Thursday, January 26, 2012

Sales & Marketing : Can't We All Just Get Along



I often joke that I spent ten years in sales and sales management and then, depending on the audience, I explain that I went to / or came from the dark side, spending ten years in marketing.  Without fail I always get a good laugh.  Why?   Because of the great divide between sales and marketing.   The question is not whether a gap exists between sales and marketing, but rather, how wide is that gap in your company?
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Why does the gap exist?  No two organizations are more aligned on the surface than sales and marketing.  But, scratch just one or two layers below the surface and the issues become painfully clear.  The issues stem from myriad places: misaligned goals, dependencies, basic personality differences, compensation differences, action horizon, and a slew of many other reasons.
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In recent years, it appears that both technology and process improvements have aligned sales and marketing to be closer than ever.  But, the tension seems higher than ever.  CRM’s visibility highlights the dichotomy in the distinction between how a salesperson understands a qualified lead and how a marketing person understands a qualified lead, and provides each side with the data to support their cause.
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Sound Familiar?
Marketing: “Are you kidding me? I gave you 100 valuable and QUALIFIED leads; what did you do with any of them?”
Sales: “Qualified leads? Check out Lead #109.  All he did was download a whitepaper and he’s not even in my territory.”
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When technology does not add relevant information that further qualifies the lead, then we simply speed up and fuel the moment of contention. 
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Stay tuned for future posts where we discuss strategies and tactics to help diminish the divide between your sales and marketing teams.  


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