The great debate, should sales and marketing be one team

Welcome to the Diary of a Sales Expert Podcast.

My name's James White.

I'm on a mission to help business owners and sales professionals all over the world get incredible sales results.

So thanks for listening and let's get started.

Welcome back to the podcast.

So I need your help this week and I'm going to try and start a discussion this week around on my social media media.

So if you follow me on social media James white, sales or LinkedIn, I'm going to create a topic around this because it's a big debate and it's a debate that's been going on for quite some time around sales and marketing.

And the big debate is should they be in one team together?

So what I'm going to talk through today is a few points around sales and markets.

It's going to be quite a short podcast this one.

I'm going to talk around what this issues and you might be thinking why are you even discussing this, James?

And we'll talk about that in a moment.

But we're gonna, I'd love to get your views on this as well and, and feel they work together and what they do and what they don't do.

And I'll share a few thoughts on how I think it can, can operate.

But this is a debate we're going to kick off all around the issue of sales and marketing.

And the reason it's a debate is, is because it's one of the most commonly searched terms that you'll see is sales and marketing fighting between each other.

And there is seemly, especially as the bigger the company you go to.

And I work with some quite significant organizations.

If I think of the size of organizations that I work with, a number of them not so much at the smaller level or even at the smaller level there's a little bit of tension, but some of the bigger levels.

I know one client I work with, it's a sort of nearly, I don't know, half a, half a billion turnover.

Their sales and marketing team, I like that they are literally at loggerheads together.

You know, the, the, the, a lot of the people in that business don't think the marketing team does a very good job at all and they just don't go on and there's a challenge around it.

And I think it's a really interesting debate because ultimately both of them have got the same objective, which is to promote the company and to generate new business and to keep clients happy.

I guess the job are, the jobs are different but the question is should they be in one team so let's dig into this in a bit more detail, but I'd love your views on this and I really mean this.

What's your views on this?

What do you think?

Should sales and marketing be one team together?

Are they, are they the same in what they do, do that, or do they have different roles?

What's, what's your job view on this?

I'd love to know, but sort of what?

Firstly, why do they not always get on?

And the reason that sales and marketing don't seem to get on in many cases is I think, to do with expectation levels and also the way that the different roles operate.

So many cases I've seen in countless times sales teams moan and say marketing didn't generate any leads for us.

They're not creating materials that are valuable for our customers.

They don't do, they don't understand what it takes to do sales.

And I then have marketing teams where I've seen when marketing say the sales guys don't follow up enough, the sales guys expect leads to be completely, you know, ready to buy.

And, you know, that's not the case.

The sales guys, all they do is go out and entertain and do stuff all day while we've got to work hard.

So you get this little clash between the two and in realistic terms, it's, it shouldn't happen because in many cases, neither one can do without the other.

You know, I always say in businesses, sales teams are the spear of the arrow.

They're the strikers in the football team.

They, they are there to score the goals.

But like in a football team or like with an arrow, if you've got a spear but you haven't got the, the wood and the feathers that make the flight, you can't fire the arrow.

And sales is the same if you don't have marketing and the other departments, customer service and product development and, you know, HR or all these other departments, you can't do your job either.

So you need both together.

But obviously, if you imagine, you know, going back to that football analogy, marketing is, you know, whereas HR and operations and, you know, production might be the defenders or the goalkeepers, you know, marketing the attacking midfielders, as it were.

So they're the people that are the closest to the strikers.

And the job of marketing for most businesses is to promote a brand or story or message of a company and to generate interest and opportunity in that company so that sales people can then follow up and have conversations to do business together.

And yet one of the problems that we, we see, and that's where it should be.

But because they sometimes don't get on and because there's sometimes different issues there, there is this debate as to whether they should be brought to one.

So I'm going to show you my view on where I think it is and I also am going to share with you on how I think the two are intrinsically linked in the modern world.

And I'll be I'll put this blunt statement out there right now that I think sales and marketing are intrinsically linked together more than ever before in a business world.

And if you don't link the two together effectively in your business or with people you work with, I think you're going to waste money and time and I think you're missing a major trick.

And I think it's a real challenge if they don't come together.

But let's talk about the essence of this in a bit more detail.

So I should interrupt the podcast for literally 20 seconds.

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Now back to the podcast.

I've been, by the way, I've been a sales and marketing director for a flash firm.

I've run my own businesses where I've had to own both, and I still own both in my own businesses now and in my own team.

I have a sales team and I have a marketing team.

I think the two come together really importantly.

And it's critical that marketing is able to create the materials and the messages and the the outlines that can present the company in the right way.

But it's also critical that the sales team can do their job as well.

And when I look at marketing and when I look at sales, marketing has many, many facets.

So, you know, you look at marketing from the perspective of branding, so branding itself, and I'm not a brand expert, but the way the brand is perceived and I do think brands are not just a logo, but they're how you engage with company, how you see them in every way you engage them with, you know, if I pick this brand as a brand new Evian water, every way in which I interface with EVM water is part of that branding of element.

So you know, marketing is responsible for branding.

Yet a lot of the time they're also responsible for customer retention because they've got to make sure that they're communicating to existing customers to make sure that they're up to date and communicating news and, and stories and what's going on.

But they're also potentially responsible for customer acquisition.

One of the biggest thing that marketing people talk about marketing is you know, they see marketing being out there to generate new business.

So you know, and the classic forms of marketing that you'll get are obviously the old traditional forms like TV and adverts and billboards and buses and in the underground or wherever else that's traditional forms of marketing.

And you'll also have what we also call more digital forms of marketing such as Google Ads and search engine optimization and Facebook ads.

And then you've got, in the recent years you've got new forms marketing such as content marketing where you create blogs and videos and podcasts like I'm doing like today.

So the reality is you've got all these different elements around marketing.

And by the way, I always think a marketing, you know, marketing, you know, is very much like everyone's got one.

Everyone opinions on marketing are always the, the key thing.

Everyone's got an opinion or whether it's right or wrong, whatever else.

And I've seen so many people say oh that's robation, this is good.

And the reality is, you know, the biggest thing I'm going to tell you right now, your opinion.

My opinion doesn't matter.

What matters is the data.

And good companies are able to look and see whether an advert is successful or not is based down to the data and based on the goals and the outlines that it has.

So if you think about it based upon yeah, where, where the, where the, where the business is.

You know, Marx's job is to create those, those leads and opportunities and, and protect the brand and take the company forward.

You know, sales's job.

What sales's job.

Sales's job is to do, build the relationships and to lead and to convince people to do business with that company.

Now the reason I believe they're so intrinsically linked more than ever before is in order that the sales process and the sales cycle has changed.

Twenty years ago, marketing's job was to Provide some leaflets and sales would do all the work.

But the Internet changed that and it meant that people now, when they're looking to buy anything, will go online and they'll go online to Google or as I'm hearing more and more and you know, seeing that people are going on to tick tock or to chat GPT, to search for things.

And when they search for things, what they find there is what marketing has provided.

Okay.

And the content, the information, the website, the social media generally are areas that are owned by marketing.

So, you know, and if someone's going to buy, and not just, you know, from a company perspective, they're also doing it for you as an individual.

So if you look and someone's going to search, you know, if you're, you know, by the way, if you're gonna meet with someone or have a conversation with someone, don't be surprised if someone Googles your name and sees what comes up.

And your name might indicate, you know.

You know, I had a friend of mine who worked in the financial space and when people searched his name, there was a picture of him down in a pint.

He didn't want that, so he had to change the picture.

So people are searching for you and your name and what you do from a personal branding perspective as much as a company branding perspective.

So yeah, hence why I think they're the two intrinsically linked together.

So I guess, you know, the sales, the sales.

If you're a salesperson listening to this and you're thinking, oh, I can do my job without marketing, you can't.

Okay, I'm being blunt.

In the modern world it's, well, you can, but it's very difficult.

You're going to make your life harder.

The website, the way in which your information is displayed needs to be at the way in which you want it to, to be.

But if you're also a marketing person that's thinking, oh, well, I can do, you know, I don't need salespeople to do my job then if you're selling commodity products, then I'd probably argue in some cases you might be all right, you can do a lot of things digitally, but if you're selling higher value services or higher value offerings, then invariably you're going to need a salesperson still.

I think this will still be the case for a long time to come, to come in and build the relationships and have the conversations.

So, you know, I think that the reality is, and again, I'd love your opinion on this.

Traditionally, marketing has generated the leads and sales have Closed the leads.

But we now have this issue, as I say, where one feels undervalued.

I've had conversations with sales teams where they say, marketing aren't generating me any leads.

And I will say to them, okay, so what are you looking for and what you want that lead to look like?

And they'll say, I want people to, you know, ready to buy.

And I've then had the same conversation with marketing.

They said, well, we have generated leads, but the sales team haven't followed up.

Or they followed up once or twice, but then it didn't go anywhere further.

So, you know, should they be combined together?

This is the question I asked at the start.

My answer to that is yes, actually.

I think they should certainly under one leader, be a combined team.

And especially as your company grows, I would encourage, and I'm working with a couple of companies at the moment where they've got teams of.

And I'm saying to them, actually, I do think you'd have one combined person that's a sales and marketing director, or in some cases it's called a chief revenue and brand officer.

And that person would cover both areas.

And I do think you need to link the two together and so that they can have some real common connections and work together as part of that funnel.

And one of the key ways in which to look at this is.

And this is something I have for a lot in a lot of businesses, is to respect the roles of other people.

If you're a salesperson and your job is to communicate and talk to people that you've never met before, marketing generally don't want to do that.

That's not their skill.

So it's your job as a salesperson to do that, but also respect the fact that your job is then not to query marketing on.

On the way in which an advert might look or the way in which text might look on a page, that's marketing's job to own that and to make sure that comes together.

So first is have respect for each other's roles.

Each role is valuable in the business.

Each role has a different path.

And one of the things I always try and say to people I work with is, you know, staying.

You know, I had a person who used to work for me years ago who would always be looking at someone else's department and cramming and commenting on that department.

Irish, just say to him, it's great to comment on that, but focus on your lane.

He was responsible for customer service, and it was like, focus on your lane and be good at your lane and deliver what's right for your area of the business rather than commenting and speculating on someone else's.

And it's a human instinct that people want to poke their noses in other areas.

So one of the key things to do is to brill a collaboration together, a combined team where, which has led by a leader which has overall, let's say, for example, this is what I'm doing in my business and other businesses, an overall target.

We want to hit this overall number.

Okay?

Say okay.

So if we want to hit this number and we, we're currently short of, I don't know, a million pounds in order to hit that number, how can marketing and sales work collaborative together to make that number happen?

And the way in which they can do it is you can work together on a marketing plan to create some opportunities and some leads that can go forward.

But you can also, there's a sales team work to generate leads yourself.

And I always say to sales teams, if your marketing's not generating you the results and you know if your ship isn't coming in, you've got to swim out to it.

So make sure that you've got some consistency, make sure there's alignment around the target and what you've got to do and come together in meetings to make sure different people will own that part of the puzzle and be accountable for their area and can then take the actions that they need to and respect the fact that some people are going to do a different role to you and are going to accept that that role is going to take some time.

Now, the challenge is in some cases, and I've been in organizations where, you know, if you think of one at the moment, where they've got a brand marketer who is so slow to react and so takes so long to do anything that the sales team just given up on her.

She just thinks she's a waste of time because she doesn't.

She.

Her thing is about how, you know the brand looks in an advert and working out what the logo's color is and whatever else.

And these guys just in the sales team want to just get things out and get things done.

So you will have an expectation, differences.

And one of the key things to do is to make sure you align it.

What are you looking for?

What does it make that so important for you?

Explain to me why that's going to take so long or what makes that such a key priority for you or what makes that so important for you?

And there are going to be different priorities based upon short or long term for that.

But I think coming together and bringing together under one team or one outline certainly makes sense.

I think the other key thing I would also say about sales and marketing is have a consistency about what both are trying to do.

So the consistency for in most cases is to make sure that the business is growing its brand and delivering, you know, excellent service to existing customers and winning new business.

If you've got these three prongs that both sales and marketing can own.

And brand, by the way, is about the salespeople.

Because if, if you're a representative of your company and you go out and you, you know, look, you know, look a mess, for example, when you're presenting, then that reflects on your company.

You are the brand and the face of your company as a salesperson.

So that reflects on that.

So have some consistency, have some single standards that everyone in the team can work towards.

That means that then both people know that, you know, both sales and marketing's job is to, is to, is things to bring the business together.

So and, and look, you know, make that messaging consistent and then come together and meet on a regular basis.

The other thing I think that often happens is that they don't meet regularly enough.

So marketing sitting in a separate area and they don't come together in a sales environment.

And for example, marketing doesn't get invited into sales meetings and sales teams don't get invited into marketing meetings.

And you've got these two different silos of people which then come together, then have different views.

So try and bring them together and if you can, as the leader of that team, bring together in one group, then it's going to be much more effect for you.

And look, you know, when, when you're not aligned, when they're not aligned together.

There are some, so many stories and examples of where I've seen marketing teams generate leads.

Where the sales people have no idea what's going on, where the sales team literally have no clue of what's being promoted to the audience.

I've, I've seen promotions go out that sales people have no idea on.

And when the customer says, oh, what about this promotion?

The salesperson says no idea, don't know about that.

Which makes everyone look like an idiot.

And I've also seen sales teams that create their own collateral and materials and hand it out and marketing have no idea of it.

When they look at it, they, they get frustrated because it's not on brand or it's in a different font or a different color or the messages aren't consistent and which makes the company look like a bit of an ms, an idiot to, to or, or a bad example to, to the prospect who then sees, you know, different things in different places.

I think salespeople need great content, they need great messages, great materials in order to add value into the process.

But marketing still needs someone to be able to then pick up the phone, have a conversation and do the things they need to do to bring that prospect to becoming a customer.

So look, I believe they come together and, and that they're a need.

They need to be, you know, work together.

But what's your view?

You know, maybe you're traditionally.

Maybe you don't think marketing get what you do in sales or maybe you think you're in marketing, you think that sales people are just, you know, looking for an life all the time and don't want to do the work to generate opportunities.

I'd love to know what your thoughts are.

But my view certainly is that good companies, the best companies are one team.

I always go back to the sort of the goal that NASA had years ago when the cleaner was asked what he was there to do and he said, I'm here to put a man on the moon.

And great companies have a consistent vision about what they're trying to do and the sales and marketing team work together to do that and they work together to hit the targets the business has.

So if you are in that position, bring your teams together, look at ways in which they can work together, maybe allow them to go and, you know, shadow each other.

Maybe they've.

You've got the chance to enable someone to shadow or to work alongside that person for, for a day or so to see what they do.

You know, again, I talk about emotional intelligence a lot being put yourself in the shoes of the marketing, the salesperson and maybe that'll give you some more respect as to how they operate and what they do.

But do I think they should be, you know, united into one team?

But that's my view.

What's your view?

I'd love to know what your thoughts are.

If I'm talking absolute COD wallet, then tell me.

I'd love to.

Just let me know your thoughts.

But I think the key thing, the best companies bring them together, they're being consistent, they're staying true to a clear vision, they're understanding and respecting each other's roles and they're implementing and achieving great results.

But that's what I, that's my view.

But I'd love to know your thoughts.

So sorry to interrupt the podcast, but if you've got a sales issue at the moment that's really hacking you off, challenge me, I'll help you solve it.

Reach out to me.

Drop an email at hello AMESW Business and I will help you solve your sales challenge.

There's not one I don't think I can't handle.

There's no sal issue that I can't resolve.

I've seen them all over my career.

I want to help you solve yours.

So reach out to me.

Let's make sure we handle your sales challenges and fix them so you can get back to smiling again.

Now back to the podcast.

So, as I always do, I finish the podcast on inspirational story.

And I wanted to do a story today of a gentleman called Anthony Robles.

And Anthony Robles was born a number of years ago with only one leg and he refused to let, let this define his situation.

And he was ignored by top wrestling programs.

And his, his, his story is being produced into a film called Unstoppable by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

And the whole idea, again is, is so many people have been told, you know, told him he couldn't do something and he decided he was going to prove them wrong.

So to me, Anthony Robles's story is a brilliant example of whatever challenges you've been put face, whatever issue, you know, cards you've been dealt, you know, don't let that define you.

Make sure that you're in a position to, you know, if you believe in something, want something enough, go make it happen.

And if you do, you're going to get the success and results that you want.

So that's it for this week.

Thank you so much for listening.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the sales marketing discussion.

It's going to go for a long time.

There'll be different views.

What's yours?

Let me know.

I'd love to reach out, reach out to me on social media.

James Whitesales, Let me know.

But that's it for this week.

As ever, thank you so much for your ears.

Hope you've enjoyed the podcast and I'll see you next week.

Take care.

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