Hey Marketing....is Sales your BFF?

I just heard yesterday that one of my marketing colleagues abruptly left their company, less than a year after taking the position. This happens more often than people know. Statistically, CMOs barely survive more than 18 months on the job. Recently, I was speaking with another colleague who has been in their marketing leadership role for several years. When I congratulated him on such an accomplishment, he replied that his tenure and success is the result of the organization's view on collaboration and partnership attitude across the organization. I realized that it does 'take two to tango' which is what has motivated me to write this blog and share some of my thoughts.

It is no secret that in the technology sector in particular, sales and marketing organizations can be at odds. My experience has been that in 50% of the technology companies that I've worked with or for, sales and marketing had a mediocre to bad relationship. What this means for both organizations is that marketing will have continued high turnover, particularly at the highest levels, and sales will find themselves continuously looking for leads to make their numbers. It will be a vicious circle and the biggest loser will be the company itself.

Today, marketing is ABOUT LEADS and as far as sales is concerned, nothing else matters - not analyst relations, not public relations, typically not anything that can't be quantitatively measured in the number AND QUALITY OF LEADS. But for marketing to meet this objective, the executive team, as well as marketing and sales leadership, need to 'own' it collectively, particularly for companies in small to mid-sized companies - those organizations who need leads (and customers) fast in order to survive.

For marketing executives looking to join a small to mid-sized technology firm, here are some pointers on what to look out for:

• If you are considering joining a technology organization as a VP of Marketing or CMO, make no mistake about the fact that your sole objective will be delivering 'qualified leads' regardless of what the executive team tells you during the interview process.
• As a marketing executive, probe the executive team on the history of the organization's sales and marketing relationship. Understand what types of marketing leadership had been in place prior to your arrival, what they accomplished and more importantly, what they didn't accomplish according to the Sales VPs in particular. If you determine that the relationship between the two organizations has not been good historically, you need to determine whether you think you can turn that situation around.
• Be sure you meet with all Sales VPs during the interview process and pay particular attention to the 'vibe' you pick up about their views towards marketing and also towards you, as a candidate. If you have any inclination that you cannot build a meaningful, long-term relationship with any Sales VP in the organization, you should consider NOT taking the position. I have never seen a situation where a CMO/Marketing VP, who is at odds with his/her sales counterpart survives. In fact, I predict that if, as a marketing executive, you DO NOT have a good relationship with a Sales VP, your tenure in the company will be less than one year, 18 months best case and it won't be fun.

 For sales executives, here are some pointers:

• Try to view and treat the marketing leadership as a partner. Always make the time to interview ANY senior level marketing candidate regardless of how busy you may be with sales. Be clear about your objectives and expectations during the interview process.
• Think about how you can help the marketing team be successful. After all, if your company is a 'marketing revolving door', that won't help you meet your revenue goals. It is in your personal interest to find and keep good marketing leadership and open and honest communications are the best way to make this happen.
• Work with the executive team on how sales and marketing should be organized. If you have been unhappy with the volume or quality of leads that have come from marketing, you can consider
• Taking the demand generation team from marketing, consider it a 'field marketing' entity, and have it report to sales
• Likewise, if you have an inside sales team that warms up leads, put the field marketing and inside sales team under the same leadership under sales as well

I expect that my marketing counterparts will not like this last suggestion

but I believe that it is one way to better shore up relationships between the organizations. As time marches on and the company grows, marketing can then put a 'corporate marketing' demand generation organization in place to augment field marketing and ensure that the company meets both tactical and strategic goals.

There is so much more I could write about this situation but I'll stop here.
For more insight into other ideas on this topic, here is a good blog that provides other ideas too.

I'm interested to hear what you think about this topic and these suggestions so feel free to comment.