9.5.07

No More Dying by Inches

To help reverse the effects of its information malnutrition, a sales team must let its marketing department know what customer data is of value and what is not.

by Marshall LagerFrom CRM Magazine May 2007


Sales is a banquet, to paraphrase Mame Dennis, and most poor suckers are starving to death. Marketing collects tons of information on leads, pats itself on the back, and throws that data over the wall to the sales team. Frequently the sales team cannot use it, and this state of affairs leads to animosity between two important realms of a business, lost opportunities for both departments, and a sense of detachment that ranges from the customer to the executive suite.

"The underlying problem is the lack of coordination that plagues the opportunity management process," says Robert Bois, research director at AMR Research. "People assumed CRM would fix this, but it hasn't; sales and marketing don't speak the same language. Sales...isn't starving--it's suffering from malnutrition. There are plenty of fresh vegetables in the house, but they're still eating Cheetos."

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