I was running a combined training session the other day, and the eternal gulf of understanding between marketing and sales was once again apparent.

You always learn the most from the ‘water-cooler’ moments don’t you!?

And it was exactly in the off-piste comments and chats when I had (1) salespeople whinging about the alleged unaccountability of marketing, and (2) marketing people mouthing off about the blindness to marketing efforts expressed by sales.

It makes me weep – it really does.

Because when you get each party engaged with a sensible conversation, the antagonism largely disappears in the face of logic and common sense.

Let’s take sales scepticism.

Everyone sees the common sense that it’s easier to make a sale if the target customer has heard of you. If they get some idea of what you do and whether you’re any good at it. Obvious? Indeed. And that’s what marketing does.

One quote in my sales-marketing training sessions is “Marketing is there to make the prospect aware and, at its best, cover off most of the possible objections before the sales meeting even happens.” Another friend puts it even more concisely: “Marketing creates a favourable climate for sales.”

So what’s going wrong?

First off, marketing is rarely given the resources to do its job properly (I’m talking about the B2B environment here, not B2C where this is definitely not true).

‘Clever’ senior managers think that somehow there are silver bullet clever ideas that can almost magically rid the company of the need to invest properly in its marketing. Get real!

Ask anyone in B2C and they will tell you that the clever idea is not the main driver of sales – it’s the resources you put into promoting that idea.

However, marketing managers and practitioners don’t help themselves.

For a start, they often don’t really understand their markets and products. They really don’t. And in that case, how can they come up with planning that supports the company’s sales needs? Also, many lack the skills to do the job they’ve been hired to do. And possibly this is a function of the corporation not investing in proper salaries for these positions.

Anyhow, my message is WAKE UP to both sales and marketing.

Stop trying to dish the dirt on each other.

Stop the in-fighting.

Co-operate.

And have some mutual respect.

You’re both required to generate business growth.

I hope you find these bulletins entertaining. I’m happy to discuss all relevant engagements – from customer community creation, to directorial mentoring, to strategy development, to thought-leadership content development, to full campaign structuring and management, and more.

Do get in touch!