During the ‘70s and ‘80s, Hershey ran a series of commercials for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with the tagline “Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together.” As part of the campaign, serendipitous accidents mixed peanut butter and chocolate. The accidents were silly, but the premise was simple – the combination was better than the parts.
Sales and marketing are similar. They often operate in different worlds, but in the end, they both have the same mandate: growing top-line revenue. In fact, sales and marketing are the only corporate functions with the specific objective of growing top-line revenue.
In last month’s blog, I called for B2B sales and marketing alignment as a competitive necessity. I noted that the two departments operate in “separate universes” with different goals, compensation metrics, and platforms. At the operational level, they don’t even manage to the same core datum. While marketing focuses on leads (people), sales focus on accounts (companies).
And sales reps will struggle to make quota.
And revenue will be flat.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are a set of process ideas around aligning the two departments and growing the top line. For ideas around cultural alignment, I would refer you to a March Forbes article titled “The Balancing Act: Should Marketing And Sales Teams Coexist?”
