Silos Are the Enemy

Silos are the enemy.

Early in my marketing career, the consensus was that “marketing owns the message, sales owns the customer relationship.”

There’s truth to that, but that distinction frequently leads to silos: marketing creates a message in a silo independent of sales. As a result, sales often comes up with a *different* message when dealing with a new contact/potential customer.

This is especially easy to run into when a campaign or product launch is delegated to an ad agency. Messaging, collateral, packaging – all might be exceptionally well done. Still, if sales hasn’t had a seat at the table from the beginning, you risk confusing the potential customer’s buying process. They converted on the marketing message, but then they’re sold using a different story.

Blurring the lines between sales and marketing greases the buying process for the customer. Silos are bad for marketers, salespeople, and potential customers.