By Elizabeth Boineau

“If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales (or in life), you probably aren’t doing enough asking.”

~Jack Canfield

Many companies have struggled at some time over the course of their existence with how to help the marketing team co-exist in harmony with the sales force.

From time to time, I have witnessed a lack of understanding of the difference between the two disciplines, yet in most organizations both functions must work hand in glove to make a positive impact on the company’s bottom line.

Even if your company is small enough to have both functions managed by one individual, it’s helpful to know the difference and how they might work together for a better outcome. So let’s define and explore how to make this occasionally misaligned relationship into something more promising for all parties.

In simplest terms, marketing is all that you do to identify, engage, reach and persuade the primary intended target to select your product or service over the rest. The marketing team works hard to develop the message that will lure the target and be “spot on” about the offerings of the company and why it matters. Those messages are spilled into content and tonality for the company, in the form of press materials, Web content, brochure, direct mail, e-blasts and advertising.

Sales is all that you do, ideally when the audience is lured by outreach born of solid strategy, to assertively move to close the transaction and get them to agree to a deal, purchase, agreement and/or contract. The sales process usually is more of a one-on-one personal interaction via a meeting, a cold call or a warm lead that you contact typically through an e-mail or phone call. The marketing component comes first and throws a wider, though precise, net to entice the identified audience who needs your product or service, even if they don’t know it just yet.

Prospecting may well be shared between the two, in that marketers most often identify a particular profile or demographic of buyer for whom the product or service appeals and then the sales force steps in to work that prospect.

The names could come from personal contacts that fit the profile or from a list purchased or a proprietary database may be developed from the sales and marketing teams. That list might be derived over time from interaction at events, trade shows, networking, Web site contact/auto response, direct mail response cards, brochure tear offs and incentives/drawings to collect names.

Both sides, working together, are constantly collecting, gathering and asking what the audience needs and wants and helping to demonstrate how the product, service, contract or agreement meets this particular client’s needs far better than any other.

The sales force can contribute back to the marketing direction by asking where the prospect

got their information, what appealed to them and what could be different.

What they learn can add volumes to the tweaking of the marketing strategy as even casual market research may prove invaluable to both the marketing and sales forces.

So what happens when the sales force operates in a vacuum or the pressure to sell exceeds the need for strategy? I have seen situations where sales may start to spend out of control in various marketing activities, randomly tossed out in fire-ready-aim fashion, expending resources of dollars and time, rather than investing in strategy refinement and course correction.

The pressure is often on to deliver, but when it’s out of the context of good strategic direction, it can be set up for failure, and a rather expensive lesson at that. If the product is not moving, it’s time to evaluate why and adjust the marketing strategy and course, rather than spend more to see if the outcome might be more, better and/or different the next go ‘round.

So to turn a now and again distant friendship into a blissful pairing, both sides should work off the same page and support each other throughout, constantly refining and improving the marketing/sales process. The marketing team asks the hard questions to get to the right strategy, so the sales team can more efficiently and successfully ask for, win and close the sale.

It typically takes multiple contacts and various channels of delivery to convert a lead to a sale, and that starts with effective marketing and most often ends with a talented, perceptive and accountable sales force carrying the brand-marketing banner with them at every step.

Holding hands lightly across the divide is not nearly as satisfying as the warm embrace and the magic that happens when marketing strategy and sales co-exist and form a successful, well-balanced pair.

Moving in the same direction, feeding off each other’s strengths and seeking mutual return on investment at every turn may just lead to a partnership that reaps rewards for a long time to come.

Elizabeth L. Boineau is owner of E. Boineau & Co., a strategic marketing communications and public relations firm based in Charleston. E-mail her at eboineau@eboineauandco.com.

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