What Marketers Must Know about Sales

Sales Handshake by Flazingo.com | CC BY 2.0

If you follow Mediafly on social media, you probably have noticed that we spend quite a bit of time discussing the alignment between sales and marketing. This is due to the ongoing evolution that both of these departments are going through. Rather than remain as two disparate teams, sales and marketing have been brought together by the advancement of enterprise technology. While this reconciliation is notable, it’s important for marketers to recognize that pains still exist between the two departments.

Marketing maintains a reputation of being innovative and glamorous, while sales is sometimes characterized as its boring, old-school cousin. This imbalance is highlighted in the article by Donal Daly, “13 Things Marketers Need to Know About Sales.”

In the article, Daly states that this stigma is not only unfair, but also untrue. According to Daly, there is no reason why sales should be overlooked for marketing—instead, the two should be a cohesive unit. In order for this to work, Daly explains that both teams must understand each other’s pain-points.

So, what are the typical pain-points of a sales professional? Daly’s list of pain-points and suggestions for marketing is compiled below:

1. Selling is hard. Cut us a break.
2. Selling is personal. While marketers are great at coming up with unique ideas, we are the ones who bring those ideas to life. What sounds awesome in a conference room doesn’t always work on the street.
3. In relation to the point above, it’s important to remember that salespeople are the ones communicating face-to-face with prospects and customers. Think of all the insight we have access to—and don’t be afraid to ask us what we have learned!
4. There is no comparison between a cold call and an inbound call. If marketing efforts are effective, we won’t have to make cold calls.
5. We need marketers to help us move through the sales funnel. This involves keeping us up-to-date on key metrics and prospect insights.

By keeping these common sales challenges and suggestions in mind, marketers will be able to closely align with sales so both departments can achieve joint success.

What does your organization do to keep sales and marketing aligned?