How To Get Sales and Marketing Working Together (Presentation)

Posted on August 28, 2020 | 5 Comments

I spoke this morning to a private equity (PE) firm’s gathering of portfolio company CEOs, CROs, and CMOs.  Our topic, one of my favorites, was how to get sales and marketing working together to drive business results.  While I talked about the predictable subject of alignment, I covered it with an interesting three-level angle (philosophical, strategic, operational).  I prefaced the alignment discussion with examples of what typically goes wrong in the sales/marketing relationship, later revealing that I believe most of the commonly-observed “problems” between sales and marketing are, in fact, symptoms of four underlying problems:

  • Unrealistic plans
  • Function-led mentality
  • Blame culture
  • Non-alignment

I’ve embedded the presentation below and it’s also available on Slideshare.

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5 responses to “How To Get Sales and Marketing Working Together (Presentation)”

  1. Vinish Garg | August 31, 2020 at 6:46 pm | Reply

    Hi Dave, this is thought-provoking in different ways. In your slide for the function-led company whether it is product-led or sales-led, or people/narrative-led… at what stage companies figure out this function?

    I see many founders have an average product gaining traction because they are sales-led (founders being in sales or marketing background plays a role), but they cannot sustain it because the product culture and product experience is not the focus. How easy it is for them to change the internal narrative from sales-led to product-led?

    PS: I see Tomasz Tunguz too writing his latest post on the same alignment: https://tomtunguz.com/sales-marketing-slope-connected/

    • Dave Kellogg | September 1, 2020 at 10:28 am | Reply

      My argument is primarily that it’s dangerous to me anything but strategy-led. I’d say typical startups are either product-led or sales-led. Sometimes engineering-led. Usually it reflects the background of the founder so it’s not something you figure out, per se, it’s something that just happens. My belief is, if you’re typical, you’re product-led and the answer is NOT to become sales-led but to strategy-led. Yep, saw Tomasz’s stuff. Great minds :-)

  2. Victor Vickery | January 10, 2021 at 10:37 pm | Reply

    Very nice article! I enjoyed a lot Reading it. Thanks for sharing.

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