Helping Sales Sell

Too often the bond between Sales and Marketing is rife with bickering and finger-pointing. I’ve heard Marketing people say they can’t be blamed for Sales’ failure to sell. It’s more accurate to say that no one should be blamed. However, Marketing always has the opportunity to take responsibility for their organization’s ability to sell and in many great organizations this is exactly what happens.

There’s another bottleneck, however, in addition to historical enmity between the two departments, and this bottleneck is entirely due to technology or the lack of it. Too often some crucial percentage of Marketing’s good work does not make it to the Sales side of the organization in time or at the right time for Sales to use it.

Marketing is creating valuable information, based in market research and expertise, that can help move prospects along the pipeline. But in some organizations this information is only used to attract a prospect at the start of the relationship at which point that prospect is tossed over the wall to Sales.

This only works for the very best sales people who have capacity to take a prospect from introduction to close on their own. There are many more mid-level sales people in every organization who need and want help, but may not know it’s available. Similarly, there are plenty of marketing people who would like to see their messages used more often (what marketing person doesn’t want to see their messages used!) but don’t have a good way to send them to Sales.

A CRM for Marketing system handles that internal divide by creating a pool of marketing messages and value propositions. Allowing Sales easy access to them, along with a lead’s activity profile and other information can make the difference in creating valuable, meaningful conversations.

For mid-level sales people, useful and timely marketing messages can make the difference in upping their performance. That will go directly to the bottom line!