More and more organizations are realizing that the talent and resources of Marketing need to be “reeled in” to support sales. While “branding” is important, remember this: A brand is merely the promise of an experience. In order to experience the brand, one must generally purchase the product or service of the brand. In order to purchase the product or service of the brand, you need to provide a selling channel. A selling channel needs support. Capische?
Sales has a quantifiable objective: Revenue. One either achieves/surpasses it or one does not. The way to achieve/surpass a revenue objective with the highest probability of success is to align appropriate organizational resources, most notably in Marketing and Sales. The coordination of these resources is known as Marketing and Sales Alignment. And for the most part, Marketing needs to learn to paddle in the same direction as Sales, sometimes warning them where the rocks, eddies, and rapids are. There are some fundamental challenges in attaining alignment:
