Ending the War between Sales and Marketing

By Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham and Suji Krishnaswamy

Introduction
Marketing and Sales are normally at cross purposes with marketing blaming Sales for poor execution of a good
plan and Sales believing that Marketing is not in touch with the customers and setting prices too high.
Marketing thinks sales concentrate on the short term and do not look at the larger picture. Each group
undervalues the others contribution.
Proper coordination between the two would shorten sales cycles, lower market entry costs and lower sales
costs. Product announcements come in without Sales being ready to capitalise on them.
A study was conducted across industries and the findings were:
o Marketing function takes different forms at different product life-cycle stages, which affects
relationships between Sales and Marketing.
o The strains between Marketing and Sales are largely economic or cultural.
o Working relationship between Marketing and Sales can be assessed.
o The relationship can be made more productive.
Different Roles for Marketing
Most small businesses do not have a separate marketing person and ideas normally come from the sales team
or the advertising agency. As companies grow, they add a marketing person (or persons) to take the load off
sales people. They start work with research, consumer behaviour and work with outside agencies to work on
advertising and sales promotion. They develop material to help the sales force attract customers and close
sales. Marketing is seen as a support function for Sales with the relationship being usually positive.
As companies turn larger and more successful, marketing expands its wings on to segmentation, targeting and
positioning. It also starts competing with Sales for funding. Sales function remains the same while a new
marketing mission is developed. Disagreements now start with each side taking on jobs which they feel that
other side is not doing properly.
In the next step Marketing interacts with other departments and now wants the whole organisation to be
marketing led. Their competencies and understanding are now questioned especially by Sales. The
relationship now shifts from supportive to leading.
Why Cant They Just Get Along?
The two sources of friction between Marketing and Sales are:
o Economic
Marketing spends on three Ps pricing, promotion and product. Salespeople favour lower
prices while Marketing wants pricing to reflect the brand positioning. While Marketing sets
the price, the salespeople have the final say on transactional pricing .
Promotion costs are a major source of friction with salespeople wanting cuts in spends on
advertising and diversion of funds to the size and quality of sales force.
In product design, marketing looks at broad appeal while salespeople want the products to
be shaped on individual customer needs.
CEOs prefer spending more on Sales since they see it as a more tangible asset which gives
them better results in the short term. It is also easier to work out Sales contribution to the
bottom line.
o Cultural
Both attract different personality types. Marketing people are highly analytical, data oriented
and project focussed. They are ruthless in their evaluation of results. Salespeople on the
other hand are relationship oriented and choosy as to which product features to promote
and which to kill. They are always on the move and are used to rejection. It is therefore
obviously an area of conflict.
Salespeople concentrate on low margin products to satisfy sales quotas while Marketing wants them to sell
more profitable items. Sales looks at people while Marketing looks at programmes.
Four Types of Relationships
o Undefined where Marketing and Sales grow independently and are pre-occupied with their own
tasks. Meetings are held for conflict resolution rather than proactive cooperation.
o Defined where the two groups set up processes and rules to prevent disputes. Each side knows its
own boundaries. There is a sense of cooperation and the groups work together on large events such
as customer conferences and trade shows.
o Aligned where the boundaries exist but remain flexible. The sense of cooperation is even higher with
each appreciating the others role and supporting it.
o Integrated with blurred boundaries. The groups go in for joint planning and training .Marketing
focuses on strategic forward thinking types of tasks. There is a high degree of involvement of
Marketing in major accounts and there is an atmosphere of rise and fall together.
Moving Up
UNDEFINED DEFINED ALIGNED
Do not make any
changes if.
The company is small.

The company has good
informal relationships.

Marketing is still a sales
support function.
The companys products and
services are fairly cut and
dried.
Traditional marketing and
sales roles work in this
market.
There is no clear and
compelling reason to change.
The company lacks a
culture of shared
responsibility.
Sales and Marketing
report separately.
The sales cycle is fairly
short.
Tighten the
relationship
between Sales and
Marketing if.
Conflicts are evident
between the two
functions.
There is duplication of
effort between the
functions, or tasks are
falling through the
cracks.
The functions compete
for resources or
funding.




Even with careful definition of
roles, there is duplication of
efforts between the
functions.
The market is commoditised
and makes a traditional sales
force costly.
Products are developed,
prototyped, or extensively
customised during the sales
process.
Product life cycles are
shortening and technology
turnover is accelerating.



A common process or
business funnel can be
created for managing
and measuring
revenue generating
activities.








Moving from Undefined to Defined
o Create clear rules of engagement, including handoff points for important tasks like follow-up on
sales leads.
Moving from Defined to Aligned
o Encourage disciplined communication through regular meetings to look at problem and
opportunity areas. Develop systematic processes and guidelines to improve involvement of one
with the other in important areas.
o Create joint assignments through job rotation and involvement in top accounts and conferences.
o Appoint a liaison from Marketing to work with the sales force. Understand that the liaison does
not develop products but explains to the Marketing team as to what the customer wants from
the sales persons eyes.
o Colocate sales and marketing people.
o Improve sales force feedback through development of proper information forms.
Moving from Aligned to Integrated
o Appoint a Chief Revenue or Customer Officers.


Sales and Marketing Checklist


Define the Steps in the Marketing and Sales Funnels


Marketing should take
responsibility for the first four
steps of awareness, consideration
and preference through personal
and impersonal communication.


Sales looks deeper in moving the
customer from preference to
advocacy through the sales team.


The involvement in each others area through clearly laid down guidelines improves results
Split Marketing into Two Groups Upstream and Downstream
o The upstream team concentrates on customer sensing through market research and develop the
long term view of the companys business opportunities and product development.
o The downstream team develops advertising and promotion campaigns, collateral material, case
histories and sales tools.
Set Shared Revenue Targets and Reward Systems
o The targets are simple but the compensation causes problems since Sales people are used to
commissions as a part of the package.
Integrate Sales and Marketing Metrics
o These could be in terms of sales quota, number of new customers, gross average profit for each
customer and sales expense to sales ratios. Downstream marketing people can also be evaluated
on these metrics.
o The metrics for upstream could be in the areas of accuracy of forecasts, discovery of new
segments. Different measures would have to be developed for Brand Managers, Market
Research, Advertising and Sales Promotion, Product Managers
Conclusion
It is common knowledge that Marketing and Sales under-communicate, underperform and over-complain.
It is, however not necessary that all companies should evolve from undefined to integrated roles. Carefully
planned enhancements will bring the salespersons intimate knowledge of the customers to the
companys core. This will also help in product development and marriage of softer relationship skills with
harder analytical skills. The evaluation and compensation schemes are also improved.best of all these
steps will improve both your top and bottom lines.