I wonder why it often seems that sales and marketing work in separate silos, and measure a disparate set of metrics (which appear to be aligned at surface level) – never before has it been more important for these two departments to align and (really) work together – it is not practical for each to work to an exclusive success measure. There is only one measure of success – profitable growth.
Yet despite what seems an obvious statement, there is still conflict rather than coordination at all levels and much finger pointing for the general lack of sales results. Sales claiming that there are not enough good quality sales leads arriving at their desks and marketing claiming that there are loads of leads and sales are unable to sell them. If this carries on unchecked then it’s clear that the disharmony will drive down business rather than develop it.
The answer should lie in alignment – aims, metrics, pay etc. Why would you have two such critical departments of the business working at any lesser level of congruence I wonder?
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Published by Graham Bunting
I am a highly experienced, energetic, persistent and innovative senior sales professional/sales leader and coach with 25 (plus), successful years of sales and leadership experience, developing and managing sales teams and winning new business with and through partner channels to deliver profitable revenue growth. My default approach is one of clarity, support, openness and flexibility.
I am by nature inquisitive and enquiring and whole-heartedly embrace technology that enhances our experiences. Fun is an incredibly important element of work/life for me, so whilst I am deadly serious about the business of business, I do like to work in an environment that is fun to be in.
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Graham Bunting -The Catalyst 
Nice blog Graham.
Profitable substainable growth is not just where a cash injection is a short term fix and marketing requires development and doing the training in your sales team.
I would recommend people look at success driver mapping as a nice route to see what you could be earning if you were working more efficiently.
Jay
One of the causes (and there are several) is that so much taugh marketing and theory is about consumers and not B2B.
There are more insights on how to fix this at Oct 20th webinar with Hugh Macfarlane -Give Marketing a Sales Quota bit.ly/W0DnS
on Oct 20th
It is rare to see a good alignment especially in larger corporate organisations, where sales and marketing are discrete departments with department leaders, and I’m not 100% sure why this is so – the best approach is a sales and marketing department with a sales and marketing leader. Egos do get in the way and too frequently a blame culture results
Sales claiming that there are not enough good quality sales leads arriving at their desks and marketing claiming that there are loads of leads and sales are unable to sell them.
Reply:
Some Companies have Marketing departments that are obsessed with “Data Capture” whilst Sales people just want qualified leads. It is also fair to say that Marketeer’s don’t get the blame when sales drop.
Who is to blame then? What if the Marketing team get the Campaign wrong? It’s an interesting one I think. The leads then become lighter thus effecting the overall outcome. Unfortunately accurate reporting to the “True” success of a Marketing campaign is few and far between. Maybe we will never know!
They should work together I agree. They should also listen to sales people on feedback to improve the company brand and offering. A very successful client of mine once intimated to me that marketing was just “speculative brainwashing” I don’t entirely agree with him, but there is partial truth in it. To much importance also is diverted to owning the consumer through what the company knows about them, as opposed to nurturing and retaining the customer through values, relationships, and customer service.
Graham
Is it also because sales and marketing are focusing on micro rather than macro targets?
I agree that they should be focusing on revenue and growth.
Hi David. I was just revisiting my previous posts and what I want my blog to be about, and read your comment again. I really like your perspective and thank you for the insight. It is without doubt a conundrum, when sales and marketing come together I can see a much better outcome than the blame and conflict that most frequently occurs (when success is absent I should add).