Integrating sales and marketing
Do your sales and marketing teams get along with each other, or are they often at odds?
In a recent Harvard Business Review article entitled “Ending the War between Sales & Marketing,” authors Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy argue that in many companies, the sales and marketing organizations don’t get along because of economic (since they’re competing for limited financial resources) and cultural (because sales and marketing people have different skill-sets and areas of focus) differences. They suggest solutions to improve the relationship between sales and marketing and, more importantly, to improve a company’s bottom line.
Of course, for many small businesses there are no dedicated marketing resources at all. But these small businesses soon discover that salespeople are defining company and product positioning on their own, independently creating “marketing-type” content, and in general spending time on activities other than closing sales and developing customer relationships. In addition, sales and marketing people bring different skill-sets to the table, and by hiring or outsourcing marketing resources, sales resources are more efficiently and effectively utilized as a result. As well, company and product positioning is more effectively and consistently communicated to customers and prospects.
In general, marketers are more long-term and project oriented than sales people who are more focused on closing sales and developing customer relationships. In addition, marketers are usually more facile with developing compelling “content” that salespeople can use (like solution-development templates, sales letters, testimonials, etc.), while salespeople are generally more adept at networking and selling.
The authors define four types of relationships between sales and marketing: undefined, defined, aligned and integrated. They provide a useful questionnaire instrument to help you gauge where your company stands on this relationship continuum, along with some specific ideas for moving the relationship forward to the next level.
The authors argue that in some cases it may not make sense to move up to the next level of relationship. For example, if a company is very small, it may not be worthwhile to move from an “undefined” relationship to a “defined” relationship.
Although I agree that spending lots of time to formalize and define all aspects of the sales/marketing relationship might not be worthwhile, as a practical matter well-run organizations should be exhibiting the behaviors that the authors describe for an aligned sales/marketing relationship at a minimum (for an integrated relationship, they suggest structural changes – such as appointing a chief revenue officer or splitting marketing into two groups – that are probably too much for many organizations to swallow).
So what are the behaviors and practices that the authors suggest that I’d recommend implementing within any organization seeking to better align its sales and marketing teams? The first and most obvious to me is to involve salespeople in marketing activities and the marketing folks in sales activities. For example, sales people should participate in marketing-led discussions with regard to product development, company positioning, sales tool development or any similar discussions where “feet on the street” input from sales people would be useful. Conversely, marketers should accompany sales people on sales calls as well as participate in presenting the company and its solutions to customers and prospects. In particular, marketing resources should participate in the management of, planning for and presentations to key accounts.
The authors also suggest improving sales force feedback mechanisms while minimizing disruption to the sales force, which must remain focused on closing sales opportunities. For example, sales management can summarize customer and market insights on a monthly basis – rather than on an ad hoc basis – and marketing can create more concise information forms, or review call reports and other sales data independently and on their own.
The one major behavior that they describe for an integrated sales/marketing relationship that I believe also makes sense to model at all stages of the sales/marketing relationship continuum is the involvement of marketing in the needs-definition and solution-development sales stages, especially with major accounts. During these phases, marketing can help sales to develop value proposition and solution collateral materials that can be used to help close particular deals. At the same time, marketing is learning first-hand the needs of the company’s prospects and customers.
I’d also like to suggest some other ways that sales and marketing can work more closely with each other. For those with CRM (customer relationship management) applications, I’d recommend integrating marketing into the sales process by capturing and sharing customer information that’s pertinent to marketing, defining steps within the sales process that specifically should involve marketing resources, and setting up notifications and alerts so that marketing is pulled in when, say, a sale of a certain size or pricing discount level reaches a certain stage within the sales process.
How can you move your company toward the nirvana where sales and marketing are working together in an integrated fashion? I always say: start small and build from there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither is a high-performance sales/marketing machine. In my mind, the first step to creating an aligned or integrated relationship between sales and marketing is to start small and take action on just a few of the suggestions for improving sales and marketing integration. By demonstrating success with smaller initiatives – such as involving a marketing person who is considered a “friend of sales” in the needs-definition and solution-development stages for some of your major accounts – you can start to build a track record of success in cooperative ventures between sales and marketing that should lead to bigger and better improvements down the road.
“Ending the War between Sales & Marketing” appeared in the July/August 2006 double-issue of Harvard Business Review that was devoted to sales topics, and can be downloaded for $6 via this link.