10/21/2011 — During Ribblog’s early days, I was writing punchy little articles that quickly defined or predicted business problems that would become acute as marketing and sales technology proliferated. The disconnect between sales and marketing has deep-seated roots. Solving the problem will be cathartic for every company taking on the challenge.
At lunch recently, I asked a company’s vice president of sales to tell me about the value of advertising, direct mail and trade show leads.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “We have a marketing guy who does that.”
Many excellent, experienced sales people developed their careers in environments where marketing created ads, brochures, trade show booths, etc. Customer relationships were not influenced by marketing at all. Today, many large and small companies are still run that way. Even today, recent surveys of all U.S. companies show that sales teams do not respond to 80% of sales leads generated by marketing departments.
Will these companies be profitable for many years to come? Possibly.
Will their competitors have a distinct advantage if they learn how to make their sales and marketing departments function as an inseparable organism? Yes.
Is it difficult because sales and marketing people are by nature completely different? Absolutely.
