I’ll keep this short.

Maybe I’ve run the Curatti blog for going on 6 years now, but I’m really not a marketing guy. Certainly not a salesman! For my entire professional career, I was a Corporate IT guy. From either side of the equation, I retain the perspective of a rather unideal consumer. Market to me as if I’m stupid, or a child, and I will not buy what you’re selling, I don’t buy from cartoon characters or animated doormats. I buy from Humans. Honest Humans! I buy where there’s a unified message. And I put forward an honest, unified, Human message as a service provider.

But I’ve read many articles about how Marketing and Sales don’t always work in unison. And it shocks me that this is a thing.

Look. You’re the marketing people, so I’m not going to tell you what you should already know and what the public presume you live by. And I’m not going to bore you with links to articles telling you what you should be doing. If you haven’t read them by now, you’re unlikely to at my beckoning.

But I do have a true analogy for you…

It involves a once well-known health insurance company that I contracted for in 1998.

Each group in the IT department had its own Y2K team. I managed one of these. I would find lots of things that could be problematic for other groups and automatically passed these things on to my peers.

One day, I found a show-stopping issue with the company-wide date routine that had somehow been missed. I took it to my manager, suggesting that I write an email to the entire IT group, explaining what I found and the simple fix.

My manager said “No!”

He explained that he didn’t like me doing the discovery work for every team. He thought that come January 1^st. 2000, he would be covered in glory if his was the only group that didn’t suffer from system crashes.

What would really have happened if some or all of the other groups had encountered serious issues? If the company survived, would he look good? I doubt it!

And if marketing and sales don’t work together and that impacts your company’s bottom line, does either of those groups come out looking good? Do I need to answer that?

The Moral Of The Story?

There is one company. One bottom line. One direction to pull in. There is no glory to be had if you do the right thing but your company goes down the tubes. There is no smugness in failure.

If things aren’t quite working for you and you can’t see why, you should seek some outside help. Sometimes, you just need a fresh perspective.

You may also want to read: The Benefits of Showcasing Company Culture in Digital Marketing

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Andy Capaloff

Andy Capaloff is the COO of Curatti. Prior to moving into the world of Content Marketing, Social Media Management and the day-to-day running of a Digital Marketing company, Andy spent over 3 decades in various aspects of IT. It is here that he honed his writing and technical skills, and his ability to ask uncommon questions.

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