Last week we imagined an email from an exasperated Marketing to an aloof Sales.

This week, Sales writes back: 

 Dear Marketing, 

 Thanks for your last four emails. Sorry I wasn’t in when you stopped by, Diane said you seemed a little agitated. Per your email, I can see why. 

In your email, you asked where all the leads are. I have a question of my own. What have you been telling the leads, Marketing? Because honestly, they seem a little confused when they get to me. 

You mentioned a customer, Suzanne, who was thoroughly charmed by your content and communication. Well when Suzanne and I finally talked, she seemed under the impression that we offer services and ENTIRE PRODUCTS, that we don’t. She thought there was free shipping. There isn’t. She thought we offered a money-back guarantee. We don’t.  

She got all these ideas from things you said. 

This is not the first time this has happened either. Many of the “good leads” you send me are misinformed, or the complete wrong target customer. I can’t close just anyone off the street, Marketing. I need actual qualified leads. 

It sounds like you want to know where the leads went, and I want to know where they were to begin with. Maybe it’s time we talk to CEO. I’m sure she’d love to hear my side of the story. 

Love,

-Sales

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate

 The breakdowns between marketing and sales departments are prevalent in nearly every organization, regardless of size. 

 Sales, feeling the pressure of needing to generate revenue, wants leads that are the very closest to a buying decision possible, if not having already arrived there. To use a football metaphor, they want a lead handed to them at the five-yard line, where marketing has done the heavy lifting, and a sale feels nearly inevitable. 

 This is a double misunderstanding. Sales misunderstood marketing’s job, as well as their own. To make matters worse marketing has also misunderstood their role. 

Marketing assumes that its job, much like one of those kids handing out fliers on a sidewalk, is just to get people in the door. Sales will take it from there. Which is why marketing doesn’t understand why sales can’t get the job done. Marketing did their job, why can’t sales? 

The problem is that Marketing’s job was never just to get people in the door. 

Marketing’s job is to create demand, to make a customer’s path to the brand feel like the natural conclusion of their combined passions: the customer’s passion for the brand’s product and positioning, and the brand’s passion for the customer.

So then, if marketing’s job is to create demand, it’s Sales’ job to turn demand into revenue. Like it was before…

Sales Got Handed the Wrong Job  

30 years ago, back when Alec Baldwin was telling the team to “Always Be Closing” (HBD Glengarry Glen Ross), marketing produced a Rolodex of “leads” for sales to call. And sales took those leads and knocked on doors, made unsolicited calls, sent gifts, did whatever was necessary to wine and dine and close the deal. 

Those were simpler times.

Times before caller I.D. Before Junk Email filters. Before a vast wide world of web where buyers could make their own decisions long before talking to humans. Back when your mom was happy to talk to a sales associate right as she walked in the door at J.C. Penney.

As digital marketing evolved, sales got pushed further and further down funnel. Book a call. Do a demo. Close the deal. Enterprise deals were done with all the finesse of selling a set of Encyclopedia Brittanica.

As marketing became denigrated to the work of getting people to click on things and release their email addresses… sales too fell into a period of mediocrity. Tasked with selling features and benefits to upsell people into expensive solutions they didn’t need, just to hit quota and move on to the next. 

And so it has been…until now. 

Breaking the Old Rules to Build the Future 

It turns out that when we go back to basics, and sales returns to the job of converting demand into revenue, then opportunity abounds. 

The first question we have to ask is what keeps demand from turning into revenue? There are a few possibilities.

• Buyers don’t know how to buy (confused about their options, don’t understand the problems that cause them to need your product)

• Buyers are overwhelmed by options. Can’t make a decision

• Buyers don’t see the difference between sellers and so price shop instead of value shop

• Sellers don’t understand buyers’ needs

• Customer journey is difficult and creates resistance to making a buying decision

So then it’s sales’ job to bridge these gaps. Starting with the first three bullet points. This is done with a consultative sales approach. The empathy, understanding, and ability to address a customer’s questions and concerns generated by this approach, roots the sales team as an ally of the customer, rather than someone trying to get them to do something – which most customers see as antagonistic. 

This consultative approach leads to two specific benefits: 

• Helping sellers get smarter by being the field research team: what are prospects needing? What questions are they asking? What solutions are they looking for?

• Smooth customer journey – SDRs provide early contact and help buyers find what they need, not just force them into the funnel.

It used to be said that marketing is sales at scale. This nearly destroyed marketing’s ability to produce demand. Marketing has to do more than get people in the door or push people to buy. 

It’s more accurate to say today that sales, at its best, is marketing in person. 

Marketing frames problems to help a target community of buyers find solutions.

Sales takes those same tools and helps facilitate that demand in 1:1 engagements.  

The bottom line is that the more digital our world gets, the more personal connection matters, not just at the bottom of the funnel, but throughout the buying experience. 

From customer research, to concierge-style SDR connections, to buying decisions at the point of sale, sales is entering the market built by marketing and helping humans make their best decisions.

 

When both sales and marketing are finally doing their jobs well, you get to measure the results in new revenue.

That’s the future we want to help build. Want to come along?