We all know that there is a problem between sales and marketing. Some organizations have less problems than others but in general there is a problem. Today I thought we could talk about what caused these problems. Everyone always talks about what marketing should do and what sales should do to fix things in between these two departments but all the fixes are really just band aids. This is because no one ever looks at the underlying problems.

Unless you know what caused an issue you can’t really fix it. So lets examine. What is causing these problems? If you think back just a decade ago and describe what sales’ role was and what they did, you would have said that they were on the phone talking to people, they gave information to prospects who were looking for educational materials or educating themselves through talking to sales regarding products, the organization, and industry related materials. They were always the ones who new the prospect’s wife name, remembered the birthdays, sent gifts, invitations to events and so on. Is it this way today? Could they even do that if they were still doing it?

The answer is no. Sales has changed and so is the role of the sales person. Why? Because the world had changed as well. It is no longer enough to call the leads, no longer do they call the sales people to gather info, no longer are sales the lifeline of information to prospects, no longer are they the only or couple of choice the prospects have, prospects no longer willing to spend their time on face to face meetings, the prospects within the organizations are no longer deciding regarding any purchases alone, etc.

Organizations, most of the times unknowingly, recognized these changes and started to change their tactics as well. Websites, hypersites, newsletters, webinars, emails, marketing automation, lead nurturing, and scoring started to occupy “prospecting”. If you think about it, what today we call nurturing “building relationship with a prospects” was sales’ role but today it has become marketing’s role. The marketing automation system is really sales automation system if we would name it after “past” activities.

Today all of these activities are done by marketing. Sales is no longer the nurturer, the information that is given to prospects and customers are not decided by sales and most of the times they do not have even access to all the information of a prospect’s or customer’s records. Is it a wonder that they are so frustrated, upset, or resentful?

And how about marketing? Think back, what was the role of marketing a decade ago? Marketing used to advertise, do public relations, they were striving on impressions and creative work. They are creative people who never dealt with systems, quotas or had to analyze vast amount of information, test, and measure results. Today most marketers have to deal with highly complicated technologies, need to know a large amount of very rapidly changing concepts and information in order to keep up with today’s new marketing, they are held accountable, and many have quotas. Is it a wonder that they are so frustrated, upset, or resentful?

The shift of the “nurturer” caused many issues between sales and marketing. In this blog we set to identify the problem so I will not offer a solution. Check back shortly for another blog entry that will be specifically about ideas that can help you fix this shift. If you wish to learn more about sales and marketing untification then please visit us at www.generationOmarketing.com