A big problem with most marketers is that too much time is spent on familiar territory… rearranging the deck chairs rather than looking for new worlds to conquer. When a new CMO is appointed, and his/her first six months are consumed with reviewing agency assignments, refining media mixes, and touting brand-perception levels and “likes” on Facebook, this executive is probably headed for trouble. Making matters worse, marketers seem to be in a parallel universe when it comes to communicating with top management, not to mention the sales operation.
CEOs and sales have little patience for the soft and fuzzy yardsticks marketers use to measure their progress. As an example, the new CEO of IBM (who came from the marketing department), Virgina Rometty, has built a career on pushing herself into unfamiliar territory. “Growth and comfort do not co-exist,” Rometty told Bloomberg Business Week. One reason Ms Rometty made it to the top at IBM is that she had broad enough strategic responsibilities to make things happen. In 2009, she was appointed Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sales, & Strategy, and a big part of her job was to bring software and consulting services to emerging markets, where growth is a lot more robust. “Whatever business you’re in, it’s going to commoditize over time, so you have to keep moving it to a higher value and change,” says Rometty.
The marketing function, strange as it seems, is oftentimes not as connected to the sales function as it should be for optimum results. The metrics that marketing people use are not in sync with how salespeople measure themselves, and sometimes it seems marketers want to abdicate their brands’ destiny to forces beyond them. Sales guys don’t understand talk like “empowering the consumer.” Therefore, sales and marketing should sit under the same strategic corporate-messaging and consumer-facing umbrella so that both sides can communicate for a common goal. By combining sales and strategy with marketing, companies can not only align all the revenue-producing components under one roof, but can create clear-cut goals that everyone understands and buys into.
excerpted from Rance Crain’s Opinion article in November 7, 2011 issue of Advertising Age
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