It’s no secret that sales and marketing often don’t play well together. Despite all of the seminars, training sessions and white papers, the well-established silos of these two groups often prevent them from working together to improve their company’s sales processes and results. It would be easy to blame this on differences in culture, negative stereotypes, and different performance metrics – and no doubt that all of those play a role in the problem. But fundamentally, there is a single, underlying explanation for why these functions so often fail to get along: a lack of buy-in. Far too often, the sales staff simply does not buy into the marketing team’s grand initiatives. The result: marketing efforts and sales efforts that don’t work together, salespeople that are angry because the marketing team doesn’t “get it”, and marketers who are angry because the salespeople won’t “get on board”.

So, what is buy-in, exactly, and how can the marketing team work with the salespeople to ensure it? Simply put, buy-in is the belief on the part of the sales team that a particular marketing initiative is appropriate and has merit. That is to say that the sales team genuinely believes that the marketing program is a good idea. To earn such buy-in, the marketing team needs to do several things.

Bring them in early
First, they should bring the sales staff into the process as early as possible, before details of the new initiative have been finalized. You simply can’t create a marketing strategy in a vacuum and hope to obtain buy-in from the sales team. At the end of the day, they’re the ones executing the plan. So get their input before you spend too much time creating a plan that’s going nowhere. Consider, for example, creating a sales advisory board, and take their inputs before coming up with major initiatives. Or, if that’s one bridge too far, before finalizing certain initiatives, you should at least informally discuss strategies with the sales group and invite their inputs. Not only will this show the sales team that marketing cares about their opinion, it can help to create programs that are based in the reality of how sales happen.

Respond to reality
Speaking of reality, it is absolutely critical that marketers respond to the reality of life in the field. The sales team is on the ground every day. Don’t dismiss their concerns, just because they don’t appear in your marketing plan. There are lots of ways to listen to your sales staff; for example, you could host weekly meetings for the first several weeks (or months) following the rollout a new initiative. Just as importantly, you need to provide tangible evidence that you are listening to your sales force. What good does it do you to take input if nothing changes as a result? Nothing will destroy your credibility with the sales team faster than ignoring their input. You don’t have to do everything they say, but you do have to show that their ideas matter.

Show them your thinking
Marketers know all the tricks of marketing, and salespeople know all the tricks of selling. When you go to present the new initiative to the sales team, don’t try to sell them on it. They’ll see right through your pitch. Instead, have an intelligent conversation as to why this is the best method. Present it objectively, with facts and figures, not over-the-top marketing speak (you know what I’m talking about). Convince them that this is the best course, don’t sell them on it. Instead, provide a realistic assessment of what the new strategy can (and cannot) do. Discuss how well the strategy will do in the field and what the challenges will be. If they think you’re trying to feed them a cow pie, you can kiss their support good-bye.

Position them for success
Ultimately, salespeople need tools that can help them break through the clutter and differentiate the company and product. And they look at marketing to provide them with those tools. Salespeople are busy meeting with their customers. They need things that can help them convince those customers that your company has the best products or is the right business partner. This means creating sales materials that can not only communicate the specs, facts and features, but also translate them into benefits, showing (not telling) potential customers how a product or service meets their specific needs. That is to say that successful marketing materials will explain, in no uncertain terms, how the product or service will relieve the emotional pain that the prospect is currently feeling. If the marketing team can provide sales with these kinds of tools – tools that help them to convert prospects into customers – they’ll have won the sales team’s respect, and with it, a whole lot of buy-in.

Image by timparkinson and used under the Creative Commons license.