Share the Credit

Sometimes Sales and Marketing departments don't willingly share the credit for closed sales. For example, salespeople often disrespect marketing leads:

1. They ridicule, ignore or even throw away leads.
2. They ignore the role of the lead when they close a sale.

Here are two examples of the second case.

A Law Firm

The salespeople (in this case, partners) followed up. But when they landed a new client, they took all the credit and made fun of the marketing director. They were not going to publicly share the credit with a man who was not a partner.

For example, one partner swaggered, "I didn't need a lead to find [Mr. A]. I was at Princeton with him."

The marketing director responded with words to this effect: "Well, John, you've been out of Princeton for 30 years and a partner here for 10 years. During those 10 years, how many times did you approach [Mr. A] in order to interest him in our firm? Show me your time sheets."

The partner snorted. The marketing director, softening his approach, said, "Look, you obviously get credit for closing the sale, and it helped that the prospect was a fellow alumnus of yours. But it is also true that the marketing program got him interested in switching firms, and alerted you that he was interested.

"So you see, we both get credit and we both deserve it."

An Industrial Company

The salesmen closed a healthy percentage of these leads. Like the partners at the law firm, they swaggered, as salesmen tend to do.

Many of them criticized the ad program, saying that it was a waste of money that should have been spent on more salesmen (the old refrain). They asked rhetorically why anyone thought they needed a multi-million-dollar ad campaign to help them find the local high school. Haw, haw, haw.

The marketing director took his case to the president, who wrote a memo to the general sales manager, for distribution to all sales offices.

The president wrote (I am paraphrasing from a 30-year-old memory here): "Full credit and full commission for every closed sale of (product) goes to the rep who closed it. But I don't want to hear any more grousing about how you didn't need a sales lead to tell you where to find the local high school.

"Without the ad program, all the schools would have been cold calls, and not worthy of your time. With the ad program, the schools that asked for more information about (product) became real prospects.

"This is why we have Sales and Marketing. To work hand in hand, and always share the credit justly. Remember, the Marketing folks don't get any commissions. They only want to be able to demonstrate that their ad program pays its own way. Which it does."

It's always helpful when a senior manager understands marketing.

The lesson is clear: Make it known to Sales that you fully respect what they do and are pleased to see them take home their commissions. But also, that they should share the credit. They shouldn't forget that Marketing pays for itself by helping them sell efficiently. Take away either department and the company could not meet its goals.

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