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The CMO Council’s new report Sales & Marketing: Driving Revenue Through Collaboration found that more than 70% of marketers don't feel very confident in their sales and marketing model to sell effectively in the digitalized customer journey and to the self-reliant buyer. Here’s an excerpt of the report:

A couple of years ago, Capital Group saw the need for a new sales-marketing relationship that would be agile enough to accommodate shifting selling conditions — namely, the digitalized customer journey and self-reliant buyer — and result in winning and retaining more customers.

But this meant a change in cultural mindset, one that requires sales and marketing to work much more closely together. “It changes roles in certain cases and requires new ways of thinking,” says Dan Schreibstein, Capital Group’s head of high net worth marketing. “This can create tension between sales and marketing and test your patience.”

Problem is sometimes salespeople and marketers aren’t the best collaborators.

“Either function can sometimes get really insular, an island unto themselves, and focus on just delivering the sales model or against their marketing metrics,” says Eric Grey, Capital Group’s national director, RIA distribution. “The team needs to break this ossification and be willing to look at the broader picture to see the impact and the overlap and how both functions can complement one another to achieve results neither could have on their own.”

What’s needed is a shared commitment in the form of a shared vision and shared principles that will lead to value cascading through the organization over time. It’s about everyone embracing a deeply held belief that sales fuels marketing, marketing fuels sales.

Sticking points, challenges and compromises can undermine this commitment, Schreibstein says. That’s why the shared vision needs to be backed by real changes, such as shared planning processes and a compensation model that includes engagement and participation outcomes for both salespeople and marketers.

“Talking about it without changes to execution won’t make it a reality,” Grey says.

Grey is quick to point out that a sales-marketing relationship reset is never complete. Like any relationship, both parties have to work at it constantly. For instance, Grey is working now with a new marketing lead and introducing her to this new kind of sales-marketing culture, what she needs to know about sales, and how sales values marketing.

“You have to pay a little more attention and make sure everything you do reflects this shared vision and approach, and so it will never be done,” Grey says. “It’s fragile, and you’ve got to make it important and build the right structures to sustain it.”

Sales & Marketing: Driving Revenue Through Collaboration is based on a survey of over 300 marketing leaders across industries and geographies. Additionally, we conducted in-depth interviews with marketing and or sales executives from Teradata, Schneider Electric, Valpak, Capital Group, Cox Business, Brunswick, and others. Download the full report.

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