Integrating sales and marketing, the issues and how to do it well, tend to loom large in the B2B arena. Traditionally B2C companies have strong brands which often sell the product on their own think Amazon, Apple, Virgin, etc. Founders of B2B companies have tended to be technical people who have developed a good idea and then hired sales people to sell it, or sales people who have seen an opening in the market and have set up a business to exploit it. As Peter Young, commercial director at Mirror Image, says, Sales successes are always measurable so companies are often more inclined to give the leading role (and a seat on the board) to a senior sales person. B2B companies have therefore tended to view the marketing function as merely sales support.
Some organisations appoint business development directors to review and analyse business requirements; their broader business understanding acts as a catalyst for the closer integration of sales and marketing. If, however, the marketing function is central to the strategy of the business as it surely is then the traditional picture is the wrong way round.
Dr Judy Zolkiewski, senior lecturer in marketing at Manchester Business School (MBS), says, If the company is driven by the need to satisfy their customers, then sales will be integrated into an overall marketing vision. Any other structure reflects a company which does not have the customer at heart.
Getting sales staff to accept that point of view isn’t easy. Of course not sales staff understandably consider themselves as central to the business as they’re the ones most obviously creating revenue. To customers the sales rep often ‘is’ the company and its brand. A company’s image is damaged if a customer is shown two organisations one through the sales rep and a different one through marketing communications. Marketers must therefore take the lead in integration and get the co-operation of colleagues in sales.
Chris Wilson, director of Loewy B2B, wholehearedly agrees: You’re in marketing for goodness sake! You should be the best communicator in the company, so start communicating. All employees, not just those in sales, need to recognise that without their customers they do not have a job: they need to become part-time marketers. Zolkiewski of MBS, says, Other departments need to be shown how their job impacts on the customer, but sales and marketing need also to understand the impact of what they do on the rest of the company so that they don’t make promises to the customers which they can’t keep.
Integration is a multi-way process so marketers should expect to learn and adapt. Often sales people do not understand the principles of marketing and marketing people do not understand the problems of building client relationships. Tony Pearson, director of business development at the Institute of Sales & Marketing Management (ISMM), says Sales and marketing sometimes look for responses from each other, rather than working together to monitor their clients’ changing requirement and competitors’ activity. The way forward has to be a greater knowledge and understanding of each other’s roles, responsibilities and challenges.
Taking the lead in communication doesn’t mean that marketers have all the answers. As Wilson of Loewy B2B, says, It’s arrogant and dangerous for a marketing team to assume that they know best; the sales people have a lot of experience and knowledge from which marketing can learn. Pearson of the ISMM agrees, Organisations often spend large amounts of money ensuring that the professionalism of sales staff remains high. However, only a few recognise the importance of using that professionalism within the marketing planning process.
Sales staff know the individual customers and their interests personally and will also know a lot about the competition. Mark Mason, managing director at Mason Zimbler, says: We suggest that an organisation specifies in contracts that case studies must be provided, or even gives their customer a discount in exchange for a case study or willingness to speak at an event. Marketers who don’t act on the feedback from clients brought to them by sales staff miss real-time exposure to market trends, aspirations and changes.
Many companies organise themselves around products rather than markets, yet it is the customers which create profits. A detailed understanding of customers’ needs is becoming more and more important, especially in B2B markets where sales staff are increasingly called on to work with their customers to tailor new products and services. Christine Cryne, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), says: Selling is now less about providing information and more about obtaining it. Traditional marketing skills are therefore becoming essential for sales professionals.
To understand the customer point of view, marketers should occasionally accompany sales staff on a customer visit. Tact is necessary! Marketers should emphasise that they want to discover the difficulties experienced by the sales staff; it’s also possible that their presence may emphasise the rep’s authority.
Intelligent sales policy must begin with intelligent marketing policy. Only a tiny percentage of any given market, for example, risks buying a new product. Yet many marketers still launch a new product to the whole market. As Cryne of the CIM says, If this goes wrong it is a marketing failure and not a fault on the part of the sales team. Similarly not all a company’s products and markets will be equally profitable or unprofitable in the same way. It’s the marketing function’s job to analyse where the profit lies and to direct the sales force in the direction which makes best use of the company’s resources.
The best way to get co-operation from anyone is to help them do their job. When marketing staff organise an event, for example, they should do so with one eye on impressing the sales staff. If the event is popular, well attended, generates leads and has input from industry leaders, it not only generates interest among potential customers but also demonstrates clearly how marketing supports sales.
Marketing staff can also add value to sales by:
Identifying new opportunities; for example, using market trends.
Generating demand by targeting the right marketing messages at specific customer groups.
Raising company awareness so that target customers are comfortable dealing with the company.
Joint sales and marketing teams and meetings encourage debate and feedback. Sales staff are a mobile workforce so a company intranet is very useful, particularly if it has an active online forum. The physical location of both functions is also important; if they’re close together, co-operation is easier. As Young of Mirror Image says, The most effective planning is when the two disciplines work hand-in-hand at an early stage.
The right hand of marketing should know what the left hand of sales needs, no matter what the size of the organisation, emphasises Mason of Mason Zimbler. Together the sales and marketing functions should work out what the customers want, how they can provide it and how they can help each other. As Cryne of the CIM says: Fight the competition, not your colleagues!
Take the lead; integration won’t happen on its own.
Make yourself responsible for internal communications.
Do what it says on your job title! Market the marketers.
Understand that sales staff want to generate revenue; demonstrate how you can help.
Provide sales staff with leads; it’s a shortcut to improving the relationship.
Tell sales staff what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and how it’s helping.
Recognise that sales staff prefer personal contact and may not read emails, reports and brochures. Phone them, go and see them or organise a formal (and interesting) briefing.
Run regular internal training courses to educate sales staff in marketing skills.
Ask the sales staff’s opinion of future campaigns.
Once the relationship is working, make sure you keep it so.