731 - Aligning Sales, Marketing, and Finance for Business Success, with Kate O'Neil
Welcome back to another episode of sales transformation brought to you by Leadium. In today's episode, we have Kate O'Neil, CEO of Teaming, joining us once again to discuss the importance of alignment between sales, marketing, and finance. Tune in to gain valuable knowledge on creating synergy within your organization. Colin, back
Collin Mitchell:to you. Alright. Welcome back to another episode of sales transformation brought to you by Leadium. I'm your host, Colin Mitchell. And today, we've got Kate O'Neil on the show.
Collin Mitchell:She's the CEO over at Teaming. Kate, welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show.
Kate O'Neil:I do agree. Another thing that I would say that helps create alignment is sales and marketing's relationship with finance. I didn't know that companies didn't do this, and it shocked me when I found out. There's a financial model that is for pretty much any company, unless you're tiny, I guess, maybe, But any company has a financial model. They know what their operating expenses are.
Kate O'Neil:Right? And then they know and they model in growth and how they're going to manage cash in and out of the business. And so I am shocked have been shocked to find out that some companies have a financial model over here and then sales and marketing goals over here, And they don't and I'm they're I'm using hands, but it's separate. I'm showing separate hands, where they don't marry those things and neither informs the other. And that is, like, that you can never win with that.
Kate O'Neil:You know? Like, you're the goal is never gonna be right, and the cash is never gonna be right. And the financial health of the business is never gonna be right. So model those things together. It shocks me that people don't do that.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. It's interesting. You don't hear people talk about finance being on the same page as sales and marketing, which you you would think is pretty straightforward, makes a lot of sense. But if finance is not on the same page as sales and marketing, then I mean, I think that's what's contributed to a lot of the problems that companies are struggling with right now.
Kate O'Neil:Yeah. You know? Where And that's the thing too is it takes constant grooming, constant management. If you're in, executive leadership team and you are not every single week looking at cash position, looking at money in, looking at deals in, modeling out when you're gonna actually get paid and show that. I don't know how any executive is truly knows what they need to do from a business like, I if I don't understand that as a marketer and I can't and I don't have a voice to input into that, right, into those numbers, then I am fighting against a timeline.
Kate O'Neil:Right? So there's time as a resource of, like, when things need to happen, and there's a size to when things need to happen. Right? You know, million we gotta close $1,000,000 this quarter. And if we don't do that, you know, this is what it's gonna look like.
Kate O'Neil:Or if we do more than that, right, this is what it's gonna look like. And so, yeah, if you don't do that, then the goal is just kind of picked out of the air. This doesn't it doesn't really mean anything, to to the business. And that is we talk about, like, leading a team, the t a necessary human need of work since, you know, the caveman days is that my work has a positive impact or at least some of it has a positive impact on other people. And so, you know, it's a leader.
Kate O'Neil:It's a CMO's job. It's a head of sales job. It's a CRO's job to make sure that they are setting secondary goals, right, for their teams that will have impact on the big goal so that they can say to their teams, this is what you did, and this is what it means to the business. And this is why we all have jobs. And, you know, and this is the impact it had on our customers, and here's what our customers are getting from us.
Kate O'Neil:You know? I feel like I'm on a soapbox. What do you think about this?
Collin Mitchell:I think that it's I think that there's a lot of change starting to happen where people are starting to wake up to the fact that, yes, like, this is something we should have been there should have been alignment on these three fronts or we wouldn't have been in the position that we're in now, which is contributing to lots of layoffs and a lot of different things. And people are starting to start to wake up and care about things like profitability. You know? And I think it's only by because they have to now and not necessarily by choice, which is fine, but you are starting to see a lot more shifts in the area where finance is a little bit more of, running the ship of like, Hey, here's how things need to look for the business to survive, and you need to create your goals from the sales and marketing based on these financial models.
Kate O'Neil:Yeah. I totally agree. I think, you know yeah. I think a lot of that of what we are feeling, especially in tech right now, is a big part of that. However, I also I mean, the the founder side of me hat is also there is sheer economics to the cost of money.
Kate O'Neil:And we got ourselves into trouble during the pandemic where money was so cheap that people took it without under fully understanding the consequences of that, right, and the return that is expected because because you have your financial model in the business. Right? But that model is being factored into whatever investors you have, and they are expecting a return on that money as well. And so if you're not making that, you know, and depending on control of the company, but, like, basically, if you're not hitting those goals, you have to you have to do a layoff. Otherwise, you, you know, you will run out of money, and that's the that's the number one job of CEO.
Kate O'Neil:Don't run out of money.
Collin Mitchell:Well So And it's
Kate O'Neil:hard it's a hard reality, but I think it's
Collin Mitchell:Is that expectation of that return is even higher now because the cost of money is high.
Kate O'Neil:Yeah. So Yeah. No. Well The I was gonna say that the the expectation of return was higher in the pandemic, and we didn't see it. And so now, you know, the the VCs, the PE firms are saying, hey.
Kate O'Neil:It's time it's time to give us our cash. You know, it's time we we need something. And so they're not, you know the expectation of return now, I think, people know is low. And that's why money has become expensive because there's not a lot of money to be made on that. So they're making it more expensive to get more money because the opportunity for turn is lower, you know?
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. Yeah. Well, Kate, it's been awesome having you on, such an interesting topic. I think that, a lot of founders would would get a ton of value from and sales and marketing leaders as well. Any final thoughts as we wrap up?
Collin Mitchell:And then where's the best place for people to get into your world?
Kate O'Neil:Oh, well, connect with me on LinkedIn. I love, I typically am talking about, leadership and management, which is what teaming helps you with, you know, helps leaders and managers manage their team. And, and, yeah, you know, final thoughts are really from a sales and marketing perspective. If you're not loving what you're doing, figure out a path, like, the the path from sales to marketing or sales to customer success or whatever is not that hard, but it feels really hard when you're in it. Like, I who's gonna give me a shot?
Kate O'Neil:You know, if I'm a salesperson, who's gonna give me a shot in marketing? And that is way more possible than you probably think it is when you're sitting in those shoes, early side is.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. Awesome. We will drop the links in there in the show notes to make it easy for everybody. If you enjoyed today's episode, please write us a review, share the show with your friends. It helps us reach more sellers and sales leaders to help transform the way that they sell.
