“You have to tell a story before you can sell a story.” It could be an inspirational message from a meme or Instagram post.
In fact, it’s a quote from marketing guru, Beth Comstock – and it gets to the heart of the traditionally accepted timeline between marketing and sales.
This says the aim of marketing is to know your customer and explain to them what you have to offer by creating an engaging and attractive narrative.
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Sales techniques, meanwhile, are triggered afterwards in order to seal the deal.
In other words, without one world, the other would find it hard to exist.
But not all marketing and sales teams are so keen to work together in this way.
So how does a marketing pro prevent healthy rivalry becoming a permanent block to success?
Well for everyone to be a winner, it’s by working towards an integrated approach.
Let’s Get Together
Your marketing team may be amazing team players, but reaching out to their sales counterparts, to create a larger squad can only bring variety to enhance the game plan and increase everyone’s chances.
So, as well as your weekly marketing meetings, organise a regular joint meeting with the sales pros.
You might start off by discussing ideal customer profiles or focusing on areas where neither team seems to be getting any traction.
Whatever you talk about, the most important thing is to start the conversation.
Learn To Listen
It might seem like an excuse – “a big boy done it and ran away!” – but when your sales colleagues tell you they’re seeing a campaign failing as it isn’t stirring the imagination or generating strong leads, it’s worth listening.
Openly sharing what’s working, what’s not and agreeing which new ideas might work better will benefit everyone and could lead to quicker, stronger growth.
Learn From Each Other
There’s actually a lot of crossover in the realms of marketing and sales.
Creativity, imagination, trend analysis and forward thinking all allow marketing pros to produce cool content and create captivating campaigns.
Similarly, thinking outside the box, with amazing communication skills and sheer determination allow sales people to finalise deals.
But there’s nothing to stop these talents and skill sets overlapping and being used in tandem.
Motivate One Another
By sharing strategy ideas and suggesting a different or joint approaches, both teams can become more excited about what’s going on.
Of course, this means defining how you should be helping one another.
Everyone who loves working in a creative workplace will soon pick up on the positivity of being part of this mutually inspirational joint task force.
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