The Relationship Between the Sales and Marketing Divisions of a Company

The Symbiotic Relationship Between Sales and Marketing

Sales and marketing need each other; they are married. Though, in this case, a divorce wouldn't mean a 50/50 split, it would probably mean a business. However, I have always found it ironic that marketing and sales are two totally separate divisions; this is most prominent in some mid-size and larger companies. One would have to ask themselves, why? This is an important question which often needs answering.

There are many tell-tale signs when marketing and sales does not have the sweeping romance which they should. The first sign that things are not great is when marketing is spending a lot of time focusing on print marketing. Unless you are a drug company trying to convince somebody to take your drug, print marketing is useless. Even worse, the marketing professional or professionals who are actively hiring the print marketing professionals are, dare I say, useless and expensive. In a company, having someone useless and expensive is a one-two knockout punch (and not to the other team). Getting back to drug companies, hiring someone who is very good at print marketing may not be useless, but the ethics of it hovers in the air.

One example I like to provide regarding the necessary relationship these two divisions should have is that sales people are the frontline soldiers while the marketing team is comparable to the tanks, ammunition and supplies. Without the supplies, the troops cannot fight and without the troops, the supplies don't do much good. So, why do they not have weekly meetings or why are the two divisions not sitting next to each other? I would presume it's bad theories on marketing and management's behalf.

What most marketing divisions do not understand is that their sole job is to feed the sales professionals leads. These days, incoming leads are almost the only type of leads which have a closing rate of over 50%. There are some exceptions such as when your company hires a real superstar who comes equipped with a lot of business connections and can truly close a high rate of business. Marketing divisions need to keep track of the number of incoming leads to the sales force. However, the sales team also needs to be cognizant of these numbers as well.

If these lead generation numbers were to drop, and the economy was continuing to get better, both parties have a problem and need to determine where the loose ends are. Also, the head of sales should step in and approve all marketing material (both online and print) which goes out to the public. You could run into a problem if the marketing material is saying y and the sales team is pitching x. Additionally, if pitching x is working for the sales team, the marketing division should not fight the sales division and ought to adjust according. Simply stated, if the two divisions do not have a symbiotic relationship with one another, your company is opening its guard up to getting beaten by the competition. We all know that staying on top is a lot better than playing catch-up.

The best advice I could give is to merge the two divisions and have a "sales and marketing" division.