Sales and Marketing- Integrated or Separate?

Sales and Marketing are two functions that not only coexist but work together to generate value for the company and for the clients. The marketing and sales team's work is deeply interconnected. They are separate functions within a company, and, when they do work together, they don’t always get along. When sales are low, Marketing blames the sales team for the bad execution of an amazing plan. The sales team, on the other hand, believes that Marketing sets the prices too high and uses too much of the budget, which should go into hiring more salespersons or paying sales higher commission.

There is a lack of alignment between the two departments which leads to lower corporate performance. On the other hand, when Sales and Marketing work well together, companies see a great improvement in performance metrics: market-entry costs reduce, the cost of sales goes down and Sales cycles get completed more rapidly.

Varied Roles for Marketing

We need to understand that the nature of marketing functioning varies from company to company. Most small businesses do not form a formal marketing group. Their marketing ideas come from salesforce, advertising agencies, and managers. Such businesses think marketing and selling are the same, they don’t consider marketing as a broader concept.

Eventually, successful small businesses end up adding a marketing person or persons to help the sales force in some of its chores. These new members conduct research to assess choose the best channels and markets, the size of the market, and assess the potential buyer’s influences and motives. They work with agencies on promotions and advertising. They develop materials to help the salesforce attract clients and close sale deals. They use telemarketing, direct mail, and trade show to find and qualify leads for the sales team. Both Sales and Marketing see the marketing group as a help to the sales team at this stage, and the relationship between the departments is rather positive.

As companies get larger and more successful, people understand that there is more to marketing than setting the four P’s: pricing, product, place, and promotion. They believe that effective marketing includes segmentation, positioning, and targeting. Once companies hire marketers with those skills, Marketing becomes independent. It also starts competing with Sales for funding. While the mission of sales has not changed, the mission of marketing has. Disagreements start to arise. Very often, companies find that they have a marketing function inside sales and a sales function inside marketing.

Why Can’t They Get Along?

There are two reasons for friction between Sales and Marketing. One is the economic factor, and the other is cultural. The economic friction generates by the need to distribute the total budget that is given by the Senior Management to support Sales and Marketing. The salesforce often criticizes how Marketing spends money on three of the four P’s- pricing, product, and promotion. For example, in pricing, the marketing group is under a lot of stress to get revenue goals and wants the sales force to “sell the price” and not “selling through price”. The salespeople usually prefer lower prices because they can sell the product easily and it gives them room to negotiate. There are also company tensions around the decision of pricing. Even though Marketing is responsible for setting the prices, Sales have the final say over the transactional pricing.

The costs of promotion are also a reason for friction. The marketing department needs to spend money to increase clients’ awareness of, desire for, interest in, and preference for a product. But the sales team often thinks that large sums of money spent on promotion- especially on television advertising- is a waste of money. They think money would be better spent increasing the size and quality of the sales force.

The cultural conflict between Sales and Marketing is even more rooted than the economic conflict. This is true because the two departments attract different types of people who spend their time in different ways. Marketers who had more education than salespeople are data-oriented, analytical, and project-focused. They believe in building a competitive advantage for the future. Salespeople, on the other hand, spend their time talking to existing and potential customers. They are skilled in relationship building. They want to keep moving. They are used to rejection and it doesn’t bother them anymore. They live for closing a sale. Therefore, these two departments find it difficult to work together.

In conclusion, Sales and Marketing are two functions that not only coexist but work together to generate value for the company and for the clients. They are separate functions within a company, and, when they do work together, they don’t always get along. There are two reasons for friction between Sales and Marketing. One is the economic factor, and the other is cultural. Two departments attract different types of people who spend their time in different ways. Therefore, these two departments find it difficult to work together.