The historic clash between the sales and marketing departments has been well documented. There are proponents on both sides of the fence making their case for the paramount importance of their respective function. Many articles written on this topic try to punch above their weight making grandiose statements such as ‘marketing leads, sales follows’, of course depending on the respective point of view of the author. But that is not what this post is about!
There appears to be a new divide making its appearance in search engine marketing (SEM) agencies. The battleground is in smaller SEM agencies where sales & marketing are more closely married together because employee numbers are lower. The traditional sales & marketing dilemmas are not as profound, given a handful of individuals generally work together and often, the same people perform sales & marketing functions.
So what’s the problem? The divide comes in with the technologically oriented non-customer centric web team vs. the non-tech savvy ‘look at me’ sales team.
That is at least how both sides often perceive one another. The barrier is not created with office space, as many small SEM businesses work in a fairly open-plan environment, but rather deeply entrenched perceptions.
The sales team is frustrated that the web team is not keeping ‘their’ clients happy and that the work was not done YESTERDAY! The web team are often annoyed that the sales guys just don’t ‘GET IT’ – it’s not that easy, it cannot be done immediately and no, it will not be squeezed in today!
Same Team, Different Language
These teams inherently do not speak the same language and they are also driven by different goals. Sales teams have sales targets to meet, these are the people who tangibly bring business through the door. Very often in the sales psyche, the actual sale is the goal and the resultant project to be implemented is a bi-product of the sale. It is no longer the ‘sales person’s problem’.
The web team on the other hand, start their work with the project that comes in. Once the project is allocated to them, they are then informed of the budget available for said project, they have to ascertain the exact scope of the project and the hours that can be allocated to the work. Deadlines and scope creep are management challenges for the web team.
Over Promising, Under Delivering
There are some common scenarios that arise when the web team and the sales team do not work collaboratively. They include:
- As the sales clincher, client is sold on promises impossible to achieve
- To meet sales targets, projects beyond company’s resources are taken on
- Impractical project timeline and delivery dates are communicated to client
- The project is unprofitable because scope of work was miscalculated
- Web team does not have a clear idea of client’s requirements
- From the onset client has unrealistically high expectations that inevitably lead to disappointment
The Consequences
From the above scenarios, there are a number of severe consequences that may occur. Some are fairly obvious. If unprofitable projects are taken on, it is clear that the company will lose money on the job, but there are others that are more insidious.
Should projects beyond the company’s resources be taken on, this has a negative effect on other projects because too many people are put on this one to make sure it is a success. This could result in missed deadlines on other projects and thus unsatisfied clients.
If project delivery dates are provided to clients without consulting the web team, these dates may be a complete fabrication, as they are not founded on fact. The client may ultimately think that deadlines are ‘loose’ and not taken seriously by the company, especially if they have to be changed multiple times.
Without a clear idea of the client’s requirements, information may be misinterpreted, the wrong things worked on and both time & money lost on the project.
Disgruntled clients, phoning to vent their frustration at their original point of contact, i.e.: the sales person, not only has a clearly negative impact on the client relationship but also further affects the sales/web team relationship.
Bridging the Divide
Ultimately, communication is the key.
The sales team and web team need to have open two-way communication from the pre-sale stage right through to project implementation. The sales person should always know the status of every single one of his clients’ projects, even if not directly involved in the project management.
Sales people cannot wash their hands off the project as soon as the sale has been made. Maybe if sales people were more involved with project delivery they would make promises to which they could be held accountable, rather than selling the world.
The web team on the other hand needs to communicate more openly with the sales team. Rather than simply grumbling about ‘bloody sales people’ when unrealistic projects land on their table, the matter needs to be addressed directly. In this way, the sales team will develop a better understanding of what is unrealistic, so that similar blunders can be avoided in the future.
There are no quick fixes, but the first step to sales and web team collaboration is admitting there is a problem.
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Google has a 
Where sales and traditional marketing may make some headway, search marketing is completely out of the loop. Often it appears that search marketing and traditional marketing efforts are run by different departments and different people that barely know of the others’ existence.