Welcome to Rant Me Anything #2. Colby Flood, a wicked smart agency guy who is doing strong work with paid media, proposed for discussion: 

What I’m going to answer for Colby is, why are Marketing and Sales teams so silo’d, how did this happen, and what can we do about it. 

There’s an easy answer and a tough answer to why marketing and sales are so silo’d. 

This is not my beautiful house…

Easy: Organizationally, Marketing is more often than not seen as a support center for Sales. 
That is to say, Marketing’s daily tasks and big wins are intentionally disconnected from sales needs to hit numbers. And that’s largely a function because Sales is considered a revenue driver, while Marketing is seen as a cost center. And if Sales isn’t closing business, it’s generally assumed they’re not getting what they need from Marketing. 

When this scab is scratched, a bigger problem emerges. Organizationally, the overall lifetime of a customer isn’t really considered. How a current customer talks about your brand isn’t really considered. And if it is, it’s not getting back to the top end of the sale. 

In short, organizationally, the role of brand (ie, Marketing) isn’t considered beyond the moment of the sale, which relegates Marketing to presentation monkeys (in the eyes of the organization). 

Proof: How many companies have CX organizations that are silo’d from Marketing, in addition to Sales and Product Development? How often are these organizations working on developing their own Voice of the Customer that’s completely disconnected from the Marketing/Sales voice?

Alot. And if you don’t think it’s happening, marketers, ask your dev teams how they build their dev path.

It will be disconnected from how you’re building your brand path. Guaranteed. 

Marketing, Sales, Client Support, CX, UX, Product Development, should live without silos. But that’s messy. And if there’s one thing an MBA-authored organizational document hates, it’s messy. 

Which leads to the Hard Reason. 

This is not my beautiful wife…

Tough: Silos are easy and clean. Dumb, ill-informed, and lacking in growth. But easy, hierarchical and clean. 

Everybody knows who’s in charge. 

Also, culturally, we’re all still in high school. We like social strata. We like existing in cliques. We like not liking other people because it’s easier and comfortable and us vs. them is a default. 

Marketing wants you to stick to the script that tells a gorgeous story so they can wank off over how beautiful their story is.  

Marketing is nerds sitting around and using words. So. Many. Words. 

Sales wants one thing that is going to close the sale the fastest so they can get back to doing blow and playing Grand Theft Auto. 

Sales are jocks who want to get the touchdown…NOW! 

It’s a cultural disconnect that will always exist until we deal with the reality that Marketing=Brand. We’re all prepping for the game, playing the game, then putting the footage together after the game. 

Lots of nerds and jocks and other people we haven’t even thought about contribute to the game and the success of the team. But, like high school, we only pay attention to the jocks. 

Instituting a non-silo’d messy organizational structure, recognizing that new customers are influenced by marketing, existing customers are influenced by marketing, and former customers are influenced by marketing. And that may mean EVERYONE needs to take more care and responsibility for how we execute the brand across the spectrum. 

And when any organization recognizes that Sales, CX, customer support, etc. etc. etc. are practitioners of the Brand, then you’ll see that the customer becomes the center of the Brand - not the sales guy, the marketer, or the CEO - and sales, renewals, and brand equity will increase. 

Product Marketing (aka, “Strategic Planning”) was supposed to solve this, but it just became another silo. 

But that requires organizational change. And that kind of change is, as I mentioned, messy. And it doesn’t get cleaned up easily. And it requires people to put egos at the door and do hard work to see the whole spectrum of the customer experience. It’s true leadership that can do this, and live this approach with discipline. 

And work is hard. But silos? Silos are easy. Which is why silos exist and will continue to thrive. And brands will underperform because they refuse to get out of their own way because org charts are very easy to understand. And sales people are always prettier than marketing wonks (though we dress better). 

*Required plug.

How do you de-silo? First, it takes the will to get messy. And get in each other’s business. And put accountability forward as a shared (and not individual) responsibility. 

I’ve done this a few times. When it’s worked, it’s sung, man. But it takes willpower to keep it right. It takes roles and responsibilities to be defined, but silos to evaporate. It gets messy, but the messier it gets, the more productive it gets. Because it’s not easy, but everyone becomes more informed and engaged throughout. And Marketing is no longer the bitch making powerpoints. And Sales is no longer out on a branch hoping they close the deal.