Here’s the second part to my earlier post on what I call “natural points of friction” for the Marketing function.  Unlike Sales, I have not spent time in Engineering (other than a short and painful amount of time wallowing in C++ and the vi editor during my consulting days) so my points could be incomplete.

Regardless, the same approach applies here in that no matter what company and pretty much regardless of what stage, this is the back and forth that takes place between these two functional areas.  Knowing that it will occur and taking it in stride is more than half the battle.

Engineering says about Marketing-

• Not enough guidance on what to build and for whom
• Not enough detail on what are being defined as requirements – too much gray area
• Unreasonable requirements that either represent too much marketing “fluff” or ridiculous customer requirements
• Unreasonable expectations in terms of delivery times and resource utilization
• Focusing on only visual demonstrations and “sizzle” of end-user experience
• Once we build it, why can’t you sell it (flows thru marketing to sales)

Marketing says about Engineering-

• Not enough flexibility to let the market dictate what to build next
• More than enough detail on requirements that need only a little “common sense” to figure out the gray areas
• Too much time and effort to build “basic” capabilities
• Building everything that can’t be seen
• Building only innovative and “cool” vs more utilitarian capabilities that customers require (and will pay for)

I gave a lunch and learn-type presentation last week to my company about marketing.  My goal was to communicate that there really is a method to the madness and that a simple framework can be applied to drive activities and results.  I picked this framework up some time ago and have used it to varying degrees over the years making some tweaks along the way.  It revolves around four key levers:

1.  Market presence
2.  Getting in front of decision makers
3.  Product line coverage
4.  Winning business

This is a bit self-deprecating in order to entertain my audience and hopefully it will stand on its own without my voice over.

http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=what-does-marketing-dopublic-1214842048856704-9

| View | Upload your own

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.

In case you missed it, we are on the cusp of a very exciting race to become the next President of the United States.  Sorry, I'm not running this year but two other eager fellas are.  I try to steer clear of politics on this blog as that is not the purpose here, but did want to expand on a theme that I picked up recently.

Regardless of the outcome, what we will see play out over the next 5-ish months is a massive amount of money funneling into a variety of new forms of communication, outreach, and sharing.  Both campaigns want their messages out there and want to be able to immediately respond or attack based on the mud slinging of the day.  Elections are, after all, just really big marketing campaigns.  You are trying to sell a product (a candidate) to a market (US voters).

Keep an eye on the ones that are used most and most effectively.  This is a real-time market trial of every new new thing as "funding" for their use will not be a problem.

Here's a pretty interesting story from Newsweek that compares and contrasts the blogging efforts in both camps.  I am currently subscribed to both via my RSS reader and will agree that one is more structured and mechanical while the other is (recently) a bit more conversational.

Great post by Paul Freet from Georgia Tech's Venture Lab about the "3rd product."  I like this approach as it helps frame vision vs. practical realities.  Essentially look at your big idea as the third product you release.  What is your first one going to do given constraints on time and resources and the need to generate real customer interest?  It is important to have a grand product vision but it is also important to know where to start to deliver meaningful value.  Sometimes you must crawl before you run and this is especially true for the first release in your product lifecycle.

I had the opportunity to attend a nice event today put on by the folks at Scale Venture Partners.  Scale is an investor in Hubspan and hosted a “Sales 2.0” event today at the Four Seasons in Palo Alto.  Some good speakers and great perspective on sales and marketing process in a connected and electronically enabled world.  I’ll consolidate my notes and do a follow up post with some highlights.

This is the type of thing that really sets some VC firms apart from others.  Putting on these types of forums brings fresh perspective and brainpower to the things we do at an operating level every day.  Thanks to the Scale team for a great event.

There are lots of approaches to launching a product or company and many are based on the "big bang" of one event.  While major events serve a necessary purpose (as a target date/milestone) they in themselves do not dictate success.  This post from Seth Godin caught my attention and thought this part of the entry really nailed it.

"The best time to promote something is after it has raving fans, after
you've discovered that it works, after it has a groundswell of support.
And more important, the best way to promote something is consistently
and persistently and for a long time."

Great quote (via Ben Casnocha’s blog) that captures the essence of the challenge of leading go-to-market efforts in a young company.  This has been on my brain since I read it a few days ago.  There are many things that are not known but the key is to know how to systematically work through them while being prepared to adjust on the fly.

Interesting post picked via Venture Chronicles from Human Capitalist on a bit of a kerfuffle between Successfactors and competitor Softscape which has escalated to a lawsuit.  This may be an extreme example of what happens when you take a direct shot at a competitor, but it is definintely indicative of the consequences that can arise.  If you sell something….anything, you will always be asked about alternatives or competitors so best to be prepared. 

Beyond having the standard matrix that lists all the things you do better or more completely than your competitors, it is important to have confidence.  Confidence that the other team has a good product or service but that yours is superior in a number of ways. 

Direct shots at a competitor make you look like a chump but solid differentation in key areas can make the difference.  Invite direct comparison or competing pilots.  In many cases that is the only way a smaller or  early stage company can win business with big customers that have never heard of you.  If you don’t have the confidence you can win in this way, time to step back and re-evaluate.