Are the "lines" that separate marketing and sales becoming increasingly blurred?

The better performing companies have distinct teams who work sales OR marketing, but not both. The thing that makes them great is the communication between the departments that allows for a seamless, integrated message to the customer, regardless of the delivery channel.

Automation & CRM & all of the other tools we use to measure performance is well & good, but the discipline to use these tools by the individuals on the front lines will always be an issue IF there's no accountability. This is where we've seen the breakdowns: marketing puts a campaign together, sales goes out to execute but doesn't keep the CRM up to date, putting marketing in the dark, and then there's a blurring of the lines about who should be holding the sales team's feet to the fire.

Solution part 1: communicate, communicate, communicate. Clear lines to & from, through & around bureaucratic barriers have to be established and reinforced from the top down. And I like what Brian said about the strategic v. functional responsibilities - marketing folks who can stay at 20,000 feet+ will benefit their organizations much more than those skimming the tree tops.

Solution part 2: clearly defined roles & responsibilities, and no crossing the lines to stick fingers into others' pies; there should be forums of discussion for feedback & input, certainly, but as soon as a sales rep feels like she's being 'handled' by a marketing person, it's over...

Great question, John - looking forward to more from the folks here on this topic.
Brad Moore
VP, 3:17 Consulting Services
http://317consulting.com

I see this trend sales is coming further towards the end of the process, marketing is able to start to reach the customers at multiple touch points along the sales process leaving sales to focus on closing the deal based on the information gathered by marketing campaigns.

I believe that a lot of it depends on the context. For a large company, the Marketing Department supports the corporate mission, which ultimately is to sell more product, or enhance their image. For a small company, the lines blur considerably, and are often done by the same person who runs the company.

I also believe the lines are blurred within the context of a corporation. At the high levels they may be distinct and often in conflict. All to often Marketing is run by people who have never sold and Sales by people who have never taken an Advertising, Marketing or Psychology class. As you go down the chain of command the line blurs until you hit the commissioned sales person on the street who has to drum up their own business. If they rely on the Corporate message and wait for the phone to ring they will starve. They need to implement their own marketing strategies to come alongside their personal sales. While they will often use material developed by the Marketing & Sales Departments, they implement them in a manor unique to their target market.

Aside from my Appreciation Marketing business I am a Loan Officer for a regional Bank. Our Marketing Department supports the vision and mission of the Bank more than they support me as a loan officer/sales rep. I have my own marketing strategies in order to drive clients and referral partners to me. Otherwise I would starve. A part of that strategy is to not only provide loan services to Realtors, but to also help them increase their sales through marketing strategies and assistance. I find myself having to be both a mortgage professional and a marketing superstar.

Do you want them to be separate?

The way we need to interact with potential clients/customers has changed so much over the past 5 years, and is making S&M integration almost necessary for the survival of your business.

I think it's almost impossible to have them isolated - if you want to have consistent, smooth, intelligent messages and conversations with these prospects/customers and keep the quality of leads equally proportionate to the sale closes.

Additionally - I think it says a lot about the health of your company/organization - this S&M alignment maintains a strong culture of teamwork, flow efficiency, & internal support within your company.

Great conversations here! First let's define what's the marketing job and what's the sales job. Marketing's role is to support sales to sell more by branding, broadcast messaging, demand generation etc. and sales has to sell and to close the deals – supported by marketing (and portfolio management however that's organized in your company). I totally agree to Michael Fox' post!

In general it's important to have a holistic view on the sales system. Marketing needs a clear understanding of its own role as a supporting role with sales as a customer. Instead the whole selling system which consists at least of sales, marketing and portfolio management should have an overall design point: the customer. Even in small companies with integrated sales and marketing functions two main directions need to be considered: The broadcast messaging view which means simple messages to a broad audience and the sales messaging view which means specific messages to a specific audience, account by account – that needs to be covered. There is no right or wrong – just two faces of the same coin - important to meet the common sales goals.

Times are changing and our customers demand more and more business value and business outcome orientation from strategic vendors. Therefore we all need – based on a clear definition of both responsibilities - a better alignment of marketing and sales toward common goals and common scorecards – designed backwards from the customer as design point number one.
Both should spend their energy in fighting against the competitors and they should avoid to fight internally like fire and ice.

Yes they are. Communications move quickly and you need to be at the hip with sales as they are selling "your" product - your baby. They have the hard work. And Marketing, as definers of products, needs to back them up on calls, when needed, to offer the deeper expertise on the ins and outs of what they are selling. They need to be separate so that Marketing can look at a longer horizon and plan a product line with sales, without the monthly quota pressure. But I say they should both be compensated based on revenue. That blurs the lines just enough.

No, they're not becoming blurred. Marketers are just doing more to engage prospects all along the sales cycle. They're working parallel to the sales team supporting them like they've always done. The changes may be more in the marketing team hanging onto a lead longer before declaring it 'sales ready' and passing it onto the sales team.

I believe the best marketing organizations focus on strategy and revenue results. For too long, especially in B2B tech, marketing teams focused on activity like numbers of "leads" produced from trade shows and direct mail, the amount of collateral produced, impressions, etc. Since the function of marketing is the last to be automated within an organization with a system of engagement,

Now that marketing automation utilization with CRM integration is growing, the full lifecycle of lead management can be measured from marketing cultivation to sales follow up. This is where the lines become blurred. However, sales will still close the business.

A marketing organization that behaves strategically (and not just functionally) provides vision, initiatives and direction that sales does not.

Brian Hansford
President
Zephyr 47
http://www.Zephyr47.com

Thanks for clarifying and re-stating your question. But my answer remains "No." The line between marketing and sales is not becoming increasingly blurred. What's different today - as opposed to even three years ago - is that marketing happens right in front of us.

It's like my favorite restaurant from my youth Shakey's Pizza, where you could watch the chefs behind the glass as they created your dinner. We've always witnessed the sales process.Today, consumers get to observe the marketing, too.

Thanks to social media and our just-in-time need for everything, marketing happens on the fly - not for every company, of course, but for many. Facebook pages, Twitter, corporate blogs and YouTube creations. It all happens right in front of us. Look at the recent example of the failed Gap logo. The company failed to understand marketing. Or perhaps it fully embraced this by being flexible enough to let the world create its new logo.

I love it. This improves communication. It makes companies look more real, honest and human. And it's great fun to watch.

Thanks for sparking this conversation.
Glenn Hansen

The answer to this question, when placed in the context of the evolving impact of the Internet as the media of choice -- and social media as the method -- becomes self evident. Conventional wisdoms that may have previously suggested that marketing was intended to start a conversation with a call to action for a sales person to answer must now recognize that the market is a conversation between like minded consumers that begins before, during and after their shopping and purchasing decision.

C2C has replaced B2C in social media as the marketing method of choice and the embedded sales message has been delegated to consumers sharing their experience vs. a salesperson interrupting the conversation with his/her self serving agenda. Marketing/sales messaging must now be positioned from the inside out of social networking communities vs. from the outside in by advertisers attempting to join the community to sell their products and/or services.

Of course marketing methods as applied to conventional media may revert to type with branding and top of the mind awareness as their primary objective. However given the dominance of social media and the Internet over radio, TV, print and direct marketing it seems that the real world answer to this question should consider what is and will be vs. what was.

Simply put, the line between marketing and selling has been blurred by the hyper speed that consumers are travelling on the Internet Super Highway and the variety of exits that they can choose from. Information that used to be delivered to consumers in the form of a sales message hidden inside of a marketing plan has been replaced with more relevant and transparent information available from third party consumer centric marketing platforms with competitive comparisons that level the playing field for competing products. Similarly, sales messages are filtered out by social networking communities who see them as interference on the line.

In summary, marketing and selling has been combined in the conversation between customers who are now in control of the market.

I am a little cautious about endorsing fully Brad's somewhat rigid view of the demarcation between sales and marketing, and I suspect Philip's a little too blinkered with his almost exclusive focus on the internet and the belief that social media dominates in all sectors and for all products (and I'm not denying the fundamental impact the internet has had on brand relationships with consumers, and the subsequent shift of power from seller to buyer in most sectors).

There has however been some very good and fairly recent research around the sales and marketing relationship within organisations, and I'd encourage anyone interested in finding out more about the Marketing-Sales structures that worked best to read the following free article (which will also point you to the original research published in the Journal of Marketing if you want to know more about the two research studies the article discusses):

http://blog.everythingdesign.co.nz/marketing-sales/

I'll post below about the research findings, which identifies those structures that work best, and those that don't...

My experience has been more like Larry Morris's above in that context has a lot to do with what sales and marketing people do and what works best. Size of company, industry, type of products and services all have an effect.

What I have found to be changing, however, is the way buyers buy, and that's changing the game for sales and marketing. Marketing has to be involved longer in the buying cycle than they used to, working with sales to help nurture the leads and not just generate them. And sales has to understand markets more than ever because buyers have more choices, more information, and they're much more savvy about making purchases.

continued from above...

One study puts to bed the notion that companies should eliminate all differences between Marketing and Sales. The researchers caution against trying to maximise harmony between Marketing and Sales – “because what’s good for the quality of cooperation between them both may not be good for the long-term market performance of the business unit.”

The out-take from these two key observations is that companies should develop an internal role structure that fosters devil’s advocacy by Sales (typically a more customer focused and short-term perspective) and by Marketing (typically a more product-focused and long-term perspective), as this will help ensure more relevant information and arguments will be brought to the table and evaluated as part of the decision making process.

They also suggest companies should try and remove the differences between Marketing and Sales in regard to interpersonal skills and product knowledge, as these two differences are detrimental to cooperation quality and market performance. They say, “Marketing and Sales should have similar competencies but different orientations–in other words, similar people with different missions”. Ideally (sorry Brad), the people in Sales and Marketing should be qualified to work in either role, and if they are, then job rotation should give them the opportunity where possible.

In most companies the authors' findings have a clear implication – “Marketing will [likely] be the long-term oriented advocate of product profitability," they say, "whereas… Sales [will likely play] the short-term-oriented advocate of customer relationship profitability”.

The second study was the first in the world to take a close look at the interface between marketing and sales, and what works best.

The authors found five typical structures for the sales and marketing relationship. The two most successful configurations (Brand-focused Professionals and Sales Driven Symbiosis) shared several characteristics. These were:

• An intense use of structural linkages
• High market knowledge within the marketing unit
• A long-term orientation of the sales unit.

The authors note, “These two clusters are characterized by a clear, but not extreme, power distribution between [marketing and sales]. The pattern that pervades the less successful configurations is low levels of information sharing, structural linkages, and knowledge as well as extreme power distribution.” This suggests that teamwork and joint planning should be fostered and that high market and product knowledge levels within both sales and marketing is important.

And finally, the authors make one very reassuring observation that’s sure to please marketers the world over, “The Brand-focused Professionals cluster, the most successful configuration, is characterized by a fairly strong marketing function. Thus, the findings challenge the doubts about the necessity of a marketing department that are sometimes uttered in managerial practice”. Phew!

John V
www.everythingdesign.co.nz

From my vantage point the organizations that have blurred this line the most are doing very well. I wouldn't say that sales is doing marketing’s job and marketing is out closing sales but where they are helping to improve the process and the information needed to produce leads and close sales I think that is happening. In most of these cases management has recognized the value of this blurring.

I think by aligning their goals so tightly that this is just a natural progression. Marketing knows they can’t hit their revenue numbers without sales and sales knows that if marketing is producing interest and good leads that their job is easier.

I don’t ever think that it will blur to the point where sales or marketing is doing the others job. Talk to any good sales or marketing person and they really don’t want the others job. They each just want the other to be very effective so that both can hit their goals.

I read somewhere above that it depends on the size of the organization and I think there is truth in that because the bigger the organization the harder it is to get everyone on the same page. Silos are much easier to build in larger organizations. I think this is where management has a challenge to blur the line and bring these two groups closer together.

A company is judged on how much it sells so shouldn’t sales and marketing be judged on what they each have contributed? Doesn’t blurring the line help both of them?

Michael Fox deserves his recognition for having the best answer to this post. I have taken John’s term “blurred” to reference a degree of interdependence between sales and marketing.

These distinct entities of a business represent the two aspects of the central issue: sales. At the end of the day, considering the roles of these aspects (which varies greatly among businesses), I hope we’ll see more interdependence and improved synergy between sales and marketing. The alternative is to have a fragmented operation (unless, of course, careful planning was achieved for a specific manner of function for these divisions [unlikely]).

-Steve
The Sales Standard

I'm not fully on board with Rob's assertions.

While there are some instances where products largely sell themselves (so something has happened before someone sells something, and sales is then largely a process of order fulfillment), in most cases marketing and sales are mutually dependent on each other.

And I don't really believe sales is simply about capturing revenues - particularly in the absence of any other marketing support, when the selling process in my experience (and I've worked in both roles) almost inevitably involves "marketing" to some extent.

Thanks for the input so far. Let me add something else that may further clarify the reason for and relevancy of my question.

Earlier this week, I heard a Dex commercial where they were touting their ability to craft a marketing strategy for a local dentist. What got me thinking was that here they were selling marketing strategy, acting both as the marketer and salesperson, because their strategy consisted mainly of the products and services offered by Dex.

I began to wonder if marketers, who develop and execute strategies and tactics, will soon become the salespeople who are selling those solutions to the end client.

With current cutbacks, sales professionals are often acting as both the marketer AND the sales rep. Vendors are offering more of a "one-stop" shop for their customersm not because it's better customer service, but because it sells more products.

As a customer, the idea of having my marketing and my sales all-in-one seems like added value. However, the consumer needs to be wary of someone who is representing both sides of the table. In this example, is Dex simply offering marketing strategies because they have a sales quota on certain products? Is the consumer being enticed to buy into a marketing strategy because it fits the sales goals for the Dex rep?

The lines can be blurred, but only if it's in the best interest of the customer.

I have to respectfully disagree with some of the answers above, at least from a more classical point of view (and my own). From a very general point of view the two are not the same...at all. Marketing doesn't help sell what sales has to sell after the fact.

Marketing is about determining WHAT the customer wants to buy and creating something that best meets the needs of the customer.

Sales is about selling what the marketing develops to whomever they can find to buy it.

Many product failures are the result of "non-marketing" approaches that contend that sales should be able to force anything (any idea) down the throat of the public.

In the unusual circumstances when the two functionally collaborate you have the magical situation where sales can sell anything the marketing department sends them. Marketing must listen to the sales people, who are closest to the customers to achieve that.

At least that is one ideal approach to marketing that many companies don't understand, especially with the turnover in marketing and sales.

"all marketing is sales and all sales is marketing" was the mantra of the mid-'90's ; the people who proselytized for integrated, data-based marketing and sales. I think Paul Wang taught me to always say that aloud in front of groups. I still believe it to be true - i had hoped it would have been fully integrated into practice by now as opposed to posing a possibility?!

Marketing and Sales are becoming aligned, all with the goal of driving revenue for the organizations. Going away are the days of silos of marketing and sales, coming are the days of better alignment and integration. Our buyers are changing the way they buy, and we must change with them.

@John M.

Thanks for your further clarification regarding your original question.

The views so far ventured have many good points and try to answer the quandary that exists It's a fact that business itself organizes marketing and sales haphazardly and is the basis of our question today.

To delve further into a possible solution is to define the "mantra" of an organization. Is the organization "sales-drive" or is it "market-driven". Some will say it's both, but in reality they're not.

Most organizations that are strongly sales oriented, such as pharmaceutical and medical device place sales people hither in sales and marketing with only the background of sales but not marketing. Therefore, with sales people fulfilling both marketing and sales, then someone would think that sales and marketing are similar.

On the other hand, if a company is market-driven, like some large computer hardware companies, market strategy must be crafted carefully because many different pieces of a puzzle are needed to bring products to market. Sales cannot do that.

Therefore, the distinction of market and sales is really how far one's planning horizon is, how difficult it is to create a product and how much time a sales/buy cycle is needed. On the shorter end, then the distinction isn't so great. On each of these items, if they are longer, the distinction is greater.

Hi John,

We are not yet there, but like you said many companies are blurring the line by having personnels who are responsible for both. The trend is more prevalent in smaller companies and start-ups where playing multiple roles to keep the ball rolling is a necessity.

Having said that I think to end the sales and marketing divide, it would be good have Sales professionals who have knowledge of doing some bit of marketing and marketing professionals with some sales experience. At least 'have been there and have done that' attitude will provide for some more compelling reasons for non-cooperation by both these professionals.

At the end of the day both marketing and Sales sell, the former sells the idea the concept and the latter the real product. Blurring of lines between these two streams might be detrimental in the long run as both require undivided focus to bring the best out of their individual efforts, but a cross-trainer orientation program might just help in blurring the gap...

Definitely in the smaller companies the line is blurred as the very same people hitting the road are the ones having as well the reflections as to what the market really demands and how the company is positioned today vs. how it should be. While in larger organisations indeed the line shouldn't be blurred for obvious FOCUS reasons, having experienced both types of environments, I experience that the blurring in smaller organisation is actually a healthy practice in that everyone keeps a ear on the groundswell and we as a team are thus able to identify early signs of market changes and adapt our sales process or services accordingly and timely. My experience of larger organsiations has been that field people bring up serious feedback and request real marketing support in closing their deals, however marketing is too busy bringing up their so well thought campaigns/ ads/ product releases, which have turned obsolete to the needs of sales (and of the customers) by the time they're out. So I do believe that some kind of blurrying is healthy. the question is how to manage it properly in larger corporations.

I think "managerial practices" that doubt the necessity of marketing don't understand what marketing is for. Why not get rid of the navigator on a plane? While it may be necessary in some companies, the idea that people should be able to do both marketing and sales compromises and dilutes the effectiveness of both.

I over generalize, I know. But someone has to determine what the customer needs and wants and provide a development path to meeting that recognized need and developing the communications necessary to support sales. Who do the managerial practices people think can and will do that?

Absent marketing, "ideas" take over and products based on ideas have a terrific track record failing most of the time.

I'm more comfortable with doubting the necessity of the "managerial practices" group.

Yes, John. However, the melding of marketing and sales is not a new occurrence. Over the past several years, as “competitive divergence” increases, the need for more effective sales practices necessitates a great collaborative and more synergistic dependence from these divisions.

Steve
The Sales Standard

Scenario 1 -You're sitting at the desk and you poke at the placard that says "CEO" or "President". Your next task is to create a marketing plan. Furiously, you debate within your mind, should I hire a marketing person or a sales person to create a marketing plan?

Scenario 2 - You're "sweating bullets" because you've just returned from an executive meeting. As the #2 man in the company, you've been tasked to create a 30% increase in revenue within the next 12 months. Should you call a marketing person or a sales person

To those who think that marketing and sales are different or the same, it should be asked "who should be called"? It depends. In Scenario 1, demand generation isn't needed, but it is in Scenario 2. Where you are along that continuum is exactly where you will also think marketing in relation to sales.

RICHARD -

You make a valid point, which merits my chiming in here… Sales and Marketing are and ALWAYS will be distinct operations. HOWEVER, the topic, albeit susceptible to the varieties of interpretation, pertains to a perception that sales and marketing have become less interdependent over the years. I agree, John’s question could have been more clearly stated, but, as surmised by the quantity of responses, we understand the issue is one of, again, interdependence and not a merger of sales and marketing.

Steve
The Sales Standard

Sales and Marketing in the past - and still in many companies - acted like fire and ice. Fingerpointing in both directions. Attracting and gaining new customers needs both skill sets. Marketing and sales. Marketing and sales have a set of overlapping skill requirements in this process. And some areas where just one of them is the specialist. It´s important to define the commonalities as well as the excluive areas.

Yes. The reason the lines are getting blurred is that senior executives are no longer willing to leave the largest cost item of their income statement (Sales and Marketing) unmanaged.

Historically if a CEO went to the head of marketing and said, "grow revenue by 15%" the head of marketing said "give me more money to run more programs". If the same question is asked to the head of sales the answer is "give me more money to hire more sales people"

Programs or people? What drives growth? In reality you cannot know until you instrument the process by which you move unknown entities to known prospects to sales opportunities to customers. By instrumenting this process you make better trade-off decisions. But once you instrument that entire corporate pipeline or funnel (pick your word) and start measuring the value, operational effectiveness and economics of the front end of your business a strange thing starts happening.

Marketing executives start paying more attention to numbers and results and start acting more like sales executives. And sales executives start realizing there are more economical ways to generate more revenue than just carrying unproductive sales people.

Is it blurring? Out of necessity it is blurring. The necessity to better manage the last unmanaged parts of most organizations, the Sales and Marketing engine.

Wow, I could have never expected such a great conversation to evolve from my question! Thanks to everyone who has chimed in thus far; I look forward to seeing additional posts as well.

Steve, I agree with you on the credit to Michael Fox. I originally selected Henry Bruce as he also agreed with Michael, but expanded with some additional insight. I do think the general consensus is that Michael posted the "best" answer. If there was a "2nd Best Answer", it would most certainly go to Henry.

I haven't been on Focus for long, but see that it is a tremendous community for sharing/gaining knowledge and engaging in fruitful debate. I look forward to listening and conversing with all in the future!

John

Great conversation.

For me, it's not that the lines are blurring, it's just that the best marketers are realizing the need to get closer to sales and be tireless funnel-fillers.

I will give my definitive opinion - NO - the line between marketing and sales is not blurring.

Sales is about capturing revenues.

Marketing is about researching customer wants and needs, and creating demand.

I firmly believe in the statement, "Nothing happens until somebody sells something." The same thing cannot be said about marketing.

In the internet age and with the concept of inbound marketing, companies are in real danger of missing significant opportunities and putting themselves at risk by expecting potential customers to contact them, and thinking that marketing can qualify, present and close opportunities.

Look, sales is probably more important now than ever before, simply because marketing is better at generating interest and potential demand.

So, The line is not blurred. Sales and marketing need to work together, but they should not become one.

I might also be said that "Nothing happens until there is something to sell."

I think the discussion hasn't fully separated the situations where the product has not yet evolved and where the product is set in stone.

Seems that this topic is a hot one elsewhere in the B2B community. Check out the comments on the LinkedIn Group run by Brian Carroll - B2B Lead Generation Roundtable:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=1941474&type=member&item=28398703...

Good dialogue all around here and else where.
Henry

I think when to comes to online, there is effectively no difference between online marketing and sales and although the term online marketing expert is used, what is really refers to is someone who can attract an audience online and sell to them.

Offline I think we still have some way together before there is no distinction between the two.

IMO, yes, the lines are blurring. In a collaboration context. Not in a skill context (their respective skills, at the core, are + will remain quite different). Facilitated by analytics which enable x-domain contributions with meaning + impact.

Interesting thought... I still think marketing needs to be about the "abstract" customer. But the proliferation of avenues to talk about your product, marketers need to get down to talking to specific audiences.

Instead of lines blurring, a new category is created - Social Marketing - which is the mix of both - Sales & Marketing!

- Rushabh

ERPNext.com