The Never Ending Battle Between The Folks In Marketing And Sales

I've always been surprised about the battle that rages between the marketing and sales folks. In most companies the marketing folks are busy creating cute marketing messages for the band and image nonsense, and then the sales folks spend a huge chunk of their time and effort to create "client centred" materials.

There is a clear-cut conflict. The marketing folks are residing happily in their ivory towers blissfully ignoring what the rest of the company does, while the sales folks get beaten up if they don't make quota, so the marketing folks can pick up their hefty paycheques in appreciation for the "creative work" they've done.

And I've just come across a post on Seth Godin's blog entitled Nine Things Marketers Ought To Know About Salespeople. It presents a pretty realistic case from the sales folks' perspective to help marketing folks to better understand what's going on in the real world.