Comments on: What Sales Really Thinks About Marketing?

By: Insidesales

Insidesales — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:18:00 +0000

Great Post! It really is important to get your sales team thinking like your marketing team and vice versa. Department transitions can be difficult in the lead nurturing process.

By: Mike Ashworth

Mike Ashworth — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:52:00 +0000

The disconnected Company, you see it so often. Various functions such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, sometimes with Goals that conflict with each other (such as minimise amount of time spent talking with ppl who have a complaint)

I think Joseph Jaffe in his book "Join the conversation" wrote that what a Company needs is a layer called "conversation" that straddles all functions and ensures that they are all working efficiently.

Companies ignore Customer Service / Complaints at their peril. If I'm looking for a new supplier of a product or service I often call or email customer service or complaints department first to see what "after sales" is like. That is a good judge of what they really think of me as a customer.

Mike Ashworth
Marketing Coach and Consultant
Brighton and Hove, Sussex, UK

By: Tom Lewis

Tom Lewis — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:42:00 +0000

The term “pipeline” is meaningless to me as a marketer. I can understand if there’s an issue with the quality of leads sent to sales but supply is the critical issue. If sales needs more tools to convert, then by all means, that’s a subject to talk about but conversion is why the sales team is there – they’re not there just to take orders.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:28:00 +0000

One way to incorporate both sales and marketing is to create a blueprint of your marketing strategy. This allows you to map out each step of the marketing and who is involved in what. When both sides see that they are working towards the same goal, it will help them collaborate better.

By: John Gillett

John Gillett — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:55:00 +0000

Excellent point — the most successful marketing and sales teams are almost connected at the hip…Sales brings experience form the field, and marketing turns that experience into a campaign.

Without continual input from sales, marketing efforts have one one-hand toed behind their back…