The Strategy-Sales Schism

Much of what I do involves helping my clients reposition themselves in the marketplace. This can range from chairing a CxO dinner to creating a go to market strategy based on the strategic ‘care abouts’ of the target market.

Some organisations that have well established brands find this particularly challenging because:

• Their business and thus marketing is built around what they sell rather than around the desired outcomes of the client.
• The sales people trade on the brand and over time become ‘hail fellow well met’ order takers.
• The sales people naturally find order taking less stressful than demand creation. And quite naturally so if the bonuses associated with the ‘old school’ offerings are easier to acquire than those associated with new offerings that require an evangelical zeal to convince clients to even consider them.

So I encourage organisations to think through the people implications of their strategic plan. It may make perfect sense to the leadership, but if it doesn’t appeal to the sales team it won’t be long before there is a big gap between what your marketing states and what your sales people actually say.