Sales vs. Marketing [2 of 3]

Minimizing (or Preventing) Negative Relationships

Kotler et.al, in the 2006 article, “Ending the war between sales and marketing” brilliantly and graphically lays out the distinctions, as they currently exist, between sales and marketing, and the most sensible approaches to resolutions (Kotler, Rackham, & Krishnaswamy, 2006). The functional integration this writer spoke of a moment ago is obviously easier to shepherd into shape as the company grows versus having to re-sculpt a corporate culture. Nonetheless, the evolution of this aspect of business is in the beginnings of a new plateau. The challenge is not so much for marketing and sales as it is for management, to be informed good stewards of these extraordinary functions.

Let us assume for a moment highly capable management growing a startup, armed with these insights. As the saying goes, “it's easy to (fill in the blank, as an example we will say ‘be courageous’) when it's easy to be courageous, damn difficult to be courageous when it's damned difficult ”. Of course, the point of the saying is that the “rubber meets the road” during trying times, not during times of ease. Our highly capable management, armed with these insights, growing a startup, likely do not have to face the challenge of our topic, for they would have transcended it as a matter of course.

With that in mind, the writer offers a letter to team leaders (or department heads, etc.) with the current climate being “difficult to be courageous”.

However, before that, as a way of underscoring this re-inculcating shift, there is a sense that it would be useful to also point out a host of "transcendent technologies" that have been developed over recent decades that may also be supportive to such a reframing effort. One example, used by the likes of NASA, JP MorganChase and Apple Computer is Vanto Group, a consulting group specializing in tailoring transformative experiences for corporate empowerments (Vanto Group, 2011). Depending on the degree of entrenched calcification, a company may need to employ such a group to "soften things up first".