Alignment Before Certifications
Certifications in specific technologies and approaches are valuable, and will let you know that the person or team you’re working with is well-trained and competent. But just because you’ve hired someone with robust certifications or are using someone similarly qualified in-house doesn’t guarantee you’ll have a smooth rollout.
Although technical expertise is important, cross-functional trust has a much bigger impact on your implementation success. Buy-in across departments helps grease the wheels for a seamless adoption that sticks. All of this begins with relationships.
This doesn’t mean you have to schedule one-on-ones with every coworker or force artificial camaraderie; it means building rapport. Loop colleagues into plans about implementation early so they don’t feel caught off guard, and listen to their concerns and ideas. This creates trust and respect.
It can also set you up for further success, when you might need buy-in for something else that will impact the department, like an integration with another platform or a sales motion that requires marketing support. If that happens, you’ll have people who are already bought into the idea of what the product is supposed to do.
Cross-Department Champions Drive Momentum
Inspiring team members across departments to be champions of a new product is an important part of achieving alignment and implementation success. Champions don’t even have to use the tool; they just need to see its value. To help them get there, speak in value statements, telling them what’s in it for them.
Focus less on the initiative itself and more on how the new technology supports department-specific objectives that ladder up to the overall business goal. For example, if you tell sales that Marketo is going to help them get better leads, that clicks. You’ll see better conversion, and eventually, you’ll have enough data to show the impact.
If you’re working with customer success, make sure to communicate that the new tool will help marketing support renewal cycles or address commonly asked questions, all of which help educate the customer before it’s time to renew. Taking this approach ensures you’ll waste less time on the wrong conversations. This alone might be enough to turn someone into a champion but, even if not, you’ve planted that seed.
In-House or Consultant: Alignment Still Wins
Some people believe that alignment is less important if you work with an external consultant on implementation. The truth is that being internally aligned will help you go much further faster–regardless of whether the initiative is led by someone in-house or third party. Even the best consultants won’t be able to fix broken internal relationships or disparate goals on their own.
If you’re unsure how to prioritize alignment, start small. Make sure you have put effort into cross-functional relationships, as noted above, and use an upcoming purchase as a springboard for important conversations. What does sales need to thrive with the technology? How can marketing support that? What can both do to align with customer success?
You don’t need to map out solutions to every problem in one sitting; you just need to show your counterparts in other departments that you care about what matters to them and are eager for new tech to add value to all of you.
In Closing
If your internal teams are aligned, you’re far more likely to achieve success with your implementation. In turn, the rising tide will lift all boats. Everyone in your organization will benefit, and so will the company itself.
