How to integrate the perfect marketing and sales collaboration

After 25 years in marketing, I know a thing or two about marketers. In my experience they:

• Are mostly tactically driven and less about the strategy
• They believe that they create the "sale" and therefore deserve to be paid better but are quite often not
• Don't understand sales people and their key drivers
• Know the customer, according to data science, but rarely spend the appropriate time with sales people to understand the real dynamics of what the customer is really looking for
• Are stuck in the rut of marketing, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees
• Don't take responsibility for their work (although this has changed since more companies are engaged in digital campaigns)

Sales people on the other hand:

• Have a job to do and God do they know it
• They have targets to meet, and won't let anything hold them back
• Think they know marketing, and sometimes believe that they have taste - but end up finding themselves in fist-cuffs with marketing
• Close the deal and without a close, there is no deal
• Have skills and expertise that marketing don't quite understand, but should

Collaboration across marketing and sales only results in one thing, and that is successful outcomes.

Through collaboration, the best marketing outcomes are possible and that can only come from having the right tools to do the job, great project management, brainstorming, collaborative stand up meetings and an accountability system that includes every single person in the equation.

Areas that encourage collaboration include:

• Having a sophisticated and well-functioning sales and marketing funnel
• Accountability across all discliplines
• Marketing and Sales speaking the same language
• Better knowledge of audience and analysis of who signs deals
• More research on target audience
• An ongoing systematic approach
• Consistent communication - not adhoc
• Understanding of client and prospect pain points
• Constant, relentless improvement of performance across all disciplines
• Alignment of marketing and sales goals
• Participation in sales calls with both marketing and sales staff
• Analysing the data science aspect of each and every lead and sale
• Sharing of success

The world is far more competitive today than it was yesterday. If sales and marketing are not collaborating, and innovation in your company isn't a priority, your business will find that it has a shelf life shorter than you thought. 

People that are sales staff have a different psych profile than marketing teams, and those difference allow them to get the best out of each other. Management engagement in bringing these teams together is integral to the overall performance of any organisation.