Like other epic dramas of our time including Yankees vs. Red Sox and iPhone vs. Droid, the battle between sales and marketing is real, and it is not likely going away any time soon.
As a sales outsourcing company, we this is something we experience on a daily basis. And, our experience has shown us that while getting sales and marketing to work together is always going to be a somewhat cultural issue, there are several practical things you can do around content strategy and development to help create a team atmosphere, which will help alleviate some of the tension overall.
1. Start from the same place.
The first stage in getting sales and marketing to play nice is to make sure everyone is working from the same playbook. Above everything sales and marketing does, there should be your company’s sales story, which clearly explains the value prop and main selling points of your product/service. Everyone in both sales and marketing should commit the story to memory, and all sales scripts and marketing content should use the story as its backbone.
By making sure everyone’s work in the sales/marketing process begins from the same starting point, you help to ensure your prospects are getting a consistent and unified experience of your company—whether they engage digitally or on the phone. And, by establishing clear agreement between sales and marketing about ‘the big picture’ upfront, there is less of a chance for disagreement when the details are getting worked out later on.
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