Brandon Lee: And Caroline, I'm going to jump in because the way that you and I got connected is, and I don't even remember how I found it, but you had a post that I'm going to, it's right netherland girls whatsapp number here, it's big red X. It says "Sales is not marketing's customer." That caught my attention and I kept reading. And one of the things you say is, "Here is what you should do instead, tell your sales and marketing teams they are married." And that's the topic of our conversation today? What do you mean by that? And where did that come from? I think it's fascinating.
Caroline Lane: I've heard so many times that sales is marketing's customer and this is just something that is ingrained in the way we do marketing. And I think it's because at one point there were misalignments, right between sales and marketing and someone thought, "Okay, well we're just going to tell marketing sales is their customer and they're going to align to sales." And the problem with this is this very one sided way of seeing things. If you really want to work and have money, both of the teams need to work together. One of the team is not working for the other one. So I just thought the energy was very wrong because it creates a lot of issues to have one of the team accountable to the other and then vice versa. And when you think of a true partnership that is both people working together, then you can get much better results because they're both accountable to each other.
that made me really unhappy with the customer and energy is that first of all, your customer is the customer, the customer of the company. It's not sales. And so sales will tell you what they're thinking about at this moment, because they're closing deals, this is what they're about and this is great, but they're not going to look at the customers all together. They're going to look at what they're closing right now, and that makes sense, this is their job. The job of marketing is not to do this. The job of marketing is to look at the customers in general and how to grow that customer base.
Brandon Lee: Thomas, what do you think about that?
Thomas Ross: Well, I think those are very valid points. I think one of the things that we want to do and I love your suggestion, the marriage idea is really what it's all about. And I think as the industry continues to develop, that is to say sales and marketing, the evolution is they're coming closer and closer together, at least in theory, but not necessarily in reality. And that's where your comments is so well taken. One of the questions I would have for you would be, what are some of the physical things or the tactical things, if that's a better word, that companies can do to create that marriage in today's reality.
