To close a sale, it takes synergy between all three:
• A prospect with a problem that needs solving
• A marketer to articulate why your company’s solution is better than anyone else’s
• And a salesperson to answer questions and help the prospect understand how your solution fits the prospect’s requirements.
Seems simple, doesn’t it? Sometimes, though, there’s a gap between those three. Sometimes that gap is a pretty big.
Simply making an opportunity to learn about one another’s issues can result a better outcome for the customer as well as the company. In a small company, the silos aren’t as high. There is, by necessity, a lot of cross-pollination between groups. At the very least, they are more likely to run into one another at the coffee machine and engage in a little shoptalk.
In larger companies, Sales and Marketing need to make an effort to talk, either through formal channels such as joint meetings, through educational channels such as attending each other’s conferences, and through informal socializing. If you’re in sales, don’t you want all information available to close the sale? Doesn’t your commission and bonus ride on using every tool? If you’re in marketing, don’t you want to know how well your ideas are working out in the field?
So open up. Share. Everyone will win.