Let’s Cross the Cultural Divide between Sales and Marketing

What do salespeople think of marketing?

What do salespeople think of marketing presentations?

What does marketing think of salespeople?

It is time for salespeople to change their perception of marketing, and vice versa. All salespeople should make an effort to understand marketing. “Marketing Matters” is a brilliantly crafted message by David Rudolph, regional sales manager at Eloqua. Watch this 2 ½ minute YouTube video.

To get a higher-level overview, here is a five-minute interview with the best-selling author of Spin Selling, Neil Rackham. Here, he shares his views on sales and marketing alignment:

Clicking on the thumbnail above will play the video.

Here is a refreshing, highly practical e-book (that requires about 15 minutes to read) created by Brian Carroll. The title of the e-book is Start with a Lead – Eight Critical Success Factors for Lead Generation. This e-book makes a solid case for sales and marketing alignment.

Finally, here is the business case of Ariba, a leading technology company. This slide presentation was created in 2007 by Christine Crandell. What’s impressive is that what Ariba achieved three years ago has yet to be matched by 85 percent of all companies in the United States.

In most companies, sales and marketing are operating in two separate silos. The same is true when it comes to sales and marketing conferences. There are dozens of marketing conferences that are never attended by sales executives, and there are a handful of sales leadership conferences that are never attended by marketing managers. That’s why we are organizing the FIRST conference in the United States where sales and marketing managers are invited to collaborate. CSOs will bring their CMOs. Sales VPs will bring their marketing VPs. Marketing managers will bring their sales managers. The goal: collaboration. The outcome: more customers. Interested? www.sales20conf.com/collaboration