The meeting happened years ago, in one of those fabulous Silicon Valley office parks around Cupertino. We were going through an exercise with the executives of our client, peppering them with questions, digging into dark corners, and uncovering things they didn't want us to find. Just a basic game of getting to know you, agency-style. However, as the morning progressed, we started to have an uncomfortable feeling. During the first break we compared notes to find out what was unsettling us. We finally figured it out.
Sales and Marketing were not on the same page.
No, actually this is an understatement. Sales and Marketing weren't even working for the same company. Listening to the sales and marketing teams talk, we realized that they had a completely different view of the features, advantages and messaging of their product. Houston, we have a very big problem.
It's funny to look back and realize how we got here. Once upon a time, there used to be an executive called the Vice President of Sales and Marketing. That’s right kids, it used to be one department. Then somewhere along the line they became different groups. Then they became almost opposing camps. At the end of every quarter the sales team would glare at marketing and announce they couldn’t deliver qualified leads. Marketing would then glare right back and point out that sales has no idea how to close.
Not to repeat a previous blog, but the customer is a baton that should be handed off between marketing and sales. Instead most companies look at the customer, sales, and marketing as a big game of hot potato. Here, you take care of it! The truth is, for most companies, the baton gets dropped between marketing and sales.
So how do you pick it back up?
For an agency, sales has to be on the front burner from day one. And by this, we don’t mean the usual "we are all about results" blather you hear from every agency on the street. Ask yourself the following question: of all the meetings you have had with all the clients your agency has represented, how many times have you had a salesman in the room (and the VP of Sales doesn't count). How many times have you picked the brain of someone in the trenches talking to customers every day and trying to get them to sign on the dotted line?
Salespeople don’t care about messaging trees or brand hierarchies. One of the reasons is, generally speaking, salespeople are much better listeners than marketing people...sorry, it's true. One of the best salesmen I ever met said the secret to sales was not figuring out what you were selling; it was figuring out what they were buying. This means that the best practitioners of the art of Fluid Brands are actually salespeople.
How to turn this into action? First, sometimes you need to go backwards in order to go forward. Starting with the salespeople in the trenches means you learn what the endgame looks like. And from there you can then work your way back to marketing. After all, it's a lot easier to build a road if you know where you are going. Suddenly you start to understand the importance of sequence, of making sure that messages are delivered in the correct order to lead directly to the sales pitch. The last message from marketing and the first pitch from sales should feel seamless to your audience.
Second, realize that the road is going to change on you. This is the essence of our concept of Fluid Brands, that your product does not live in a vacuum. Every ad from a competitor, every review in a magazine, every posting on a blog, changes your brand. The steps in the road will change, and the challenges will alter form. Part of the connection between marketing and sales is for the field to let marketing there is a new wall that has appeared in the road. Marketing can then direct assets to eliminate it, and then the customer is back on their merry way to a sale.
Last, realize that this connection informs not just product marketing, but product development. As an example, we go back to the client mentioned in the beginning of this post. Their product was lacking a new piece of technology, functionality that their competitors had in their product. Their salespeople were using this as a close in their meetings, asking IT people if they really wanted this new, untested technology residing on their corporate networks. This was post Internet Bubble, so you can imagine what the answer was, and sales was closing deals as a result. However, marketing had noticed that they were “missing” something that their competitors had, so they were dutifully adding it into the next version of the product. And in doing so, taking away one of the biggest weapons for their salespeople. They discovered this in their meeting with us. So ask yourself this next time before you have your next client meeting: will my client drop the baton or not.
Sales and Marketing were not on the same page.
No, actually this is an understatement. Sales and Marketing weren't even working for the same company. Listening to the sales and marketing teams talk, we realized that they had a completely different view of the features, advantages and messaging of their product. Houston, we have a very big problem.
It's funny to look back and realize how we got here. Once upon a time, there used to be an executive called the Vice President of Sales and Marketing. That’s right kids, it used to be one department. Then somewhere along the line they became different groups. Then they became almost opposing camps. At the end of every quarter the sales team would glare at marketing and announce they couldn’t deliver qualified leads. Marketing would then glare right back and point out that sales has no idea how to close.
Not to repeat a previous blog, but the customer is a baton that should be handed off between marketing and sales. Instead most companies look at the customer, sales, and marketing as a big game of hot potato. Here, you take care of it! The truth is, for most companies, the baton gets dropped between marketing and sales.
So how do you pick it back up?
For an agency, sales has to be on the front burner from day one. And by this, we don’t mean the usual "we are all about results" blather you hear from every agency on the street. Ask yourself the following question: of all the meetings you have had with all the clients your agency has represented, how many times have you had a salesman in the room (and the VP of Sales doesn't count). How many times have you picked the brain of someone in the trenches talking to customers every day and trying to get them to sign on the dotted line?
Salespeople don’t care about messaging trees or brand hierarchies. One of the reasons is, generally speaking, salespeople are much better listeners than marketing people...sorry, it's true. One of the best salesmen I ever met said the secret to sales was not figuring out what you were selling; it was figuring out what they were buying. This means that the best practitioners of the art of Fluid Brands are actually salespeople.
How to turn this into action? First, sometimes you need to go backwards in order to go forward. Starting with the salespeople in the trenches means you learn what the endgame looks like. And from there you can then work your way back to marketing. After all, it's a lot easier to build a road if you know where you are going. Suddenly you start to understand the importance of sequence, of making sure that messages are delivered in the correct order to lead directly to the sales pitch. The last message from marketing and the first pitch from sales should feel seamless to your audience.
Second, realize that the road is going to change on you. This is the essence of our concept of Fluid Brands, that your product does not live in a vacuum. Every ad from a competitor, every review in a magazine, every posting on a blog, changes your brand. The steps in the road will change, and the challenges will alter form. Part of the connection between marketing and sales is for the field to let marketing there is a new wall that has appeared in the road. Marketing can then direct assets to eliminate it, and then the customer is back on their merry way to a sale.
Last, realize that this connection informs not just product marketing, but product development. As an example, we go back to the client mentioned in the beginning of this post. Their product was lacking a new piece of technology, functionality that their competitors had in their product. Their salespeople were using this as a close in their meetings, asking IT people if they really wanted this new, untested technology residing on their corporate networks. This was post Internet Bubble, so you can imagine what the answer was, and sales was closing deals as a result. However, marketing had noticed that they were “missing” something that their competitors had, so they were dutifully adding it into the next version of the product. And in doing so, taking away one of the biggest weapons for their salespeople. They discovered this in their meeting with us. So ask yourself this next time before you have your next client meeting: will my client drop the baton or not.
