Revenue Journal®

What should a marketing VP be responsible for in an organization? And, how has the role changed over the last few years?

The first big question asked by every CEO, especially in times of tight budgets, is whether the marketing and sales functions should be combined under one manager. The answer is yes - but only if you structure the rest of the organization correctly. I think it can work even better than the two-VP approach, when it is done the right way.

But, before I go down that road, we need to face some facts about how the buying process has changed the whole selling process, and how those changes have affected what salespeople should be doing.

Buyers research extensively now before they contact a company. They Google the subject, and they talk to others, until they have narrowed their choices down to one or several candidates. Now they want to ask specific questions that were not answered by their research. The person at the other end of the phone or email should be able to answer those questions. They should also be able to help the client move to a buying decision. They should do this not by pushing but by probing. Politely, but persistently.

Polite persistence is really the hallmark of today's successful salesperson. They don't push, but they never give up, either. I'm stressing this point because it goes to the heart of the management issue. The best sales manager won't let a single detail fall through the cracks. Did the salesperson follow up with that customer? Did he send the email? Did he send another email when he hadn't heard from the customer? Did he call? The best sales manager also listens to sales calls and then coaches the salespeople - every single week - about things they are doing that stop the sale in its tracks (this happens at least 60% of the time, in my experience).

I'm talking about the sales manager in this article because if you do combine marketing and sales under one VP, that VP person should be a marketing person, and the sales manager should report to the marketing VP. Why? Because, 99% of the time, salespeople make terrible managers - especially when we consider the need to be "polite but persistent." Today's customer can be reminded to make a buying decision and can be assisted while trying to make a decision, but cannot be manipulated into making a buying decision. Old-school salespeople are still trying to manipulate and control the customer.

The other reasons you don't want a salesperson managing marketing is because:

• It requires attention to endless details - and salespeople are not detail people.
  
• Salespeople are not strategic thinkers. They focus on this minute, today, this week.
  
• Salespeople get excited by other salespeople. So if someone is selling them on some new media vehicle, they will get excited about it - and try to sell the CEO on using it, even if it does not really make sense for the company (especially long-term).
  
• They tend to manage by humiliation. Salespeople will put up with that for a while, but marketing people won't.
  
• They will tell you everything is rosy even when it isn't. "No worries, boss, I'm hiring a new guy next week, and things will be great again."
  
• They will alienate the more thoughtful types in your organization, including the CFO, the COO, and the product managers.

Now let's look at the roles played by the successful marketing VP.

The role of a marketing VP can be summed up this way: Bring in the leads, and make sure they convert into sales.

A marketing VP who brings in the leads, but is not responsible for converting them into sales, is not going to do you any good. You will spend lots of money; even if you brought in plenty of leads, if you get very few sales, you've (obviously) thrown that money away.

The leads must be linked to conversion. The marketing VP must be driven by the conversion ratio.

This means that the VP's pay package must be structured so that she gets a monthly (not annual) incentive. The incentive should be split between a bonus linked to a percentage of the increased revenue and a bonus tied to increasing the conversion rate. The proportional split and percentage of each bonus depends on what you are selling, how much it sells for, and other factors that can't be covered in a general article like this. This incentive will give the marketer a vested interest in tracking leads through to the sale. It will also help top managers support the VP's efforts intelligently because both the VP and the CEO will be focused on the same goals.

Of course, in order to pay someone a commission tied to conversion rates, you must know what your conversion rate is. Conversion tracking systems must be put in place, and must be adhered to. The marketing department must have a datamaster - someone who is responsible for the tracking systems and the "accountability" side of marketing. The sales department coach/manager, who reports to the marketing VP, must check up on data entry in the same way that he is checking up on follow-through. It should be as easy as possible for salespeople to enter the data about every sale, but the management policy should also include penalties for not entering data - such as withholding commission on a sale until the data for that sale is properly entered.

Bringing in the leads

The marketing VP must provide leads to the sales team. The leads can come through many appropriate methods: search engine optimization, search engine marketing, online advertising, joint efforts with marketing partners and portals, events, website offers (such as a downloadable white paper or a free trial), blogs, social marketing, email campaigns, and traditional PR.

The marketing VP should come up with the right mix of vehicles and messages, and should be testing these different methods and messages constantly, investing more funds in those that work and abandoning the losers. The quality ratings of the leads should be based on conversion rates. A vehicle that brings in a lot of leads that don't convert only ends up diverting the salespeople from working on leads that would have converted.

The quality of the leads must be good, but so must the effectiveness of the conversation between the salesperson and the customer. The marketing VP must work closely with the sales coach/manager, listening to calls, analyzing the methods used by the salespeople, and improving their technique.

In addition to the datamaster, the marketing department also needs someone to be responsible for social media marketing. All markets have "conversations" going on between those who have bought and those who are thinking of buying. The majority of those conversations now take place online. Someone has to be out there, constantly, researching the conversations and contributing whenever possible - in a helpful, transparent, and ethical way.

Any good sales effort, especially for "high-scrutiny" sales, should include outbound telesales efforts. But I believe that the initial prospecting should be done by one type of person - someone who pre-qualifies the lead - and then the remainder of the sale should be made by people who can answer detailed questions about the product. The commission should be shared between both people, with about a third going to the person who does the outreach, and two-thirds going to the person who answers the customer's detailed questions and consummates the sale.

Converting leads to sales

Most CEOs would argue that the typical marketing person is too laid back about conversion. I agree. Some CEOs are trying to find a way to avoid hiring a marketing person altogether, because they are so disgusted with marketers who spend money but who don't particularly care whether sales come from their efforts.

I see a new type of marketing person emerging, one that is less of a "marcom" person and more of a business manager who understands the online environment, hires the right people to help generate and track leads, and hires a sales manager/coach to supervise the sales process.

What most CEOs don't realize is that revenue growth is quite often inhibited by entrenched policies, processes, and systems. A successful marketing VP must be able to convince the CEO why changes are necessary, showing the CEO how those changes can be made with minimal disruption to the business, and explaining what will happen after the changes are made.

Conversion rates can only be accurately tracked if the company is using a halfway-decent CRM system, and if the salespeople are entering the data. Any manager must be able to access the data inside the system at any time.

The VP of marketing and the sales coach/manager should work closely together to remove any obstacles to conversion, and work closely with the salespeople to continually improve the efficiency of the sales process. For example, if salespeople are always answering the same question over and over, that question should be answered - in an obvious way- on the company's website.

Final thoughts

• The VP of marketing could be called the Chief Conversion Officer, because it's all about conversion.
  
• Other marketing VP responsibilities include managing all vendor relationships, hiring and managing the in-house web design, copywriting, PR people, and any other in-house resources.
  
• The CEO and the marketing VP must work together to make tough choices about who should be hired, trained, or fired.
  
• The VP of marketing should call at least one customer a week and ask open-ended questions about the customer's experience with the company, the buying process, and the company's products. She should share her findings with others in the company and any obvious trends should be used to drive strategy.
  
• In larger companies, there is a tendency to hire a VP of sales as well as a VP of marketing. Unfortunately this makes it all too easy for battle lines to be drawn, and for everyone to play the blame game. The VP of sales complains that marketing is not producing good leads, and the VP of marketing complains that the salespeople don't follow up properly (or follow up at all). Putting the same person in charge of lead acquisition and lead conversion solves this problem.
  
• The VP of marketing will not do a good job of coaching the salespeople. The salespeople will consider the VP too aloof and removed from the day-to-day. This is why you need a hands-on, on-the-floor sales coach/manager.
  
• The sales coach/manager needs to work with each person individually and should not rely on rote, formulaic approaches. Optimizing salespeople requires that you understand their specific strengths and weaknesses, and design custom programs to fit each individual.
  
• If the company sells through partners, the VP should hire someone to be responsible for the relationships. An appropriate portion of the budget should be devoted to providing tools for them. They should be interviewed on an ongoing basis, to make sure they have what they need.

Buying habits have changed. Organizations wishing to sell more need to adjust their marketing and sales departments to support those changes - and convert more leads to sales.