Why sales still doesn’t completely trust marketing

It’s simple: At the end of the day, sales stands alone.

The marketing team may have the same objectives, on paper.

You may have common definitions between departments of qualified leads, qualified opportunities.

You have a common technology plan, integration between CRM and marketing automation.

The marketing team talks about revenue responsibility.  And it all sounds good. It all sounds right.

But at the end of the month, the end of the quarter, who feels the terror?  Who can’t sleep at night? Who scrapes and claws to hit their number?

Marketing goes home, heads to happy hour, satisfied that they hit their lead number.  Mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, their sales counterparts are making frenzied calls to get deals across the line, are pulling in favors to get a few more dollars in to make their quota.

This may not be an entirely fair comparison. There aren’t many companies asking marketing to hit the phones, negotiate with procurement, literally push those last deals across the line.

It’s not necessarily fair or rational. But when marketing claims revenue responsibility, yet abandons the sales team for their happy hour and “we hit our lead goal” celebrations, you can hopefully see where, and why, sales feels alone.

They’ve always been alone.  On the last day of the month, it’s the sales team that succeeds or fails.  It’s a fairly recent, new and refreshing trend for marketing to embrace revenue responsibility.

Just don’t expect sales to trust so quickly, to believe without seeing you embrace and share the end-of-month terror regularly.

Thank you for the leads, the MQLs, the sales enablement initiatives.  Are you there with us on the final lap, and at the finish line?