This is a hot topic at present, but is one that’s been around at least since I began my sales career over 25 years ago.
The conundrum, of does sales need marketing and vice versa. The role of a Sales & Marketing Director, is this a good thing? Should there be a Director for each discipline?
I want to focus on the inter-connectivity between sales and marketing, and how, in my experience, they are both of equal importance. Let me try to explain;
Within any organisation there is a sales person, whose focus it is to meet with customers, gain orders and build a relationship. A good sales person will over time begin to build a very in-depth portfolio of information on each individual customer, covering many areas, and not necessarily relative to the products they offer.
A similar person within the organisation will be tasked with marketing, their focus will be develop customer engagement, brand awareness, promotions, generating content, etc.
A difficult task, given the fact, rarely is a marketing person interacting with their customer base on a regular basis on a number of topics, some of which have little or no relevance to the business.
This is where good sales people can help support marketing, the organisation and themselves. If there is a process in place, where there is a consistent level of factual feedback from the sales staff about their customers, then marketing has a chance to develop a programme that fits with customer needs.
Taking it a step further, regular F2F communication between sales and marketing will build a more comprehensive picture of what the organisation’s customers want.
One of the first topics I focus on within organisations is; Does each person understand their role with the organisation and how their role impacts on others within the organisation?
Sales and Marketing need to collaborate, without this, neither is completely effective.
What are your experiences with Sales and Marketing? What worked? What didn’t?