That marketing and sales do not get on is a concept so embedded in the culture of some companies, that often the nature of their relationship is simply taken for granted. Recently, however, market leader IBM has taken the bull by the horns and done what was previously thought impossible – successfully integrated the two functions; firstly by bringing about a cultural shift by changing the perceptions of the two departments, and secondly, consolidating this seismic change by introducing technology allowing for full cross integration between sales and marketing’s information systems.
IBM began to realise that in-fighting between two of a company’s most important departments is not a situation which should be tolerated – and that this lack of communication and teamwork shows up as lost business.
Where IBM lead others will follow – and for good reason - in order to gain a competitive edge in today’s marketplace marketing managers in all size of business need to examine why the two departments give each other such a hard time in the first place – and find ways of resolving these problems.
Below are some of the commonly cited reasons for why sales and marketing often have such an antagonistic relationship – along with some possible solutions:
1. Sales question the value marketing departments add: Marketers make the common complaint that sales don’t understand the importance of their input –input which is tactical and not seen immediately on the bottom line. If marketing do not assign or make the link between pounds spent and sales made, sales teams will fail to make the connection and see little point in their efforts. Sales on the other hand see themselves as being on the ‘front-line’ driving revenue and interacting with customers.
Marketing need to show their worth as revenue builders, putting into place measures which reflect their ROI.
2. Longer term marketing strategy versus the immediacy of closing deals: Sales and marketing departments tend to consist of very different types of people. Marketers have traditionally (although this is changing) had more formal education than sales people, and their input is more strategic -taking the long term view by building brand awareness and widening the market. Sales teams on the other hand are focused on the short term, since their job comprises of closing individual deals to meet shorter term targets. The way the two departments are remunerated reinforces this difference; marketing are usually paid a fixed monthly salary and perhaps a performance related bonus, whereas sales peoples’ remuneration tends to contain a more significant commission element . This makes the ‘now’ more important than the ‘tomorrow’. With two such different outlooks yet again ‘never the twain shall meet’ is the outcome.
Communication issues need to be addressed. Marketing have to get together with sales in order to show them the reasons behind tactical campaigns. Incentives to align both sales and marketing’s business objectives are worth exploring.
3. Leads withering on the vine fuel the marketing / sales blame game: To be good at their job sales people need to have to have a positive outlook on life –they need to have a thick skin when dealing with rejection so it’s not surprising they are reluctant to talk about the deals they didn’t manage to close. Doing so seems to put the spotlight on their failures while they would much rather focus on their successes.
Marketing on the other hand need to find out what happened to the leads that were passed to sales – what percentage made it to ‘pipeline’ and then onto ‘closed deals’? They will ask “What’s happened to the rest of the leads, those that you’ve put to one side?
In order to continue nurturing leads, marketing need to get passed back leads from sales that for one reason or another sales have subsequently uncovered as not-sales ready. This could be for a multitude of reasons...the fact remains; many leads end up in silos (CRM, Excel spreadsheets, top draw?) that are then left to wither. They need TLC and that’s not where sales people’s time or skill set is best spent. Instead get these leads passed back to marketing, so that they can be re-nurtured until they are ready for sales engagement. This is a lead management process that needs to be part of every marketer’s armoury.
Sales and marketing must look at lead management and the importance of lead nurturing from a shared ‘team’ point of view. By developing a good understanding of what both consider is a ‘sales ready’ lead they can go on to address why it is so important to get non- sales ready leads back into the system.
4. Who should have final say on price and product – sales or marketing? Marketing and sales also often disagree about such things as price and product features. Sales often think that marketers, being distanced from their individual customers do not understand their needs in the way the salesforce ‘on the ground’ do. Sales would also like to sell to individuals ‘through’ price since this is a prime negotiating tool. Marketing however feel that sales do not understand the nature of selling to the broader market – and that they are willing to sacrifice long term profit for short term revenue. The clear difference of opinion about tactics is further fuel for a standoff between the two business functions.
Before price and product details are confirmed both departments should meet – no firm decision should be made before sales have been allowed to have their input. If a consensus can be agreed before the start of the marketing campaign, sales should have no problems sticking to the terms previously worked out.
5. Infighting over budget: Marketing and sales have to compete for a slice of the company budget, often with the inevitable outcome of creating serious rivalry. When both departments work independently from one another, each will understandably feel resentful if one department has to endure cuts and the other escapes unscathed.
Much more integration between the two teams, possibly starting to see them as a shared revenue creator, rather than one (marketing) as a cost centre.
6. Sales and marketing don’t see eye to eye about promotional spend: Sales sometimes criticise marketing for what they see as wasting huge amounts of money on ‘promotions’. In larger firms they are often critical of brand awareness campaigns such as TV advertising – where sales can’t be directly linked to the promotional spend. Marketing will argue that sales people view the world myopically and fail to get the bigger picture; that money has to be spent on brand awareness in order to generate good leads. When one group (sales) is concentrating on fulfilling customer’s demands and the other (marketing) is focusing on creating it tensions ensue.
Sales and marketing need to remind themselves that their objectives are the same i.e. securing new business for their company and that they should be working as a team. Both need to be educated in terms of the value both functions bring to the company.
Conclusion: Is there a quick fix for the relationship between sales and marketing?
Of course not and most companies do not have the resources of IBM who have allocated millions into restructuring their business. But the principals remain the same: greater teamwork and communication between sales and marketing will help increase business performance. The type of strategy used by SMBs will vary according to their particular business structure, but the emphasis must be to set up to ensure proper communication channels.
Better communication does not necessarily mean lots more communication between departments, but a more collaborative and transparent exchange of information with defined processes to facilitate this.
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