As originally posted on The Social CMO by Tim Rubin.  Today marketing is a blender! These are exciting times, because Social Media takes “Will it Blend?” to a whole new level with marketers. And for those of us who’ve been in the business for a while—it’s about time! For years, marketing people and PR folks wore separate hats—had different skill sets, different agendas—even though they share a common purpose. http://bit.ly/zVyoss

You see, if you only focus on one part of the equation, you get a fractured result; either sales says something like, “this is not qualified, the lead stinks, the lead is XXXX … “(you fill in the blank.)

OR

You get Marketing saying something like, “We provide leads but… they never get followed up, they die on the vine, the leads are XXX…” (you fill in the blank.)

The fact that people are jumping on marketing automation as the best thing for the business is only half true. Now take a breath! You see, sales force automation earlier in the 2000’s had much of the same buzz, and CRM before that. Only to find that money is spent, processes developed, and systems put in place did not do much to sustain productivity. And ultimately indecision, confidence, costs, and much, much more came into play on behavior and alignment between sales and marketing, and ultimately results declined and the tool became less useful.

The problem is that we have not focused on the reasons for failure. It is true that coordination can occur and marketing automation can complement your activities, but without clearly helping Marketing and Sales work as a unified force, we have only added window dressing to the issue at hand. It is easy for Marketing Automation companies to claim “closed loops” but really?

As fast as Marketing and the ways to market change, there will never be a fully closed loop! As soon as you close one you have another pop up, whether it is a channel, or partner, or new wizbang social media play. The Key, and where many fall down on these areas of focus, is that they still have not solved the Sales and Marketing alignment issue.

All tools at some level will help, but without addressing the core behaviorally alignment between sales and marketing, you can never please either side, and thus you create churn, gaps in campaigns and in-fighting. Therefore no real turn-key system will give balance, and ultimately momentum, to both Sales and Marketing pulling in the same direction.

Most companies are a little confused on the discrete roles between the sales, marketing and development functions and how, when aligned, they contribute to success.

I see this quite often in mid-sized, growth oriented companies. There isn’t an appropriate, or consistent, level of appreciation for the differences and how the Business Development role as critical to their success.

All too often, the lack of clear understanding of the role is a good indicator that the organization will have a difficult time realizing its potential, or achieve economic success. These companies will experience consistent mediocre performance and will not meet optimistic goals for profitability and growth. Most importantly, they typically don’t understand why they aren’t more successful.

Business Development implies an integrated go-to-market strategy that spans several years and relies upon a variety of internal capabilities or competencies and is directly dependent upon external relationships that help nurture current investments for future return. In this sense, Business Development is the quarterback that should be managing the overall playbook.

• Purpose of Marketing– create energy, build awareness, generate leads, define market wants & needs, scope product needs, position products & services, price, presentation, and promotional messaging geared to drive inquiries and awareness of your products.
• Purpose of Business Development — align, build, position, change, partner, create new opportunities or a new direction (often confused with marketing)
• Purpose of Sales — close deals
• Development – a sub section of marketing, listen and develop products, services and solutions that solve customer problems

One problem is that some companies don’t adequately charge “Sales” with 100% focus on closing deals. Instead, they load Sales up with business development and/or marketing responsibilities. Often the case in small or understaffed companies, they also rely so heavily on what sales “says the customer wants”. This can be a major failure point as being too close to the customer and with motives that drive closes, not product sales, can be emotionally influenced and not truly represent the needs, wishes, wants and desires of the market. “Been there done that” is tempting, especially in a sales-driven company. More on this in a later blog posts.

In some areas (particularly professional services), we further confuse the role by implying that “Sales” sounds too “commercial” so they instead they use terms like “Business Development” as a mask for sales. Again this only confuses the roles… Align, build, position and partner are the focus of Business Development, not closing business but greasing the wheel for future sales efforts. Sales is not the budget-driven catch-all for companies confused saying things like “marketing is an expense and sales as a revenue channel”… More on this in later blog posts so you keep coming back!

The Business Development role takes a more competent strategic thinker who is a successful sales professional and is a high-value function, but is generally a much longer-term payoff, i.e. “Development”. Their background should include experience in a variety of functional areas of the business, including sales and marketing. A good Business Development executive can develop opportunities that lead to sales, but also may have the experience and a skill set to make significant contributions to the operating margin of the business unit. They may lead the charge on corporate alliances, strategic partner relationships and the M&A pipeline.

No-call lists, email spam rules, and untargeted broad media all affect local marketers’ ability to reach audiences, which leads to an increased commitment to direct mail. Already the leading channel for most small businesses at nearly 29 percent of marketing dollars spent, savvy local marketers are tying campaigns to microsites to drive additional response.

read the whole article http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/27514.asp

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The balance is between Marketing and Sales. If an executive understands and respects the unique skill sets of each function, the probability of a successful team effort is greatly improved. However, if Corporate Leadership views marketing as a costly ‘back-office’ function, it devalues the role of marketing and often pits teams against each other. The same conflict occurs when a salesperson speaks badly about the competition: it reflects poorly on the basher, not the bashed. From a sales perspective, competitive bashing is an absolute no no. So why would you want to scapegoat a team within your own organization that requires collaboration, not conflict.

So often marketing can become the scapegoat for the sales team.

To the contrary, I believe they truly must be joined at the hip from the very beginning. Any time an imbalance occurs, you’re in for a rough road ahead. That goes for Sales and Marketing leaders.

Too often marketing is an afterthought conjured up to correct product development or sales strategies gone bad- all too often, without the benefit of research, competitive landscaping, positioning and other areas of expertise that rightfully belong to the marketing professional.