Why is it so difficult?

I just came back from a business leadership event. The attendees were mostly sales executives. There was a session at that event around improving sales and marketing alignment. It was a panel discussion and the first question the moderator asked the panel was "Why is sales and marketing alignment so difficult/hard?".

The panel and the audience did not find it difficult to answer. The answers were all across the spectrum from lack of communication, behaviors, process to compensation modeling. What became difficult in the session was getting clear direction and understanding on what to do about it.

As a participant in the audience, I felt as though the panel really struggled with this topic. The attendees and panel never really got beyond the old "sales vs. marketing" dilemma. It did not help the cause when the moderator asked the question "What about that other (your sales or marketing) person frustrates you and why".

Near the end of the discussion, the panel was starting to put some meat on the bone with some content around aligning KPI, tighter accountability, and having a strong process. But these are solutions to symptoms of the problem and not to the overall problem at hand.

It would have been great if they would have talked about "one team, one goal". No longer should it be sales and marketing teams - but looked at as one revenue generation team. Frank, are you saying that there should no longer be "marketing"? Nope, that's not what I'm saying. There needs to be branding, advertising, public relations and the other very important parts of our marketing operations. That's not the part of marketing we are talking about. We are talking about the part that is responsible for demand generation - filling that pipeline.

Revenue generation is like a relay race. Every team member is accountable for their role in the process - from the first runner (generating responders/leads) to the last runner (the last few stages of your pipeline). The hand offs of the baton (lead or opportunity) need to be flawless. In the end, it's about winning the race and everyone has a vested interest in winning that race. If not, the whole team loses. And that's not difficult to understand.

For more information on sales and marketing alignment, please read the rest of this blog if you have not yet done so. Tons of tips and other great stuff are buried in that copy.

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