How effective does your Sales and Marketing team work together?

Many organizations would say not at all. Others believe they do, but really don’t know. A few will say very well, but I would believe these really, really don’t know. Why since they are so intertwined do they not work well? A few reasons:

1. Marketers are typically introverts and Sales are extroverts.
2. Marketers deal with the future, Sales with the present.
3. Marketers think about the big picture, Sales close a sale.
4. Marketers seldom get credit, Sales gets all the credit.
5. Marketers really don’t do anything, Sales work their tail off.
6. Marketers wonder why Sales don’t work the leads.
7. Sales wonder why Marketers give them such crap leads.
8. Marketers wonder why they have to do everything to get a sale.
9. Sales wonder why they have no support.

No wonder they don’t like each other. However, I think I have an answer. In Lean Product development Eric Reiss believes that you need both a programming and customer development team. My idea is to make the marketers like the programmers and sales like the customer development team. My post on the subject, Receiving Better Response Rates thru Agile displays the diagram of the interrelationship that must be developed and elaborates on their roles.

But the bottom line is that they have to start building trust. They have to break down the dysfunctional aspect that exist between the two. They have to build Trust. Who better to explain this than one of my favorite authors Patrick Lencioni? In this short video, Patrick pinpoints the issue of group behavior in the final book of his popular corporate fables trilogy. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable tells a story and teaches lessons about using leadership to inspire real teamwork.

 

Patrick has a complete Five Dysfunctions of a Team Workshop Deluxe Facilitator's Guide Package that is outstanding and can be a great start for not only sales and marketing but your entire organization.

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