According to CSO Insights, "Sales Performance Optimization - 2008 survey", the top four initiatives that Chief Sales Officers plan to implement to improve sales effectiveness this year in priority order are;

Enhancing lead generation
Improving sales executives access to key information
Revising Sales Process
More closely aligning sales and marketing.

This survey is extensive and insightful and recommended reading for CEO's and sales leaders. *

I have been advocating these strategies for some time now. Closer alignment in sales and marketing messaging is key to generating the right kind of leads and improving sales performance. The authors of the CSO Insights survey conclude and we support their view, - that aligning sales and marketing messaging has potential to create the highest impact on sales effectiveness for the lowest effort and with the least cost to implement relative to other sales performance improvement activities. So what are you waiting for?

How do you rate your marketing team's lead generation capability and your sales team's ability to uniformly engage buyers in relevant, value-based dialogue?

Performance improvement can be achieved though use of innovative tools and methodology to facilitate the sales and marketing alignment process with clients is essential.