Several years ago, independent from each other, both of us started to study the relationship between sales and marketing in business-to-business (B2B) companies. Intrigued by the observation that these two functions that appear to be so similar in terms of background and objectives, could find it so difficult to work together effectively, we felt that this warranted further examination. When we realized that our research in the United States and in the Netherlands resulted in complementary findings, it was only natural to team up and further explore this interesting area. This collaborative research endeavor, that now spans over seven years, has resulted in a large number of conference papers and several published articles in academic journals, and now culminates in the publication of this book aimed at practitioners.
Over the past seven years, we talked to hundreds of sales and marketing personnel at various levels within their respective organizational hierarchy, as well as with several CEOs and COOs on the topic of the sales–marketing interface. In addition, we conducted focus groups and seminars on this topic, as well as presented our research findings to practitioners. The sales and marketing, as well as the C-suite executives we interacted with come from companies operating in a wide variety of industries. They range from small companies that just started to discover the benefits of marketing to large, established, Fortune 100 firms that must deal with significant differences between their sales and marketing groups. The insights we derived from these conversations inform this book to a significant extent.
Therefore, we would first like to thank all those individuals who agreed to give us their precious time and participate in our depth-interviews, focus groups, and seminars. Without their willingness to talk in great detail about the relationship between sales and marketing in their companies this book would not exist. In addition, we want to thank our colleagues and students, who commented on our presentations, seminars, and lectures about the sales–marketing interface, and thus helped us to sharpen our thoughts about this subject.
We hope that this book serves as a comprehensive guide for managers, irrespective of whether you hold a sales or marketing title, to improve sales–marketing relationships in your companies and set them on a path to long-term success.
Both of us have come to appreciate the joy of working together on this multi-year, collaborative endeavor and writing this book. To us, what started as a tentative, joint academic research project turned into a valuable friendship, which serves to illustrate one of our key observations: An effective professional relationship is built on complementary skills, mutual trust and appreciation, and a strong personal bond between the individuals involved.
October 2014
Avinash Malshe – Minneapolis, MN, USA
Wim Biemans – Bedum, The Netherlands