After spending a bit of time building and developing marketing and product management processes and teams in early stage companies, I believe if you have a process view of how all this works you understand that there are natural points of friction that exist on two sides of the marketing organization – one with sales and the other with engineering. 

My recent participation in Scale Venture’s Sales 2.0 event made be think more about this and thought I would lay out some thoughts that came out of that event in a post.  If you know me, you know I use the word “systemic” a bit as problems are based on root causes not symptoms and, more often that not, those causes are linked causing a systemic problem.

I’m going to split this into two posts starting with Marketing & Sales.  Although I have had direct account responsibility in my past and believe that it is everyone’s job to help acquire new customers, my view is skewed from the marketing point of view and I am certain that someone in sales would populate this list differently so I look forward to your comments.

Sales says about Marketing

• Not enough leads
• Leads aren’t qualified enough – just because marketing generated it does not mean it is for real
• Spending time on leads that require significant amounts of nurturing and development that do not align with their compensation plans
• Marketing spending time on things that don’t directly lead to the acquisition of new customers
• Marketing being out of touch with what customers really want or are saying
• Insufficient or no messaging and content for specific customer needs/pain at each stage of the sales cycle
• The lack of a defined, repeatable, and dependable sales process (also applies to target market/business problem)
• Lack of education, collateral, and support to get deals done (especially field staff)
• A product roadmap that is out of synch with customer needs/wants

Marketing says about Sales

• Failure to update the CRM system in a timely and accurate manner
• No visibility or feedback on what happens with generated leads (reference above)
• No win/loss analysis to highlight why a loss occurred (product, price, message) or why it was won
• Not spending time on and following up with leads that require nurturing and development
• A focus only on the next commission vs. the strategic goals of the company
• Inability to stand alone on sales calls and carry the company message and value proposition including heavy dependency on marketing personnel to move a deal forward
• Difficulty in navigating an ambiguous and undefined sales process in the quest to find the repeatable process (as well as help design it)

I’m not saying that any of these are easily resolved, but knowing that they will most certainly arise puts you in a position to plan accordingly.  Having this additional perspective will also help you navigate the “friction” that will come up as you go to market, build and launch products, acquire customers, etc. 

At a minimum, the next time you think sales isn’t doing their job or marketing is out of touch, stop for a moment and reflect on the fact that this type of friction is natural and is going on in every company.  It will definitely lighten the mood a bit and let you power through the tasks at hand.