What Is A Sales & Marketing Gap Analysis?

“ A Sales and Marketing Gap Analysis is a heuristic analysis framework that analyzes the current state of your sales and marketing assets, tools, resources, and processes and compares them to the ideal state.”

To make the sales and marketing gap analysis process as easy and smooth as possible, it's crucial to create a clear strategy that makes sure every person involved will be able to know their tasks and how they should work according to the different situations that can arise, to make sure that everyone is working efficiently and that clients and leads are being attended to as best as possible.

This type of methodology is meant to give you clarity and insight into the current state of your sales & marketing organization, and it’s desired future state. It helps you plan out what you'll need to do in the following months or years in the company and where to focus your most significant efforts on next.

What Are The Benefits Of Doing A Sales And Marketing Gap Analysis?

• It helps you analyze the current state of your sales and marketing assets, resources, processes and teams.
• Understand the sales & marketing organization's desired future state, providing you with a better planning methodology to reach that desired state.
• You are getting an objective and external view on issues that may not be visible from inside the company. These questions allow you to imagine what the company could look like without the current impediments you find daily and have a broader perspective on what you could be doing to surpass them. 
• It lets you prioritize tasks based on the urgency of the issues that have been found. It facilitates decision-making processes and allows management to determine better where priorities should be.
• It allows you to understand how much budget you need to solve the problems you currently have by creating accurate budgets adjusted to the specific needs. It also avoids overspending or acquiring solutions or programs that tackle issues that may not be as urgent, or you don't have the time or resources to solve just yet. 
  

What Are The Most Common Deliverables That You'll Receive?

• Scorecard with score or completion of each analyzed item.
• An action plan with priorities to be fixed and their level of difficulty.
• Report on the current state of the Sales and Marketing resources and teams. 

Who Benefits Most From A SAM Gap Analysis?

New sales and marketing senior or director staff will especially benefit from this type of exercise since it can provide a detailed perspective into what they need to look into and how to plan their next critical months that will define how they work with their new team and what their first steps in the company will be.

This doesn’t mean that it’s not a valuable resource for other people in the company as well. It can provide the management teams with great insights and improve planning. In monthly, quarterly, and annual company meetings, for example, it can also serve as a great tool to discuss next steps and priorities moving forward.

At Intelus, we’ve helped multiple companies get a head start on their sales and marketing strategies. You can reach out to us for a free 30-minute consultation to learn more about how to leverage your marketing and sales processes and better use your resources to adapt to your strategies.