teams. We've worked under CEOs who understand the value of alignment and build a culture that fosters communication and collaboration, and we've worked under CEOs who encourage hostility between the teams, thinking that more tension yields better performance. We've also each worked with good and bad counterparts, and have learned that alignment takes commitment and work from both teams, especially their leadership.
Tracy experienced blatant misalignment firsthand when, as a newly hired SVP of marketing, she was introduced to her executive sales counterparts and they wouldn't even shake her hand. Their behavior was rude, obviously, but after watching a revolving door of marketing leaders come and go, their reasoning was sound: “You won't be around long, so why bother getting to know you?”
Andrea, as VP of sales, reached her misalignment breaking point while working with a counterpart in marketing who agreed again and again to help her out, but eventually did only what he wanted to do. When she encouraged him to work together with her on messaging improvements, he said they were just going to have to agree to disagree. What? Does that seem like reasonable progress towards alignment? No. Instead, it created a situation where marketing could take the blame if his messaging didn't work, but where he could say, “I told you so” if it did work. Andrea went about her business and found ways to work around marketing instead of with marketing. This undoubtedly took a toll on the company's performance, including revenue.
We've also both been exposed to the temperamental sales VPs who throw marketing under the bus every chance they get, and who always demand their way because they control the revenue. Similarly, we've all seen a weak CMO who thinks that branding is the only thing that is important. Or is myopically focused on lead-generation volumes and ignores the quality, messaging, and win rates.
Through it all, we've come to the obvious conclusion that aligned sales and marketing teams are more powerful and more productive, and create a more valuable company. Alignment also creates a more enjoyable workplace, one where marketing is challenged to perform at its best, where sales become easier, and where the entire company is aligned around one thing: growth. But alignment is hard. It's easier to live with the status quo, in the short term at least. We argue that, as a leader, you can't wait any longer. Here's why.
B2B Sales Has Changed Dramatically
Sales is difficult. First, salespeople travel – a lot. Hotels are their weekday homes, the club level is their dining room, and flight attendants know them by name.
Second, they are constantly rejected. It's not uncommon for people to hang up the phone before salespeople can get through the first sentence; that is, if anyone takes the call at all. Sales reps know that people rarely respond to their voicemails and emails. They've learned not to take it personally.
Finally, the pressure on salespeople is enormous. They're one missed quota away from unemployment. They're also responsible when a deal is lost. But this also means they can never give up; they must draw on their reserves of tenacity and resilience to try again and again. That's what has always made a good salesperson.
Until very recently, there were also some perks. Being in sales meant access to expense accounts, steak dinners, and golf outings because wining and dining was the way to win deals. Relationships trumped almost everything else and relationship building was the key to winning business.
How deals are closed today, however, is much different. Sales reps are no longer trusted advisors who are there from the beginning of the purchasing process. Thanks to the amount of information available online, prospects have more control. They do their research and consider options before sales is ever directly involved. As a result, a salesperson's role is less about building relationships and more about providing information when asked, challenging a prospect's objections, and earning the right to become an advisor.
Technology has given customers the ability to know as much about our company, our offerings, and our competitors as we do. Products are more disposable. Services are more interchangeable. Customers no longer take our word for it, and everything we say in our pitch is verified or discounted within minutes.
On the inside, each sales rep is now responsible for many more deals. Everything they do is tracked by managers and rolled up into forecasts. Promotions and demotions, opportunities and targets, are all based on the data, the metrics a company uses to evaluate sales performance.
On the outside, competitors have an easier time looking more successful or bigger than they truly are. They can see where you've been, where you're heading, or who you're connected to. Launching a competing offering is as easy as creating a new webpage.
In other words, sales is hard and it's getting harder. Salespeople need help – and that can come from an alignment with marketing.
B2B Marketing Has Changed Dramatically
Marketers are responsible for providing customers with the answers to the questions: Why do anything at all? Why now? And why this company? Marketing has to create awareness campaigns and messages that are broadly appealing yet still differentiated, and they need every customer to feel unique and special.
Until very recently, marketing was a creative role driven by gut feelings. Marketers designed advertisements, wrote brochure copy, and decided if the company logo should be printed on pens or coffee mugs. They planned events at luxury locations with big budgets. And it was easy to pump unqualified leads into the funnel simply by running another campaign.
How marketing works today, however, is much different. Data trumps gut feelings. Marketers send tens of thousands of emails in an instant, knowing only a few dozen will be opened. Pumping more leads into the pipeline doesn't matter if the lead quality is poor. Securing solid leads requires an understanding of keywords, social media, and streaming mobile video platforms.
On the inside, marketers are driven by data. They look at conversion rates and web referrals and followers and shares. They scrutinize analytics, reports, dashboards, pie charts, and traffic estimates. When they have time, they worry about the new social media sites a company does not use and the blogs where it wasn't mentioned.
On the outside, marketers find it harder to compete. Their voice is lost in a sea of noise. Bigger budgets aren't the answer to besting competitors who go viral. Existing budgets are spread across more channels and more technology, and competitors are younger, faster, and know more about us than ever before.
What remains true is that marketing exists to make sales easier. Again, it's a question of alignment.
Your Customer Has More Power and Information than You
As mentioned before, customers have become increasingly powerful. Business-to-business (B2B) sales is now, as they say, a buyer's market. For example, consider when you purchased your last car. You probably built it online first, looked at customer reviews of the model and dealerships, read articles on quality and performance, and found the dealer's invoice price so you knew exactly how much to pay. And you did all that before you even left your house.
What we've come to expect in consumer shopping – nearly complete transparency – is what we're now expecting in business transactions as well. The entire Internet is at our disposal, making it easy to find company and product reviews, scrutiny from professional bloggers and analysts, recommendations from other customers, insights from news and social media, and more. A company website provides potential customers with only a sliver of the information they can find with their own research.
There is so much readily available content that, according to CEB, an executive advisory company, nearly 60 percent of the buying process is complete before a sales rep ever gets involved. What's more, as shown in Figure 1.2, up to a third of customers in certain types of purchases would prefer not to interact with a sales rep at all. Salespeople and marketers once relied
