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Article Summary
The ongoing conflict between sales and marketing is a “pink elephant” at many companies. No one wants to talk about the problem until it becomes so disruptive that it must be dealt with. In this article we examine the root cause of this situation--the divergent viewpoints between sales and marketing.

Introduction
I consult with a lot of companies that are struggling with sales and I have found that they all share something in common. Their sales and marketing efforts are at odds. Sometimes, they are even at war. The marketing team lectures the sales department, saying that if only sales would take their advice, its problems would be solved. Meanwhile, the sales department always says it needs something else from marketing. It is clamoring for a silver bullet that will convince the most ardent skeptic to buy.

The root cause of this situation is that sales and marketing have different views of the world. To the marketing department, selling is a series of steps that you guide a prospect through. These steps are based on the logic of purchasing the product, and the marketing team’s job is to provide the tools to move the prospect to the next step. Meanwhile, salespeople must work with the unpredictable part of the process: people. Their job is to formulate an account strategy based upon the people whom they are trying to sell to. They need intuition--what to do and say in a particular competitive situation. The figure below illustrates this dilemma.

Different Viewpoints of Sales and Marketing Have About Sales

As a result, friction between the two areas develops. Salespeople feel they must translate theoretical arguments into a practical message while the marketing team believes the salespeople themselves are the problem. The solution to this problem is to define the intuition that sales needs. The first step is to understand the people involved in the sale: the different types of customer personalities, selfish interests that motivate the purchase, and languages the customers speak. Next, identify the circumstances of the sale: the competition, the players (e.g. the key decision maker’s authority and title) and the deal position (competitive, collaborative, or blind). Finally, a feedback loop for collecting win-loss information should be put into place.

True win-loss analysis is very important and unfortunately, it’s a lost art. Most companies never take the time to understand why they won a deal. They only examine losses. And they usually conduct the examination in one of two ways. In the “blame game,” the account team and various key departmental executives get together to hammer home their own personal agenda using the loss as a lightning rod. The sales team argues it needs a product enhancement or new marketing program while someone else may argue that sales is inept.

“True win-loss analysis is very important and unfortunately, it’s a lost art.”

In the “cumulative dogpile,” the salesperson is put under a microscope and every account move is analyzed and criticized by management. It’s painful to witness and even worse to be the subject of one of these inquisitions. After the fog of war has lifted, it’s easy for the generals back at the corporate office to second-guess the battlefield actions and take potshots at their soldiers. Unfortunately, the cumulative dogpile and blame game impede the flow of critical information and dissuade the truth from being communicated. Meaningful loss analysis focuses on answering the following four fundamental questions.

What Information did we misinterpret during the sales cycle?
The goal of Heavy Hitters (extremely successful salespeople) is to find out the truth about winning an account as early as possible. The sales cycle is a process
that occurs over time, and Heavy Hitters are constantly reconfirming information they received earlier to ensure it is still correct. At the beginning of the sales cycle, they’ll spend much effort evaluating the product’s fit with the customer’s need and qualifying the business opportunity.

As the sales cycle progresses, Heavy Hitters will keep “triangulating” to ensure their information is still accurate by validating information they receive from one person with other people. They will also triangulate to determine the personal biases of each individual involved in the selection process. Finding the truth is a
time-consuming process, and triangulation is a discipline that requires effort and time.

Did we have a coach, internal advocate, or champion in the account?
Heavy Hitters know they need a constant, accurate source of information revealing the internal machinations of the customer’s selection process. The term “coach” is the popular name of a person who is the source of this inside information. The ability to locate, develop, and gain a coach is a skill Heavy Hitters have acquired.

Quite often, ordinary salespeople mistake someone for a coach when in fact the person isn’t a loyal compatriot. Several specific conditions must exist in order for a friendly evaluator to be considered a coach. First, coaches must have a personal reason for wanting you or your company to win. Second, coaches need to specifically say they want you to win and be willing to fight for the your cause. Finally, the information a coach provides must be accurate.

Who was the Bully with the Juice?
Every deal has a “bully with the juice.” The bully with the juice is the only person who can single-handedly select the vendor. The bully with juice has the ability to override the product selection made by other decision makers and even stop the procurement process. Unfortunately, many times we don’t find out who the real bully with juice was until after a decision has been made against us.

There are three important rules regarding the bully who has the juice. First, if you cannot accurately determine who the bully with juice is in your deal and none exists, be prepared for no decision to be made. It takes a bully with the juice to make every purchase happen. This is a reality in today’s economy. Second, when there is a bully with the juice in your deal and this person is not helping you, always assume they are helping someone else. Therefore, the deal is lost. Finally, if a Bully with the Juice does exists but you aren’t able to identify the person, be prepared to lose as you are in a position of extreme risk.

What was the turning point and why didn’t we recognize it?
Every deal has a critical moment or turning point that determines the winner and the losers. In some cases, the turning point is easy to spot. For example, a salesperson may be presenting his solution and encounters a deal-breaking objection that he is unable to overcome. Even though the customer remains cordial for the rest of the meeting, a turning point has occurred and the deal is lost. In most cases, the turning point occurs when the salesperson isn’t present. It’s in casual hallway conversations or internal e-mails that selection team members share opinions that influence vendor’s futures. The only outward sign that a turning point has occurred is the perceptible change in deal momentum.
Recognizing when and why you lost momentum during the sales process is necessary to keep it from happening again in the next account.

Closing Thoughts
The ongoing conflict between sales and marketing is a “pink elephant” at many companies. No one wants to talk about it until the problem becomes so obvious that it must be discussed. Even thought marketing “lectures” sales and sales “says” they need something else, they’re not communicating. However, the underlying argument is over power and control. When marketing tries to dictate sales strategy without listening to sales, the two will be at odds. When sales management doesn’t listen to salespeople, the truth is lost.

Ultimately, sales is a very personal battle between salespeople who fight one another in hand to hand combat. In the trenches, every move the salesperson makes is a matter of life or death. The best generals (from both sales and marketing) understand the intensity of the fight, share the same sense of urgency as the soldiers in the field, and visit the front lines often.

Steve Martin’s new book titled “Heavy Hitter Selling - How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy," is the first book to truly explain the human nature of sales. Please visit www.heavyhitterselling.com for additional articles and sales training information.