Marketing VS Sales – Who is more important?

Hi all, and welcome to my blog. I have decided it is time to join the 21st century and get blogging. In my travels, and work with various companies around the world, in all forms of industry, I notice issues and/or common themes coming through. Now I have a forum in which I can share them, so you don’t have to wait until I’m next in town working with your team.

Over the last 2 weeks, I have worked with 4 different organisations spanning different industries, and yet suffering the same complaint! They have a massive DIS-CONNECT between marketing and the sales department. There is no clear marketing direction which has been well communicated to the sales force… and/or acted upon by the sales force. When I interview senior executives and sales leaders/managers, they seem to be able to tell me the company vision, strategies and marketing direction, but when I start questioning the Sales-force level… the silence is deafening. They don’t seem to have a strong feel for it. My major concern is that we now have a sales-force out their busy doing sales activity that is not aligned with the companies marketing direction; you know, Sales Reps or Key Account Managers selling old and dying products which they are comfortable with, but isn’t going to help increase sales in the new service or product area the comapny has invested $ 000’s.

So, this leads me to ponder a statement made to me by my 1st Managing Director in the Sales Training and Development arena. In his 20 years experience across 40 odd countries, he said “The most successful organisations have the marketing function under the control of Sales Director… not the reverse!” So, before I sign off on an opinion one way or another, I want some feedback for inclusion in my new upcoming book, The 7 Step Pathway to Sales Success (I’ve got the pages numbers done… I just have to fill in the content!)

Should the marketing report to sales, or vice-versa?

I would appreciate any contirbutions to the debate.

By the way, anyone interested in retaining talented employee’s – Why dont you go to my web site at www.ianstephens.net.au, click on ‘Programs’ and double click on “The 7 Essential Life Requirements”. Great leaders make sure they are serving up at least 5 of these requirements thus promoting staff loyalty to want to stay away from the weekend classified section!

Looking forward to your contribution to the great sales vs marketing debate!

Yours in sales success

 Ian.