Why Can’t We Get Along?

Bridging the Sales-Marketing Divide, Part 1

At every company, be it large or small, well-established or recently founded, there is an inevitable tension between the Sales and Marketing teams. So unavoidable, in fact, that I always ask about it when interviewing.

“How do you handle the tension between Sales and Marketing?” I ask. 

In evaluating a company as a potential employer, I am looking for two things in response: (1) an acknowledgement that yes, there is a natural, preferably productive, push and pull between Sales and Marketing teams, and (2) a considered approach to addressing this friction. If the answer I get to my question fails to meet one or both of these criteria, I consider that a large, crimson flag that is as hard to ignore as, well, the tension between Sales and Marketing.

This potential breakdown between two complementary functions, which I will call the Great Sales-Marketing Divide, often surfaces as complaints or even finger-pointing when the company misses quarterly or annual targets. You may have heard some of them.

“We don’t know what campaigns Marketing is running.” 

“Sales doesn’t follow up on any of the leads from our campaigns.”

“Marketing won’t give us the collateral we need.”

“Sales doesn’t use the collateral we make.”

“The messaging Marketing gives us doesn’t land meetings with target buyers.”

“We asked Sales for feedback on the new messaging and they haven’t responded.”

“We need Marketing to give us more customer testimonials and case studies.”

“We need Sales to identify customers for testimonials and case studies.”

“Marketing sends too many emails.”

“Sales won’t advise us on campaign lists.”

And so on.

While each of these complaints may see like a discrete issue, they are all too often symptoms of the two major causes of the Great Sales-Marketing Divide. Ignore these underlying causes at your peril, lest the Divide widen.

Unclear company strategy or goals

The biggest, and most common cause of strife between Sales and Marketing–and indeed between and among many functions within a business–may be laid at the feet of the leadership team. Unclear company strategy or goals creates conflict where there should be collaboration, as each team struggles to achieve what they consider success, often at the expense of the big-picture outcome.

The company, especially if in early stages of growth, may have an “all money is green” approach, where revenue is the ultimate goal. But while revenue is necessary to keep the business operating, it isn’t a strategy. Revenue is the outcome that should result from achieving the company’s strategic goals. 

Fixating on revenue can make it difficult for companies to grow or scale because it doesn’t provide an area of operational focus. Without a strategy for achieving a particular revenue target, people in Product, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success organizations fall back on a “more of the same” approach. What did we do last year to hit X revenue, and how can we do more of it to achieve 1.5X revenue this year?  

What leadership should do instead is consider which market segments to pursue, which buyers have the greatest need and ability to purchase, what mix of products to offer, how to package and price those products, how to position the offering in the market, and how to execute the sales process. These are the key elements of a go-to-market strategy.

Once leadership has defined the strategy, they can then set targets for average deal size, total opportunity pipeline needed, ideal customer profile, total number of customers, customer retention rate, and so forth. Clear strategy and goals are essential to the efficacy of Sales and Marketing teams because they define a plan the two teams work together to execute–and the activities that make up the plan will vary depending on the strategy and goals. 

Let’s consider some examples. If, for instance, the company strategy involves attracting new business, Marketing might host an industry summit while Sales works on prospecting. However, if the strategy is more focused on renewing and expanding existing accounts, Marketing might organize user or community groups while Sales engages and upsells current customers. What if the company plans to launch a new product or enter a new market segment? Marketing will need to dedicate significant time and effort to creating new assets and generating awareness, and may deprioritize campaigns for existing products or segments. Sales may in turn need to devote more attention to new buyers or new accounts, and hand off some account management activities to another team. 

Different roles and incentives

Assuming that company leadership has established a clear strategy, set goals, and communicated them, there will still be some friction between the Sales and Marketing teams. This is simply because the teams have different roles and performance incentives. Each role is important, and when understood and addressed, the natural tension between Sales and Marketing becomes a productive feedback loop in which the two teams learn from each other and test ideas in an ever-evolving market.

Below are the major differences between the roles of Marketing and Sales, as well as some of potential business challenges arising from those differences.

Additional difficulties may result from operational issues, such as compensation plans that don’t align to business goals, or lack of ownership for the CRM that drives sales and marketing activity. And if leadership believes that the primary role of Marketing is sales support (reactive) rather than driving brand awareness and demand generation (proactive), that also spells trouble for the Sales-Marketing relationship.

So how do we get along?

The history of conflict between Sales and Marketing teams has led to a number of business innovations–from the addition of BDR/SDR teams that report into Marketing, to the advent of product marketing and sales enablement functions, to the creation of the CRO role to oversee both Sales and Marketing in a combined organizational structure. 

The most commonly used procedural method to improve collaboration between Sales and Marketing teams is to create a Service Level Agreement (SLA). I will discuss the advantages and potential shortcomings of this approach in Part 2 of “Bridging the Sales-Marketing Divide.”