Hi, it’s me again. If you’re still following me, I’m glad you’re back. Today I want to return to one of the most puzzling issues I’ve seen since getting my MBA and starting my job as a junior account executive. It’s the way sales and marketing in the same company don’t work together even though they have the same goal. Oh, sure, everybody has the goal of getting ahead and making more money, but I’m talking about something bigger. It’s called winning.
We all know business is a form of competition. You can’t succeed without being competitive. Competition is good for creativity and innovation. But when everyone is clawing their way to the top on everyone else’s back, that’s not the kind of competition that leads to victory. When business is done right, it’s a team sport.
Here’s what I mean. Take college football. Let’s say your starting quarterback is young and not capable of making a lot of really big plays. You can still win if you have a butt-kicking defense that will not only keep the other team from scoring but also get the ball back into your quarterback’s hands sooner and more often. If your offensive line can protect him and you’re lucky enough to have some of the best running backs in the country, your team is going to score. That’s called winning.
But you won’t win if your guys get distracted by the prospect of personal glory as number 1 in the college rankings and fail to stay synced as a team. If that happens, they’ll lose focus on their mission, fail to work together and make stupid mistakes that lead to costly penalties. Um. They just might get their butts kicked in a game all the pundits said they would win. I think you know what I mean.
As in football, sales and marketing teams aren’t on the field at the same time. If they’re not synced, it’s hard for sales to understand all the things marketing can do to help them score and hard for marketing to understand the logistics of being eyeball to eyeball with customers and what the sales guys need to get the ball through the goalposts.
But let’s say you have the right people in the right positions. If the coaches in your C-suite bring them all together by making sure they’re synced behind the same messaging, strategy and tactics, they’ll each understand what the other needs. The marketing team will fill the funnel with higher quality leads, which gives the sales team more opportunities to score. And if marketing gives them the right tools, they’ll score faster. And, that, my friends, is how you win in business.
Of course, none of this happens without the RIGHT messaging, strategy and tactics. Figuring all of that out makes the difference between champion teams and all the rest. At the branding and marketing firm where I work, we call it getting BizSynced®.
We’re not fancy. You’ll find us in a little suburban Atlanta industrial park, but we serve clients all over the world. And if you get involved with us, you’ll be so impressed with BizSynced you might almost think you’re at some swanky branding and marketing firm on Madison Avenue – minus the swank. But as I’ve told you before, I’m just a lowly junior account executive. Rather than take my word for it, please check out BizSynced.
Cheers!
Buzz
I’m a junior account executive with an MBA from a school you may have actually heard of. I plan to continue sharing my views on what works and what doesn’t in the world of branding and marketing as long as I have even one reader. I welcome all comments. If you have a particular topic you’d like me to expound on, email me at BuzzTalksBiz@gmail.com.
