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Forging the Link Between Sales and Marketing—
Making it Happen Before It's Too Late

By Christine Corelli
The "Sales-Service Excellence" Expert

When Edwin Land successfully launched his classic invention, the Polaroid camera, he should have stopped there. Against the advice of his sales and marketing people (and without the benefit of market research which he detested), he introduced a device, called Polavision, (selling at the hefty price of $700) that would record an "instant color movie." So convinced that this device would succeed, Land invested 68 million dollars to promote it. In spite of the desire and the dollars, the product failed.

Whatever the reasons for the failure—high price, poor timing, and a dose of hubris—clearly, the lack of unified effort between marketing and sales allowed this situation to occur. A mistake that the company had to work hard to rectify.

Although the Polaroid story occurred in the sixties, this marketing miss continues in business. Today, there are vivid examples. The airline industry's push for more customers while reducing customer benefits. The domestic auto industry failing to develop high quality, high efficiency vehicles for the American market. These examples reflect an organization's failure to forge a solid relationship between marketing and sales that can spell disaster.

Seamless integration & partnership between marketing & sales
Successful business is based on strong relationships both outside and inside your organization. Your existing and future customers, coupled with your industry leaders, dictate key trends and directions for future products and services. Marketing defines the strategies for selecting those products and services that best fit your company's core competencies. Your sales team's input from their direct experiences in the market are essential to integrate a final strategy on how to define the features, functions, and benefits to your customers. This seamless integration and partnership between marketing and sales requires teamwork, commitment, and communication at all levels to succeed.

A need for better communication
Why? We are linked up as never before. In fact, you are even using the Internet to read this article. But one wonders if there are times that people can be so connected that they fail to really communicate with each other. You see this all the time. So much communication is accomplished through TECHNOLOGY with little person-to-person contact. We have succeeded in filtering out the most important element...the human being at the other end of the line.

Today's style of communication, combined with the lack of personal contact, can cause misunderstandings and put a wedge between the sender and the receiver. Nowhere is this more apparent than the communication linkage between marketing and sales. In small, start up companies, the owner/manager handles everything, often heading up both sales and marketing efforts. As an organization grows, the need arises to fill these positions with experienced professionals.

Linking marketing and sales
Regardless, the manger still assumes the responsibility to organize and manage these critical functions. He or she must be prepared to break down the barriers between these two entities. Throughout the process, the manager will need to emphasize communication and unity of purpose, while setting a clear course for the company's sales and marketing strategy.

Common policies and procedures based on best practices and industry standards need to be determined and disseminated. These policies provide a protocol for achieving and maintaining efficient departmental operation—including areas of responsibilities, reporting procedures, appropriate business conduct, organizational commitment, and, most important of all, the timing, consistency, and formal methods of communication.

Use the following internal survey to determine how in tune your organization is with its customers and the degree to which the areas in your organization communicate and collaborate together toward a common goal. It goes without saying that more no's indicate a problem with integration and communication within your organization.

Establishing the points of customer contacts
Good communication yields great collaboration. The result is solid customer relationships. Sales may be the most visible, but it is not the only contact point with customers. Think about it and then fill in the following guidelines to help you determine the most influential points of contact with your customers and where you need to encourage the greatest communication and collaboration: +++

Although vital and the most visible, sales is not an exclusive entity. There is a great need for coordination and communication with the other controllers of customer contact. Certainly, the next major area is marketing—the invisible controllers. As Peter Drucker, management guru, once said, "Marketing is the whole company—from the customer's point of view."

Seeing your organization as customers view you
You as the manager need to change direction from looking inside your company to looking outside—as your customers see you. With this vantage point, you can begin to get all the players moving in the same direction and with the same focus to win the customer game. Remember, the principles of real-world business development:

   1. Your customers are not listening to you.
   2. Everyone else is shouting at your customers, too.
   3. You need your whole organization behind you and your programs.
   4. The more you give, the more you get.
   5. Being good is not enough—you have to be better.
   6. Marketing and sales are not Lone Rangers.
   7. Everything is marketing and sales.
   8. If you don't succeed, you are dead meat.

Working at success
Moving an organization forward in today's complex and competitive world is a scary proposition. What works one day may not work the next. Case in point, a beer company introduced "Gablinger's "touting it as a low calorie beverage that a person could drink and not gain as much weight as he would with traditional beer. Most heavy beer drinkers (or where the sales are) don't worry about beer bellies, so the product went "belly up" so to speak. But a few years later, Miller introduced its Lite beer—not as a diet beer but as a beverage that was less filling—so a person could drink more. Using a now classic advertising slogan, "Everything you ever wanted in a beer—and less," Miller had a success story. In fact, Miller Lite was such a successful product that its sales now represent nearly half of all Miller revenues.

Why does one product work and another doesn't? Why does one marketing effort hit home and the next doesn't even get to first base? And why does one sales department hit an all time high while another plummets? There is no one answer or one approach that seems to spell success. We know that it takes effective positioning, solid planning, proper pricing and good promotion to bring a product or service to the market. The 4 P's of marketing would seem to be enough. But the 4 P's end with "s" —sales— the critical component of any product success.

Sales and marketing go hand in hand. Both functions carry the load of company success and/or failure. In many ways, these twin areas are an organization's windows to the outside world. They have a special affinity and should represent the highest degree of collaboration among all the organization's division. Often, to the detriment of all, they do not communicate well or in a timely fashion. To rectify this situation, many companies assign the dual functions under one head—e.g., Director of Sales and Marketing. As companies grow and the departmental needs require experts in the field, this duality can not work. It is in these instances that marketing and sales must forge the communication link. Regular communications, routine assessments and an underlying respect for the other function create a bond that will ensure success—for all engaged in the disciplines and for the company as a whole.

+ The Dumbest Moments in Business History, Adam Horowitz, The Penguin Group, NY

++ http://www.christinespeaks.com/competitive-position-survey.htm

+++ Marketing for Dummies, Alexander Hiam, IDG Books Worldwide

++++ What were they Thinking, McMath and Forbes, Random House, NY

© Copyright 2007 Christine Corelli. All rights reserved