Why B2B Sales and Marketing Don't Get Along & How to Fix It

Like the Kobe and Shaq feud while on the Lakers, sales and marketing – though ostensibly working towards the same goals from similar perspectives – often do not get along. But unlike with Kobe and Shaq, there are solutions for the sales vs. marketing dilemma, and none of them involve a trade to Miami.

TL:DR 

A lack of cohesion between sales and marketing can negatively affect everything from intangibles like workplace morale and satisfaction to highly quantifiable factors like captured leads, sales and revenue. The best way to solve this is through communication, collaboration, and integration. 

Reason for the rift #1: different goals

It’s assumed by those who aren’t fully in the know that sales and marketing are essentially doing the same thing, which leads to dangerous ideas such as the notion that a tremendous marketing team can render a sales team redundant, or vice versa. 

This misunderstanding creates competition between the departments when what they really need to be doing is teaming their distinctly different tasks and talents – ones that rely on each other. 

Marketing can help sales by providing effective marketing materials and messaging, as well as high-quality contacts and leads. 

Sales, meanwhile, can help marketers create better marketing materials and messaging as well as pull in better quality leads by providing invaluable front-line information on customer needs, concerns and motivations.

The key is to get the departments together regularly to discuss how things are going, and how things could be going better.

Related Article - Tips Marketing And Sales Need For Flawless Alignment

Reason for the rift #2: quota

 If sales and marketing are supposed to work together towards sales goals, why is it that only the sales department is tasked with the responsibility of making quota?

Whether or not this actually results in the sales department having to work harder than the marketing department is almost irrelevant because the perception will always be that closing sales is fully the responsibility of the sales team.  

By setting goals that are shared between sales and marketing, you effectively incentivize collaboration between the two departments. This doesn’t have to be a difficult switch either.

Chances are your organization has a marketing automation system as well as a customer relationship management system. But are those systems connected? On their own, these systems are impressive, but when working together they can have a major impact on an organization, allowing every closed sale to be traced all the way back to the lead from which the sale originated. 

Reason for the rift #3: the quality of leads

One of the most common complaints from sales about marketing is that marketing frequently passes on leads that aren’t sales ready, while marketing commonly complains that the sales department frequently neglects the leads they’ve passed on.

Take the guesswork out of what qualifies as a sales-ready lead by implanting a lead scoring system. This system assigns a value to every action a lead takes, such as signing up for an email newsletter or watching a video on the website. When the values amount to a predetermined score, that’s when a lead becomes a sales-ready lead – one the sales department can be expected to act upon.

Communication, collaboration, and integration 

If your sales and marketing team don't get along or respect each other, there are significant systemic issues at play when it comes to the divide between these two departments. With communication, collaboration and integrated systems, marketing and sales can work together to become one well-oiled machine. After all, even Kobe and Shaq were able to bury the hatchet.