On the face of it, sales and marketing should get on well together. We think of them in much the same way as strawberries and cream, fish and chips, bacon and eggs (what’s with the high cholesterol diet – Ed?) … perfect partners. To those outside business – or from other departments, buyers, for instance – the two functions are outwardly identical, often interchangeable; after all, they’re both about generating revenue. That’s the way it’s meant to be: it’s inconceivable that sales and marketing shouldn’t work well together – they should be inseparable.

Sales and marketing: chronic dysfunction.

Mutual respect

Salesperson Michael Bonner tells Modernselling.com: ‘I’ve sold to sales and marketing people for years and have always loved the stories of the chronic mutual dysfunction (disregard? scorn? revulsion?) that these two divisions often display.’

A marketing communications manager who spoke to us sums up the issues well: ‘There is a characteristic of mutual respect that must exist between sales (who sometimes believe that marketing is unnecessary) and marketing (who sometimes believe that sales are selfish jerks) to drive business.’

Unfortunately, all too often, the mutual respect is lost in a sea of self-interest, misunderstanding and lost opportunities. Vice-president at consultants VAZT, Wendy Goeckel offers some typical examples:

• sales creates ‘rogue’ marketing materials and presentations;
• marketing complains that sales never follows up on leads they give them;
• sales thinks the leads that marketing gives them are worthless;
• marketing materials aren’t used at the point of sale – the messaging is too broad-based for a complex sale;
• sales is not involved in the creation of sales tools and marketing materials;
• many sales are lost to ‘no decision’ because the value of the solution is not communicated to the individual buyers; and
• there is no common taxonomy – sales and marketing don’t even agree on what a qualified lead is. 

And so the sniping goes on….

Different objectives

Others see even more fundamental differences. Consumer goods trade marketing expert, Aneesh Issar told us: ‘There will always be conflicts between the two due to the difference of short-term (sales) and long-term (marketing) objectives of the two functions.’

Indeed, the tactical instincts of sales have often been criticised by marketing, who see themselves as more strategic by nature. And, of course, marketing zealots tend to dismiss entirely the notion that a separate concept of ‘sales’ has a legitimate existence beyond the confines of the wider marketing mix. Here’s the view of one marketing academic who contacted us.

Academic view

‘A “sale” is a transaction... an accounting and legal term/activity. So other than creating the order or contract for signing (the sale document) everything else a “salesperson” does is “marketing”. Beyond getting the sales order/document signed, the person referred to as the salesman is involved in “promotion”... one of the activity tools within the marketing mix – Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Promotion is all about communicating with the target audience about the value of your product or service as it relates to a prospect’s issue, want/need.’

And, just to hammer the point home, he continued: ‘The point... all “salespersons” are marketing representatives performing the “promotion” activity within the marketing mix (product, price, promotion, place) and simply act as an accounting or legal representative when they develop the order/contract document and get it signed. Everything else they do with the prospect is as a marketing representative and functionary.’

Ok, stop chucking your telephones at the screen, salespeople! All this conflict is damaging, not least to the top line. Both sales and marketing is all about generating revenue, after all. What we need to do is see a therapist; explore some areas of common interest – the customer – and develop a mutually beneficial approach to generating revenue.

Alignment research

Jennifer Vodehnal from consultants Miller Heiman explains that they have been asking clients how well their sales and marketing organisations are aligned on what customers want and need as part of a formal annual research project.

She says: ‘We defined a group of top-performers and compared them to the others in the study. 91% of top-performers reported that these departments are aligned compared to 37% of all other respondents.’

Most importantly for those of us concerned with the numbers, the research found that improved sales and marketing alignment really boosted the pipeline. Vodehnal continues: ‘This alignment had a significant impact on results as measured by the number of qualified opportunities and also revenue.’

And sales and marketing alignment was one of the most significant factors. So, there’s the proof that sales and harmony doesn’t just boost our happiness, it makes us wealthier too!

Ending the war

Another consultant, Jeffrey Johnson cites the work of legendary sales guru Neil Rackham writing along with Suj Krishnaswamy and Phillip Kotler in the Harvard Business Review. Their 2006 paper ‘Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing’ explains the benefits, citing a case-study in which IBM integrated sales and marketing groups to create a new function called ‘channel enablement’.

Neil Rackham: lower cost of sales.

‘There is no question when sales and marketing work well together companies see substantial improvement on important performance metrics:

• sales cycles are shorter;
• market entry costs go down; and
• the cost of sales is lower.’

Johnson, a former colleague of Rackham’s at Huthwaite, is clear on the problem: ‘The place that most miss the boat is by not looking at everything they are doing through the lens of the clients they serve or hope to serve but, instead, focus inwardly.’ 

Outside the relationship

It seems that focusing outside the relationship – on the customer’s problems instead of your own – is the way forward. (There’s nothing like a common ‘enemy’ to unite warring factions – Ed!) Too often relationships fail because the partners don’t have enough in common.

Sales and marketing need a shared goal – in this case the customer (and it has to be the same customer) – to focus their efforts. Their framework has to be to focus on the needs of the customer – not just selling to the customer but the way they approach and communicate with clients and feedback customer issues.

Common goal

Trade marketing expert Issar confirms the point in a consumer goods context: ‘I think essentially the two have similar objectives but only to an extent and it is the lack of a common goal and associated incentives which leads to this.

‘A brand manager, when he needs sales, may approve all sorts of schemes which in the long run are detrimental to a sales and distribution function... over-stocking, stock returns, etc. At the same time, brand recall and visibility need to be incorporated into sales objectives to ensure a focus on consumer sales as opposed to sales to a retailer.’

Customers

Supporting the customer-centric approach to sales and marketing harmonisation, Greg Deming says: ‘The simple way to align departments is a sales and marketing strategy built around customers.

‘I always felt best connected when both departments worked out a mutual plan around a 10/3/1 planning process. How should our business be valued by customers ten years from now? To get there, can we formulate a three-year plan to get us moving in the right direction? Then, the three-year strategy drives each department’s one-year plan and budgets. It’s an involved process but keeps departments mutually dependent.’

Common currency

Like all relationships, it also seems what sales and marketing need to get along is a common currency – shared experience through common methodologies, joint training, and regular communication – alongside the common objective of the customer.

The marketing communications manager again: ‘When I joined my company as a marcoms manager, I was asked to go to each sales executive and ask them what they wanted from marketing. I wasn’t able to fulfil all the requests, but one was consistent throughout all the conversations I had: improve communications between sales and marketing. Since then, I’ve made a point to update sales when my marcoms budget wanes, when programmes are pushed back, when messaging concepts change, when I’m creating direct mail campaigns, or when we have new sales tools that are available.’

She adds: ‘I find that when I listen to my sales team, my programmes are often more successful. And when I can persuade them to believe in a campaign rather than just know about it, they often will follow up with it better.’

Shared values

VAZT’s Goeckel underlines the value of shared training and a common approach: ‘I worked at a company where we had these problems (and more) – and we fixed it. We had sales, marketing and product/solution teams all go through the same training; we used ValueSelling. All marketing materials, presentations and sales training materials were created using the ValueSelling methodology as the foundation.

‘We had always said we were “customer centric” but we were really focused on function/feature. Going through this exercise shifted our focus and aligned the organisation. Within a year, we had increased sales over 10% in a market where our competition had flat or declining revenue.’

Complex sales

Marketing, which often considers itself the intellectual half of the sales and marketing partnership, often has a lot to learn when it comes to complex B2B products and services. Take the IT sector, for instance; marketing communications support has to be fit for purpose to serve the needs of salespeople negotiating a highly complex process

Trade marketing specialist Issar again: ‘IT purchases are fairly complex decisions involving multiple stakeholders with diverse needs – end-users (usability and productivity), finance (total cost of ownership, cost benefit through reduction of other infrastructure), chief technology officer CTO ( “recency” of technology, maintenance support, trouble-shooting) and hence I believe there is a need for developing more directed marketing communications on these specific aspects to these multiple stakeholders.’

He explains: ‘So what one advertises in Chief Information Officer is dramatically different from a CFO-focused magazine. Similarly all thought-leadership, POV (point of view) documents and whitepapers when developed for an industry should refer to function/stakeholder-specific case-studies.’

New communications channels

He also points to the importance of exploring new communications channels like podcasts and rich media to support business development and account management teams better.

Goeckel endorses the new media approach as a way of supporting account-based marketing, through the development of individual marketing plans for strategic accounts. She explains: ‘For an outsourcer we created microsites – web sites that were developed for each account, with content that would resonate with their unique business issues.

Multi-disciplinary teams

‘To implement this type of programme, you need teams that include sales, marketing, and solutions. The integration between sales and marketing happens because the lines between the organisations start to get blurred – there is a common goal.’

Martin Jackson from Bell Micro (UK) also stresses the importance of the joint approach. ‘We have always had a very close relationship between marketing and sales. Within my business area, we have a marketing head specifically aligned to us who is directly involved in the business strategy, associated plans and their implementation.

‘I find this partnership works really well as it allows us to agree key objectives, strategies and combined business development/marketing tactics to achieve them. Everyone then goes away and does their thing but meets regularly to ensure we are all still on the right track.’

Jackson lists the benefits of this approach as:

• better working relationship;
• ensuring a consistent/relevant message;
• quicker go to market;
• better success rate; and
• resource savings.

He adds: ‘I work with a number of partners to maximise their HP Software revenue potential. As such, I have created a programme of “value propositions” and training to enable partners’ salespeople to successfully generate business opportunities. In conjunction with this, our marketing department has created on-line marketing tools that enable our partners to create e-shots, direct mails, etc quickly and cost-effectively. My messages are now being created within this tool to provide our partners with a complete/integrated business development/marketing programme.’

Buyer processes

CEO of Washington DC-based Sales Cycle Analytics, Roger Allison preaches the message of aligning sales with buyer processes. He suggests that the marketing function must validate the market message by communicating with prospective buyers.

‘Only then, can marketing align with their buyer and formulate a common market message to that of their sales force,’ he explains. ‘Furthermore, marketing and sales must understand buyer needs and problems in order to align their vendor solutions, differentiation and value to resolve those problems.

Allison recommends creating an easy-to-use, cross-organisational portal to store all corporate assets and making it accessible to all stakeholders in the buyer messaging.

Work at the relationship

We all know that, with any relationship, you have to work at it to make it succeed – the relationship between sales and marketing is no different. Marketing director at Microsoft India, Punit Modhgil is realistic about issues sales and marketing may have but recommends a five-point plan as a way forward.

He sums up: ‘At one level, I feel the disconnect between sales and marketing is one of those classic conflicts enabled by modern organisational design. However, in my experience, we can improve the alignment through the following:

1.  ‘an agreed SLA (service-level agreement) on what defines the marketing impact on the sales pipeline – how it gets measured and how often is a great point to start building the sales and marketing connection;
2. ‘marketing’s engagement in value selling and the account plan process helps build up the confidence and earns trust and respect from the sales teams;
3. ‘most of us marketers are so focussed on planning and execution that sometimes measurement and inspection do not get the topmost attention – in my experience with the sales teams, they really appreciate it if we can share our goals (both quantitative and qualitative) around the marketing programmes and engagements; these goals can be a common shared responsibility between the marketing and sales teams;
4. ‘nothing works better as much as “reaching out” – what role does marketing play in the day of a sales champion? How can it be improved? – I have often taken marketing leadership roles where the marketing and sales functions are at loggerheads; I have found that treating “sales” as an internal customer helps get the conversation going, but this is easier said than done. More often than not, I have found my marketing team falling short in reaching out to the sales teams; and
5. ‘new studies point to an effective organisation where there’s no formal marketing or sales function, where they merge into one.’

Chief revenue officer?

Merged functions

Indeed, that has been Rackham’s advice as well. Organisations that are determined to make the sales and marketing relationship work, start at the top by merging the functions under a chief revenue officer or similar title.

However, Modhgil offers a caveat: ‘It remains to be seen if this way of a “demand generation function” (take our most reputed consulting firms and how their sales/marketing structures are set up) will find wider acceptance across the board.’

Sound advice, so now pull yourselves together, you pair – it’s time to kiss and make up! You know you were meant for each other; it is Valentines Day about now, after all….

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