How long can short-sighted salespeople bully experienced marketers?

Good sales – the sales department is great. Bad sales – marketing is to blame. Where do so many ambitions come from in sales people who are hired without experience and qualifications? We marketers think this is wrong. A marketer is the brain of the company, and he is the one who should manage everything. And any student can be taught to sell. But cunning sales people cleverly push off responsibility and take all the power. It's time to put an end to this injustice.

We marketers constantly hear horror stories from our clients about how sales people oppress us. Why is it that experienced specialists who deeply understand the product and the pain points of their clients do not actually manage the business or even the process of attracting clients? And they dance to the tune of the sales department, which is generally not very interested in strategy, but is most concerned with fulfilling the plan here and now.

We decided to bring this topic to your judgment. Maybe you also think that marketing is unfairly neglected, although ideally it should manage everything? Or are we missing something?

Good sales – the sales department is great. Bad sales – marketing is to blame.

To support our position, we have collected stories from our clients in this article. Due to their candid statements, our sources wished to remain anonymous. They only allowed us to indicate their name, position, and company area of ​​activity.

For example, here is what Olga, the CMO of a restaurant company, told us about the difficult part of marketing in a corporate structure:

Marketing used to do everything from product development to monitoring service standards. But now companies have lost trust in it. Nobody needs strategic marketing plans anymore. Everyone cares only about profit here and now. And getting their bonuses to pay the mortgage, go on vacation. The main people now are the sales department – in restaurants, these are the operational director, territorial and restaurant directors. They are considered to be the ones who earn money. And marketers only spend it.

For example, the COO and I are drawing up a sales plan. I propose one amount, he proposes another. And his proposals are accepted. And then, when we report to the board of directors, two scenarios always play out:

1. If the plan is fulfilled, then our restaurant directors are great: “they know how to communicate with guests”, “they set up the staff correctly” and “everything is organized in the kitchen”.

2. If the revenue falls short, a marketing debriefing immediately begins: “we don’t need so many gastronomic festivals, you’re wasting your time on the wrong things, it would be better to find normal animators for the children’s rooms”, “the new menu didn’t do well, and it cost as much as a cast-iron bridge”, “next time, coordinate your media plan with us, we’ll tell you right away what will work and what won’t”.

And many employees treat marketers with ridicule. They consider them to be some kind of useless people. It seems to them that they themselves understand more about marketing.

We believe that such an attitude towards marketers is unfair, especially the position of the company's management is incomprehensible. Sometimes the boundless worship of the sales department reaches the point of absurdity. In one company, the owner decided to lower the level of ambition among the management company's managers and issued an order to rename all “managers” into “helpers”, for example, the marketing director became a marketing helper, etc. It got to the point that store directors, arriving at the office, instead of greetings, would shout dashingly throughout the open space: “Well, helpers, I've arrived, come on, serve me as soon as possible!”

Against this backdrop, the story of another client of ours is almost an idyll, an exception, but ultimately confirming the rule. Natalia, a cleaning company CMO, tells us:

Our company was unlucky with sales managers. I suggested inviting my former colleague, with whom we worked together in another company. Our owner liked him. And he was very grateful to me, because the new position was currently more prestigious and profitable for him than the one he left. And although we were not exactly friends at our previous job, here we started working in perfect harmony. Complete understanding, trust, no conflicts. Before he arrived, sales people could say something quite harshly to marketers in general chats and at meetings. But he quickly put an end to this disrespect. And he taught all his employees to communicate and cooperate normally with marketers. But I understand that everything worked out so wonderfully solely due to our personal connections…

Let's now consider who these sales managers are. Perhaps, by getting to know them better, we will begin to better understand the reasons for their aggressive behavior. Our client Alexey, CEO of a city real estate developer, shared with us the story of his career and HR problems in the company:

I started as a manager in the sales department. And I got there, you could say, against my will. After university, without experience, they wouldn’t hire me anywhere. And there were the most vacancies for salespeople and no work experience was required.

I worked there for almost a year and moved to the executive director's department, and then I started moving up the management line. And now, when I've been managing the company for 2 years, I understand that the sales department is the most problematic division for me:

1. Firstly, salespeople don't want to dive into the product. They want to quickly sell it to the client without really understanding what he really needs. It's important for the salesperson to close the deal quickly.

2. Secondly, what to do with them so that they don't slack off on work? Accepting is only half the job. But what happens next? The salesperson is living in clover: “I don't need this client”, “I'll talk to this one later”. Where do they get such ambitions from? How to make sure that the salesperson doesn't get cocky?

3. Thirdly, salespeople are usually not the most capable people. After all, who goes there? Everyone who hasn't found a job anywhere else. This is the only vacancy that hires people without experience, the salary is minimal or zero, and all hope is for a percentage of sales.

After such a story, it becomes clearer why salespeople behave this way. As they say, all that remains is to understand and forgive. And also to help. The main thing is that the help is accepted and the issue is resolved in favor of the business.

We will tell you a few more stories from our practice, when we looked for reasons for stagnation or even a drop in revenue, studied the entire sales funnel and found problems at the level of working with customers. And how we managed or failed to solve them through company marketers or directly with managers if there was no marketing department.

History of a printing house. Are bad leads to blame or should the conversion from application to sale be increased?

When we started working with the printing house, we offered to launch call tracking and CRM, but the client did not want it and said: “My guys work well, I don't see the point in paying.” We worked for a month, and in May, despite the seasonal decline, we brought in 143 applications. For comparison: in March, that is, during the peak season, the printing house had 71 applications. But our client was still not happy: “Something is wrong with my sales. They were coming from word of mouth, and they are still coming. But not from you.”

Then we returned to the conversation about call tracking and finally agreed to connect it. We started listening to calls and understood the reason for the low conversion to sales. The format of communication between managers was difficult to understand. The speech was full of professionalisms that put unprepared people into a stupor. The dialogue began without any special greetings and introductions, but immediately with the question, “Is this your first time calling us?” When the buyer answered “yes”, the questions began: “Do you have a technical specification?”, “Have you done the layout?”, “Is the layout ready?” The manager simply asked his questions from the list to get the necessary information for work, and the client did not understand what they wanted from him and began to mope: “I don't know what you are asking me about. I just wanted to print the book.” The manager stuck to his guns – he tried to explain on his knee what the client should provide for printing and again returned to the questions. The tense conversation lasted about 30 minutes and often ended with the client's refusal.

We started telling the client about how managers lose customers, but he cut off this attempt quite abruptly: “Mind your own business. My managers work well, there is no other way in this business. This topic is taboo. Set up advertising!” More time passed and finally we managed to persuade him to listen to the calls. This was in the evening, and the next morning he himself called our Internet marketer who was leading the project and admitted how ashamed he was that he did not want to hear from us for so long and refused to make improvements. After that, we wrote recommendations for the sales people. True, in practice, the client did not implement all of them. But the indicators still improved: the conversion into sales increased from 9% to 22%, with an optimal mark of 30%. We told the story of the project in more detail in case.

The Story of an Online School for Children: What Happens When the Sales Department Doesn't Understand Parents' Pains

In the first month of working with the school, we listened to calls to study the target audience and realized that there were serious problems in the sales department's communication with parents. The manager did not know the advantages of the school, could not explain the service in an accessible way, and only formally answered incoming questions. She did not delve into the customer's situation and did not try to consult on it. The analysis showed that with 63 applications, only 5% could reach the sale, and all the rest were missed for various reasons:

• 27% of parents went to “think about it” because the dialogues ended with pleasantries like “it was nice to talk”, without motivation to make a decision (sometimes even with assurances that “everything can be decided in August”); the necessary information was not provided (instead of an answer to the request “interested in distance learning within 7000” a long story about all the formats and rates), there was not enough further “warming up” of the client (continued negotiations, reminders, etc.);

• 10% refused due to the lack of work with objections (“expensive”, “it’s too far to go for testing”, “I don’t want to go to Moscow for textbooks”) and a lack of immersion in the client’s problem – parents were confused in the wording, they could ask “do you have home schooling”, and they were given a negative answer, without specifying what they meant and what their task was;

• 4% missed calls – since the manager usually called only once;

• 43% are not in CRM – 2% another employee responded to the request; 14% requests remained in chats, 29% were not identified and 3% had duplicated purposes.

It was obvious that the manager was incompetent, his work style was suitable for cold calling, but not for hot sales. At first, the client did not want to change the specialist, because she was “a very good and responsible girl.” We helped develop scripts and a sales work system. But the manager could not handle the new standards. Conversion increased, but only to 17%. At each meeting, we drew the client's attention to the fact that he could get more sales from advertising. And finally, we managed to push through the reshuffle in the sales department. Another specialist was invited to work, who began to work professionally according to the new department standards, and the conversion to sales increased to 47%. You can read more about this story and all our recommendations to the sales department in school case.

The Story of a Cleaning Company: How a Mystery Shopper Made Salespeople's Problems Across the Country Visible

The federal cleaning company was actively expanding its franchise geography. A huge number of people worked with clients. Some franchisees had the opportunity to hire managers, and some answered calls from their mobile phones themselves.

We launched contextual advertising. The conversion from click to lead was quite high – 6.8%, but from qualified lead to order was low – about 50%. A qualified lead is not just a request that may be spam or a number that is impossible to call, but a living person who is interested in cleaning and is ready to order the service. For such requests, 50% conversion in such a business is not enough. We suggested that the client launch a “secret shopper” project to understand the reasons for the low conversion.

Here are the problems we identified at different stages of working with clients:

• Call. As we have already said, in small franchises, the owners answered the calls themselves and, oddly enough, many did not do it in a very friendly manner. For example, when picking up the phone, they did not introduce themselves, did not name the company, but simply said “Hello!” They did not hesitate to refuse the client quite sharply: “I'm having lunch, call back later!” or “Our cleaner is busy!”, without offering any alternative. In larger branches, managers spoke on the phone, but there were problems here too: no clarifying questions were asked, no additional services were offered.

• Order confirmation. It just wasn't there. Mystery shoppers were expecting a message or a push in a messenger, but nothing came.

• Cleaning. There were no questions about the cleaners. They were polite, neat, friendly and unobtrusive. But when it was necessary to contact the managers, problems arose again. For example, one of the orders included window washing, which seemed to be calculated correctly over the phone, but on site the cleaners saw non-standard sized windows. The cost of cleaning increased and it was necessary to contact the company manager. It was not possible to get through. And only half an hour after changing the order, the manager called back himself.

• Repeat sales. There were none. After the cleaning, no one contacted to find out how everything went. Two weeks later, there were no messages with an offer to clean the apartment again. No one motivated to use the company's services again, although for a business it is cheaper than attracting a new client. And for cleaning it is vital. Because the cost of attracting a client with the help of contextual advertising pays off far from the first order. And the effectiveness of advertising should be assessed by LTV.

Based on the results of the “Mystery Shopper”, we prepared recommendations, the client worked through them and the situation with orders changed dramatically. In the meantime, we made another breakthrough in contextual advertising and all these measures together increased the number of cleanings by 115%, and the CPO decreased by 66%. You can find out more from our case.

2 Fly in the Ointment: Stories of Sales Departments That Didn't Want to Change

We have told three examples when mistakes in the work of sales departments were corrected one way or another. But we also had not such a positive experience, when the heads of the sales departments had their own views that they did not want to change. Here are 2 examples:

1. Online store of elite household appliances wanted sales growth. We increased the number of applications, but then things went badly. People don't buy expensive equipment spontaneously; they usually consult first, monitor prices and conditions. We started looking for the reasons for the drop in applications at the consultation stage. And, indeed, they were there. The sales manager was very knowledgeable about his products, knew all the nuances, pros and cons. But he didn't know how to work with sales scripts at all. He himself was interested in telling about the products in great detail. The buyers' psyche couldn't stand too long a story, an abundance of unnecessary details, and people started getting nervous. Many tried to interrupt the manager to bring him back to the essence of the issue, but to no avail. The manager calmly listened to their remarks and then calmly continued the interrupted story.

At the weekly meeting, we told the client about the problem. The marketer promised to convey it to the sales director and the head of the company. At the next planning meeting, the answer was: “Anatoly (manager) is a very valuable employee, his knowledge, on the contrary, helps to sell more.” We were surprised: only 10-15% of applications converted into sales and this is called “selling more”? And then an idea came up that if a valuable and knowledgeable employee was transferred to another position, for example, to answer site users in the chat. There are more cold calls there and detailed information about the products would be very useful. Moreover, in writing, the specialist will be more laconic. After 4 weeks, we learned that due to the intervention of the company's head, there were still changes in the sales department. Another manager was transferred to the telephone consultation. But the situation only worsened. Because the new specialist, on the contrary, was too laconic, quickly and formally followed the scripts, without going into details and the wishes of the buyer. Conversion to sales did not increase. And when we offered recommendations for improving the salesperson’s work, the department director responded with a sharp refusal.

2. Cargo transportation company from China to Russia provided a difficult service. The main difficulty was that the customer could not immediately find out the final price of the cargo transportation. It was impossible to write even an approximate price range on the website. Users had to call and verbally tell the sales manager all their input data. After that, the salesperson contacted the customs broker and then calculated the estimate. Despite the fact that the managers called their customers back a few hours after sending the application, the final answer was given only after 2-3 days.

We studied the consumer's path and learned that they usually sent their requests to several companies at once. And they gave preference to those who would process their order faster. Because of the long responses from the client's sales department, competitors got ahead of them and made offers to customers first. In 79% of cases, the manager received a refusal with a comment that the freight carrier had already been found. We suggested that our client adjust the business processes in the company. But the sales manager did not want to restructure the work of the department. He argued like this: “You better bring us more requests. Then we will have more sales.”

And what about sales at MAKO? Our department likes hot clients

In the finale, we will talk about how our own sales department works and how it interacts with our marketing. Our service is not simple. Contextual advertising cannot be touched or visually demonstrated. You can only plan the result and then feel it in your revenue. Therefore, selling such a product was not easy at first.

The history of our sales department can be divided into 2 stages:

1) Failure with cold sales department. At first, we had guys working for us who made cold calls, etc. They got a lot of rejections, but they were very stress-resistant. They knew how to take a hit, patiently feel out the ground with cold clients. But they also had their downsides – superficial knowledge of the product, unwillingness to understand contextual advertising. The results of such work were dismal. We started looking for another way. We decided to develop lead generation, launch content marketing and receive incoming applications. We created a new sales department to work with them.

2) “Hot” salespeople with a fine mental organization. We found guys who deeply understand our services, and with whom we, marketers, were interested in communicating. They are not ready to “cool down”, but their competencies impress incoming clients so much that some even say: “if your salespeople understand advertising so well, then the experts are even cooler”. There are only 2 people in the department: one is in charge of contextual advertising, and the other is in charge of promotion on marketplaces. There is no manager. Perhaps it would be even better with one. But for now we have enough.

Of course, even the best salespeople are not universal and everyone has their shortcomings. A specialist who works well with hot clients, as a rule, despises cold methods. For example, conferences, where you need to actively communicate and convert acquaintances into requests. There, our experts give presentations, then the most active listeners approach them. Someone sends an application using a QR code from a presentation. But the sales department does not go there with us and does not help. Well, we have already resigned ourselves and do not insist. We console ourselves with the fact that quality is better than quantity.

As for the interaction between the sales and marketing departments. We don't have any big problems. And this is precisely because marketing manages all processes. For example, for each client, our experts prepare very detailed and rich presentations with an audit and development strategy. Salespeople, of course, appreciate this, because it is much easier to sell when there is such a cool argument. In addition, experts also take part in meetings with clients, including directors, who then lead projects. This is the situation we have. And what about you?

So: will the sales department always be great or will marketing rule the roost?

So, we have considered the business trend “marketing versus sales”, and a fairly common situation, when marketing in companies does not solve much, and sales people rule the roost. Their goals are shallow – revenue here and now. But before, everything was the other way around and marketing influenced many business processes in companies and “told” what to do. We do not agree with these trends. We do not understand why the sales department so zealously puts a spoke in the wheel of marketers? Why are salespeople like this? And why do marketers allow all this? Do you have the same opinion? Or is there something we do not understand?

If you need to increase your conversions, order our deep audit of contextual advertising for 0 rubles on makodigital.ru

How will this be useful?

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