The "Bad" – thinking you can beat the competition with Sales and Marketing in separate silos.
I attended a great presentation yesterday by Mary Delaney, Chief Sales Officer at CareerBuilder.com. The event was hosted by the Chicago chapter of the BMA
which is really good compared to some other trade groups. They get top
notch executive speakers and 200 – 300 attendees per meeting, with more
execs than vendors, but I digress. Mary’s topic was bridging the
Sales-Marketing gap. Its an issue that all marketers face, especially in
B2B companies where the sales force is the primary link to the customer, and it can lead to really bad marketing.
Mary
discussed how CareerBuilder.com’s model of strong sales-marketing
partnering was one of the primary reasons they were able to overtake
Monster.com and become the largest online employment site in less than
3 years. Mary advocates that all marketers create a Sales Advisory
Council that provides systematic and candid input on strategy and
tactics. CareerBuilder.com takes this council very seriously . . .
Account Execs are elected or "hired" to the council and have to be top
performers, making quota for two consecutive years. Moreover, they must
actively contribute or risk being "fired" from the council. Among the
keys to success, Mary listed listening and recognition as the most
important. The marketers really listen to Sales and take actions based
on their advice. Additionally, they go to great lengths to recognize
top contributors. For example, one particularly creative Sales manager
helped lead the development of their high successful ad campaign
featuring monkeys and was bonused for all commercials that finished in
USAToday’s Top 10. Another example involved flying the Mother &
Father of the council member to the national meeting and having them
participate in his/her award ceremony. Now that is recognition!
The
bottom-line is that to be a successful marketer you have to get both
the strategy and the tactics right. You can’t sit in your office and do
it alone. You must have a regular process to get real input from the
field, and you have to make it worthwhile for the Sales people or they
won’t do it.
In my next post I’ll outline some of the methods I’ve used that really worked.