How to Integrate Sales and Marketing Efforts
By Andrew Maydoney

A great organization, like a great chorus, is comprised of well-tuned individuals who can perform solo, but know the importance of collaboration as an ensemble. Specifically in the fields of sales and marketing, most companies are working hard to acquire new customers and retain existing customers so that the company can increase revenue while also increasing value to prospects/customers. To realize these goals, a chorus of voices from across a company must be singing in unison––they must be communicating with consistency and impact. Strategies and tactics that integrate disciplines across the customer lifecycle go a long way to achieve this.

For marketing and sales to integrate well, an organization must see the relationship with a customer as a continuum that begins well before that customer makes a buying decision and lasts long after they have made a commitment. Consider marketing––and media/public relations––as the mechanisms that condition the environment for customers to make decisions in your favor. And consider sales as the channel through which the customer converts that conditioning into action. Moving the customer from one phase of the relationship to another demands integrated approaches.

Recently we worked with a large financial services firm that saw the need to integrate disciplines when sales of its fund management products were slowing. As an organizational strategy, the sales and marketing teams were literally, physically integrated in a seating plan for office space. The marketers were exposed to the daily rigors of sales activities and the sales team members had to listen to the dialogue between marketers trying to increase brand equity and mindshare.

As experts in marketing learned a deeper appreciation for the sales process and sales experts came to appreciate marketing issues, the value of collaboration became clearer. Eventually everyone discovered that they were in pursuit of very similar goals. They simply used very different language and tactics to achieve their goals. And when physically integrated, they found that they could get to their goals more effectively. Ultimately they increased prospect conversion and customer retention by delivering consistent value to the customer across the life of the relationship.

Some important steps to integrate marketing and sales thinking and teams include:

1. Integrate individuals/personnel
• Set ground rules of interdependence and mutual respect where cross-functional presence is desired rather than required,
• Consider the physical layout of the teams. Weave the teams together physically as much as you reasonably can,
• Assure that all levels of the organization are included in the integration––leadership, management, and staff.
2. Integrate process/organization/operations
• Include representation from each discipline in key discussions and decisions,
• Walk in their shoes and learn their language: bring marketers to sales calls; bring sales people to focus group research or campaign planning sessions, sometimes we refer to this as “sensitivity training”––assuring that each discipline is sensitive to the needs and challenges of the other,
• do not indulge negative slights or comments across disciplines.
3. Integrate performance measurement
• Assure that individual and team value is measured, in part, against the successful integration of disciplines,
• Check in on integration progress as frequently as possible––no less than twice per year.
• Celebrate successes as teams and with individuals from each discipline.
4. Integrate the customer
   • Have both sales and marketing continuously monitor the customer's sense of real value,
   • Assure that the only culture in the organization is a customer focused on the customer's needs; not a sales culture and/or marketing culture––a customer culture.
   • What if you work with a small company, and sales and marketing are coming from the same team? Even here, integration as an individual performance strategy is useful.

For a small real estate management firm a cross functional team came together to construct a new marketing and sales communications program. From operations, to sales, to marketing, to senior management, this team comprises the interdependent perspectives that ultimately paint the picture of value for the customer. Sales and marketing strategies are discussed as they affect or are supported by every decision made across the organization. Experts in each discipline are charged with the final decision-making, but other disciplines have the opportunity to voice their perspective on major issues.

Integration. Collaboration. Interdependence. While these terms all seem internally focused, they are actually important acknowledgements that the complete customer experience is a key to the success of any organization or individual within an organization. The strongest chorus will be one where each member is able to actually take a solo. But the soloist must be able to sing with the ensemble. And the whole group must inspire the audience to want to sing along too. Sing the song of interdependence, collaboration, and integration and you will be heard above the din.

Andrew Maydoney is vice president of Research and Strategy at Sametz Blackstone Associates (sametz. com), a Boston-based firm that provides communications counsel, branding and design services to leading organizations navigating change. He can be reached at Andrew@sametz. com.