A members-only event, SoCal BMA’s “The Business Growth Drivers” conference was held on July 28, 2016 in Culver City, CA. The session presentation, “Journey to Stronger Sales & Marketing Integration: Client Centric Program Development” was delivered by Sarah Johnson, AVP, Wealth Management Client Segment Marketing at American Funds, a Capital Group company.

1. THE JOURNEY TO STRONGER SALES & MARKETING INTEGRATION:
CLIENT CENTRIC PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
Sarah Johnson
Assistant Vice President
Wealth Management Client Segment Marketing
American Funds, Capital Group
@socalbma 

2. The Situation: Defining the Problem to Solve
Upfront agreement on the problem statement as well as how to measure success was critical to ensure alignment
Current State
Goal
Key Metric
Sales ranking in the advisory business model (#19) at LPL
was significantly lower than brokerage business ranking (#1)
Better balance in our sales across business models and
increased penetration with 1500 heavy advisory producing
financial advisors
Rank in the top 10 for advisory sales
American Funds  Capital Group @socalbma 

3. Integrated
Cross-Functional
Team
Advisory
Specialists
Internal Sales
Advisor
Education
& Training
Marketing /
Communications
Field Sales
National
Accounts
The Team: A Collaboration Across Sales & Marketing Functions
Functional leaders were fully engaged with setting the program scope; ongoing team operations kept group engaged
American Funds  Capital Group @socalbma 

4. Leveraging intellectual capital, insights, and tools, with firm-specific packaging
Market Update and Review
•Annual Outlook
•Quarterly Outlook
•The Long View
•Market updates
Investment Insights and
Strategies
•Investment Insights
•The Active Advantage
SM
•Implementation guides
•Co-branded investment themes
Other Resources and Tools
•Advisory Tool Kit
•Third-party articles
•Online advisory tools
The Program: Custom Materials & Creative Packaging
Program elements were carefully chosen to either be curated or created
American Funds  Capital Group @socalbma 

5. The Results: Outcomes Achieved with Shared Accountability
Key metrics were tracked for the firm overall and the specific target audience
• Advisory Sales +40%
• Halo effect across the firm
• New relationships developed with heavy advisory producers
• Top 5 rank in advisory sales
American Funds  Capital Group @socalbma 

6. Lessons Learned: Achieving Sales & Marketing Integration
Sales and marketing leaders were engaged in the strategic direction for the program, leading to improved results
• Marketing can have a larger role when it comes to strategic planning
• Marketing tactics can be used to lead up to the sales conversation, to enhance
it, and in some cases can be the sales conversation
• However…breakthrough sales communication needed a different style of
writing – we leveraged agencies and trained our internal teams
• Marketing can play a pivotal role internally to promote the program, package
results, and continue momentum
• Marketing can bring discipline to the team in areas such as segmentation
(choosing a focused audience), defining key metrics, and analytics
• And while each function had individual KPIs, having one key success
metric for the program overall was important to keep the team focused
American Funds  Capital Group @socalbma 

7. What’s Next: How to Elevate Collaboration Beyond Programs
This program is being expanded to additional firms, but furthermore, the operating model is being used more broadly
Ensure marketing has
a seat at the table in
business planning
Insist on client-
centric approaches
to program design
Pick one key metric
that illustrates what
success looks like
American Funds  Capital Group @socalbma 

8. QUESTIONS?
/socalbma
/company/socalbma
/socalbma
/socalbma
THE JOURNEY TO STRONGER SALES & MARKETING INTEGRATION:
CLIENT CENTRIC PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT
Sarah Johnson, Assistant Vice President
Wealth Management Client Segment Marketing
LinkedIn.com/in/sarah-johnson-113590
SoCalBMA.org 

9. The Business Growth Drivers
July 28 | 2p-7p | Culver City
SoCalBMA.org 