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Adam Williams

Sales and Marketing - Together

When I returned to Rackspace in December of 2016, our division faced the common challenge of a sales and marketing disconnect. It had become too easy to blame the typical suspects – lead quality, lead numbers, lack of sales discipline/documentation, etc. While all – and none – of those reasons might have been true; the real breakdown was in communication between the teams. People were sending emails with complaints but not offering solutions – it’s way too easy to be snarky with a keyboard. People were meeting in silos so the frustrations were amplified in a echo chamber. Distrust always had a seat at the table.

The sales team was missing targets and marketing felt like leads went into Salesforce.com to die a slow death. It was the best of times …

Solution? Get.In.The.Same.Room.

No more meetings with just sales leaders and no more meetings with only the marketing team. The success of our business depended on BOTH sales and marketing winning TOGETHER. There would be no more, Us vs Them. Team meetings became TEAM meetings where we shared feedback in a positive way, agreed upon actionable metrics and worked through the bs. We still missed our target in January 2017 – but we, together, then hit 30 months in a row.


Any other suggestions or advice on handling the sales + marketing dynamic?


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