You know the story. It’s the end of the quarter and the sales numbers are below target. The sales team is pointing fingers at marketing because they aren’t “bringing in enough qualified leads,” and marketing is responding by saying sales is at fault because they “don’t know how to follow up on a lead.” Sound familiar? Like your two kids at home??
Today, many businesses lack synergy between the sales and marketing organizations due to a variety of reasons which I will explore this week.
- Success in the sales and marketing departments is measured quite differently
- Sales and marketing have a different vision of the ideal target customer
- Actionable customer insight sits in dozens of disconnected databases
- A lack of a 360-degree view of customers and their buying preferences exists widely
- Broken processes make it impossible to track what is working
- The technology is too hard to use so that there is limited adoption
This disconnect is making it difficult for organizations to make the most of the marketing expenditures and sales opportunities. When companies are unable to provide the right offers to the right person at the right time because insights live in disparate locations, businesses should begin to turn to applications and personal productivity technologies to help them build a cohesive sales and marketing alliance. Over the next several days, let’s discuss the obstacles to making business development a team sport and explore some options for best practices to align the sales and marketing organizations.
About Wendi McGowan