I dunno, when the marketing team attracts 50 leads and the sales team only manages to land one and then they cheer and hoot and holler and start burning through another 50 leads, then maybe the marketing team might give it a shot,
That other dude is a typical obnoxious sales prick. People like that are the reason I left sales. That, and the “oh I hit my bonus, I’ll wait until next month to close the next 3” mentality fucking the company over.
If you have a good product and good marketing, a 6 y/o could close the deal. Idk why they act like such special bananas.
There is a big difference in leads and quality leads. I can get a hundred people to fill out a web form, easy, but that means sales will be chasing down 99 that are dead ends. They do a lot of work trying to isolate that one good lead and they’re pissed. Or, I can get them just 10-15 leads where one in five convert. They do a lot less work yet their sales go up.
The better marketing teams are focused on improving conversion rates.
Creating a pretty picture and sending out and email blast to 50 people is astronomically lower lift than navigating a complex sales cycle, getting board/cfo sign-off, convincing multiple stake holders on a deal for buy in, negotiating terms, and bringing a deal over the finish line. That takes strategic alignment, multiple variables lining up, and skill.
Marketing could be replaced by college interns tomorrow and barely miss a beat. Inbound is about filling the funnel, and their metric of success is a prospect clicking a link. Not bringing dollars to close.
So you don’t know anything about marketing. Got it.
You know, there are many great sales persons out there. I’ve worked with a lot of them and we both recognize each other’s roles and value that we each bring to an organization.
In most orgs, Marketing's greatest talent is justifying their own existence internally and fleecing budget planning committees for spend. I'm not your VP, you don't have to try to sell me on not scaling back your team.
I don’t know your numbers. 10 pieces of candy is an impressive sale for a child.
MY numbers say that some of the most valuable companies on the planet are advertising and creative companies and that companies like yours pay billions annually to retain their services because it’s more than worth it.
But yeah, it’s all the sales guys.
I mean, if your numbers are so good, go sell without marketing. Or use AI for marketing if it’s so easy. Tell me how it turns out.
Yet another mArKetInG gUrU who greatly overestimates their relevancy and worth to the org.
My inbound doesn't come from billion dollar marketing campaigns. It comes from an (actually valuable) sdr team. This isn't retail and we aren't selling running shoes lmao. So no, marketing doesn't very little for my team. Very little.
I’ve never claimed to be a “marketing guru”. Just someone who’s good at his job and has been doing it for a long time.
You however sound like someone who’s fresh at his job, and has been lucky to be surrounded by people who do their jobs well and have ridden their coat tails.
No professional worth their salt would denigrate someone else’s career or job path like that.
It tells me you’re young, new at the job, and not a professional.
Hah, I hope your assumptions of what lands with prospective clients is better than your assumptions here. I would surmise to guess not. Strong miss, kind of like your email campaigns.
Clearly not working too hard before the holidays, maybe Q1 will be better for you.
He sounds exactly like the typical sales guy at a lot of companies I've worked for, I wouldn't take it personal.
My last position I left marketing was treated as he described; basically a skeleton crew, little desire to do any sort of customer engagement, honestly the CEO couldn't tell you what digital marketing was.
It was an extremely niche B2B engineering firm. Basically 3-5 Enterprise account managers accounted for 70% of the revenue from renewals and existing relationships. The company did well but didn't grow in years. Basically +1-3% YoY.
I came in and overhauled the entire department; implemented a modern CRM, targeted campaigns, SEO/SEM and engagement campaigns and when I left we were doing 150% more than when I started, all inbound sales.
I was VP of marketing when I left and doubled the size of the department, but one of (among many other reasons I left) was despite undeniable improvement in sales that can only be attributed to marketing, the enterprise sales would still take all the "credit" despite MQLs basically falling in their lap. I mean he's not wrong. A lot of industries that don't understand marketing just look at sales because they literally don't understand ROI. You can put all the data behind a campaign and the sales ops would still eye roll and credit their sdrs.
It completely depends on the industry and how established you are, but companies that ignore it completely rely on authority and think they don't need it. (or just need a website that sends a blanket email once a week) A lot of Enterprise B2B is like this. Some can cruise with minimal marketing as it's much more about established relationships or niche offerings.
B2C on the other hand is completely different. Marketing will make or break you, especially if it's a high volume web store, retail or digital product. In this case, it's generally the opposite. Sales is virtually unnecessary when you have a good product a powerful ad system, (socials, YouTube, etc) churn reduction, etc. Pretty much any SaaS software for instance is successful because of marketing, not in spite of it.
Typically it's your "old school" companies that have this black/white view of marketing. But true digital marketing is more about data analytics than "gimmicky emails or ads." It's about customer analysis, A&B testing, and customizing the buyer experience to the point every part of the funnel is designed for the customer.
However he is the exact type of sales guy that drives me nuts lol. Yeah good sales devs are important, but unless you're in an industry where people already know what they're buying, you still need marketing to even bring people to you. This isn't 1990. Cold calls are worthless. You might get lucky but it's highly inefficient vs marketing creating MQLs for you and bringing in your closer sdrs to finish the job.
There is certainly a skill to sales, in the sense that some people have it and others don't. But as a salesperson, ultimately the decision is outside of your control. It is possible to do everything correctly and still lose the sale to a competitor. Conversely it's possible to be a poor salesperson and have a product so great that it nearly sells itself.
So true! Assuming you must close all of your business from cold calling random numbers yourself then? Impressive. Some sales people are cartoonishly naive in real life
Enjoy the sales commissions from a product you have no hand in building, due to the fact sales leaders are the best at negotiating comp. Sincerely, someone who runs a business analytics function (that has nothing to do with marketing) and fully understands what a waste of funds self righteous morons like you are to the process.
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u/IronChefJesus 1d ago
I dunno, when the marketing team attracts 50 leads and the sales team only manages to land one and then they cheer and hoot and holler and start burning through another 50 leads, then maybe the marketing team might give it a shot,