Managing the Sales Prevention Department

Recently I was having a conversation with Margaret Johnson of Oakwood Systems Group about the importance of removing roadblocks from the customers’ purchasing journey. She alluded to a term I really liked; she said every time we ignore removing all the roadblocks from our customers’ overall experience with our firm we essentially assign them to the Sales Prevention Department.

How true! There is such a ghostly abyss as the Sales Prevention Department. We send our customers there without even knowing unless they have the enough mojo to raise their voices and tell us what went wrong. They simply disappear into “thanks, but no thanks” land.

So what can we do to abolish this Sales Prevention Department? One simple and clear strategy is to ensure sales and marketing work in alignment. Easier said than done, right? But here is a perspective that can help us all understand each other. Sales is a transactional function so they are looking at everything in terms of numbers and quantifiable items. Marketing on the other hand is a world of perceptions, compelling messages and persuasion. I look at it as gas and motor. You can have the most sophisticated motor (sales) but without gas (marketing) it will just sit there.

As my friend Margaret pointed out mapping out the purchasing journey is not enough. We should be focused on the entire engagement process. This way each inquiry, each conversation, each download, every web visit or blog comment has a value. Perhaps not in terms of dollars and cents but in terms of business results. After all we are not working to achieve only this quarter’s sales objectives but rather for the achievement of overall business results.