Are you in an endless tug-of-war with your Sales counterparts?
(5-minute read)
One of the most dysfunctional relationships in the life sciences is the “Marketing–Sales” one. No matter the company size, lifecycle stage, or product type, Marketers often find themselves struggling with Sales for strategic influence, attention, and resources. And, when business is tough, the finger-pointing begins.
We’ve seemed to accept that “Marketing is from Mars, Sales is from Venus” and just cope, but this dysfunction is impacting customers and the bottom line. In fact, companies typically lose 40% of their strategies’ potential value due to planning and execution breakdowns like this1. Internal teams aren’t able to do their best work and the business suffers.
Marketing-Sales Relationship Check:
- Does Sales EMBRACE your strategy?
- Is the Sales Team CLEAR on exactly what they need to do to support the strategy?
- Is the Sales Team DOING what you are asking them to do (and how do you know)?
- Are they JAZZED about using your marketing materials and messages?
- Are you RECEIVING regular, helpful customer perspective from the Sales Team that you’re USING in strategies and plans?
It’s understandable how the relationship got to this point: Historically in our industry, doctors mainly drove purchase decisions and thus, Sales teams interacted one-on-one to influence doctors. Marketing provided communications support but generally didn’t drive strategy because “Sales knows best” given its proximity to the customer. This Marketing-Sales dynamic worked very well for a very long period of time and even today, unlike other industries, senior leaders typically come from a strong science or sales background as opposed to marketing. However, more recently as healthcare players consolidated and consumer self-advocacy increased, legacy Marketing-Sales relationship patterns became less effective in meeting customer expectations and delivering profit growth. COVID, of course, only accelerated this decline, requiring an elevated and strategic role of the marketing function. Unfortunately, many of our internal ways of working haven’t caught up.
Marketers’ Call-to-Action: A Relationship Reset
It’s time for us to stop the dysfunction. We at Lime see the Marketing-Sales relationship as one of the most powerful internal levers for performance. This relationship impacts our ability to create a compelling, integrated customer experience. It impacts the speed and effectiveness of our digital capabilities. And, frankly, it impacts the energy and psyche of everyone involved. We as marketing leaders and their teams need to take active steps to reset this relationship once and for all, even if we don’t perceive we’re the problem.
Role Reset Rather than Mars or Venus jockeying for who’s the most important planet, we must look at whom we both revolve around in the solar system: The Sun, aka, our customers. We have to design and declare how we go-to-market for customers in today’s global and digital world that includes both functions in an integrated way. Most commercialization or campaign processes we’ve seen in the industry continue to treat Marketing and Sales as separate silos.
Creating an integrated approach is hard because it rubs up against long-standing professional “identities” and beliefs about each of ourselves. An integrated approach means we have to have the courage to call Sales a “channel”. For sure, it remains an important channel, with people who are in daily contact with customers, but it’s an expensive channel and one that the customer not always wants to use. As marketers, we have to make sure we are deploying this channel where it matters most and that we are integrating this channel with other channels so we can maximize our limited resources and dollars.
Clarity Reset Having a good relationship means coming to the table with our own marketing house in order. If we say, “marketing owns the strategy”, then we must be clear on what the customer opportunity is, what the strategy is, and the why behind our choices. We have to provide doable tools that help Sales teams be effective with their customers while other digital things are going on. If we can’t make our case, if we aren’t clear, if our materials aren’t useful, then it becomes hard to have credibility and hold people to account.
A clarity reset also requires us to consider how one size might not fit all. Now, to be clear, we should not be creating an endless menu of tactics or honor every Sales request. But, we do need to be thoughtful and savvy about various market archetypes that appear across regions or geographies which impact go-to-market effectiveness. We have to raise our strategic game to be more nuanced without losing the critical choice-making and financial discipline that underpins effective marketing efforts.
Respect Reset How often and how we communicate with our Sales teammates are indicators of the type of relationship we have and the value we place on the other. A Marketing-Sales relationship is best when it operates like a partnership. This requires marketers to interact with Sales peers beyond POAs (Plan of Action) or Fast-Start Meetings at the beginning of the year. Trust is built over time, not something you seek to build only when there’s a problem.
The onus is on Marketers to understand the language, process, and tools their Sales teams use and have empathy for “a day in the life”. Marketers owe it to Sales to hear their customer perspective early on, to explain why or why not their request was incorporated into plans, to offer clear strategic direction and the why, and to ensure what we’re asking them to do is practical and relevant to their work. Marketers must be compassionate about how AI, marketing automation, and other digital tools like next-best action can challenge a Salesperson ego, deep expertise, and desire for autonomy. (Let’s admit it, as marketers, we’re all feeling a little anxious about AI, too!)
Resetting the Marketing-Sales relationship results in a deeper, richer view of the customer, more relevant and differentiated customer value, and impact, flexibility and speed in the market. It can be achieved by addressing the essential process, leadership, and skill ingredients for lasting change.
Example of a Lime Treatment Pathway to Reset the
Marketing-Sales Relationship
1
Define an integrated campaign process, develop ways of working, and create a few powerful Sales alignment tools
2
Deepen Marketing Leadership’s ability to engage and influence Sales stakeholders, and coach their marketing teams
3
Help marketers design better go-to-market plans and materials, establish shared metrics, and create a genuine trusting relationship with Sales
Do you have the proven ingredients to build a winning Marketing-Sales partnership?
Check out our Marketing-Sales Partnership Checklist for tips on how you can stop the Marketing-Sales tug-of-war.
If you’d like to brainstorm or learn how we’ve helped other leaders with this challenge,
reach out to schedule a free Let’s Grow! session.
1 Mankins, M. C., & Steele, R. (2005 July-August). Turning great strategy Into great performance. Harvard Business Review, 64-72.
