In all of the surveys and interviews we conduct here at reveries.com and all the interactions our friends at the ANA have with their members, one intractable problem seems to stand out among others. We call it “The Marketing – Sales Divide”. It’s the frustration marketers experience at the difficulties in getting their strategic brand message translated into equity-building, price increasing, margin-enhancing results by the salesforce. And it’s the frustration salespeople feel at their difficulties in getting marketers to understand the real business situation sufficiently to deliver practically effective sales tools.

We were so struck by the universality of the expression of the problem, and by the intensity of emotion in that expression, that we regarded it as an important service that we bring some additional science, objectivity and data to the issue. We conducted a scientific survey among our readership. As is always the case with reveries surveys, we got a broad response, from a lot of senior experienced people, across a wide range of industries and jobs, and a lot of intelligent thought.

Here are the headlines from the survey.

1. The business problem that sparks the depth of concern and the emotional intensity surrounding the issue is the generation of topline revenue growth.

   For a long time, it has been our contention that the only thing that matters in business is growth. When we use the term, we mean real growth – topline revenue growth and gross margin growth that result from more customers buying more stuff on better terms (as opposed to earnings growth generated by accounting manipulations, cost-cutting and dubious migrations across the divide between the P&L and the balance sheet).

   Our survey respondents confirmed this priority. When we asked them what was the problem they were trying to solve by bridging the marketing-sales divide, the highest scoring response was increasing sales. All other considerations are secondary.

   We can be confident that our respondents are focused on the right issues, and not on some turf war or ideological battle across organizational silos.

2. The key driver of topline revenue growth is the quality of the customer relationship.

   Our respondents are very savvy about what drives topline revenue growth. It’s the behavioral measure of the relationship with customers, usually defined by the term loyalty. While penetrating new customers is promising, it’s also expensive, whereas selling more stuff on better terms to existing customers is the proof of a strong brand and a robust business relationship.

   Our survey respondents also understand that driving topline revenue growth by building customer loyalty also drives profitability. Through loyalty, revenue growth and profit growth are inextricably linked.

3. The cause of the problem is thought to be the inherent tendency of sales organizations and cultures to revert to tactics and abandon strategy.

   Marketers see themselves as developers of strategic business plans and solutions. They also believe that they pass these strategic tools to the salesforce for the latter to deploy in building high quality and high profit customer relationships. But they believe that the salesforce is unable to maintain the quality and intent of the strategy and unable, consequently, to achieve the results of revenue and profit growth the strategy was designed to deliver.

   The interaction of cause and effect in this situation is subtle and complex. No survey of the type we conducted could ever make it clear whether the fault lies in the strategic content that doesn’t stand up to the realities of the marketplace, or whether the problem is that salespeople are not sufficiently trained, or supported, or capable to execute the strategies.

   We do know, however, that the marketing-sales divide is a chasm over which strategic intent can’t jump – at least not in our respondents’ experience to date.

4. The solution to the problem is seen to lie not in some magic bullet but in collaborative process and organizational change.

   Brandowners focus on process rather than tools to address the challenge of the Marketing-Sales Divide. Their solutions lie in the area of changing the planning process, and making it more collaborative at the early, strategic stages. They propose to blend the two schools of “marketing = strategy” and “sales = tactics” via three process changes: (1) earlier timing and joint involvement to arrived at a joint strategic position from which to launch programs and tactics; (2) involving marketing experts in account planning teams; and (3) creating cross-functional “solutions teams”.

   It is instructive that process and organization are seen as the keys to change by those who feel that there is a solution to the problem. The pessimists who had seen failure identified lack of process to create and communicate a common strategy as the cause. The “P” word – process – emerges again as the one place to look to solve system problems of this nature.

5. On balance, the survey found more optimism than pessimism.

   This is America. Optimists are in the ascendant. 44% of respondents thought that the Sales-Marketing Divide can be addressed and closed. Only 4% were so pessimistic that they felt that the divide is unbridgeable and will always stay that way. However, another 14% felt that it was getting worse due to the irresistible accumulation of power by channels and the effects of hyper-competition.

Our Conclusion

This issue is both seminal and symbolic. Seminal because there are seeds of major new developments here. We see a future in which the strategic elements of marketing and the results-oriented tactics of sales are blended into a single performance-oriented culture and capability. Better planning tools like the new Integrating Planning Process and Consumer Insights For Customers will help to blend insights, strategy and initiatives in a seamless, non-confrontational fashion. Better metrics will help paint a clearer picture of where brand equity is being built and where it’s being eroded and how to achieve both high sales growth and brand equity growth. And new organizations will put brand strategists in account planning roles and blend the skills of sales and marketing.

The issue is symbolic of the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The sales-marketing divide should be assigned to the ash heap of history. The future will be created by shared tools, shared metrics and shared processes so that eventually, as at the end of George Orwell’s novel, we will be able to look from sales to marketing and from marketing to sales and not be able to tell the difference.