OVERVIEW
Sales and Marketing departments are critical,
integral functions to businesses. As such, they need to work together to ensure
that the desired outcome for both functions - sales - occurs. Unfortunately, that
often does not happen.
SALES AND MARKETING – TOGETHER AGAIN
(OR ARE THEY?)
Sales and Marketing functions have been
around as long as there have been businesses, so you would think these
organizations would have learned long ago how to co-exist and cooperate. After
all, they both want the same thing, for the business to succeed and grow,
right?
While it would appear to be so, the reality
is often somewhat different.
Although both functions are tasked with engaging
prospective customers in the hopes of converting them into actual paying
customers and generating new revenue as an outcome, that’s where the
similarities end.
That’s also where the competition begins.
COMPETITION IN THE TRENCHES
Competition?
Yes. Sadly, many Sales and Marketing
departments see themselves as competitors, instead of viewing themselves as
business partners. Instead of organizations that are aligned in pursuit of a
common goal, they prefer to create more barriers between them.
Due to this, competition between Sales and Marketing
departments often takes pettiness to new levels of idiocy. Questions such as “Can
a Marketing person contact a customer without a Sales person on the phone?” or “Should
Sales develop their own customer-facing materials without Marketing’s
assistance?” take on the characteristics of a turf war, with both departments
not willing to back down, compromise or give an inch. Things that should not be
an issue are suddenly blown out of proportion and end up impacting the
effectiveness of both organizations. Petty jealousies may also rear their ugly
heads, such as when the Sales Department received new laptops or cell phones,
while the Marketing Department does not.
Other issues, such as which department gets
additional headcount, resources or budget also tend to divide the two
organizations, as each believes the other to be the recipient of something they
are not. While there may be a justifiable business reason for these actions,
the end result is often a larger chasm developing between Sales and Marketing,
which in turn continues to negatively affect the performance of both
organizations.
Instead of these two business-critical functions
working together to create better, more efficient ways for them to accomplish
their goals and objectives, and oh yeah, by extension, growing the business, they
devote their energies to becoming less in sync, less aligned and less
productive.
THE IRONIC TRUTH
But the truth is that both Sales and Marketing
actually cannot really exist without the other.
What!?!
It’s true. Without the Marketing department,
Sales faces an uphill battle to sell, as their product or service may not be
well known, the value it provides to a customer is unclear, customers don’t
know where to find information, or the company selling it may not even be
known. And without the Sales department, Marketing is effectively creating and
developing messaging, value props, campaigns, content, and lots of other types
of information for no reason (unless they’re going to go out and sell the
product themselves, which is highly unlikely).
Ironic, isn’t it?
Both functions may think that they’re indispensable
to the business, and they are to some degree. However, the reality is that Sales
and Marketing are complementary skills that really only work well when they are
used together.
In
other words, when they’re aligned with each other.
BRIDGING THE GAP
So what can be done to bridge the gap? How do
we close the divide between Sales and Marketing? How can we make it easier for the
two departments to work together?
It’s simple, really.
All it takes is a commitment by both the Sales
and the Marketing leadership that instead of fighting, their organizations will
communicate and cooperate. Agree that they’ll work together instead of
competing. Decide that they’ll set aside petty politics and focus on achieving the
business goals together. Determine that they’ll help their teams understand that
Sales and Marketing really are two sides of the same coin.
In other words, top down leadership.
That’s it.
Top down leadership in this instance means having
leaders in both the Sales and the Marketing organizations set the standards of
cooperation and communication for their teams. But in order for these to be
effective, they must not only model these behaviors, they must practice what
they preach.
This can be accomplished by such actions as
having the Sales and Marketing leaders issuing a weekly email update to both
teams with news and updates on customer wins, how current revenue is tracking to
the quarterly goal, how the Marketing tools contributed to Sales success, or
other relevant information. Or schedule a regular weekly call or meeting where
a representative from each organization can provide updates on activities,
problems, cares and concerns. Or have a representative from Sales participate
in the weekly Marketing staff meeting, and vice-versa.
The possibilities for improving engagement
and alignment between Sales and Marketing are endless, the investment is small,
yet the payoff can be significant. And by doing so, the two functions will
begin to see and understand that they’re not so different after all and that
they really do work better together than apart.
And then it really does become Sales AND
Marketing…
©
2019 – Richard Hatheway, Catalyst Strategic Marketing
All
rights reserved.
