From the Desk of Steven Muro: A Fusion Between Two Sides — Getting Sales and Marketing to Work Together
Before I founded FUSION, I was VP Marketing, Worldwide for a large, well-known CPG company.
As I started my position, I noted that the sales staff was never pleased with marketing’s plans, promotions, or materials. The marketing staff, in turn, felt under-appreciated by the sales staff because of the ongoing complaints. This was clearly an untenable situation. And so, I decided to pull market and sales staff members together for a meeting. I started by reminding them that there was plenty of competition on the outside of the company and that in-fighting only helped our competitors. “We are all on the same team,” I reminded them. Then I asked both sides what their expectations where. After only a few minutes it was clear that both sides had unrealistic and completely different expectations. The marketing staff felt dejected and misunderstood. “We put all this research and work into our projects only to get slammed by sales,” they said. Sales claimed the promotions were never discounted enough (and there were not enough of them), product pricing was too high, and materials were too sparse. Clearly, Sales and Marketing were at odds with each other. Not surprisingly, this is a quite common occurrence in many, if not most, companies. So, I set out “Fuse” the two groups together by resetting expectations and providing an education and understanding for both.
“What is a Promotion? What is its purpose?” I asked. (Have you ever asked your staff that question?)
To marketing, it was an opportunity to stimulate awareness and trial among new consumers, create sales lift among the less die-hard fans of the product. To sales, at this company, it had been an opportunity to make an “easy sale” by giving product away to whomever wanted to purchase it. Of course, this simply meant that the company was discounting product to consumers that would have happily paid full price. And because the promotions sold out quickly, new users, and new trial never occurred. This was an “Ah ha” moment for both groups. And we quickly decided to have a series of follow-up meetings to develop a plan and common understanding that would lead to happier employees that were pulling together to beat the competition.
The groups worked together to devise a plan that if a retailer wanted to take advantage of a promotion, they would need to purchase more than their usual monthly sales allotment. After all, their shoppers would want to purchase the promotion because there was “more free” or a price discount or some value added. Moreover, the added promotions would leave enough in stock to find its way to new and interested shoppers. If the retailer did not commit to purchasing 10%-15% more than their usual monthly purchase amount they would have to forfeit the promotion. And, it worked. Sales increased, profits improved, and new users jumped on the bandwagon.
“But why can’t we get more promos?” one salesperson asked. Soon we were discussing shopper psychology, product value, sales and profitability goals per promotion and products, and the need for short-term and long-term profitability. No one in the organization had ever addressed these issues with both sales and marketing teams in the same room. It had always been the exclusive topics of senior management.
It did not take long for both groups to understand the needs of the other and quickly the groups grew closer through mutual understanding. And through implementing the plan above, it became possible to offer a few more promotions because distribution grew, and the promotions became more profitable than ever before.
By freely sharing information and by understanding the “other side,” sales finally understood marketing’s goals, and profitability constraints. Marketing finally understood sale’s frustration, and potential opportunities. In the end there was a FUSION between the two sides — which now became one side, working together: communicating freely and building sales and profits like never before.
Want to create some sales and marketing FUSION in your company? Just give us a call or drop us an email.