Today, both sales and marketing operate in a vacuum. It isn’t any particular individual’s fault. It’s the result of their company’s structure and culture. Their organization has designed their departments, responsibilities, access to customer information and rewards systems to function as separate entities.
|
SALES |
FOCUS |
MARKETING |
|
Sales per quarter Cost per sale
|
Success Criteria |
# of Leads, Awareness, Return on Marketing $$ |
|
Size of sale Ease of close
|
Vision of the Ideal Customer |
Responsiveness to Campaigns |
|
Transactional
|
Relationship quality |
Campaign-based |
|
Self-directed vs. Mission directed
|
Processes |
Activity-based vs. Outcome driven |
|
Sales Force Automation
|
Technology Used |
Campaign management |
In most companies, sales professionals are driven towards “making the quarter” and therefore are focused on short-term results. By nature of their job, they are measured on the number of calls, customer presentations, time to sale, and ultimately, quota attainment. They often don’t have the time or the energy to enter their interactions in a customer database in order to share their knowledge and give their company much-needed customer data. The reward is for CLOSING the sale in the short term rather than taking the time to develop a long-term relationship plan.
Similarly, marketing organizations have their own set of challenges. In the short term, marketing creates plans to drive awareness and build demand based on an ROI for lead acquisition, ad recall and response rates. In the long term, marketers are spending time on branding and positioning, which is valuable but can be perceived as “the soft stuff” in a numbers-driven culture. Marketing becomes alienated from sales if it does not measure its results in the short term, such as increased awareness and leads. However, this mentality focuses resources almost exclusively on quantity of opportunities, not quality.
When priorities are misaligned, the team will be also. This disconnect explains why the teams focus on the short-term objectives versus the longer-term vision. Do any of the issues listed in the chart above look familiar?
Tune in tomorrow for a look at how a singularly focused, well-aligned sales and marketing “marriage” focuses on both short-term and long-term goals.
About Wendi McGowan