Want to know how to manage sales expectations? Stop trying.

The best advice I could ever give a marketing person is to build a great relationship with their sales team.

Many of my clients sell expensive and/or complex products and services to businesses. They rely heavily on an outside sales team and one of marketing’s primary functions is lead generation. When I’m working in an environment like this, my first priority is to get a handle on the sales team’s expectations. My second priority is to get them on my side.

I’ll admit it; this isn’t always an easy thing to do. Believe me; I’ve had to deal with my share of salespeople whose idea of a qualified lead is one that comes with a signed contract and a check. Even still, when I’m responsible for lead generation, the sales reps are my customers and if they’re not happy, I know I’ll never be successful.

So, what tricks do I use to manage the sales team’s expectations? I don’t use any tricks because I don’t try to manage their expectations, I try to understand and engage them. For example, I want to know how each salesperson defines a qualified lead. I want to know what they’d do if they had control of the marketing budget. Most importantly, I want sales to get involved with marketing as often as possible. Admittedly, I initially did this because I thought sales would be more supportive of marketing programs they’d helped develop, but I quickly learned that listening to them proved more valuable than I had ever imagined.

Salespeople are on the front line every day and they usually have a pulse on the market way before anyone else. Good salespeople know exactly what prospective customers want, and how to get their attention. The best advice I could ever give a marketing person is to build a great relationship with their sales team.

Ask them to provide feedback on marketing plans before they’re executed and carefully review their responses. If necessary, use on-line surveys to get feedback from larger or remote sales teams. Get your salespeople more involved in your marketing and what you’ll get back are more effective marketing programs, a more supportive sales team and a break from worrying about expectations.

Too often, potentially great marketing programs never get a chance to show a return on investment because they lack support from upper management and/or sales. Even the best laid marketing plans can be derailed in a microsecond if they don’t have the necessary support from stakeholders outside the marketing group. So, if you want even a shot at executing a successful marketing program, forget about trying to manage expectations and focus on improving communications. Do this when you’re trying to work effectively with salespeople, upper management and everyone else and enjoy the results.