How To Align Sales And Marketing To Drive Company Success

Nearly 90 percent of startups will fail without ever reaching a point of positive return on investment. Founders and entrepreneurs are facing unprecedented challenges in pursuit of becoming one of the coveted 10 percent. 

Who better to turn to for advice than the duo behind the most successful software IPO in history? 

That is where Denise Persson and Chris Degnan come in, authors of the new book, Make It Snow. 

During the nearly nine years they worked together at Snowflake, they built one of the longest-running and most effective sales-marketing partnerships from the ground up, unifying two historically divided groups in corporate America. Together, they took Snowflake from struggling startup to a tech powerhouse on par with Google and Amazon. Over the years, Snowflake surged to more than 9,000 employes and $3 billion in annual sales. 

“Sales and marketing are often neglected in startups, with focus squarely placed on the engineering and product teams,” explain the authors. “An early aligned go-to-market strategy is the key difference between scaling and failing.” 

Based on real-world scenarios, hard-learned lessons, and action-driven frameworks, the book offers readers untold insight into Snowflake' sales and marketing evolution through three phases of the company: Startup, Build and Scale. Readers will learn: 

• Why scaling is impossible without the right business partners and how to find them. 
  
• Building for a billion: strategies behind restructuring sales and scaling a data-driven marketing team. 
  
• The importance of establishing company culture on day one and how to get it right. 
  
• How bringing together two notoriously divided teams, sales and marketing, became Snowflake’s catapult to success.  
  
• Why Snowflake’s fearless approach to brand marketing was critical to attracting consumers and top talent.  
  
• How to build a competitive advantage when going against legacy corporations like Google and Amazon. 
  
• What success looks like when hiring, retaining, and saying goodbye. 
  
• How choosing the right competitor can become the catalyst for success. 
  
• How and when to jumpstart your sales and marketing teams. 
  
• How to develop product market fit and your competitive strategy. 
  
• Building for a billion: restructuring sales, scaling a data-driven marketing team.

Chris Degnan

Additionally, you will learn how Degnan grew Snowflake’s sales team at a near-impossible rate without breaking the company. He details his established and unconventional methods of hiring, promoting, and expanding the team while avoiding the temptations that can drive a startup out of existence. He restructured the team more than once, and on the fly, to keep pace with product innovation, market demand and to transform Snowflake from just a technology to an enterprise business solution. He also tells the other side of the story, revealing the mistakes he made along the way.

 

Plus, you will read about how Persson built a marketing powerhouse rooted in demand generation and brand storytelling, with the customer always at the core.
 

Denise Persson

From there, she surrounded that machine with lean, agile, and driven teams to enable unique and impactful product, partner, content, brand and account-based marketing strategies and programs. Persson also pioneered a data-driven approach that most marketing organizations aspire to―one that identifies, targets, and nurtures loyal customers who become true brand ambassadors.
 
Some of my favorite teachings from the book are:
 
Values

• The earlier you establish your company values, the better.

• Have as many values you need to define your culture and define how you treat your customers, your jobs, and each other.

• Post your company’s values on a wall, live them, and review them at least once a year.

• Always keep your eyes and ears open to detect people or groups not living your company values. 

For example, Snowflakes values are:

• Put Customers First

• Integrity Always

• Think Big

• Be Excellent

• Make Each Other The Best

• Get It Done

• Own It

• Embrace Each Other’s Differences 

Marketing

• With clear, targeted, and verified positioning, your marketing programs you create will be far stronger and more effective.

• Be the most customer-centric marketing team in your industry.

• Build for automation and scale early on. 

Make It Snow goes beyond sharing the Snowflake story; it is the ultimate guide for founders, board members, executives, and venture capital partners who want to guild organizations that defy the odds.

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Persson serves as Snowflake’s Chief Marketing Officer and has been with the company since 2016. She oversees worldwide marketing initiatives and has played a pivotal role in driving growth and scaling Snowflake's revenue from $1 million to over $2 billion.

Degnan was Snowflake’s Chief Revenue Officer and had been with the company since 2013, as the longest-serving founding CRO. He has over 20 years of technology sales experience. 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.