Sales & Marketing: The Great Divide

No where does the rubber hit the road more for marketing communications strategies than it does in sales. Yet, when it comes to executing branding and marketing strategy, Sales generally operates outside the marketing communications envelope. I have had the unique experience of being on both sides of the fence. I've worked in Sales for almost as long as I've worked in branding and marketing communications. When I was in advertising, there was no virtually no contact with the sales teams except through the brand management team when sales management would attend the P&L meetings. I later worked in technology consulting and software sales which is some of the toughest, most cut-throat sales around. Only after working in sales did I truly understand the different uses of the terms "strategy" and "marketing".

In sales, marketing is viewed as a support department; a place where collateral materials, pens other chachki are made to support our sales efforts. And strategies are viewed as efforts that will lead us to out next sale. There was a perception that Marketing had no idea what we did in the trenches, and that it was our efforts that drove revenue. The only thing that concerned us was making sales and meeting quotas.

In truth, Sales is a tactical arm of a company. Coming from a strategic background, I recognized this, but it was heresy to suggest sales was tactical. Galileo went to prison for suggesting that the earth wasn't the center of the universe. The fate can be similar in sales. We were closing million dollar contracts. Upper management was content to leave us alone.

Such is the fate of many marketing personnel. Marketing is such a broadly used term. Branding and marketing communications platforms have in many cases become the tail wagging the dog; supporting tactical teams chasing revenue opportunities. Excellent tactics and execution can drive large amounts of revenue. This reverse strategic relationship between Marketing and Sales has become the status quo in many sales-centric organizations.

But Marketing personnel are partly to blame. Without direct Sales experience, they cannot communicate with Sales Management, nor make their case to upper management. Additionally many Marketing Communications types have grown too comfortable thinking tactically and lack the strategic and "big picture" view to affect a strategic direction to the sales level.

When dealing with a strong sales organization, Marketing Communications needs to understand that strategy is not derived or delivered from top down approach. Buried in the sales pitches and presentations are key elements of the marketing communications strategy: The consumer insight, compelling benefit statements, support statements, and the target audience. At its most basic level, a marketing communications strategy is nothing more than determining why the business is successful and understanding how to repeat that success. While most strong brand-focused companies initiate strategy from a predominantly top down approach, most sales-centric companies rely predominately on tactical efforts.

In a mature marketplace, sales-centric organizations will need to learn how to apply strategic thinking and approaches within a global marketing communications framework to all parts of the organizations. Especially sales. (Marketplaces in their infancy or growth phase may actually benefit initially from managed tactical efforts, but that is a separate discussion.) The difficulty is finding marketing communications strategy professionals that have more than superficial experience in sales. I don't believe a Marketing-type can learn sales through a series of "ride-alongs".

Marketing communications platforms ultimately need to support the sales efforts. And Sales needs to understand how to incorporate marketing communications strategy into their sales operations. This is no small feat because it requires a paradigm shift. The idea of invoking marketing strategy as the sales level has to be balanced. Ultimately, the goal is not to force this down a salesperson's throat. If the strategy is properly crafted, and reflects the language and approaches that are already being used in sales, invoking marketing communication strategy at the sales level becomes more about creating consistency and structure. Let the sales superstars continue being superstars and use the marketing strategy to elevate the averages sales person's effectiveness.