CFO: Marketer, these are serious allegations.
VP Sales: You marketers are all the same! Your campaigns always look so slick. You always are producing lots of “stuff”. But, when it comes to the tough questions, you never have answers!
Marketer: You want answers?
VP Sales: I think we are entitled to them.
Marketer: You want answers?
VP Sales: We want THE TRUTH!
Marketer: Pshh…You can’t handle the truth. We live in a world that requires interest in our products and solutions and that interest must be strategically generated by people with elite skills. We have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You scoff at the marketing team, you curse our big budgets; you have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know – that while the cost of business results may seem excessive, it builds customer loyalty and scales revenue. My very existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, allows us to create a revenue-producing machine. You don’t want to know the truth because deep down in places that you don’t talk about at your pipeline forecast meetings you want me on that call; you need me on that call. We use words like engagement, relevance, and calls-to-action. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent building long-term relationships and creating demand. And you use them as a punch line. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to people who rise and sleep under the very blanket of genuine interest that I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said “thank you for finding that deal” and went on your way. Otherwise, might I suggest that you stop questioning me and close the deal I just sent to you, either way; I don’t care what you think you’re entitled to.
VP Sales: Can you prove how much revenue you impacted last year?
Marketer: I did the job I was hired to do.
VP Sales: Can you actually prove how much revenue you impacted last year?
Marketer: You’re darn right I can.
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Can you handle the truth? The truth is I see organizations continuing to FAIL in 2010. Fail in understanding what mix of marketing and sales strategies actually drive the business to its revenue and growth targets. I believe this is because we all continue to isolate sales and marketing instead of evaluating performance within context of the entire integrated sales and marketing funnel. We continue to judge the effectiveness of marketing by eyeballs that hit our website – and NOT revenue. We look at sales efficiencies without the context of inbound demand and how it is currently managed. We aren’t putting in service-level agreements and holding both functions accountable for the greater short-term and longer-term objectives.
I am looking for MORE than a few good marketers in 2010. I am looking for the elite sales and marketing professionals that are driving change in their organization and developing a CORE COMPETENCY in Demand Generation for their business. And, when I say core competency, I mean those organizations that have established a revenue machine. Stay tuned as I track them down and share insights from the front lines of those that are adopting the principles of The Demand Lifecycle and dominating their markets.
A Few Good Marketers will succeed in 2010. Will you be one of them?
**And, thank you to Alex Shootman and the clever Eloqua team for letting me steal the movie reenactment idea.
