Sales and Marketing...Go to your room until you learn to get along!!!!

Earlier this year, I spoke to a marketing leader who told me that he was "All in with 'Product Led Growth.' He went on to explain that in his plan, his company won't need a sales team. His SaaS product is SO good, it will just sell itself that salespeople have become obsolete.

This comment really bothered me. I couldn't figure out why. As a sales leader did I look at it as an attack on me? On my Career? It shouldn't...it's not even my company.

Was it that I was disappointed? Because, congratulations buddy, you've just commoditized your product. In his particular space, I can name 4 other companies that are doing what they are doing, with more market penetration, and higher visibility, and also with a PLG offering (though backed up with a sales team. No, I don't think it was that either. I've spoken to tons of people doing tons of stupid things with their companies most of the time I chalk it up to... "What Not to Do" and move on.

As I've thought about it, what's bothered me most about this, is the fact that you have a Marketing Leader, actively trying to go out and get rid of a crucial part of the revenue team. He was visibly excited at the prospect of eliminating the sales organization, or what he referred to as his number one headache! It's as if a quarterback announced that he and his receivers are SO good...they are going to phase out all running backs and tight ends. (to the OTHER football crowd...my strikers are SO good...we're going to phase out the midfield).

There are certain things that a person, not automation, or a website cannot, or will never be able to do. In the #DemandGenSummit held this week David Elkington , Mark Maughan from Domo , and Salesforce 's Rick Tolman , discussed Marketing in a volatile economy.

***NEWSFLASH***

We are IN a Volatile economy!!!

One of the things they talked about was the need to get creative on deals. Technology while it will assist and enable, it lacks the ability to craft deals and solutions, that solve problems and are empathetic.

This ongoing battle between marketing and sales has to stop. I can't tell you how many leadership meetings I've been in, at past companies (my marketing team at Signals is AMAZING and I'm lucky to work with Pete Ketchum and his crew!) where I have been in knock down drag out fights between sales in marketing.

Typically it went like this: Sales accused marketing of passing bad leads and trying to erroneously take credit for what Sales believed were "Self-Sourced Deals". Sales felt that the marketing team wasted money and were just having fun over there playing around making t-shirts and sending out swag.

Marketing claimed that Sales was lazy. Didn't follow up on the very best leads that were being passed over. The sales team was nothing more than overpaid cashiers or order takers. They were hard to work with and lacked the skill and professionalism to close a deal if their life depended on it.

Everyone was paralyzed. We were unable to celebrate our successes, or own our own issues. If there was a problem in execution, both sides would blame the other rather than so the self-confidence required by owning their own mistakes. I was told, (and I'm not making this up) don't play up the success of your team too much... the sales team just had a bad quarter and it will embarrass them.

One time it got so bad, a marketing leader turned to the sales leader and said, "Stop being a dick..." Another was so bad the CEO of the company had to come to the next meeting to put everyone in their corporate time out.

This sort of thing has to STOP!

Sales and marketing are members of the Revenue or Go To Market team. They need to work together. They need to focus more on making the marketing and sales funnel work together to generate additional revenue for your company. All else be damned.

Sales and Marketing leadership, you are a team. Start acting like it. Communicate! Understand each other's roles, hurdles, and abilities. So you can leverage each other! Marketing should be asking, What is it that Sales Needs to be successful? Sales should be asking how can we make the most of these gifts that Marketing is placing so beautifully in our laps, complete with wrapping paper, and a bow.

That's not to say you don't call each other out when the ball is dropped but look at it as an opportunity to improve. Stop trying to take your pound of flesh.

The bright side of this economy, this is going to be a gauntlet that will reward organizations that work well together, and punish those who aren't. The struggle out there is and will become increasingly real. As the old Ben Franklin Quote says, "We must all hang together, or ... we shall all hang separately,"?

#sales #marketing #plg