
Sing This: “Oh Sales and Marketing Should Be Friends”
Did your high school perform the “Oklahoma!” musical? There is a song that said, “The farmer and the cowman should be friends. Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends. One man likes to push a plow, the other likes to chase a cow, but that’s no reason why they cain’t be friends.” At the end of the song the farmer and cowman start fighting. Great show. I played Curly.
Marketing and sales are like the cowpeople and farmers. It’s adversarial at times, yet it looks like the bond is growing and there are improvements in the relationships. A new report says that 90% of marketing professionals say that sales and marketing have a “close relationship.” I’m not surprised, in this digital age, that the lines between sales and marketing are blurring. In fact, many marketing departments are required to produce qualified leads. Less image enhancement and more hard-data results will bring the two silos together.
The key is to not just produce more stuff. Great content that drives real results and sales will provide all the goodwill needed to win over a skeptical sales department or CEO who is bottom-line oriented.
The more marketing is tied to revenue objectives and strategic goals, the more the two departments will move in lockstep. A shared spirit of achieving specific goals will drive the entire company forward. And then marketing and sales can be friends.