the award-winning sales novel, The Wentworth Prospect.

Key talking points:

  • Why marketing and sales alignment is so important
  • The greatest challenges for achieving alignment
  • Alignment in company culture
  • The importance of having the right team players in the sales process.
  • The next big thing for leaders to achieve alignment across the organization across the revenue generation value chain

Meet the guests

John Smibert

John is an award-winning author and B2B sales influencer. He previously had a long sales and management career in technology and software. In recent years he founded Sales Leader Forums and Sales Masterminds APAC which both focus on assisting B2B selling organizations to transform the way they sell.

In the last 12 months, he co-authored a best-selling sales novel titled The Wentworth Prospect.

Natalie Truong

Natalie is a Partner and the Chief Marketing Officer – Asia, Middle East & Africa at Mercer.

Natalie is responsible for the strategic delivery of marketing capabilities across 15 markets in Asia, the Middle East & Africa; driving demand generation, revenue growth, and client-centric partnerships, as well as positioning the Mercer brand prominently across the region.

Natalie has experience across B2C and B2B in a variety of industries including Professional

Services, Financial Services, Superannuation, and Telecommunications; in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. She has held senior marketing and commercial roles in leading organizations such as ANZ Banking Group, Bank of Melbourne (Westpac), IOOF, and CPA Australia.

Natalie sits on the Board of The Marketing Society, Hong Kong and holds an Executive MBA and a Bachelor of Commerce.

Meet the host

Eve Chen

A best-selling author, speaker, entrepreneur, veteran revenue marketer, and change driver with extensive experience from global organizations.

Eve developed the first iteration of the Revenue Generation Value Chain (RVC) and a maturity framework to help organizations transform into a high-performing system with a methodical approach by building a robust growth engine to exceed their goals. Eve authored Ascending Growth which provides practical insights into transforming Marketing into a strategic growth enabler.

Eve sits on a number of boards and leads a revenue marketing and growth performance agency, The Growth Engine, which focuses on helping businesses to accelerate their revenue growth.

Be on the podcast

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If there’s a topic you’d like us to cover in a future episode, let us know on the Revenue Marketing Alliance community Slack channel.

Want to appear on an episode yourself? Or do you know someone who’d make a good guest? Contact hannah@revenuemarketingalliance.com.