Their alignment is seldom perfect, but it can usually be improved

Product Marketing and Sales depend on one another for either to succeed. But the two almost always have a different perspective on the marketplace, and that can give rise to tensions, inefficiencies, or worse. Innovation Works Portfolio Executive Jim Jen has been there and offers his observations on where these tensions come from and how they can be overcome.

At least from a distance, the distinctions between a company's product marketing and its sales efforts seem trivial. After all, they are both customer-facing functions created to present the company's products to prospective buyers in the most appealing way. Especially in B2B markets for innovative technology products, the two depend on one another. Both are focused on related revenue targets, both drink from the same income stream, and both have a vested interest in pleasing and retaining the same customers. Indeed, in the eyes of many outside observers, sales and marketing are synonymous terms.

But to those on the inside, the distinctions can be huge. And in some cases, the consequences that flow from those differences can transform what would normally be closely allied functions into a dysfunctional corporate family marked by conflict, distrust, and the seeming inability to see the world through one another's eyes.

Jim Jen, now a Portfolio Executive for Innovation Works in Pittsburgh PA, has seen the sales-marketing disconnect up close and personal. Earlier in his career, while managing the product marketing organization for several software producers in Silicon Valley, Jen developed an appreciation for both points of view. “I've played both halves,” he said. “I've managed the development side of things, specifying what the requirements were. And I have defined sales processes for the sales team, engaged in closing large customer deals and delivering sales training to Sales.”

One vs. Many

Although both entities are obliged to meet sales quotas that embrace multiple customers, the root of their differences, according to Jen, is that the sales organization and its individual representatives, are compensated by their ability to close a particular customer deal at a particular time. To paraphrase the worn-out advertising cliché, a sales person goes after the market one customer at a time.

Product Marketing, on the other hand, has a somewhat different perspective. “Marketing tries to balance needs across a set of customers. It can't necessarily respond all the time or as completely to the individual needs of any one customer as Sales would like. So there's a natural tension there: someone in Sales says ‘I've got this big customer. I gave a demo of the product and they said they would buy it if we added these features. How soon can we get it?'

Good question. When a young company is trying to build recognition and credibility – or even when an established company has entered a new market – helping that sales rep to close a big deal could fit nicely with its marketing plans. But as the company's installed base grows, Marketing has to balance the concrete needs of those existing customers against the expressed needs of new or prospective ones. And the answer may or may not be what Sales or the next new customer wants to hear.

“Maybe Product Marketing has already laid out a roadmap that shows the features coming out six months from now, or maybe never. So Marketing sometimes has to make the call: is this customer important enough to accelerate or change our roadmap so we can close the deal? Do the features they're asking for represent what the rest of the market really wants? There may be times when Marketing has to say ‘no,' and then Sales is unhappy because they feel that has cost them the deal and that Marketing really doesn't understand Sales needs.”

Where's the beef?

Sales might also feel that Product Marketing isn't delivering the tools or the information it needs, Jen noted. Or they might feel the tools aren't being delivered when they're needed. Or perhaps the tools they were given are too generic, or not applicable to a specific customer, or that they're out of date. Or that Marketing just doesn't understand the sales process enough to know how to support or enable it. Or maybe that Marketing is mainly concerned with corporate image advertising and doesn't have to go out in the field every day and hear the customer say ‘this doesn't work for me.'

Those tensions can cut both ways. “Product Marketing people also have stereotypes: that Sales doesn't qualify the customer as well as they need to; that they're doing demos too soon in the process; that they're trying to sell features instead of selling the benefits; or that they're selling ahead,” he said. “If the current product isn't meeting that customer's needs, maybe it's because we shouldn't be selling to that customer right now; or maybe they don't have the budget, or maybe the product doesn't bring them enough value.”

Share and share alike?

Jen recalled one instance in which his company's Sales rep went out and sold a product that the company didn't actually have and then signed a contract committing it to build the product by a certain date. That incident underscored the problem of sharing too much information too soon. “Sometimes you have a case where you've shared a roadmap at a sales training meeting to help them visualize what's coming in the future, and you never intended it to go out externally. But then they go out and promise it to a customer on those specific dates. In the meantime, you've been working on the roadmap and it's been changed, or something slipped, or changed priority, and you didn't know that the roadmap had been shared with a customer. But now the customer has signed a contract based on our delivering certain products and features by a certain date.”

At the same time, Jen points out, the sales team sometimes has a legitimate need for a roadmap, for instance to sell very expensive enterprise software products. “For certain types of products, customers are not only buying what's currently there, they need to make sure that the vision of where you're going to evolve the product is consistent with what they want. So Sales really does need to tell customers what our blueprint for the product actually is.”

Different strokes

As a result of these ambiguities, there are no hard and fast rules governing the relationship between a company's Sales and Product Marketing functions. The best practices are heavily influenced by a number of specifics including the maturity of the company, the price of each purchase, the sales cycle, the life cycle phase of the product, the structure of the company, and the use of distribution channels, among others. “These are all gray areas,” Jen noted. “They often end up being seen as a kind of black-and-white caricature. But quite honestly, it's always gray.”

By way of illustration, Jen offers this example: “A Ford dealer is not going to be able to go to Ford headquarters and say ‘if you built this car differently, added these features, I could sell to this particular customer.' But in an enterprise software company, if you're doing million-dollar deals, an individual customer's needs and requests may be relevant enough to make you change your development priorities.” It all depends.

Workarounds

As a result, the answer may be different for everyone. Beyond that, the tension between the two functions is natural, and sometimes even healthy. As a result, according to Jen, some innovative product marketing executives have found successful methods for crafting a more integrated sales and marketing process by more closely aligning their own functions with those of Sales. Among them:

Be flexible. Marketers don't want every sales person out in the field spinning the product a different way. But don't be dogmatic about it. Leave your sales people enough flexibility to tweak the core messages and materials to meet a specific customer need.

Listen up. If you are consistently hearing from your sales people that their customers are saying we need this or that feature, pay attention; it should tell you something. Find out what the value is that customer is looking for, what is their objective? What is its importance relative to other critical features?

Empower Sales. Marketers should ask themselves and their sales staff how to effectively enable Sales to sell. Make sure they have the demo that best highlights the features and benefits of your solution, as well as the one that's best to use in an introductory meeting.

Represent Sales. Including someone of stature in the Sales organization in strategy meetings can help make sure the voice and needs of Sales are heard at every stage of the product commercialization process. It can also help keep Sales on track with the company's marketing strategy.

Engage Marketing Communications. In addition to product and corporate image messaging, Marketing Communications is typically responsible for generating leads through email, direct mail, trade shows, and other methods that feed into the sales process. Make sure their efforts to support the sales team reflect how Sales actually goes about engaging customers to close deals.

Combine Sales & Marketing. Some companies have a VP of Sales and Marketing. When one person owns both functions, their alignment may be closer. When the finger-pointing at a lower level rises to the executive level, it can be more effectively addressed and staff can be deployed in cross-organizational roles as needed without provincial concerns over headcount.

Think outside. If your company uses an outside channel partner, you have probably made clear your expectations and defined your handoffs with one another. If your sales function is in-house, you may not have bothered to do so. But think of your sales organization as your most important channel partner and plan your expectations accordingly.

See sales-centrically. There is a danger when product marketing people develop marketing plans without considering what a sales-centric view of the world looks like. It can result in sales materials that don't match the sales process and end up being used ineffectively, if at all.

Go on calls. Marketing people should accompany their sales people on customer calls every now and then to better understand the dynamics of the buyer-seller dance.

Make friends. Even if you don't go along on sales calls, you can work to develop good relationships with a few of your local sales reps. They can tell you a lot about the sales experience and the sorts of support they need.

For additional insights, read our interview with B2B sales guru Michael Bosworth "Conversations, not presentations, are what really sell products: But Marketing has to scramble to remain relevant."

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