Why your sales team need to know your strategy

We often talk about the blurred lines between strategy and marketing in business boardrooms. As Roger L Martin recently reiterated that ultimately strategy and marketing will converge into one discipline.

But there is a third, crucial element that often gets left out of this alignment: Sales.

In my experience with SMEs, the sales function is frequently dissociated from the rest of the company. Marketing is creating a lot of content online, sometimes off line too, or events, and various brochures, however without enough strategic thinking behind it. Then sales teams are asked to sell more, have more ambitious targets and deliver substantial growth! All this shows dysfunctional departments who don’t work in unison.

Here is why bridging the gap between strategy, marketing, and sales is the ultimate key to sustainable growth.

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1. Strategy: The High-Level Choices

A business needs to be clear on their current strategy and it needs clear communication to all departments. Strategy is ”a set of high-level, integrated choices that will compel customers to take action.” This is the definition from Roger L Martin that is absolutely spot on.

Strategy defines who you are, where you play, and how you win. It sets the boundaries for everything else the company does.

2. Marketing: The Aligned Activities

Because marketing operates within the boundaries of those high-level choices, the lines between strategy and marketing naturally blur.

Strategic choices dictate marketing choices, such as:

• Brand identity and market positioning.
• The decision to acquire a complementary brand.
• The tone, platforms, and audiences for online and offline campaigns.
• The clear messages the company wants customers to see and remember.

For marketing to be effective, every single activity must be perfectly aligned with the broader company strategy. But what happens when that alignment stops at the marketing department’s door?

3. Sales: The Disconnected Engine

This brings us to the core issue. Too often, the sales function operates in a vacuum. Salespeople receive aggressive targets and intense leadership pressure to close deals, sell more. However they are rarely brought into the strategic fold.

No salesperson can effectively sell the value of a company’s strategic positioning if they are completely unaware of the key choices leadership and marketing have made. When sales is disconnected, they sell on price or feature, rather than value, differentiation.

Bringing It All Together in Unison

Being truly strategic means ensuring that everyone and especially the people on the front lines closing revenue, is aware of what the strategy is and what the company is actually trying to achieve. Strategy cannot be a secret kept among executives, nor a blurry set of choices. It needs clarity and clear communication throughout the company.

When a company communicates its strategy effectively across all departments, the magic happens.

This is why it is so important for companies to educate their leaders on strategy and strategic thinking, skills by the way which are often mentioned on job ads for leaders and managers.

In summary: Strategy is the set of integrated, high-level choices a company makes. Marketing creates the online and offline activities that fit seamlessly within those choices. And Sales, empowered by that context, focuses on building the right kind of relationships to deliver long-term growth.

When these three functions work in unison, you stop merely chasing targets and start building momentum and puts the odds on your side to deliver long term sustainable growth.

Hervé Rolland

Business Coach | Strategy Advisor | Helping leaders become strategic leaders