There is no reason why the same psychology that both departments employ successfully in the marketplace cannot be applied to get marketing and sales to cooperate.

It’s supposed to be simple and straight-­forward: Marketing develops the message that appeals to customers and prospects’ needs for products and services; salespeople then focus on motivating people to buy based on those needs. Generally, the two groups answer to one executive under the assumption he or she will guide them to work cohesively.

Unfortunately, it’s an assumption that is flawed not in concept, but in execution. Marketing, convinced of its “can’t miss” vision, questions the quality of the sales department’s efforts; sales counters that the marketing group’s concept is a less-than-adequate selling tool.
What we have here is the worst possible scenario for any corporation: two departments working in a vacuum with a significant failure to communicate.

Why the Disconnect?
The lack of collaboration is startling when you consider that sales and marketing, which rely so heavily on communication skills, seemingly abandon them when dealing with each other. “They don’t communicate as well as they think they do,” says Terry Corbell, a business performance consultant who believes that office politics get in the way. “Sales and marketing folks tend to have turf battles, and in this [recession], those may be exacerbated because sales are harder to come by,” he says.

In addition, some of the turf battles may be connected to the unique perspective, orientation and expertise each department has. Marketing and sales are different, and they rarely consider learning about the other’s skill set. As a result, salespeople are not hesitant to accuse marketing of lacking real-world understanding of what it takes to sell a product or service. “I wish you could see what we go through and then you’d understand” is a common sales complaint. “You just need to work harder,” responds marketing. No one seems interested in breaching the other’s defenses.

If there is a fundamental cause to these not-so-subtle differences, it is probably in each department’s understanding of responsibilities. More often than not, sales operates on a tactical plane with its metrics based on monthly or quarterly quotas and goals. Marketing, on the other hand, is more strategic in nature, with its only metric being the success or failure of a campaign. That may be the reason why both sides suffer from tunnel vision.

Opposing Perspectives
Two international consultants with long histories in sales and marketing have unique perspectives. Roy Chitwood knows about sales. Chitwood is president of Max Sacks International, a sales consulting firm with high-profile clients such as Coca-Cola, Xerox and Bank of America. Coming from a sales perspective, Chitwood is not hesitant to point the finger at the other side.

“Marketing has no understanding of what it takes to sell,” Chitwood says. “They design grandiose schemes that would never fly because they won’t support the salespeople.” Chitwood accuses marketing personnel of failing to under­stand the five decisions every buyer makes, which include impression of the salesperson, the company, the product or service, value and when to buy, and the order in which they are made and buying motives, such as why people buy.

Chitwood acknowledges that sales occasionally is associated with a negative image while marketing is “a lot more glamorous,” but that is no reason for marketing’s segregation from sales. “Regardless of the success of the advertising program, if people don’t understand how to sell, then the bottom line of the program is a failure,” he says.  

Bill Wagner, chief executive officer of Accord Management Systems – a company specializing in the people aspect of business – believes that marketing personnel are more analytical with less social ability, while sales personnel attempt to sway decisions by appealing to emotions.

“Marketing’s goal is to create an environment with a model of predictability, and selling is all about social orientation and managing people,” he says. “Yet, just like a long married couple, the two sides can help the other by understanding each other,” Wagner says.

Wagner points out that sales and marketing should recognize the nuances within each side’s viewpoint that may hamper their ability to work jointly. “It’s nothing more than removing subjectivity and replacing it with objectivity,” Wagner says.

Skill Sets Create Differences
The skill sets for sales and marketing, which are important for any successful enterprise, contribute to these parties’ unwillingness to collaborate. Marketing professionals are often more creative and visionary. In their focus to anticipate the needs of the marketplace, marketing first relies on research and then tests products, services and messages to create a unique selling proposition. It is in this product or service development phase that there is often one critical omission: the sales department. Marketing people simply assume that the grand scheme is beyond the expertise of the sales team.

The exclusion tends to ruffle the feathers of salespeople who find marketing’s vision relatively meaningless, especially when sales feels that it has been given relatively weak leads that hamper their ability to meet goals. The sales team argues that it’s difficult enough to contend with today’s downward-spiraling economy without having the right tools – the inference being that marketing has failed to supply them.

Collaborative Environment
What is needed for improvement is nothing less than a corporate cultural change. That initiative has to start with management. Only leadership can set the priority for communication between marketing and sales during and after the development process. It follows that management should make this give-and-take mandatory.

This is not to suggest that salespeople need to get thoroughly involved in the marketing process and all its complexities. Rather, it is meant to give sales personnel some idea of the strategy behind marketing’s plans so both departments can clarify whether the game plan is workable in the field. What the two sides can do for their mutual benefit is to cross-train in both disciplines, but only to the extent that both understand the impact of their decisions.

Another challenge may be a communications barrier that neither sales nor marketing recognize due to their different skill sets. Two simple steps can help both departments work together: establishing benchmarks that put both groups on the same page and implementing a reporting process that aligns the two in developing sales leads.

Alignment of Sales and Marketing
To allow marketing and sales departments to continue to operate in their private spheres without regular communication and input from both is to limit a company’s growth potential. As such, the onus is on management to require the setting of mutual goals, testing and refining of strategies and status reporting to track progress. Goals, initiatives and promotions are interrelated, so it makes sense that all responsible parties collaborate to implement them.

The fact is that sales and marketing can only help one another – and their company, of course – by understanding each other. The best approach, as Wagner points out, is to “relieve behavioral bottlenecks.” There is no reason why the same psychology that both departments employ successfully in the marketplace cannot be applied to get marketing and sales to cooperate.

Gerri Knilans is president of Trade Press Services, a developer and provider of editorial coverage and other forms of corporate communications for business-to-business clients. For more information, call 805-496-8850 or visit tradepressservices.com.