The Sales and Marketing Conundrum

As direct marketers, our job is to figure out the best, most accurate approach to acquiring new customers, while keeping loyal customers. It's a simple equation of adding in new revenue, while at the same time maintaining and growing existing revenue. This makes everyone happy and makes us look like heroes in the eyes of our leadership.

When this equation is not positive, marketing tends to get blamed for not using the right data, the right message, etc., to attract those new and loyal customers. . . or worse, they are blamed for not providing the "right" leads to sales. We've seen this happen time and again, where there is a disconnect between marketing and sales, resulting in a lot of hard work with less than stellar revenue results. It also results in a lot of very frustrated marketing and sales people.

Sometimes this phenomenon occurs because of a lack of communication between sales and marketing, other times it is a simple matter of opposing goals between the two divisions. When you think about it, both of these issues are relatively easy to remedy . . . all it takes is a little strategic thought and some open discussion. The problem is that egos sometimes get in the way due to the fact that we, as human beings, sometimes don't play so well together in the corporate sandbox. Go figure.

Just so you know, you can solve this problem. We've helped many of our clients resolve this conundrum by simply sitting down with the various groups and gaining an understanding of what will make them successful goal-wise, how they currently interact with the other group, and how they are currently measured. It really is as simple as that. Once you have this understanding, you can tweak your current operations and create open communications paths.

OK -- call me Pollyanna -- but this is the first step to bridging the gap between marketing and sales. If you can begin to explore this, you will clearly see how you can impact your company's bottom line in a very positive way -- while at the same time, improving your work environment, i.e., having more fun! That's what it's all about, right?