Marketing is more important than Sales. Change my mind
Last week my husband sent an old LinkedIn post by Collin Cadmus that said:
Product is more important than Marketing
Marketing is more important than Sales
Sales happen
The post says that "when you do things in the correct order, sales become events, not objectives." I mostly believe in points 1 and 2, but not sold on number 3.
The truth is, it depends on your product and growth strategy. As a person who has been in sales for the last ten years working with early-stage startups, I have seen the "Sales World" change repeatedly. We are on the cusp of another shift in how we sell. When I read the comments on this post, I could feel the stress radiate from them. What did I comment on the post? My comment:
"Sales and Marketing Teams are Merging to create Growth Teams."
What do I mean by that? I'll explain. In the world of software fatigue, email fatigue, meeting fatigue, and just about everything fatigue, traditional methods are not working. Today, the majority of Salespeople are considered "Individual Contributors and are held to a number that they can not achieve on their own. Check out my LinkedIn Article, Selling is a Team Sport, where I break down each player that is needed to win a deal. When we start to understand that selling is a team sport, we begin to redefine how we sell and what is needed to sell successfully.
So Marketing is more important than sales and sales can not come before marketing, because they go hand in hand. My prediction is that we will start to see Growth Team that own the entire marketing funnel.