Sales & Marketing: Why Can’t We Be Friends?

For years, there’s been a known rivalry brewing between Sales and Marketing teams…

One one side, Sales. Often viewed as the golden child that gets all the recognition and rewards.

On the other side, Marketing. Often viewed as a content production factory that doesn’t have a direct impact on revenue.

Salespeople, hear me out: Marketing is your friend (and has been all along).

Here’s why this rivalry exists:

Often the root problem between Sales and Marketing stems from the difference in how both teams are tracked and measured.

Sales is focused on revenue, while Marketing is measured off quantity, quality, and source of leads.

This creates tension because most deals will have multiple attribution points throughout the buyer journey. For example, a lead may have initially been sourced by Sales at a conference, but Marketing likely researched and selected that conference to ensure Sales could drive leads from it.

When it comes time for the deal to move to closed/won, Sales wants the credit and Marketing has to fight to attribute that revenue to their own efforts.

This creates a push/pull effect between both teams.

Here’s how we can fix it:

Sales and Marketing should be working towards the same core goal: revenue. We should celebrate the multiple touch points that are attributed to deals being won. And both teams should be recognized for these wins.

The sooner Sales and Marketing teams can work closer together, the better off companies will be in the long run.

More Marketing-influenced deals means more budget dollars for future campaigns.

More campaigns means more opportunities for Sales to win deals.

Sales and Marketing are both critical to the success of companies overall and healthy collaboration between both will only net returns in the long run.