The Age-Old Conundrum: Getting Marketing Involved in the Sales Process

The beauty of blogs is that you can post on those items that you run across in your day-to-day journey that either make you want to dance and sing . . . along with those that make you want to scream! As bloggers, we have that going for us!

Hence the topic of today's blog (screaming not dancing): How can we (the brains and brawn of direct marketing) force our way into the world of sales (with them kicking and screaming) in order to assist them in creating revenue? It's an age-old problem -- and as evidenced by this article from destinationCRM, one that many of us are faced with every day. Here's a snippet from the article:

Who is in charge of revenue at your company? In most B2B companies, the sales department owns the revenue pipeline -- and therefore, the most political power. In contrast, the marketing department too often gets left out of the revenue process. There are companies where sales holds weekly revenue calls, and nobody from marketing is part of the conversations. The executive leaders of these companies think of marketing as a cost center, not a strategic asset that drives growth. As one marketer lamented in a recent CMO Council report, "My group is perceived by upper management as the people who do color brochures." Marketing is suffering from a crisis of credibility. So what can marketers do in order to be seen as part of a machine that drives revenue and profits, not just the people who throw parties and buy swag?

This article, written by Phil Fernando, President and CEO of Marketo, then provides some excellent pointers as to how to accomplish this change of perception. From our perspective, as direct marketers, we possess the tools that can measure and track the success of every single campaign that we create. The beauty of direct marketing is that every little thing can be measured and stripped down to figure out which elements of each program were the most successful . . . and which weren't.

Why then does it continue to be a struggle to prove to sales that they need to include direct marketers as part of the solution to generating more revenue, ROI and sales success?

It beats me.

Don't get me wrong, there are those who do get it . . . but it seems that they are few and far between. And if they do get it, they probably used to be marketers prior to leading sales teams.

However, don't give up on this. We need to continue fighting the good fight. Continue to drive home the fact that you can partner with the sales team to make them more successful. Find the successful sales people and bribe, cajole, and convince them to give you their ear for a few minutes. Explain to them how you are honing in on the perfect prospect for them. Show them how you've come to that conclusion -- or better yet, enlist them as advisor prior to creating a campaign (who knows the customer better than the sales person?), and get their input on their idea of the dream customer. By getting their buy-in on the front-end, they may be more willing to work with you as you launch the campaign and really need for them to begin working the leads you have so carefully crafted just for them.

Then, and most importantly, keep them involved in the measurement process. Help them understand how successful the leads have been. Don't quote response rates and other direct marketing mumbo-jumbo. Sales doesn't care about response rates -- sales cares about closed sales. Make your results speak to them in their terms. Point out the number of sales that the campaign brought in, and again, bring sales in to tell the story of how they closed that sale, why the prospect was the perfect one, and how marketing really nailed it that time (i.e., got sales the leads that were most likely going to close).

Don't stop there . . . next, enlist their support for future campaigns. Determine what went right in the prior campaign and what, if different, would have resulted in more closed sales. Maybe there was an industry out there who -- hands down -- just wasn't open to a sales visit. Or maybe there was a customer segment who refused to be interested in the product or service. Sales can tell you this. Listen with an open mind, get past the whining and on to the actual golden nuggets that you can act upon.

Remember, you are the genius of direct marketing. You enable the sales force to create revenues. What you do can make or break their efforts. Therefore, you have to wriggle your way into those meetings where they talk about projecting revenues and number of closed sales for the month or quarter. Build your story to present to the sales leadership team of how you can -- and will -- impact those numbers.

You need to stand up for your right to direct market! And, sales needs to listen. Guess what? All you need to do is create some success and they will listen. Get that sales superhero on your side and start talking!

Linking Together Sales and Marketing

You've heard our rants before on the importance of the integrated efforts of your sales and marketing teams. And, we've all seen companies where this isn't the case -- and how that negatively impacts everyone's results. You can probably imagine how happy we were to see this article on one of our favorite subjects, then! Especially one that starts out like this:

"As Benjamin Franklin said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Neither marketing nor sales can succeed on their own. But together, working in unison, they create a powerful — almost irresistible — force."

We don't think that this can be said too much. Why? Because we are still talking to companies' sales and marketing divisions that continue to be intent on blaming one another for each other's less-than-stellar results. It may not be easy to accomplish this integration between sales and marketing -- but it is imperative to your success.

This very compelling article comes to us from the Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly. As author, Paul Herbig, states, "Integrated marketing or collaborative selling is where all aspects of the organization — marketing, sales, support, customer service — are found within one umbrella organization, and all facets — databases, personnel, etc. — are integrated to optimize previously discrete business departments. The objective is to link all of the business processes among all these common elements into a smooth-flowing cooperative endeavor. If successful, the end result will be the creation of a customer-centric organization."

I repeat -- this may not be easy, but it is so very important.
As direct marketers, we hate to hear the grousing about how the leads that we carefully provide to the sales team are not resulting into closed sales. And, as sales people, we are tired of getting beat up for not meeting sales revenues due to our perception of "crappy" leads. Hence, the blaming begins. The only way to solve this conundrum is to fully embrace the concept of integrated marketing and selling. Herbig states, "Integration continues to gain ground, but it’s slow and painful. Necessity, not corporate vision, will continue to drive the process of improved marketing and sales integration. Silo-based management of sales and marketing resources promotes waste and thwarts results measurement. It also creates a procedural barrier to ensuring that organizational actions align with organizational goals related to sales and customer retention."

It may be a lot of work but it is definitely worth the effort. Try to begin with the desired end state in mind -- again, from the article, creating that powerful -- almost irresistible -- force. Then, start with baby steps. Create a team that bridges across both divisions and begin with consistent communication, feeding back to each whole team. Talk about what you are each measured on -- then try to determine how you can correlate those results metrics. Set goals that are common for both divisions. It is easier to work together when you are working to obtain the same end result. The systems stuff is definitely trickier -- and more cost sensitive -- but think about what you can accomplish by just communicating and collaborating across the two divisions. If nothing else, better understanding of each group's challenges will result. That alone can create a better working environment between sales and marketing.

If you have any success stories on how your company has been able to bridge this gap and work towards sales and marketing integration, please share! Or, if you have any horror stories on what has happened when this integration has not taken place . . . share that, too. We'd love to hear your thoughts!

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?