Sales and Marketing Round 2

Entrepreneur.com’s Mark Stevens recently wrote an article entitled Sales and Marketing: Separated at Birth - I believe his intention was to discuss how one is nothing without the other, not sure he succeeded.

He writes:

The question arises from the fact that most marketing people dislike salespeople. They don’t understand selling and, even worse, have a disdain for it.

I read that statement expecting the next paragraph to explain how sales equally does not understand marketing, it wasn’t there. I was surprised at such a statement because any marketer knows that their lives are intertwined with sales, and we certainly “understand” it. Often, it is the only by-product that matters of the work we do.

Mr. Stevens entitled his article “…Separated at birth” but only delivered one twin. So allow me to pick up where he left off.

While marketing’s main role is to serve the sales force, that cannot always mean sales gets exactly what they want. Marketing also has a responsibility of building a reliable, cohesive brand. If done correctly, this shouldn’t come at the cost of sales.

Sales folks are notorious for going “off-the-reservation”, (eg; having their own sales piece designed, business card, title, etc). believing as long as it results in a sale, all will be forgiven by senior management, and it often is. But the best senior managers know there needs to be mutual understanding - the marketing department has the brand’s big picture in mind. While some senior managers may forgive a rogue sales person, the marketplace may not, hurting the brand for the next sale. The overall brand stewardship falls to the marketers. And this is more than having the right logo or the correct PMS color. Fundamentally it involves a consistent message, even if the supporting points differ from sales piece to sales piece.

Marketers and agency creative have the added challenge of building collateral that is un-aided. No one is going to walk the customer through the ad in the NY Times. Sales people want marketing they can talk off of, have a dialogue with the customer about - your agency needs to recognize that, and your marketing needs to be optimized accordingly. This requires sales people that articulate their needs and marketers who can craft the right story.

Lastly, please, don’t do as Mark suggests, and only send sales people to trade-shows. If you never let a marketer see exactly how sales are started or closed then how can you expect a marketer to deliver relevant sales material?