Over the years I’ve seen and heard a lot of commentary about the roles of marketing and sales within organizations. Geoffrey James, a popular sales writer, feels that marketing should be subordinate to sales instead of a separate function. Obviously, the marketing folks disagree. War is expensive. Let’s see if we can put an end to this one.

Marketing’s role

In many companies, marketing’s role is to:

• Get the word out.
• Create a buzz for your offerings.
• Create front of mind awareness.
• Attract new customers.

Yet a simple review of profitability by customer shows great disparities. The same is true for the various products/services the company offers. Indeed, the greatest investment in marketing dollars and production capacity are often in the least profitable lines the company has. These realities beg the following questions:

• Are our marketing messages targeting the right customers?
• Are we touting the right offerings?
• If so, how is it that we end up with so many low-margin customers and offerings?

Market research is another of marketing’s roles. Product innovations and improvements are often supported by, if not initiated through, research done by the marketing group. Should this be, as one sales director said, marketing’s province exclusively? We’ll take up that question a little later. For now, let’s look at the sales role.

Sales' role

Simplistically, it is to generate sales. Unfortunately, too many companies operate from this very view. When asked, the sales force can rarely tell you:

• Who their ideal customer is.
• What it is that those customers value.
• What that value is in dollars and cents.

To make matters worse, sales force compensation and quotas encourage salespeople to pursue anyone who’ll listen and do anything that they need to do to make the sale. This is true whether marketing is targeting the right markets or not, whether it’s touting the most profitable products or not.

How do we stop this madness? Here are some thoughts.

Cross pollination

At least quarterly, marketing and sales should meet to discuss the profitability by customer and product line/service category. A caveat here - often the finance group calculates profits in ways that make it easy for them to report financial results under external reporting requirements. Make sure that you, as marketing and sales people, are comfortable that the profit numbers reflect the economics of the various markets you serve.

In this meeting you should be discussing:

• Why are some customers paying more than others for your offerings?
• What is it that they see that other customers don’t?
• Are our marketing messages designed to attract more of these customers?
• How can this information help our salespeople focus their efforts toward this market?
• How can we make our marketing messages and sales scripts more congruent to increase the likelihood of sales in this market?
• What opportunities are we seeing in the market for innovation or product improvement?
• Are these opportunities something that buyers are willing to pay extra to get or are they simply nice to have?
• Which of our offerings are languishing?
• Should we invigorate them or abandon them?

Unfortunately in many companies, the marketing folks aren’t privy to profitability information. They are simply tasked with getting the message out. The market research they do, if any, is often based on their and leadership’s perceptions of what the customer values. If you doubt that this really goes on in corporate America, allow me to share this quick example with you.

I was presenting to a group of CEOs with companies ranging from $80 million to $100 million in revenues. I had just made the statement that many companies don’t really know what their customers value when one of the CEOs said, “Our customers say that they love what we do. I say ‘Thank you.’ What you’re telling me is that I should be asking why.” Yes, that’s what I was telling him.

If the CEOs aren’t asking the question, what’s the likelihood that the marketing folks have the information they need to launch an effective marketing campaign.

Besides, why should market research be the exclusive domain of marketing as the sales director I mentioned earlier suggested?

Salespeople should have a stronger rapport with the customer than the marketing folks. They also have access to the shop floor to see firsthand how the products are being used and what modifications might have been made to accommodate that customer’s production process.

These observations can be extremely valuable in finding new uses and new markets for your offerings as well as ideas for improving your offerings in ways the customer values.

The rapport that salespeople develop with their customers allows for more candid exchanges than might be had with the less-familiar marketing person. Don’t trust me on this, ask yourself the following questions:

• Aren’t you more likely to tell a salesperson you like what his/her company needs to do to be successful?
• Aren’t you more likely to share trends you see in your customers’ preferences?
• Aren’t you more likely to let them know when one of his/her competitor’s is about to come out with something value?

Of course, you are; you value the relationship as much as they do.

In this meeting salespeople can relate:

• Language that opens doors for them.
• Language they’re using that helps close the sale.
• The complaints they get.
• The kudos they receive.

All of these can help shape the messages your marketing folks create, messages that you know will resonate with your most profitable markets. With marketing and sales both targeting the same, highly-profitable markets, you’ll generate higher revenues, more quickly and at premium prices. How’s that for a peace treaty?

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