When it’s the end of the quarter and sales is missing their number, it’s easy to blame. Usually, sales will blame marketing for not giving them great leads. As a result, marketing is up in arms because the CEO decides to cut their budget for next year, since he/she is not seeing their return on investment. What department does marketing blame? Typically, it’s sales because they see them as a failure for not closing more sales with the “great” leads that they were given.
Do those two arguments sound familiar? Of course! Every person in sales or marketing has used that excuse or some variation of it at one time or another. I think many companies have separate marketing and sales departments just so that they have someone to blame for their own ineptitude.
Sales Vs Marketing: Who Owns the Lead Generation Process?
All of these arguments and every variation of it are bogus and a total distraction from the real issue at hand. The bottom line is the need to have great prospects that you can turn into customers quickly. If that’s the real issue, then what is the role of each department? It’s simple! Marketing creates the awareness by speaking to many. Sales creates the lead by speaking to a few.
Read that last sentence again, and you’ll see what I’m saying. The role of marketing is to create brand awareness and educate the marketplace. The role of sales is to come alongside them and build on the awareness and education with their prospecting. It is unrealistic to think that marketing is an a position to create highly qualified, motivated leads. Sure, they can do it sometimes, but if you expect that this is their primary mission, you’re setting them and actually yourself up for failure.
And the same goes for sales: it’s the role of sales to turn great leads into great customers. Since those in sales know better than anyone what a great customer is, then they will know better than anyone what a great lead is.
It’s time to quit playing the blame game, and focus on what you do best. Marketing creates the message for the masses, sales delivers the message to the individual.
Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result
