The Power of Alignment
Connecting Sales Goals to Company Objectives
In today's competitive business landscape, many companies struggle with stagnant growth and misaligned sales strategies. As a fractional sales leader, I've seen firsthand how aligning sales targets with broader company goals can lead to more effective strategies and better overall performance. Let's explore this concept through a real-world example.
John, a business owner, found himself in a familiar predicament. His company's sales had remained flat for three years, and he was unsure how to reorient his team's efforts toward larger goals. This scenario is all too common among businesses facing sales challenges. Let’s review it and see how we can apply its lessons to our own sales organizations.
John's Journey: A Tale of Transformation
John struggled to understand how to get his organization from selling and “closing some deals” to attracting the right deals and having the entire sales force closing “the right kinds of deals”. John sat in his office at his desk staring at a blank document on his screen titled “Sales Goals” with an additional unpopulated spreadsheet titled “Forecast”. In years past, he would take the total sales and profit figures and add 10% to them with the hope that the increase would amount to a lifestyle improvement with little additional thought applied to the method.
But this year was different. After being in business for over a decade and sales remaining virtually flat for the last three years, he was ready to change positively. But how could he reorient the effort toward a larger goal? The day ended, and he saved the still empty documents to a desktop folder and went home feeling uneasy about the future of his company and his ability to grow in the next year.
John was not alone in this challenge. His operations manager, Anne, also felt the pressure of growing and the need to build the organization’s operations upward so it could handle more inbound projects. While she wrestled with this challenge, the fear of losing a key employee or having extra, unproductive team members was an equally unsettling outcome of growth vs not.
A Halftime Epiphany: The Importance of Organizational Alignment
The next day, Saturday, was a relief to John as it was his day to unwind, catch up at home, spend time away from the business, and begin to recharge. The afternoon was particularly pleasant as he settled in to watch some football and mentally escape for a while. That was not to be the case today, however. His afternoon and evening would instead be consumed with thoughts of growth, scale, and systems because of a short documentary during the first halftime of the first game.
Halftime started with a sportscaster in an unassuming room of a training facility where a sportscaster was interviewing a woman about her role in serving the team. She eloquently detailed her operation and how it connected the players’ activities with the training staff and how that connectivity played a bigger role in the psychology of the players in preparation for the game day performance.
She wove together the on-campus activities with the off-campus, travel, and departmental focus as a part of the game strategy and preparation for the players, staff, and even key faculty and boosters who traveled with the team. It never dawned on John that athletics’ food and nutrition departments played such an integrated and pervasive role in the team’s success.
When the food and nutrition director spoke about travel workouts, post-workout hydration, and calories for different positions, John wondered if his office operations team knew this much detail about external salesforce activities and the prospect status of his enterprise. He even wondered if he knew as much about the sales and operations as this food and nutrition manager knew about her role in creating team successes.
This thought would be the catalyst for change and sleepless nights during that change for John’s company.
John awoke with purpose on Monday, arrived at the office early, and began working in his office, thinking through the details of the clients he sought to serve when he opened the business, the ones that he most enjoyed serving as the business grew and the ones who consumed a lion’s share of his time now that were, by all reports, not well aligned with the core solution and service that John created.
Those clients were mostly the anti-focus from where the business was started. Thinking through the details of those early, fun, engaging clients reminded him that most of those had moved their business elsewhere recently and he didn’t know why.
Confronting the Issue: A Meeting with Marie
At lunchtime, John emerged from his office, tired from the mental gymnastics he’d performed that morning. He bumped into Marie, the director of sales and marketing, on his way to the lunchroom and was caught by the look of discomfort on her face that she was not doing a great job of hiding. She said “John, we have an issue with our sales and prospects that looks like a real problem for the end of the year. I’d like to discuss it at your earliest convenience.”
He stopped cold, thought about the halftime show, and said, now is the best time, let’s get into the details. This was the pivotal moment in the transformation, the beginning of change.
In John’s office, Marie outlined how many of the deals in the pipeline were low confidence, low value, and the volume of new opportunities added was not promising. Compounding this issue is the decreasing renewal rates of the current clients. John and Marie knew they had to take decisive action, sooner rather than later.
John looked at her across the desk, considering if he should tell her about the halftime show, unsure if his idea about applying that concept here made sense. With a little uneasiness, he blurted out “We are not all working toward the same goal, not all the team know their role in achieving success, and it’s largely my fault.” Marie was speechless. She nodded sheepishly in agreement, wondering where he was going with this admission.
John continued, “I want this company to work with key clients on specific projects, drive success for our clients, and be viewed as partners.” John didn’t realize he was laying the groundwork for describing his Ideal Client Profile (ICP) and the matching persona that would help him triple the business in less than three years.
Instead, he was sharing the beginning of his goals and aspirations for what the internal team would focus on to get aligned and get to the business of rebuilding the customer list from its current state of ashes.
Marie, continued nodding, not knowing when to interject and when to let John continue to share his vision for now vs change into the future. John remarked that their core client and his reason for starting the business was to work with engineers on marketing their services to a specific and profitable business niche he helped them identify in their early years.
What had distracted him from this focus was a couple of very large engineering firms with a non-specific focus on verticals and specialization.
While the money was good, the goals of those large clients were not at all aligned with the original intent of his firm’s client focus, and they caused some large degree of a steep learning curve for his staff to serve those generalist needs and additionally urged the addition of specialists for John’s organization that had to be hired and kept billable which turned into a margin squeezing challenge for John, Marie, and Anne to serve effectively.
John realized he had been talking a lot without thinking clearly. He suggested another meeting with Anne present to better communicate his ideas. Marie sensed that John was ready to change.
Building a Unified Vision: A Collaborative Effort
Anne, John, and Marie entered the conference room almost simultaneously. Caffeinated, notes and reports and pre-printed documents in hand, they sat at the conference room table looking intently at each other before John began: “We have a challenge in front of us. I’ve been delinquent in addressing it, and we all have a role in solving it.
We are all working in information and goal silos currently. That needs to be redirected to a unified set of goals and processes that involve each other and have our teams working collaboratively toward a growth goal with core customers buying our core and complimentary services.”
Anne and Marie nodded collectively at the urgency John implied and the idea that they were currently not aligned or working together. John continued, “If we are going to grow as a company, we must start in this office, get aligned with each other, and go out to the market with a process, a plan, a message, and a vision for what the future will look like for us and our clients.”
Marie leaned in, asking, “How are you defining these things and what is changing?” John smiled, then told the story of the halftime documentary. He shared the team and leaders’ understanding of the goals and process, the on-campus and off-campus versions of the work to be done. He spoke in detail about how one department that never passed a ball, lifted a weight in the locker room, or entered the practice fields or film room was such a strategic part of the strategy for game day success.
The Road to Success: Implementing the Plan and Reaping the Rewards
From this meeting intro and a series of follow-up strategy and process design meetings, these three leaders put together an aligned plan that involved marketing to a core profile of customer and person and arousing the attraction and intent of those profiled to act for starting a sales conversation with Marie’s team.
Anne’s team focused scope and deliverable estimates on their core offerings and found strategic operators to fulfill noncore functions and rolled them into their offering on a project-by-project basis. John had the unpleasant job of sharing the directional change with the non-core clients who were the root distraction to the team. To his surprise, they asked for more core services and were pleased to have John and Marie’s team help them find others to serve their non-core needs.
To John, Marie, and Anne’s collective surprise, some of the defected clients began to call and inquire about restarting relationships, prospects became better qualified, and sales cycles shortened due to the narrowed focus, scope, and specialization of the firm and outcomes they delivered. Reputational success began to happen, and a flywheel effect on lead generation and business development emerged.
Looking back on a journey from a flat revenue picture to the current growth-focused model, John found the document and spreadsheet that started the idea that change was needed: Sales Goals, and Forecast. When he opened them, they were no longer blank.
Marie had noted the customer list with the terms core and non-core, she added percentages for each to track their growth potential, columns for resources needed and tactics to gain an audience with them, and strategies for closing that included case studies, events, and referrals to key decision makers.
John noticed the document was a collaboration between the three leaders and others outlining the big sales goals and supporting strategies. What was most interesting was the collaboration between departments on how one was responsible for helping the other, the dependencies, and key milestones in the relationships and projects that had to be addressed.
The Power of Alignment: A Universal Principle
John’s story is not uncommon in business. The backstory often ends with no change and a for sale sign on a building. But, when there is a change agent and moment that aligns a storyline with a purpose and communication in the office around a goal and a desired outcome, it cauterizes the organizational wound that is letting life out of the organization.
Organizational alignment is a powerful tool for growth and scale. When everyone knows their role in daily operations, as well as strategic initiatives, the speed of change and speed to goal attainment, is what miracles are made of.
This principle and lesson apply in all walks of life: business, family, sports, art, farming, banking, B2B, B2C, and everywhere you go and work, alignment is the key. To have the alignment, you have to have the system for execution defined so that the strategy will work and the people and measures used will allow for the process to be measured and deviations from the process and standard can be identified and eliminated.
Key Steps to Alignment
Does John’s experience resonate with you? Here are some steps you can take to initiate your own realignment process.
1. Reassess Your Core Focus
John revisited his company's original purpose and ideal client profile, recognizing that pursuing large, non-specific clients had led them astray from their core competencies.
2. Open Communication
By initiating frank discussions with his sales and operations directors, John created an environment for honest evaluation and collaborative problem-solving.
3. Unified Goal Setting
The leadership team worked together to establish clear, shared objectives that aligned with the company's core strengths and target market.
4. Cross-Departmental Collaboration
They developed processes that encouraged different departments to work together, understanding how each role contributed to the overall success.
5. Refocus on Core Offerings
The team streamlined their services, focusing on their areas of expertise while finding strategic partners for non-core functions.
The Results of Alignment
John's story illustrates the transformative power of aligning sales targets with company objectives. The outcomes were significant:
Improved client relationships, including the return of previously lost clients
Better-qualified prospects and shorter sales cycles
Enhanced reputation and word-of-mouth referrals
A clear, collaborative strategy document replacing the previously blank "Sales Goals" file.
Conclusion: Embracing Alignment for Success
Organizational alignment is a powerful tool for growth and scale. When everyone knows their role in daily operations and strategic initiatives, the speed of change and goal attainment can be remarkable. This principle applies across all industries and business types
If your business is struggling with growth or you're concerned about the lack of alignment between your sales goals and overall company objectives, it might be time to consider a fractional sales leader. At Lighthouse Sales Advisors, I’m committed to guiding businesses through this transformative process, helping you achieve the growth and success you envision.
Don't let misalignment hold your business back. Contact Lighthouse Sales Advisors today, and let's start your journey toward aligned, effective, and successful sales strategies.
If your business struggles to grow or you feel worried about not growing because of a lack of processes or systems, this course may help you get organized and aligned to successful actions and outcomes. Click the link below for more information or to get started on your success journey, today.
