There exists in the business world a belief that sales teams and marketing departments are constantly at war with each other. Obviously there must be some validity to this statement, otherwise it wouldn’t continue to propagate among organizations, but generally this misconception is false and is the result of poor communication or ill-aligned goals. Let us squash some of the myths floating around so you can focus on getting your sales and marketing on the same page.

1) Sales Marketing are Mutually Exclusive

Customers go through a process known to most as the Buyer’s Journey. When sales and marketing are separate, they’re ultimately trying to get the customer to do different things… and asking customers to do more than one thing at once does not work. Sales and marketing should be treated as two parts of one process, not completely separate goals for the company to pursue.

2) Sales and Marketing both Work Towards the Same Goal

This is not entirely false, but it’s also not entirely true. Marketing is focused on social signals and data points, while Sales is focused on the number and value of transactions made. This is especially noticeable when one group has a quota to fill and the other doesn’t.

3) Marketing is Focused on  Transferring Qualified Leads to Sales

This is partially true, but it’s not the whole story. In many cases, marketers are focused on creating long-term relationships with customers. If they can convince someone to accept their brand and perhaps buy from them in the future, they call that a win – and there’s rarely much pressure to force leads towards the Sales department.

4) Marketing and Sales are Equal

From the outside, both of these are important – but in practice, companies tend to favor one at the expense of the other. This is why businesses need to recognize the biases they have and take steps to correct that – the two groups don’t need perfectly equal teams and budgets, but they should have enough resources to get the job done.

5) Both Groups can Get What they Need

Marketers often look to things like website changes in order to promote their goals – but sales teams don’t like it when things are constantly changing on them. Companies often have difficulty aligning these groups so both of them can get what they need, and when they don’t, it’s the company as a whole that suffers.

Properly balancing marketing and sales isn’t always as easy as it should be, but it is an important part of helping the business succeed.