… is a saying I recently saw on a Despair Inc T-shirt (http://www.despair.com/). If it’s true, then why create a blog on the gap between sales and marketing, especially when 95% of all blogs fail and most B2B blogs collapse after 10 posts? Why should we be concerned about how sales and marketing function together?
In a recent survey by the Prairie Sky Group, seven out of ten B2B organizations experience some level of friction between their sales and marketing groups. This is often due to the differences in expectations and delivery of each discipline to the other. These differences cause poor sales results, wasted time and effort, and create distrust.
So the first reason for this blog is that it’s a challenge and an experiment. In my practice, I see a lot of half-baked ideas by both sales and marketing in the B2B world about what the other discipline should do for them. “If sales would only do what we say,” is the marketing refrain, and “If marketing would only give us what we need,” is the response by sales. The discussions on what’s wrong are often limited, or at best, one on one. This blog allows for that discussion to expand. If the discussion is productive, then we all get to sell more. If you are a CEO, VP of Marketing or a VP of Sales experiencing issues of productivity or collaboration between your sales and marketing departments, please stay tuned. It takes both sales and marketing to succeed.
The second reason is that it’s time to share. I have some gray hair. Years spent building successful businesses may have left me with this condition. Some say that gray hair is what you get, when you don’t always get what you want. I prefer to call it experience. Whether we learn from our experience and what we do with it are key, and my experience tells me, it’s time to share. I constantly have colleagues ask me things things like, “How did you generate 40 new leads in four months for company XYZ?” or “How did you help achieve 25% year over year growth for company ABC?” After helping build five businesses to multi-million dollar levels, I have some perspective on what works between sales and marketing and what doesn’t. But as a life-long learner, I’m curious to learn more, because the most important lesson I’ve learned is that no one knows everything about Sales or Marketing, and when they think they do, they tend to fail.
The third reason is simply to say thank you to all those that have helped me and taught me along the way, even those who didn’t always give me what I wanted.
Measurement of marketing activities is a subject in itself and something I believe in, but my goals for this blog are very modest: twenty five entries, an entry twice a week, getting twenty five readers, and twenty five responses. That’s three months. What happens in three months? Take a look at the statistics from a Hubspot survey below. If you are in B2B sales or marketing lead generation, maybe you need to be blogging. Things happen when you talk to your clients or prospects.
Lastly, by full disclosure, while I have sold, I am a marketer by nature and preference. This is important because my POV will many times be directed primarily from marketing, though I will also identify the sales perspective when relevant. In the coming posts, subjects will range from the specifics of sales force automation, lead generation, and hiring and managing for both disciplines to a philosophy of how to sell and market. A lot has changed in the last ten years. One thing I promise you is that you will get one take-away with every entry, and one thing to think about. I’m hoping that you’ll share your experience as well.
I look forward to a good discussion.
Lee Stocking
PS: Did I mention that I mention that blogging is unabashed self promotion.