‘There's a disconnect marketing and sales'

An integrated functioning of the marketing and sales teams of an organisation decides its success in business. In business-to-business dealings, these factors shape the customer experience.

Most often there is a disconnect between the two and people associated with the streams end up blaming each other in case of a failure to achieve targets, said Mr K. Muthu Mahesh, National Sales Manager - Aesthetics, Lumenis India.

He was delivering the inaugural address to management students at PSNA College of Engineering and Technology, Dindigul, on “Integrating Marketing with Sales,” here on Friday. The event was organised by BL Club.

He said that most often, marketing and sales are used interchangeably and misunderstood. These are different functions .

Marketing envisages an action over a time horizon with specific leads for presentation for both, long and tactical time frame.

Sales is what takes place instantly on the ground in a short time frame, while dealing with a customer with such leads. But very often sales people develop messaging “on the fly” and the leads get ignored. The conversation between the sales person and the customer establishes the competitive differentiation in the deal and becomes the most critical element in shaping a successful customer experience for mutually achieving a goal or solving a problem.

He further said that at the point of sales, a good number fail to explain how their solutions/offerings can be used by buyers in securing their ends.

If the business turns out to be good, both try to take the credit and over a failure, start blaming each other. This disconnect can be overcome by evolving a targeted conversation list by the top executives of sales, marketing and finance by integrating tactical marketing with sales to be obtained in the immediate present. Issues that crop up in the process of delivering sales will explain how products could be made better to satisfy a buyer, he explained. Mr T.Murali, Regional General Manger, The Hindu, Madurai, and Dr S.Manimaran, Head of Department of Management Studies, were present.

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