Magnus Marketing Blog

So many consultants and firms specialize in doing something that is so commonsense, it blows me away - fostering marketing and sales alignment. The simple answer to how to achieve sales/marketing alignment is: SIT DOWN AND TALK TO EACH OTHER!

Marketing and their great ideas! When I was a Marketing Manager (really Director), the questions I asked were such: "What does a CIO really care about?", "What do you guys (sales) think about this?", "Let me go on the meeting with you!" When was the last time your marketing guy/girl went out on a sales call?

Typical technology marketing folks love to hear themselves talk, especially about their great ideas. Very often, they specialize in marcom, have little understanding of the business, and don't understand sales or business development. Unless they get the technology and business, understand the sales process, understand customers, and see the big picture - there will be no sales/marketing alignment.

I mentioned the "we put the "O" in outsourcing" debacle. That Marketing Manager had 20 years experience and was clueless about the business/technology. She commissioned 6 boxes of hardcopy brochures with beautiful metallic gloss and artsy icons representing each service at a cost of $150K. The copy was rife with branded slogans, artsy icons, flowery language and lovely service descriptions. There was a hint of business discussion and compelling research pertaining to why a CIO or IT executive would even WANT these services - that was my contribution.:) Well, that was done in March. By September, five boxes of beautiful metallic 8 page brochures was dumped in the trash heap at a loss of $100K. Why? Because the company completely repositioned for Post-Y2K and began launching Service Practice after Service Practice. I quickly realized that hardcopy brochures were not the right way to keep pace with the rapid technology changes and in 1999-2000 went to customized, in-house printed PDFS. The cost went down to less than $1.00 page. The language was more business focused, the collateral was put into customized case study packages that were compelling, and research targeting the VP/C-Level/Dir. was created. With the research and other changes, the marketing budget came in $25K or more under. The previous Marketing Manager went 50% over budget with no return. Did I also mention, I worked directly with the salespeople and created tools and support documents that they not only needed, but met the customers requests. BECAUSE I TALKED TO THE SALESPEOPLE AND SHOOK THE HANDS OF OUR CLIENTS!

Recently, I worked in a company with another 20 year Marketing Manager who ran the "Marketing Practice". Not only was she unshakable in her stone beliefs of how things "should be done", but likely never made a call to a senior executive to actually market anything. Out of her mouth was always, "MY IDEA IS"...and inevitably her "IDEA" had nothing to do with what anyone wanted. She delighted in making fun of the company's customers. It took 2 years before my former employer got rid of her. Unbelievably, she went long after me.

The right Marketing folks are going to ask the right questions to the sales people - starting with: "What do you need to do your job better?", "What do our customers care about?", "What do you say that makes them listen to you?", "Where are our customers going to be, what shows have they recommended?" and "How about I go on that meeting with you?". The really great marketers will try a few biz dev calls and experience the challenge of pushing their value proposition.

Maybe I just worked with and observed the left-behind marketing people, the ones who lost it somewhere in their careers. One of my clients is a VP of Marketing, she is very intelligent and gets the business and technology, I enjoy working with her. She helped to position my company in fact. Not every Marketing person is so out of touch. If your Marketing folks are more concerned about themselves rather than who they serve - send them packing.