Is your business still stuck in the silo rut?

Are you ready for an age-old story? A story, we even hear from the most mature businesses; the old tale of the conflict between sales and marketing.

No shortage of insightful data proves beyond much debate that when there is a powerful connection between sales and marketing departments, businesses make more money. However, most organisations operate very separate sales and marketing functions with zero collaboration, reliance, and sometimes even communication. 

Just imagine if every marketing activity was followed up on by your sales team to maximise engagement and conversion.

How about if every buying trend observed in the market was reported back to marketing.

What would happen if your marketing department provided focused materials to the sales team to use in each client interaction?

I could go on. There are millions of ways that the talent, knowledge, and skill of these two departments should work together to create real results.

For years, I have said that treating these two parts of the business as separate entities is a mistake. Yet, the ‘silo’ school of business still prevails; Sales and Marketing…stand-alone departments without aligned processes and with little to no communication.

We place our marketing teams into a box with labels like: Analytical, Strategically led, Design focused

Our sales teams sit in a (very separate) box next to them with other labels: Turnover led, Tactically led, Interpersonal

We see them as different skill sets with different agendas, rarely creating joined-up working conditions where they can thrive together. 

The reality is that both units need to operate with both tactical and strategic strength. They need to think about communication and presentation in equal measure while also focusing on figures and facts. 

In short, each department is, without question, not strong enough without the other.

The successful integration of these two functions of a business is dependent on their alignment with one carefully planned customer journey, and on holding hands all the way.

For businesses looking to embrace the processes and practices required for this type of integrated culture, strong measures are required to avoid silo structure.

If you want to master the 5-Steps to Avoiding Silo leadership in your business, you should check the 5-minute watch exploring these 5 practical tips at the end of this blog.

1. Create collaborative leadership

2. Management by project or objective

3. Take a look at cross-training (and no… not the machine you hate at the gym)

4. Compensate universally and equally

5. Run your business using collaborative software

Having silos can be truly damaging to the sales and marketing outcomes in your business. It’s time to take an in-depth look at how you can remove silo culture, and empower sales and marketing to use each other as a valuable resource.