Alright so nobody is perfect. Sales nor marketing. I’m more of a marketer by trade, but marketers and salespeople are fooling themselves if they don’t acknowlege the assets within themselves and each other.
Each marketer needs a sense of how to sell. Every salesperson needs to know marketing. But marketers don’t need to know how to cold call, and salespeople don’t need to know how to manage media and formulate campaigns.
Still with me, here’s where it gets good….
Much like brothers (or sometimes sisters) they two fight. One blames the other, one says the other doesn’t know what the other needs, blah blah blah.
The Problem
Marketing Departments don’t know sales, the technique, what it takes, how to apply it, or what it’s like day to day with the customer. Plain and simple. Marketing thinks it knows. They think because they listen they know, but you don’t know what it’s like until you have done it.
Sales Departments don’t know marketing. Sales assistants may create flyers, and mail out post cards to customers. Good for you. That’s not marketing. Face it, you don’t know it on a mass scale. Market yourself, yes, market and brand the company, no.
The Realization, Epiphany
Walk a mile in the othe’s shoes. Yes, get out and do it. Go for a week and cold call, walk into customer’s offices, upsell, manage etc… Salespeople, take a week and run email, manage the website, get sales materials created, whatever. Get in and get your hands dirty.
One of the worst Sales Jobs I ever had
Really the worst was selling Meat Door to Door. And you say – “How do you do that?”, “How can you?”. It’s possible and it does or did happen. Yes, I was 15 and my mom dropped me off at the job opening and they said – hop a truck. So I did, next thing I know I’m walking door to door.
The guy, Sam who was may mentor in door to door meat said “the best approach is to knock on the door and quickly ask ‘Do you like meat?’ ” Simple but easy. If they said yes, they were a customer. If no, move on. Stay out on the route until you emptied your truck.
It was brutal, and yet guys did this everyday. And for the customers it was a good deal and a good product. For me I learned what possibly could have been one of the worst sales jobs to take.
The point- I can empathize. I can understand. Can you? You can’t unless you’ve gone out with the salesmanager and sales associate. You can’t unless you’ve sat in the marketer’s chair.
Fix, or Manage
First, both departments need evangelists for the other. Influential sales people need to get into the marketing function, sit in one week a year, be active on steering committees, etc. Marketers need to spend more time in the field in different regions. The markets are important so marketers at higher levels may need to be in the field 4 – 6 weeks if not more with regional managers and sales associates.
Next, Manage Expectations and Meetings. At every meeting one should ask, should a field level sales person be involved or marketer? They may not participate in the beginning but over time, people will. Especially if you ask them for their opinion.
Finally, they both need one supervisor. Yes Really. The time has come. Instead of full separation pushed into the CEO, combine and have one person with marketing and sales experience run the departments. It will be hard to find. They will need either an expert marketing professional or sales professional to be their right hand person.
Final Thoughts – Ending the War
It may not be a real war. But the two can work together. The motivations are different, but the right leaders can monetarily and emotionally lead the two teams to success. It’s possible. It takes work and the metamorphosis is not overnight. But when the two fire together it can be magic. It is worth fighting for the right people, the right departmental organization and compensation structure, otherwise expect in-fighting and a degradation of interaction, efficiency and teamwork from sales and marketing.