Chapter 6

Challenges to Your Sales-Marketing Interface

In the previous chapter, we suggested a three-step approach, and an accompanying set of tools, that allow sales and marketing personnel to assess their relationship and identify the critical areas for improvement. The toolkit we presented will help you to pinpoint the key underlying elements that influence the interface, take the interface’s pulse on a regular basis, and get a sense of how your interface troubles affect the strategic processes in your company. As any practicing business manager is keenly aware of, companies navigate through myriad challenges on a day-to-day basis. Some of these challenges are foreseeable, while others come up without advance warning. Dealing with these challenges involves your sales-marketing interface and impacts your company’s strategic and tactical activities.

In this chapter, we discuss a number of these challenges that directly impact your sales-marketing interface. Some of these challenges occur very regularly and are part of the everyday slippery slopes that salespeople and marketers have to deal with. Examples are the threat of intensified competition and technological changes. Other challenges present themselves more infrequently, causing periodic shifts in the nature and quality of the sales-marketing interface. An example is a change in key personnel in the company; for instance, when a marketing director leaves and is replaced with someone from outside the company. Irrespective of the kind of challenges that you and your company have to deal with, you need to realize that these challenges can have significant (and potentially harmful) effects on your sales-marketing interface dynamics. But it also means that a good understanding of these challenges and their impacts can help you prepare for them. In this chapter, we discuss several common challenges and explore the properties that a sales-marketing interface needs to possess to deal with them successfully, rather than crumble under the pressures they bring on.

Challenge #1: Competitive Threats

Imagine that your company has enjoyed a strong leadership position in your market for the past few years. The market is in the maturity stage of its life-cycle and a new, credible competitor enters the market. Its sales force is very well-trained and motivated to succeed; in other words, the competitor’s primary objective is to steal the leadership position from you. For many managers this scenario is not hard to imagine, because it so closely resembles their reality. If your company is a dominant player in a mature, slow-growth market, you will probably feel the pressure of credible new competitors.

The obvious strategy in such a scenario is to focus your attention on your existing customer base and do everything in your power to retain them. In the face of intense competition that is targeting the same customers, this scenario will put a great deal of pressure on your sales and marketing teams. As a result, if your sales-marketing interface is inherently weak and troubled, it may start to show cracks. Especially when the new competitor manages to snatch a major customer from you, or make significant inroads in markets that you have dominated for years, sales and marketing may start to blame each other for these failures. A series of significant or repeated stressful events may drive your sales and marketing functions apart. If that is the case, increased competition acts as a trigger that throws the interface’s functioning into total disarray, which further jeopardizes the company’s short and the long-term market position.

But an alternative scenario may unfold when your sales-marketing interface is healthy and ready to face the pressures of intense competition. In this scenario, the competitive challenges trigger a totally different set of events. Faced with competitive threats, the sales and marketing teams recognize that the need of the hour is to set aside their inherent differences and come together as a team, stay united, and do everything in their capacity to deal with the competitive threat. Internal squabbles are forgotten and representatives from both functions communicate more frequently and emphasize joint objectives and tasks above functional goals and activities. Thus, the outside threat triggers a cooperative and a collective response from both sales and marketing aimed at dealing effectively with a common enemy. To help you rally your troops and prepare for and deal with competitive threats, Table 6.1 presents some suggestions.

Table 6.1 Measures to deal with competitive threats

Challenge #2: Strategy Failure

Every marketing and sales manager knows from experience that developing and implementing marketing strategies successfully is not an easy task. It requires a great deal of work and planning to develop a successful strategy and it takes a lot of coordination within a company to ensure that the strategy is then implemented successfully. As we discussed at great length in Chapter 2, strategy making is just plain hard work.

The reality has always been that not all strategies succeed in the marketplace. For instance, the business environment may have changed, competitors have taken unexpected actions, the strategy was too complex, or people just did not buy into the strategy. Experience shows that in business many strategies fail not because they are flawed, but because they are not implemented well, which requires collaboration between the sales and marketing groups.¹ But even those strategies, where sales and marketing have done a meticulous job of working through each of the strategy making stages (as outlined in Chapter 2), may fail to meet projected results. As these strategies begin to show clear signs of ineffectiveness, they introduce stress in the company. An ineffective strategy means that the company not only fails to capitalize on the market opportunity, but it also involves a lot of wasted resources; resources invested in strategy development, and execution that failed to yield the expected returns. Given the central role that sales and marketing teams play in the strategy-making processes, it is to be expected that strategy failure will take its toll on the interface dynamics.

Once again, a strategy failure event may trigger two different responses. One potential response is that sales and marketing personnel independently try to dissect what happened. Their individual analyses are likely to become a fault-finding mission where they are eager to blame their counterpart function for the strategy failure. Such a mutual blame-game has many detrimental effects. First, it shifts the focus away from the problems on hand; the sales and marketing teams do not try to discover what went wrong and where they fell short. Second, because sales and marketing personnel fail to take corrective measures, the likelihood of future strategy failure increases significantly. Third, finger-pointing and blame games sow the seeds of future discontent within the interface, which will have a negative effect on the company’s ability to successfully develop and implement future marketing strategies and to implement corrective measures when necessary.

The opposite response is that the failed strategy is treated as an important opportunity to learn. Rather than start blaming each other, sales and marketing personnel reflect on the failed strategy and objectively explore what has gone wrong. Such a post-hoc analysis, if done right, is very enlightening for both sales and marketing personnel in that it helps them to get to the root causes of failure. A sincere effort on the part of both sales and marketing, directed toward identifying what went wrong, how it can be corrected and how it may be prevented in the future contributes to a better understanding of the strategy making process and improves the sales-marketing interface. Again, the key question is: How do the sales and marketing teams respond to an adverse situation; will they blame each other or will they rally behind common objectives and jointly identify the root causes of failure to learn from their mistakes? Table 6.2 suggests several measures that organizations may take to develop a sales-marketing interface that is willing to learn and jointly address problems in the strategy making process.

Table 6.2 Measures to deal with strategy failure

Challenge #3: Personnel Changes

An often repeated truth in the world of business is that change is the only constant. While companies are implementing their strategies, based on their analysis of market opportunities and corporate strengths, they have to deal with many changes that may disrupt this process. One example of a common change that may significantly impact the functioning of the sales-marketing interface is a personnel change. We briefly discuss two types of personnel changes: Changes within sales and marketing’s rank and file, and changes in the company’s leadership.

Personnel Changes Within the Rank and File

Our conversations with numerous corporate executives suggest that, whether or not there exists a good rapport between the sales and ­marketing teams, largely depends on how well people within the sales and marketing functions get along at a personal level. The simple truth is that if you like the person behind the job title, you are more likely to work with that individual, and try to work out the wrinkles in your relationship, whatever they may be. And the opposite is equally true: If you and your counterpart do not know each other at a personal level, or do not get along; every small wrinkle can develop into a big fissure and working together can be a stressful experience.

In many companies, sales and marketing are not homogeneous functions. Even when they are grouped under the generic “sales” and ­“marketing” umbrellas, in reality there is a great deal of diversity across both functions and not everyone will be liked by their counterparts. As our research, and numerous other studies show, the sales-marketing interface is often less than optimal.² But even in companies with a suboptimal sales-marketing interface, one can often find sales territories or divisions where sales and marketing people work closely together in a harmonious relationship. These local interfaces achieve significantly better results than the rest of the company, which bears the brunt of a suboptimal sales-marketing interface.

A closer look at these localized success stories reveals that it is the personal rapport between the sales and marketing personnel that is responsible for the successful relationship. So, what happens when the very people that managed to forge strong connections leave the company? And what happens when the people who replace them fail to develop the kind of personal rapport that their predecessors had?

A critical barrier that functional leaders may build against such potential instability is the strategy of building bridges between the two functions at multiple levels. Sales and marketing leaders must ensure that their rank and file are connected through multiple relationships at different levels. They may achieve this by providing many opportunities for people to interact with one another on a formal and informal basis in both work and non-work settings. These multiple interactions help to weaken or tear down the walls between the two functions and enhance interpersonal engagement and relationships.

Leadership Changes

Equally important for the sales-marketing interface are changes of leadership within the company. Such changes may occur at the company’s top management level, for example when a new CEO or business director is being appointed who is responsible for both the sales and marketing teams. Or the sales or marketing team may get a change in leadership, as it happens when a sales director retires or the chief marketing officer leaves the company.

Although a company’s leadership does not necessarily participate directly in day-to-day activities, they will have a significant effect on how sales and marketing personnel work together. A great deal of research in the area of leadership suggests that leaders shape the corporate culture and set the tone for the functioning and behaviors of their deputies.³ For example, they may send confidential, internal memos to provide their teams with direction about how to work with their counterparts. Or they may influence behavior more indirectly, by using specific language and tone of voice, or by setting an example through their own behavior. The sales and marketing teams will pick up on these clues and adjust their behaviors accordingly.

If the sales and marketing leaders share a good rapport with one another, the departure of one of them can have a destabilizing effect on the interface. If the new leader is selected from within the hierarchy, it is likely that a cordial, healthy interface relationship will continue because the new leader will probably have a similar attitude and working style as the leader leaving the company. But if the new leader is chosen from outside the company, it remains to be seen how the sales-marketing relationship will develop. On the other hand, if the sales and marketing leaders did not get along to begin with, being a major reason for a problematic interface, the departure of one of them presents a great opportunity for the company’s top management (for instance, its CEO or COO) to step in, take stock of the situation and appoint someone who is capable of addressing the key problems identified. Such situations also provide top management with the opportunity to forge a stronger sales-marketing relationship.

Challenge #4: Technological Advances

No matter what industry or company you are in, recent years have seen many technological advances that probably have had a significant impact on your business. You may have been confronted by the emergence of new business models, changing customer sophistication and expectations or a proliferation of new channel structures. Many of these changes are driven by the proliferation of Internet connectivity and the subsequent 24/7 availability of information, the advent of social and mobile platforms, and the increasing use of big data. Considering the recent pace of technological change, the impact of new technologies on the business world is unlikely to let up in the foreseeable future.⁴ Here, the key question to consider is: What effects will new technologies have on the sales-marketing interface? We briefly outline three major effects.

Better Informed Customers

Many companies have discovered that the growing use of Internet, and related technologies, has resulted in much better informed customers. Customers no longer depend on a sales representative for information about products and services, but use multiple technologies to perform background research on companies, new products and industry trends on their own. As a result, salespeople’s role has changed dramatically. Nowadays, it is very common that, even before a salesperson meets a qualified lead to discuss the company’s solutions, that potential customer has already done his homework and knows what the company has to offer and how it compares to offers from the competition. They are no longer interested in hearing a typical sales pitch, because they are already familiar with the product features and benefits that the salesperson would normally discuss with them.

The rise of the well-informed customer means that salespeople must fundamentally rethink their approach to selling. In their interactions with customers, their focus must shift to identifying the job that customers try to do and the costs and risks they have to deal with. Only then can they engage customers in thinking about how to reduce these tangible and intangible costs and risks by jointly developing solutions, and how the products and services offered by the salesperson’s company may be part of these solutions.

These changes in the nature of the interactions between salespeople and customers imply that marketing also needs to rethink how they support the sales organization. They must develop new ways to help salespeople in becoming a valuable resource for customers. These dramatic shifts in both functions’ fundamental tasks mean that sales and marketing personnel must devise new customer and sales-related terminologies (who is a potential customer or a valuable lead?), customer categories (defining new customer segments based on their technological savvy), and collaboration approaches (how should marketing support sales in their pursuit of a qualified lead?). Failure on the part of either sales or marketing to remain flexible and adapt to the new collaborative realities will be detrimental to the long-term health and performance of the sales-marketing interface.

The World of Multi-Channel Marketing

Recent technological developments have further complicated the multi-channel B2B marketing world. B2B companies have always used multiple channels to reach customers, ranging from direct personal selling, catalogs, and the Internet to indirect selling through partners such as dealers, jobbers, and value-added resellers. The rise of mobile and social platforms, as well as extensive penetration of devices such as smartphones and tablets that facilitate access to these platforms, present companies with new channels to target customers. A recent study found that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are the most frequently employed social media platforms by B2B companies. Further, companies use these platforms for a variety of purposes such as attracting new customers, cultivating stronger relationships with existing customers, increasing awareness, and communicating with customers.⁵ Maersk Line, one of the largest container shipping company in the world managed to garner over 1 million “Friends” on Facebook, and 40,000 and 22,000 Twitter and Instagram followers respectively as a result of their foray into the social media space. They also created Maersk Line Social, a social media platform for Maersk Line using which they published articles and stories about Maersk.⁶

This increasingly complex multi-channel environment has significant implications for the sales-marketing interface. Imagine that the marketing department in your company has fully embraced the technological revolution and created a substantial presence on channels such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube. What happens if the marketing department fails to keep sales informed about all these initiatives? What if one of your star salespeople is caught off-guard when she discusses some new ideas with a major customer, and the customer happens to mention that they have already read about it on the company’s LinkedIn page and saw a couple of videos on your YouTube channel? What if the salesperson discovers that your company is pushing so much information through these technology platforms and inundating customers’ in-boxes that they are reluctant to give her face-time? And what if she realizes that the messages reaching customers through these channels contradict her focus and objectives; for instance, when marketers use these channels to urge customers to upgrade to a new version of the product, emphasizing that the current product will be obsolete soon, while most of this salesperson’s sales still come from the old version.

The obvious conclusion from these examples is that marketing must “keep salespeople in the loop” about all the direct marketing initiatives they are developing. Even better is for marketing to involve sales in this process. At the very least, marketing must consult with sales before launching such initiatives to prevent sales and marketing from working at cross-purposes. A healthy dialog between sales and marketing ensures that both groups are fully abreast of each other’s activities and initiatives, which avoids problems and enhances synergies.

Instant Connectivity

Technology allows a company’s employees to stay in touch with each other and their external stakeholders (e.g., customers, dealers, or distributors) on a 24/7 basis. This means that salespeople carrying a mobile device can be contacted at a moment’s notice by their marketing counterparts; they are no longer invisible or unreachable. Moreover, current GPS technology allows companies the ability to track their salespeople’s movements, should they wish to do so. And the advent of big data and cloud storage make it possible for companies to create large repositories of information that reside in the cloud and can be accessed by any authorized person through the Internet. As a result, technological advances make the concept of physical distance obsolete and allow people to connect with one another at a moment’s notice, and access information instantly from anywhere in the world.

This instant connectivity obviously also affects the sales-marketing interface. Used properly, it allows sales and marketing personnel to quickly connect and communicate when necessary. For example, if a sales team is working on securing an important account, they can stay in touch with their marketing counterparts to regularly update them about the latest changes or to seek additional support or intervention when negotiations enter a critical stage. It also allows marketers to send salespeople critical information just before a customer visit, or even during their sales ­presentation, or to create customized sales support materials (product specs, pricing sheets, customer testimonials) for specific customer groups. And it provides customers with the ability to access supplier databases and get relevant information when they need it.

Used properly, these technologies have the potential to significantly improve the coordination and collaboration between sales and marketing groups. But there is also a potential downside: Companies must be aware of technology overburdening sales and marketing personnel, causing privacy concerns among sales personnel or customers, and increasing each function’s expectations about their counterparts to such a high level that it is bound to lead to disappointment and subsequent relationship deterioration.

Challenge #5: Marketing Dispersion

In contrast to most business-to-consumer companies, many B2B companies do not have all their marketing expertise concentrated in one department. Indeed, some B2B companies do not even have a separate marketing department. And even when they do have a ­marketing department, many marketing activities are performed by other ­functional groups within the company that are not called ­marketing and whose employees lack a marketing background or marketing ­training. For instance, business developers call on customers to identify future needs and technical services employees visit customers to solve ­problems. In addition, marketers may also employ resources outside their ­company, such as advertising and creative agencies, and supply chain partners who also act as additional customer touch-points. This dispersion of marketing activities is very common in B2B companies and has been found to improve business performance.⁷

The increasing dispersion of marketing has a direct impact on the sales-marketing interface. After all, sales is one of the departments playing a key role in many market-related decisions. Sales provides input into decisions about expansion into new geographical markets, developing effective value propositions and designing the appropriate mix of channels to reach customers. Sales is also the primary decision maker for some marketing decisions, for instance, in pricing during negotiations with major customers and in modifying products to suit specific customer requirements.

Marketing’s dispersion may have several potential negative effects on the sales-marketing interface. For instance, the inevitable blurring of lines between the two functional groups may result in confusion or conflicts about responsibilities and tasks. How far may salespeople stray from the accepted marketing strategy in times of an economic downturn? What is their room for maneuvering during negotiations with a major customer? In addition, when more entities (both within and outside the organization) are involved in marketing activities, it further complicates the coordination between sales and marketing activities. For example, if sales wants to talk with its marketing counterpart, it may be more difficult to identify the right person to talk to since there are multiple “marketers” within the company.

But the news is not all bad: Marketing dispersion may also have positive effects on the sales-marketing interface. When marketing is spread across more entities than just the marketing department it is less likely to result in a separate marketing subculture, which reduces polarization between sales and marketing and may actually improve communications across the interface.

Challenge #6: Globalization

The increasing globalization of business makes it imperative for sales and marketing managers to deepen their understanding of how the cultural background of individuals impact their thinking and behavior, and how this affects their interactions within an increasingly global sales and marketing workforce. In many major US corporations, it is not uncommon to find non-US born employees in various sales and marketing positions across all levels within the organizational hierarchy. While workplace diversity has significant benefits, such as increasing productivity and creativity, it will also influence the nature of interactions between sales and marketing.

If you are a US-based company, given that some of your sales and marketing colleagues spent their formative years outside of the US, it is plausible that the cultural blueprints prevalent in their native countries shaped their self-concept. Their cultural background, to a significant extent, determines whether they view themselves as being separate from others (individualist self-concept), linked to others through relationships (relationist self-concept), or as being part of a larger group (collectivist self-concept). These cultural differences have a major impact on interpersonal communications; for instance, US and northern European communication styles are quite direct and focused on results, while other cultures may codify their messages in subtle, covert cues in order to preserve relationships and team spirit. Other examples of the influence of cultural background on interpersonal communications concern the definition of personal space, the formality of communications, and the attitude toward time. For example, while Americans consider lateness to be rude, people from other cultures have a more relaxed stance and a different definition of what it means to “be late.”

Helping sales and marketing personnel to understand different cultural backgrounds and how these differences influence their interactions within the sales-marketing interface will go a long way to improve the effectiveness of communications in an increasingly global sales and marketing workforce.

Challenge #7: Marketing Accountability

No company has unlimited resources. Companies try to navigate through tough economic times and actively look for ways to cut costs. As part of this rationalization, companies carefully assess their expenses and try to determine the extent to which their investments are paying off. Marketing has long been the exception to this pressure for accountability, because of its focus on strategic tasks whose effects are difficult to capture in simple metrics. But the combination of an economic downturn, better information and technological advances means that marketing is increasingly held accountable for its expenditures. Marketers are required to develop causal links between marketing activities, intermediate marketing outcomes, and financial performance metrics.⁸

The growing call for marketing accountability puts pressure on ­marketers, but it also provides opportunities to improve the sales-­marketing interface. In particular, marketing and sales personnel must take a closer look at the processes each function follows; for example, ­marketing may assess the new product development, market segmentation and ­target market selection, lead generation and qualification, or sales ­support program development processes to identify ways to more ­efficiently run them or align them more closely with the needs of their sales counterparts. Salespeople, on their part, must closely scrutinize the sales ­processes they engage in, starting with the initial customer ­contact all the way through the final sale and post-sale support. They must ­ascertain how these processes may be better supported by (or may support) ­marketing processes. In addition, both groups need to develop new ­metrics that help them to capture the impact of marketing and sales activities on business performance.

Collectively, such analyses will allow sales and marketing personnel to agree on common terminology, definitions, and interpretations around market and customer parameters. It will also help them to pool their resources and rationalize marketing-sales processes so that they can maximize their ROI based on the collectively agreed upon metrics.

Concluding Thoughts

Having read the entire book, you may wonder: So what should I do? What is the silver bullet to the sales-marketing interface troubles in my company? Should I merge our sales and marketing departments into a single unit to avoid all the challenges that arise within this interface? Should I develop a sales-marketing liaison function that serves as a bridge between these two departments? Is it even possible to fix the sales-marketing interface or do I have to accept the inevitable differences and resulting problems, and simply live with it?

We would be wrong if we claimed that there is a silver bullet that will rid the interface of all its troubles. But the good news is that the differences between sales and marketing groups, while very real, are not insurmountable. We urge you to not seek quick fixes. We also urge you to not try to resolve many problem areas within this interface all at once. Instead, it will be more effective if everyone in the organization assumes a holistic perspective and takes a stepwise approach to ensuring that the relationship between sales and marketing groups within the company is based on a strong foundation and nurtured and looked after on an everyday basis.

In this book, we identified many root causes that may help to explain the differences and problems between sales and marketing. Improving your sales-marketing interface starts with exploring these root causes within your company and understanding the factors contributing to these root causes. It also helps to understand how the root causes manifest themselves in your company. Any effective solution should be based on a deep understanding of how the interface problems in your company are related to one another. The next step is to choose a single problem to deal with. You need to identify a specific area of concern, understand all the variables that contribute to the issue, define modest and measurable objectives, and lay out a precise plan that involves equal contributions from both sales and marketing employees to address the issue. We advise that you start with a problem that is very visible and is likely to result in a quick, successful solution. This initial success can be used to validate the approach selected, which may further create momentum within both groups.

As you address a series of interface challenges it is a good idea to move the needle a little bit every time; that is, tackle a specific concern area, resolve it in a comprehensive manner, and then move on to the next area, as opposed to trying to solve all problems at once. We must caution though that you cannot address a specific concern area and then think that the problem has been solved forever. Left unattended, the same problem will probably crop up again in a slightly different form. It is the task of the company leaders to ensure that the company accumulates and nurtures multiple incremental improvements. It is also crucial that these incremental improvements are integrated within the corporate culture so that it will provide an optimal context to build and maintain strong and healthy interfaces.

Developing and sustaining a healthy sales-marketing interface is a shared responsibility of sales and marketing personnel, as well as company leadership. Within each department, functional leadership must cultivate ambassadors for their own function as well as their counterpart function who look after the interests of both parties and help cultivate a healthy interface. In addition, leaders must remain vigilant and spot the early symptoms of interface troubles so that they can address them as they are about to occur.

Strengthening your sales-marketing interface is an ongoing project; it is like mowing your lawn, you need to keep working on it constantly in order to keep it healthy and beautiful. . .weeds must be nipped in the bud before they get a chance to spread.