For good or ill, our Marketing Smarts podcast is not really known for stirring up controversy (I’m working on it, though!).
However, we came fairly close to being controversial on July 10 when the Smart Marketers Tour made a stop in Boston. We recorded a podcast episode with Jeff Mayersohn, owner of the Harvard Bookstore in Harvard Square, Cambridge, and Lou Imbriano, CEO of TrinityOne and former CMO of the New England Patriots.
For his part, Jeff Mayersohn didn’t say anything to rile folks up except, perhaps, when he suggested that Amazon.com was afraid of him and that, as the owner of a bookstore, he doesn’t have much time to read. Who knew?
No, the Riler-in-Chief for the evening was Lou Imbriano, who believes, as the title of this post suggests, that the sales organization should report in to marketing.
Sales Is an Extension of Marketing
To be fair, I got Lou going by pointing out that it was the position he held in his book, Winning the Customer. I also told him that when I recently shared this perspective with someone, I was told, “Good luck with that.”
While the assembled crowd of (mostly) marketers very much liked the idea of sales reporting to marketing (they cheered when I quoted Lou as saying, “Sales is an extension of marketing”), it felt like that idea was more of a wish than a lived reality.
Except, of course, for Lou. “That’s the way it was at the Patriots,” he said. “I was the chief marketing officer, and sales reported into me.
“Marketing and sales are the yin and yang of revenue,” he explained. “They belong with each other.”
Marketing Should Lead
If I understood Lou correctly, the main reason that marketing should lead is that, while bringing in the money is the primary job of
the sales force, marketing is responsible for understanding the customer, identifying customer needs, and creating as many opportunities for generating revenue as possible.
That last point is worth emphasizing because it means that marketing is and should be on the hook for revenue. As Lou bluntly stated, “If a marketing idea doesn’t bring in money, it sucks.”
The other reason that marketing should lead is that, at the end of the day, according to Lou, “Everybody in the organization works for marketing.”
He elaborated, “Every employee of your company has to be a custodian of the brand. If they’re not, that’s going to affect business and it’s going to effect revenue.”
Who Cares about the Customer?
It all comes back to the customer. The image that the customer has of your company—and their willingness to spend money with you—depends on their experience with your company (not just with the sales force). If customers call in and reception is rude, customer service is indifferent to their concerns, or support can’t fix their problem, your brand has a problem.
If one views those functions and others as part of operations, then the focus falls on efficiency and cost control.
If these functions are viewed through a marketing lens, however, while cost and its components still play a role, the real emphasis shifts to the customer. You stop asking, “How can I do this more cheaply?” and you start asking, “How can I use this role to help grow the business, provide deeper customer insight, and improve customer relations?”
On paper (or on this screen anyway), these ideas seem commonsensical. So why isn’t this the reality at more companies? Why doesn’t marketing lead?
If you’d like to hear my conversations with Jeff and Lou, you may listen here or download the mp3 and listen at your leisure. Of course, you can always subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via the RSS feed. Thanks for listening!
(Photo courtesy of Bigstock: Portrait of Saluting Soldier)
