I was talking to a marketing colleague the other day about a classic marketing and sales problem.Sales was complaining that the company's product was not competitive in the market and it couldn't sell it.
Marketing was complaining that Sales was not positioning the product correctly in the market and was dooming it to failure.
I figure there are a number of options:
- Marketing can wave the big stick and say, "Thou shalt sell it this way". After all, it controls the messaging and the marketing deliverables. Downside is that it does not make for a productive partnership.
- Marketing can go out and visit customers and gather the information that it needs for a coherent argument with Sales. It's impossible to do that if you rely on Sales to tell you what the market is saying and thinking.
- Marketing and Sales can sit down and thrash it out to figure out where the truth lies and agree on the best approach.
- Marketing and Sales can go on joint sales calls to help each other understand the market's needs.
It's not easy at the sharp end. Sometimes, marketing sits in its ivory tower and pontificates without getting its hands dirty. Sometimes Sales tries to take the easy route and complain that the product is unsellable without understanding why it's positioned a certain way.
Tim
The picture of Nguyen Hue Flower Market was taken by Nguyen Trung.
