What is Presence? It's like culture but deeper.  It goes beyond the organization, division, or even the department or team.  It gets down to each individual and begins building from there. And, once it's established at the individual level it's hard to disturb, disrupt or break.

In our e-book, The 4Ps, we look at diagnosing and establishing presence as one of the four key elements of a successful organization. We delve into the "individual presence" of the members, departments/teams, divisions, and the organization as a whole.

In this blog post, we'll look specifically at the cultures that exist within both the sales and marketing departments of an organization. When you look at the culture of your sales and marketing departments—and how they interact—do you see two departments that are aligned, working in harmony to increase revenues? Or do you see autonomous and independent entities seeking to achieve their respective goals with little regard for the other?

In our experience, when it comes to the topic of organizational alignment, we've observed and experienced four types of relationships between teams: Unclear, Clear, Aligned, and United. We define these below, in the context of sales and marketing teams:

Unclear

Both departments have grown independently, each preoccupied with its tasks and agendas. Each group is unclear about what the other is doing until a conflict arises. Meetings between the two, which are rare, are devoted to conflict resolution rather than proactive cooperation.


Clear

In this kind of relationship, the two departments set up processes and guidelines to prevent and manage disputes. Each group is clear about what the other does and they stick to their tasks. The groups develop some common language to accommodate working together on joint projects such as conferences and trade shows.


Aligned

When the two groups are aligned, there are clear boundaries between the two but they are flexible. The groups join together in planning and training. The two will strategize on how to land strategic accounts (Account Based Marketing).


Unified

When sales and marketing are united their boundaries often overlap. Communication is open and free. Both groups are open to redefining and sharing processes, best practices, technology, incentives, and rewards. Budgets are less contentious and sometimes shared for the benefit of the other.

For sustained results from Sales Enablement (blog post here), alignment between the sales and marketing teams is vital. From shared KPIs and metrics to measure results to shared goals and resources, an organization's presence directly impacts revenues, lowers concessions and discounts, and retains sales and marketing professionals.

If you and your organization want to improve alignment between your sales and marketing teams to improve top-line revenues—if you're looking for an ally, we invite you to consider Value Based.