CRM - February 2008 - (Page 34)

hink of the two most different people in your organization, the ones whose personalities are like night and day. Chances are, one of these is a salesperson, and the other’s a technologist. It’s a fairly established fact that, like neighborhood gangs in an S.E. Hinton novel, the Slicks and the Propeller-Heads keep pretty much to their own turf and socialize amongst themselves. If you’re lucky, the discord doesn’t get in the way of their working relationship or, if it does, the individuals are not powerful decision-makers. Outside of casual chat around the water cooler, or at company outings, a sales rep and an IT runner might have little contact. The chief information officer and the executive sales director, on the other hand, can start a rumble that shakes a company to its foundation, paralyzing daily operations and stagnating innovation. It’s more likely to be this way in larger companies, where job specialization is more clearly defined, but even small businesses can experience conflict between the people who set up the laptops and the ones who use them. Minimizing those served by an aggressive, competitive nature, combined with the desire and ability to keep somebody talking. “I believe it’s a lack of understanding—let’s say a lack of lingua franca regarding process requirements and definition,” says John Konczal, director of industry marketing for Sterling Commerce, an AT&T company. “For the most part, sales is about closing business at the current moment. The sales role is about responding to what the customer needs in the present. There is a fundamental fear of saying ‘no’ to any customer need or question.” Not every member of the gregarious, sales-focused Slicks is an abrasive conversation-dominator, nor is everybody who wears Propeller-Head colors a contemplative introvert. But the stereotypes are there for a reason, and it’s fair to make the generalizations. So what happens when you force the two sides to interact? Mutual loathing, if you’re not careful—which could fester to become something worse: non-cooperation. “Salespeople sometimes get carried away with the flash—nice cars, fancy suits, big expense accounts, etc.,” Bohn says. “So, sometimes, IT and other departments get jealous of salespeople— this gets in the way of a healthy working relationship.” WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? The place where sales/tech conflicts play out is usually the company’s infrastructure. Salespeople demand new applications Minimizing conflicts is of critical importance to any business that wants to move ahead. conflicts—and getting the two factions to communicate—is of critical importance to any business that wants to move ahead. or functions that the technologists can’t deliver, or the Slicks abuse and ignore the tech they already have, infuriating the Propeller-Heads. Each group complains to management, who promptly tells them to sort it out amongst themselves. The time wasted going back and forth on issues that won’t get resolved is time that could be better spent on real job tasks. Energy that might have gone into a sales call, or into adding some juicy new bits of computer gear, is dissipated as waste heat from anger. “Tech folk need to understand that sales and marketing are totally dynamic—and always will be,” Bohn says. “If these folks have worked on [enterprise resource planning], accounting, or other back-office problems, they get used to problems that are better defined and don’t change as quickly.” On the other hand, Bohn continues, “Sales folks tend to think, ‘It’s only a little software, what’s the big deal?’ Again, these issues need to be discussed in an ongoing exchange of working together to take better care of customers. People sometimes forget that that is really what their job is.” www.destinationCRM.com THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT Why the disconnect between sales staff and technical personnel, anyway? “This is a good example of left-brain/ right-brain conflict,” suggests Richard Bohn, the executive editor of independent CRM review and analysis site SellMoreNow.com. “The IT person is probably naturally inclined to be left-brain from the start. Then their professional training reinforces this mentality.” The logical, analytical, and concrete thinking suits business technologists, leading them to the profession in the first place and then driving them to excel. “Most sales folks, on the other hand, are talkers who frequently have difficulty staying focused on specific topics,” Bohn adds. This fits the sales lifestyle; sales folk don’t succeed unless they’re comfortable with extemporaneous speaking, and can adjust to new topics and situations rapidly. Salespeople are well 34 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | FEBRUARY 2008 http://SellMoreNow.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - February 2008

CRM - February 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Loyalty Riddle CRM Drives Down-Market Out of the Gate: Marketers Rate ’08 Traits The Pulse Consultants Adapt to CRM’s Changing Landscape Required Reading Cover Story: CRM Gets Serious Contact Center Solutions Always On Rumble in the Office The Smallest Slice Tying Up Cable’s Loose Ends Burning Up the Paper Trail Sunny Skies for Knology No More Bumps for BlueRoads Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - February 2008

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