The sales and marketing disconnect has been going on as long as they both exist - marketing creates targeted campaigns and complains that sales don’t follow up on leads. Sales complain that they aren’t getting “quality” leads. (depending on the organization, quality seems to be a moving target) Marketing develops their interpretation of messaging for the collateral (brochures, videos, direct mail etc…) and presentations and sales does their own PowerPoint presentations and changes the messaging. Multiple messaging for the same product confuses the customer. The dialog goes back and forth until management sits everyone down at the same table. Sound familiar?
At the end of the day, sales and marketing have to come together to deliver a clear and consistent value proposition that enables prospects to develop a coherent brand image of the company and its products. Forrester Research recently reported similar findings in “B2B Sales and Marketing Alignment Starts with the Customer.” Only six of the sixty-six marketing and sales leaders who responded to Forrester's survey, reported that the two groups worked closely together.
Jeff Ernst, a principal analyst at Forrester and the author of the report, states that first of all both sides have to agree on an ideal customer profile. In other words, determining the target market for the product. Next, they should come to an understanding of the customer's needs and identify all of the factors that influence the buying process. The buyer then takes over leadership of the process.
Ironically, the corporate resource with the least amount of contact with the buyer, the CMO or Chief Marketing Officer, usually leads the process. In my opinion a truly representative alignment would include the buyer in some capacity (personas developed through marketing research & research and development) and the Sales Director. It might take longer to develop consensus, but all parties have a vested interest that this works.
Whichever opinion that you may be of, bridging the divide will mean that sales and marketing will have to spend more time communicating with each other and not talking “at” one another. Who knows, maybe going to lunch with the marketing guy or going fishing with the sales guy isn’t such a bad thing after all.
