Budget Battles: Aligning Sales, Marketing, and Finance for Growth

Shownotes

In this episode of OnBase, host Chris Moody speaks with Max Maurier about the intricacies of aligning budgets across sales, marketing, and finance to drive organizational growth. They discuss the importance of setting clear go-to-market priorities, measuring ROI accurately, and fostering cross-functional communication to bridge gaps in alignment. Max shares insights into overcoming budget challenges, balancing investments between top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel activities, and using innovative AI tools to streamline marketing processes.

Best Moments

• 02:02
  The importance of including finance in sales and marketing alignment discussions.
• 10:00
  How recurring planning discussions can improve alignment and avoid last-minute conflicts.
• 15:00
  Developing presentation skills to effectively communicate priorities and secure resources.
• 25:00
  Innovative AI use cases like turning written assets into podcasts for internal training.

About the guest

Max is an experienced marketing executive with his sights set on ROI and maximizing engagement. His revenue-minded approach to Demand Generation is built on a foundation of Marketing Analytics and Operations. Efficient growth marketing and revenue optimization are the pillars of Max’s ongoing success. He’s a no-fluff marketer with a passion for maniacal execution of GTM strategy, data-driven analysis and sales alignment. Max builds world-class teams and employs modern AI-powered MarTech designed to inspect what’s expected and scale sales and marketing processes to drive growth.

Connect with Max

Key takeaways

• Sales, Marketing, and Finance Alignment: Achieving cross-functional harmony requires clear priorities, shared goals, and consistent communication throughout the fiscal year.
• Tailored Budget Allocation: Investments should align with specific go-to-market priorities, such as new logo acquisition, customer retention, or cross-sell opportunities.
• The Role of Soft Skills: Presentation skills and structured communication are critical for marketing leaders to gain stakeholder buy-in and showcase the impact of their strategies.
• Innovative AI Applications: Tools like Google’s Notebook LM reshape internal training by transforming written assets into engaging audio formats.
• Metrics-Driven Decision-Making: Choosing the right KPIs and frameworks to measure marketing’s impact on revenue is vital for demonstrating ROI and refining strategies.

Quotes

On Alignment
“Sales, marketing, and finance need to align on go-to-market priorities for budgets to reflect the organization’s true objectives.”

On Presentation
“Great presentation skills can make or break your ability to secure buy-in during critical budget discussions.

Tech recommendations

• Google Notebook LM: A tool for transforming written content into audio formats, ideal for internal training.
• ABM Platforms: For aligning marketing strategies with sales efforts.

Resource recommendations

Podcast:

• The Remarkable Podcast for creative marketing insights.

Shout-outs

• Jessica Kao: Max highlighted Jessica Cowin as someone he looks up to for her thought leadership and best practices in marketing automation and operations.
• Ash Parikh: Ash provides a valuable C-level perspective and vision for B2B marketing, in addition to his experience across different companies.