From a viewpoint of a person not involved in sales or marketing, sales & marketing are considered as one function. But the deeper you go in this field you will realize how different these two functions are and how bitter these personnel can become on each other even though they serve a common purpose to the organization.

Every Salesman hates the marketing guy because the guy in marketing sitting in the office gives him a useless lead and always asks to follow up on non-consequential customers.

• He is not involved in the reality of the situation and how the sales happen, all he thinks is that creating beautiful brochures and creating a prospect list would result in a sale.
• Sales are doing the hard work of meeting people and convincing them, it requires convincing ability, good presentation skills, a lot of going around, and a minimum of ego.
• Listening to all the criticism for the company even though it’s not their fault and bearing the brunt of all people- the customers, the management, & the so-called helping hand called marketing.
• Marketing is the field where the people who are the boss’s favorite get recruited for that position. In sales, the result is in black and white…Whether you achieve the target or you have not achieved your target. The bosses are only looking at the sales figure.

hmmm…Well, this is what I used to think I was in sales and most sales professionals would agree that they do tend to think like that. Well, let us see what the marketing guy thinks.

What makes the sales happen is

1. proper information and
2. good response and
3. a good brand image.

• Despite providing such a good brand the salespeople are coming out with excuses for not making a sale saying that our products are priced higher, or that our service is not to the standard.
• These sales guys are not planning their visit properly, most of the time-wasting their time with the existing clients sitting in their office for a cup of coffee or tea.
• They don’t think the customer might not give an order now but a major deal will come through in 2- 3 months. Every time the lead is given, they half-heartedly go to the customer and respond that they don’t have any requirements. So that the sales credit doesn’t go to the marketing guys.
• They only close deals on which they have generated the leads. They expect the lead given to them to turn into sales on the first visit. Despite doing so many campaigns and getting good leads the salespeople’s response is always lackluster.
• They think reporting is waste of time, they don’t understand the importance of a database.

Hmm well, it can go on and on like this. ..So you see if the sales guy says go east the marketing guy would say go west or vice versa. Normally very few firms rarely have marketing in place what they do is sales and the sales supervisor or manager himself is involved in marketing. Firms that have been able to synthesize sales & marketing guys will achieve tremendous results.

Sales are the today guy, his main concern is achieving his sales target for the day or the week or the month. Marketing is the guy who thinks about the future and the way the sales would happen soon, the market share, the brand development, and the customer. So there is always a conflict between generations and conflicts will always exist between Sales & Marketing.

Technically speaking… most of you would know that sales are the actual process that happens when the product is bought. Sales guys are there to make more transactions possible. Marketing is the process that precedes sales and is present after sales. The product awareness to image building so more guys come to sales is what the purpose of marketing is.

Here are some tips to get a common ground between sales & marketing so that complement each other, instead of playing a blame game.

. Get them together, and place the sitting arrangement together. Don’t make the sales & marketing teams sit separately

2. Conduct Monthly informal presentations by each department on the difficulties being faced by them or ways to improve the functioning.
3. Create a cross-functional team for each product, a marketing guy, a sales guy, and a technical guy to be responsible for a particular product (if possible… depending on the hierarchy and current organization structure).
4. Make the dialogue and interaction active between these two functions…Weekly review meets to be held along with the marketing & sales team.
5. Tie the benefit of sales to both teams.

To sum it up make it possible for the salesman to view the point of the marketing guy and vice versa. Many companies think training is waste of time but actually, they help in building a spirit of comradeship between each other.