marketing VS Sales?

Recently I was finishing a strategic review where we are delving deeply into a particular market.  This task involved the review of the market, identifying trends and things all the way up to beginning to develop sales plans from the opportunities.

What I discovered was a tremendous disconnect between our strategic marketing folks and the sales folks - what a car wreck.

So I set about benchmarking this little divide and found that it exists almost everywhere. That struck me as very unusual as I feel sales and marketing are two very close departments.  In some companies, they are the same department.

I'll be researching this issue more in the weeks to come.  Right now I'm reading "On Marketing" - great stuff.  

Tipping way out of balance again!

Things sure have been crazy again at work. I'm training a new team and we are really starting from scratch. This has caused me to work more hours and have a great deal more stress.

The good thing is that it has helped me return to the basics of sales and marketing. Sometimes I've gotten away from the basics that have served me so well. I guess you never know something really until you have to teach it to someone else.

That is the nice thing about my new team. I always enjoyed teaching customers about our products, doing training, demonstrations and seminars. This time I'm training "internal customers", my new team!

PS: If any of my former MBA classmates stop by the blog, drop me a line! (Chris, Charles, Tito and the rest!)