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Walking the tracks by Thiophene GuyBy Larry Kilbourne

In a recent blog, Seth Godin differentiates sales and marketing functionally by noting:

"Marketing tells a story that spreads.
Sales overcomes the natural resistance to say yes."

Seth captures about as succinctly as possible the traditional demarcation between these related yet functionally distinct activites. Marketing traditionally has told a story and developed collateral and branding around it. Sales traditionally has been responsible for developing rapport and trust with individual prospects to the point where they will say yes.

But this differentiation also implicitly points to difficulties that will be faced in aligning these functions more closely in a Sales 2.0 world in which the emergent notion of lead nurturing is premised on close cooperation between the two.

As marketing has become more personalized, in large part due to Godin's influence via permission marketing, and as sales is realizing the reality of longer and more complex purchasing decisions, the boundaries demarcating the two are becoming much more blurry.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the concept and practice of lead nurturing, which exemplifies the latest attempt to align marketing and sales. Lead nurturing recognizes that there is an inevitable space between recognition of a problem and agreement on a solution in most complex sales. Moreover, largely because the Internet has allowed buyers to be much more reliant on their own ability to research and develop possible solutions, sales cycles in many cases are longer than in pre-Internet days, when buyers relied upon sellers more for information and education.

Lead nurturing is predicated on the realization that customer acquisition in today's world means developing prospects into qualified leads who are finally ready to buy, as opposed to looking only (or mainly) for those who are ready to say "yes" immediately.

A major consequence of this, however, is that marketing is now assuming far more responsibility for developing relationships with prospects. Where not too long ago a central function of sales was establishing rapport, uncovering needs, and developing relationships, this is now part and parcel of the process of lead nurturing, and hence a responsibility that falls on marketing as much as sales.

In theory, this isn't supposed to be a problem. Lead nurturing rightly reminds us that we must take a longer view of the sales cycle, and then re-envisions it as a process in which marketing and sales seamlessly work together in nurturing prospects into qualified leads. Part of the process is traditional: marketing is chiefly responsible for lead generation; sales for getting the prospect to say yes. But significantly, the core of lead nurturing involves activities involving both marketing and sales which blur traditional boundaries. Here is where solution can easily become tar baby.

Marketing is now responsible for establishing rapport and building relationships with prospects - the traditional dominion of sales. Sales must (for the process to work effectively) take a more long-term view of the process than monthly or quarterly quotas encourage, as well as pay more attention to the story that is being told (to maintain a consistent story line).

The problems that arise are both structural and functional. Structurally, coordinating the traditionally distinct realms of sales and marketing is exacerbated by different measures that are applied to each in evaluating effectiveness of effort, and to the fact that individuals in each are not only evaluated differently, but compensated differently. Yet they are now supposed to act cohesively.

Functionally, although marketing and sales remain distinct, they are increasingly not only having to cooperate more, but assume more of each other's traditional role. Marketing must become more sales focused - abandoning one-size-fits-all collateral and messaging in favor of heavily personalized messages and rapport building. Sales must be able to accept qualified leads with whom they have no prior relationship (but who have an existing relationship with their marketing counterparts) and make this seem like a seamless hand-off of the kind we envision in track relays.

The problem with the latter, of course, is that while the idea of passing the baton from runner to runner is an appealing way of conceiving this newfound alignment between marketing and sales, the fact that the 'baton' is really a potential customer complicates matters considerably. Will the relationship that marketing has established with a prospect transfer like a baton pass to a new relationship that must be established between sales and the qualified lead?

Who is in charge of the hand-off? Marketing? Sales?  And its timing?

How long does the hand-off take? Is it an email introducing the prospect to a new company contact? A single telephone call wherein the marketing agent introduces the prospect to the sales agent? Or a longer process, akin to "Hey let me introduce you to a friend of mine"?

It's in the reality and details of the conceptually seamless swap from marketing to sales that this new version of alignment is likely to become mired in its implementation.

So long as members of marketing and sales teams are held to different metrics, compensated according to different plans, and focused on their traditional roles, it will be extremely difficult to align these different functions.

And even if this obstacle is overcome, successfully transitioning an established relationship between a prospect and marketing to a new contact in sales will be challenging. No amount of alignment can overcome the third person in the equation - the prospect/lead - who may get on well with one contact, but not at all with the other. The result in that case is a huge waste of time and energy in nurturing someone who at the end of the day says "no."

Concepts and diagrams of sales funnels aside, the fundamental problem in aligning marketing and sales is prefigured in Godin's aphoristic description of each:

"Marketing tells a story that spreads.
Sales overcomes the natural resistance to say yes."

The challenge is that I may tell a compelling story that nonetheless doesn't result in sales. Just as I may build sufficient trust and credibility that I can overcome resistance to saying yes without a story, without, in fact, anything more than a promise.

Aligning marketing and sales in an Internet-based world is critical to organizations' abilities to capture business and succeed.

But it will be more difficult than the stories of a new-found alignment between marketing and sales promise.

Copyright © 2009 by Larry Kilbourne, Ph.D. Dr. Kilbourne is an independent marketing consultant. He may be reached at lkphd@yahoo.com.