The Rise of Marketing

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It.

For those of us that have worked in Marketing for some time, you know how the story goes. Leadership hands down initiatives and sales goals each quarter or year. The VP of Sales and Marketing (although let’s be honest…it’s almost always really a “Sales” position) asks you to build a go-to-market plan and budget proposal to create leads for the Sales Team. There may be some suggestions about a trade show in Las Vegas that he/she recommends, or maybe a new online media site that one of the top Sales Reps reads…which means that it must be a good vehicle for leads. Typically, however, there is a very limited amount of input that Sales provides as to what really works for pipeline growth.

I think it’s fair to note here, that you may be picking up on a little bit of animosity here toward a Sales-first focused team…which is probably fair. But I assure you that I mean no disrespect to anyone, especially to some of the wonderful Sales team and leadership members I have worked with over my career. But let’s be honest, this is a common relationship that does exist in many organizations.

Anyway, back to the story. With limited data, you try your best to use whatever secondary research, media kits, or competitor vehicles you can find to build a plan that you believe (and hope) will help deliver results. You have access to the CRM, but even the CRM only has skeleton information. However, you persevere and build a well-rounded marketing plan, you prep for the formal presentations and with a few t

With a few review committee tweaks, your plan is approved. You execute the plan flawlessly. You hoist up the brand. You execute the shows without fail. You organize the media interviews and prep your team to look great on camera. You collect the leads and import them into CRM. Success. [Cue the ticker tape falling with the inspirational sound of Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best” soundtrack from the Karate Kid movies playing in the background.]

Yet, instead of recognition and accolades, you receive a resounding “eh” from the Sales team. I mean they love the PowerPoint that you dressed up for them for a presentation…but the leads that you put into CRM were (in their opinion) “okay.” They just really wish that you could do a better job finding and qualifying better leads. [Now instead, cue the sound of Saturday Night Live’s frumpy “Debbie Downer” theme music.]

If any of this sounds familiar to you…you are not alone. In fact, this is pretty typical at a lot of organizations. It’s not uncommon. In fact, I have literally worked at an organization where the owner of the company thought the single, greatest function of Marketing was to make specification sheets for product launches. Seriously.

What follows next may upset some of my Sales colleagues…so please feel free to abandon ship now, so that I do not offend. For Marketing folks…read on. This is where it gets good.

Question Everything

One afternoon while reviewing the data on a recent marketing campaign, I became frustrated by a number of leads that had been generated that were still waiting for follow-up activities from the Sales team. To make this situation worse, I was being expected to deliver a presentation on the ROI for campaign. Specifically, my management team wanted to learn how many deals were created from the marketing budget spent.

There I was with an Excel spreadsheet full of leads and not one dollar of pipeline created from them. The success or failure of my plans and the campaign was going to be evaluated upon the execution of Sales team actions that I had no oversight of. There was a lack of mutual accountability for this deliverable.

I know…I know. I am only telling one side of the story. I am sure that my Sales counterparts had good reasons or other priorities that I may not have known about. Regardless…out of the frustration of this incident, I began to question everything about the functional relationship between Marketing and Sales. At each and every organization that I have worked at, Marketing directly supported the Sales organization. Why? Hear me out.

While every organization operates a little differently, in most organizations that I have been a part of (except for maybe the specification sheet-focused group):

• Marketing is integral to developing the go-to-market (GTM) strategy and execution plans
• Marketing crafts how the organization “talks” about the products and services by creating the value propositions, market positioning, and messaging
• Marketing creates the battlecards, presentations, and other tools that Sales uses to sell
• Marketing designs the promotions, advertising, and sales specials to generate interest
• Marketing build and executes (most) of the lead generation activities
• Marketing even qualifies and nurtures “warm or hot” lead hand-offs to the Sales team to help them prioritize focus on most opportunistic leads.

When you look at the list of actions owned by Marketing, it is hard not to question why it is that Sales always seems to take the “leader” role in the Sales and Marketing relationship. With all due respect to my Sales colleagues, it seems that evolution of digital marketing technologies has created less reliance on Sales to be a hunter and killer. They are no longer a T-Rex hunting for prey. They are getting their prey served to them, chained to a post like that helpless goat in Jurassic Park.

So…why is the balance of Sales and Marketing still so tilted towards Sales? What has changed? Why doesn’t Sales and Marketing have a much more symbiotic relationship?

Don’t Touch That Mouse

Read more in the next installment of the Marketing Mindscape series, “The Lion Market-ing,” that will review how the law of the jungle (i.e. Sales and Marketing landscape) has been transformed by digital technologies and why that should not be ignored.