As VP of Sales and Marketing for a partner with one of the top enterprise software firms, my team and I attended a sales conference recently. There was an unbelieveable amount of content — hours and hours of presentations and quizzes.

I was struck by what was missing — sales execution. It was all about product, competitors, unique selling propositions, sales battle cards, etc. It was nothing more than a “brain-dump.” For a $2.4 billion dollar software firm, they should do better.

In this article, let’s look at the results of this approach, the problem it creates and what we can do about it.

If you’ve seen the data, you’ll know that the tenure of Chief Marketing Officers is growing brief. Traditionally, marketing lives far away from customers — at a very high altitude, perhaps 30,000 feet. On the other hand, salespeople live very close to customers, as 3 1/2 feet. This creates a disconnect. The Direct Marketing Association did a study recently. Here is what they learned:

• Up to 90 percent of marketing messages and materials created for sales support is unused or used improperly.
• Salesreps spend 40-60 hours a month of valuable customer face time on non-selling activities.
• Nearly all salespeople are creating and re-creating their own marketing materials.
• Only 10% of salespeople do a good job of creating customer messages, so 90% are poor at it.

What can we do about his problem? Here are a few ideas:

1. Hire marketing people with sales savvy. I’d want someone who has worked as a salesperson and feels their pain.
2. Ensure the marketing team meets with the sales team regularly and ongoing conversations are strong and based on win-win.
3. Develop metrics based on sales execution. For instance, don’t simply track leads, but rather track meetings set from leads. Develop a lead scoring method, so we ensure leads are sales-ready.
4. Focus on the tools for sales, such as e-mail templates, phone scripts, voice mails, VITO letters, etc. Teach them how to reseach their prospects so they can personalize each thing they do.

Good luck and good selling.