Please help me understand the thought process behind separating Sales and Marketing; in many cases the two departments literally undermine one another. I’ve just never understood why most teams don’t work side by side: it’s like driving around without knowing where you are going. The blind leading the blind. The right side of your brain not being connected to the left.
Some companies have weekly Sales and Marketing meetings, but most are formalities and amount to nothing more than wasted selling time. Think of the relationship between Sales and Marketing as that of an Army: Marketing plans the attack and provides the weapons and Sales fights the battle. You can’t possibly thrive without these two departments in perfect sync. Now more than ever it’s crucial for Sales and Marketing teams to work together hand in hand.
Here are some tips on how to fix the problem:
1. Attention Marketing Department: Sales is your customer! The better the ammo and the more quality tools you can provide Sales, the better chance they have to close more deals. As a Marketer your income (and job!) can depend on how much revenue is generated, so support your sales team! They’re on the front line, so do everything possible to help them succeed. Your income depends on it.
2. Set expectations together: Develop goals, objectives, and consistent messaging as one unit every quarter, and then constantly assess your progress. When Marketing launches a new product; Sales needs to be prepared and ready to hit the ground running. If Sales needs to close more deals; Marketing needs to adjust campaigns and pricing. Setting measurements for each quarter and campaign and then reviewing the results will let Sales and Marketing see what’s working and what needs improvement.
3. Take cycles into account: Sales runs in cycles no matter what industry you’re in. When Marketing introduces new products, make sure it is at a slower time in the sales cycle so that Sales can learn the product, ramp-up, and maximize their prime selling time. Do not overwhelm your sales team. Plan your work and work your plan.
4. Get feedback: Marketing needs to hear what the Sales team deals with on a daily basis with prospects and current clients. How will Marketing know what they need if they don’t understand what’s working and what the obstacles are? Be clear and communicate often to make tweaks along the way in marketing campaigns. Marketing must train the Sales team to properly convey messages and then verify that the messaging is actually effective.
5. Prepare for competition: Sales reps need to know their pitfalls, objections, and competition when they pitch their product, and Marketing is a huge resource for uncovering and sharing business intelligence. Marketing should do the background work and long-term planning and reporting, while Sales can contribute feedback from the field. Now is the time to improve customer relations, strengthen your branding, and enable Sales to get out there and fight the good fight. Remind prospects why they need your product and how you are going to help them save money, save time, or generate more revenue.
They say behind every good man is an even better woman, well I say behind every top sales rep is a strong and communicative marketing team.
Photo credit: Neuro Narrative
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To answer your question, why do we separate Sales and Marketing, well we do it for the sake of focus. I believe too many organizations separate them prematurely, without regard for what it will do to both departments, however if done at the right time it can be very effective.
It is true that typically when you separate Sales and Marketing they become these two entities that have a love, hate relationship. Sales says we don’t have enough leads or we have too many unqualified leads, and Marketing is pushing back saying our sales team cannot close an open door.
So how do you fix this, here are a few ideas we use at Infusionsoft:
Create cross departmental metrics like pipeline growth, conversion metrics.
Identify clearly in your funnel report where marketing ends and sales begins
CEO holds both executives accountable for the growth of the company
Together at Infusionsoft our Marketing VP and our Sales VP succeed together and fail together no questions asked, when that is in place the teams follow suit and work great together.