Forging the Link Between Sales and Marketing

When Edwin Land successfully launched his classic invention, the Polaroid camera, he should have stopped there. Against the advice of his sales and marketing people (and without the benefit of market research which he detested), he introduced a device, called Polavision, (selling at the hefty price of $700) that would record an “instant color movie.” So convinced that this device would succeed, Land invested 68 million dollars to promote it. In spite of the desire and the dollars, the product failed.

Whatever the reasons for the failure—high price, poor timing, and a dose of hubris—clearly, the lack of unified effort between sales and marketing allowed this situation to occur. A mistake that the company had to work hard to rectify.

Although the Polaroid story occurred in the sixties, this marketing miss continues in business. Today, there are vivid examples. The airline industry’s push for more customers while reducing customer benefits. The domestic auto industry failing to develop high quality, high efficiency vehicles for the American market. These examples reflect an organization’s failure to forge a solid relationship between sales and marketing that can spell disaster.

Seamless integration & partnership between sales and marketing
Successful business is based on strong relationships both outside and inside your organization. Your existing and future customers, coupled with your industry leaders, dictate key trends and directions for future products and services. Marketing defines the strategies for selecting those products and services that best fit your company’s core competencies. Your sales team’s input from their direct experiences in the market are essential to integrate a final strategy on how to define the features, functions, and benefits to your customers. This seamless integration and partnership between sales and marketing requires teamwork, commitment, and communication at all levels to succeed.

A need for better communication
Why? We are linked up as never before. In fact, you are even using the Internet to read this article. But one wonders if there are times that people can be so connected that they fail to really communicate with each other. You see this all the time. So much communication is accomplished through TECHNOLOGY with little person-to-person contact. We have succeeded in filtering out the most important element…the human being at the other end of the line.

Today’s style of communication, combined with the lack of personal contact, can cause misunderstandings and put a wedge between the sender and the receiver. Nowhere is this more apparent than the communication linkage between sales and marketing. In small, start up companies, the owner/manager handles everything, often heading up both sales and marketing efforts. As an organization grows, the need arises to fill these positions with experienced professionals.

Linking sales and marketing
Regardless, the manager still assumes the responsibility to organize and manage these critical functions. He or she must be prepared to break down the barriers between these two entities. Throughout the process, the manager will need to emphasize communication and unity of purpose, while setting a clear course for the company’s sales and marketing strategy.

Common policies and procedures based on best practices and industry standards need to be determined and disseminated. These policies provide a protocol for achieving and maintaining efficient departmental operation—including areas of responsibilities, reporting procedures, appropriate business conduct, organizational commitment, and, most important of all, the timing, consistency, and formal methods of communication.

Use the following internal survey to determine how in tune your organization is with its customers and the degree to which the areas in your organization communicate and collaborate together toward a common goal. It goes without saying that more no’s indicate a problem with integration and communication within your organization.

SURVEY TO ASSESS INTERNAL COLLABORATION++

1. Has your company conducted research to identify consumer or industry trends?   Yes   No

2. Have you shared the research results with all divisions within your organization—in particular sales and marketing?   Yes   No

3. Have you consulted with groups of end-users to help reach decisions in your strategic initiatives?   Yes   No

4. Have you also consulted with all internal groups to help reach decisions in your strategic initiatives?   Yes   No

5. Have you learned what direction your competitors are taking and analyzed what you can do to differentiate your products?   Yes   No

6. Have you analyzed what new markets your company can tap into?   Yes   No

7. Are you doing business internationally or preparing to do so?   Yes   No

8. Are you, your customers, your sales force and your marketing staff involved in creating a strategic plan?   Yes   No

9. Are your sales goals and incentives aligned with your company’s marketing strategy?   Yes   No

10. Did your marketing team involve you and your entire sales team when creating this year’s marketing plan?   Yes   No

11. Did your marketing staff share the consumer and end user data they obtained to create the plan?   Yes   No

12. Did you take the time to discuss strategic areas where you disagree and come to a mutual understanding?   Yes   No

13. Do you have internal allies, such as your product manager or chief engineer, who can back you up when you discuss customer needs to upper level management?   Yes   No

14. Are you committed to “agreeing to disagree” while fully supporting the company effort?   Yes   No

15. Do you, your company, and internal staff recognize that, where there are conflicting opinions, energy is created and creativity is stimulated?   Yes   No

16. Did company management communicate the strategic plan, marketing plan, and sales strategy to the entire company and obtain staff input?   Yes   No

17. Does everyone in your company — from sales to customer service, from marketing to R&D, and from the warehouse to the front desk— fully support those plans?   Yes   No

18. Does your company have a diversified team, or several teams, working continuously to determine ways to make those plans work?   Yes   No

19. Does your company realize that such teams can take fragments of ideas and structure a wide variety of options and solutions to problems?   Yes   No

20. Does upper level management solicit, listen, and respond to all ideas, selecting the best ones to implement?   Yes   No

21. Do you enlist the help and expertise of your allies to help your customer?   Yes   No

22. Does everyone involved realize that, regardless of the sales prowess of the individuals in your organization, that it requires a strong team for ultimate company success?   Yes   No

Establishing the points of customer contacts
Good communication yields great collaboration. The result is solid customer relationships. Sales may be the most visible, but it is not the only contact point with customers. Think about it and then fill in the following guidelines to help you determine the most influential points of contact with your customers and where you need to encourage the greatest communication and collaboration: +++

Although vital and the most visible, sales is not an exclusive entity. There is a great need for coordination and communication with the other controllers of customer contact. Certainly, the next major area is marketing—the invisible controllers. As Peter Drucker, management guru, once said, “Marketing is the whole company—from the customer’s point of view.”

Seeing your organization as customers view you
You as the manager need to change direction from looking inside your company to looking outside—as your customers see you. With this vantage point, you can begin to get all the players moving in the same direction and with the same focus to win the customer game. Remember, the principles of real-world business development:

1. Your customers are not listening to you.
2. Everyone else is shouting at your customers, too.
3. You need your whole organization behind you and your programs.
4. The more you give, the more you get.
5. Being good is not enough—you have to be better.
6. Marketing and sales are not Lone Rangers.
7. Everything is sales and marketing.
8. If you don’t succeed, you are dead meat.

Working at success
Moving an organization forward in today’s complex and competitive world is a scary proposition. What works one day may not work the next. Case in point, a beer company introduced “Gablinger’s “touting it as a low calorie beverage that a person could drink and not gain as much weight as he would with traditional beer. Most heavy beer drinkers (or where the sales are) don’t worry about beer bellies, so the product went “belly up” so to speak. But a few years later, Miller introduced its Lite beer—not as a diet beer but as a beverage that was less filling—so a person could drink more. Using a now classic advertising slogan, “Everything you ever wanted in a beer—and less,” Miller had a success story. In fact, Miller Lite was such a successful product that its sales now represent nearly half of all Miller revenues.

Why does one product work and another doesn’t? Why does one marketing effort hit home and the next doesn’t even get to first base? And why does one sales department hit an all time high while another plummets? There is no one answer or one approach that seems to spell success. We know that it takes effective positioning, solid planning, proper pricing and good promotion to bring a product or service to the market. The 4 P’s of marketing would seem to be enough. But the 4 P’s end with “s” —sales— the critical component of any product success.

Sales and marketing go hand in hand. Both functions carry the load of company success and/or failure. In many ways, these twin areas are an organization’s windows to the outside world. They have a special affinity and should represent the highest degree of collaboration among all the organization’s division. Often, to the detriment of all, they do not communicate well or in a timely fashion. To rectify this situation, many companies assign the dual functions under one head—e.g., Director of Sales and Marketing. As companies grow and the departmental needs require experts in the field, this duality can not work. It is in these instances that marketing and sales must forge the communication link. Regular communications, routine assessments and an underlying respect for the other function create a bond that will ensure success—for all engaged in the disciplines and for the company as a whole.

+ The Dumbest Moments in Business History, Adam Horowitz, The Penguin Group, NY

++ https://www.christinespeaks.com/competitive-position-survey.htm

+++ Marketing for Dummies, Alexander Hiam, IDG Books Worldwide

++++ What were they Thinking, McMath and Forbes, Random House, NY

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