Suzanne Lowe highlights a popular topic for the Action Learning Projects at the 2014-15 Professional Services Leadership Initiative at the Robert H. Smith School of Business: integrating marketing and sales.
Why do marketing and selling disconnects exist between these functions at professional service firms? Part of the reason is that they work at different ends of the business development pipeline.
In many traditional professional services marketing jobs, marketers work at the “beginning” of the pipeline -- defining and building awareness with targeted prospects and clients. (These traditions are changing, however!) Sellers traditionally work at the other end of the pipeline -- acquiring, retaining or building share of wallet with the prospects and clients.
No wonder silos crop up!
To help erase these marketing and selling silos, Lowe suggests marketers and sellers should work to increase their understanding of each other’s tools, processes and, most importantly, motivation.
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