Building teamwork between marketing and sales

It goes without saying (at least I hope it does) that to be effective, the relationship between marketing and sales demands close cooperation. Yet even as the most critical of a company’s interactions, marketing and sales are often at each other’s backs, placing blame, demanding action, and generally acting worse toward one another than they do to the competition.

The metaphor I like to use to describe a well-functioning sales and marketing organization isn’t a Kumbaya campfire, but a relay race. In this example, marketing hands off sales tools and campaign leads, with sales taking the hand-off and running toward the finish line – the completed sale. Yet as simple as this example is, anyone familiar with track knows that the hand-off is the most difficult part of the race.

Before taking the hand-off, the runner ahead (sales) must start getting up to speed. The runner behind (marketing) therefore, needs to share plans and metrics so sales knows what to expect and can begin to prepare their customers, prospects, and accurately complete their  forecasts. Efficiencies are lost when these racers aren’t fully aware of where the other is on the track; that is, salespeople are accidentally or purposefully unaware of what marketing objectives are, when campaigns are running, and what to expect in terms of number and quality of leads.

Further, in relay races, there is only a set amount of track space allowed to make the transfer – racers must understand the distance each racer will run. In my example, if sales expects marketing to qualify leads further or marketing expects sales to follow-up on leads in a certain timeframe, the baton can be passed too soon or too late, outside the zone, resulting in missed sales opportunities.

Even when the runners are up to speed and the transfer is made, disconnects between objectives, targets, and priorities can cause our metaphorical baton to be dropped and take an organization out of the race altogether. Marketing is in charge of evaluating the market and strategizing initiatives, but always with the input of sales so common targets, messages, objectives and timing can be established. This needs to be done quarterly to not only stay aligned, but to evaluate what is and isn’t working.

Relays are the most team-intensive sport in track, and therefore are won only when every participant is not only performing at their best, but makes certain that they’ve passed and received the baton smoothly between team members. To do well, marketing and sales need to do their best individually. But to win, marketing and sales need to cooperate as a team.

It's good. Really good. It's TOO good.

Dear Nancy Brinker:

I'm a fan. What you've done for research is amazing. No one is a bigger supporter of the cause than I am. My mother herself was a victim of breast cancer so I say this with love, respect, and admiration:

Consider me 'aware'. I'm full of 'awareness'. I'm up to my eyeballs in 'awareness'. But like a pop song heard too many times, the pink thing has gone from helpfully ubiquitous to having the effect of the vandalism you'd expect from a Barbie-obsessed eight year old girl. It's too much of a good thing.

Your marketing - specifically, your brand communication - urgently needs a refresher because I can't be alone when I say I'm starting to tune it out like I do omnipresent graffiti in Queens.

To make a donation: http://ww5.komen.org/

Purpose over Process

One of my favorite quotes about articulating and pursuing goals is from climber and author Todd Skinner: “To stick to the plan instead of the summit can make you fail to climb the mountain.”

In marketing as in mountaineering, being able to separate the purpose of our actions from the process of our actions is imperative for success. As marketing has wisely moved increasingly toward using analytics to quantify its contribution to the organization, often we can get caught up in the analysis over the objective. It isn’t enough to celebrate the sales directly correlated to a promotion, or the movement of a new product’s valuation from an analyst review following a presentation. These are useful metrics and benchmarks, not the overall objective.

Instead it is important to recognize how those results impact broader corporate goals. The clear articulation of easily understood goals is critical not only in gaining support for your actions, but in identifying when those actions deviate from the intended effect so corrective action can be swift.

The objective is a constant, so be careful that you do not use numbers to defend your actions, but rather to define them. You want to clearly articulate and get support toward the shared organizational objective, not the steps in the process.

No one ever asked Sir Edmund Hillary how many steps he took to reach the summit of Everest.

Using Context in Creative - Part Two

As with my last post on the subject, here are excellent examples of understanding and leveraging the nature of the media when developing creative. Courtesy of Alltop.

Shackin' up

Quick Quiz: When asked why RadioShack decided to rebrand itself "The Shack", CMO Lee Applbaum stated it was because (choose just one!):

1. We think "shack" conjures up many positive store images.

2. Some customers and the investor community refers to us as "The Shack" already.

3. We can't afford the real Shaq as a spokesperson, and he's in Cleveland now anyhow.

4. Basic research could have told us that "The Shack" is actually a popular Christian novel regarding the anguish of a parent over the rape and murder of his daughter. Oh, well.

5. Because... "The (Love) Shack is a little ol' place where we can get together! (Don't forget your jukebox money!)"


The answer is #2, although any of the answers is equally bad, and equally plausible.

That's right. RadioShack's most avid customers and "the investor community" (really? that's their target with this campaign?) already refer to the company (despairingly, perhaps?) as The Shack, so they figured they'd just co-op the term as their own in a desperate grab to leverage, and therefore destroy, any credible independent brand affinity.

Besides, marketing theory aside, every middle school kid in America already knows that giving yourself a nickname is just lame.

Warning signs

The other night I had an "I Love Lucy" moment – I found myself desperately, and ultimately unsuccessfully, attempting to stem the tide of about 75 PSI of water shooting from what had been the stem control of an upstairs bath.

I had been ignoring a persistent drip for weeks.

Together with a client, I was speaking yesterday with a lovely woman who runs the Diabetes Education Center at a local hospital. The topic soon turned to preventative medicine, and the number of people who discover they have diabetes only after entering the ER with blood sugar levels in the 700s (that’s really high).

They were ignoring the frequent urination, constant thirst, weight loss, fatigue and other warning signs of diabetes.

Last month a neighbor had to be rescued from the side of a busy highway during rush hour when her transmission gave out and she slowly glided to a permanent stop on the gravel shoulder. The car had been recently detailed, however, so it looked sharp as it was hoisted onto the back of the battered tow truck.

She had been ignoring the thump and jolt from the backend of her foreign sedan for months.

And of course, we can all point fingers at the politicians and bankers and brokers and others who ignored the warning signs that have led to the current world financial credit crisis.

What are you ignoring? What are the warning signs in your own business that need attending to?

Are consumer complaints increasing? Is innovation fading? Are too many of your receivables over 120 days out? Do your employees fear the next 'all-employee meeting'? Has cash flow become the dominant topic over the water cooler, instead of tactics and strategy?

None of these scenarios are uncommon in a weakened economy. But what are you doing about it?

There are no easy answers to these problems. But analyzing the problem for weeks isn't helping. The quicker you act and the more decisive the action – any forward action – the greater the likelihood of preventing the situation from truly getting out of, that is, beyond your, control. Once a problem is beyond your control, it is too late and the options for a remedy, such as they are, are never good ones.

Okay, so this post doesn't say much that hasn't been said before. But if you've ignored the same reminders before, here's your chance to act.

Regardless of the specific corrective action required for your company's circumstance, the immediate requirement is communication. Internal and external communication to explain the company's circumstances to employees, partners and customers; reinforcement of company values and vision, and each individual's role in fulfilling the company's mission; the long term and near term future for the organization. And communication is a two –way street as well, that is, remaining open for customers to become real-time sources for feedback and product ideas, perhaps seeking out suppliers willing to extend finance terms, and listening to employees for suggestions regarding improving operational efficiencies.

The important thing is not to ignore the constant drip, drip, drip of market erosion and declining revenues, blindly hoping that a sudden macroeconomic recovery is around the corner, a rising tide that raises all boats. Don't ignore the warning signs. Take action now, because like my plumbing, the 'pressure' to take corrective action now is only building.