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The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze the differences in organizations that choose to have a sales executive versus a marketing executive on the leadership team.

Our study examined 315 marketing and sales executives across 246 US firms taken from the S & P 1500.

Our findings suggest that the company choice of marketing or sales executive positions is driven by its customer base, branding strategy, investment in product development, and industry. The choice of executive is also associated with its firm valuation and cash flow performance.

Further research might want to examine companies that include both a sales and marketing executive as part of the leadership team and explore industry characteristics and customer base surrounding that decision.

Research has looked at the relationship between the marketing and sales functions but has rarely taken into account the performance of companies that emphasize sales and/or marketing leadership in its executive team. This paper analyzes the differences in organizations that choose among marketing versus sales executives or an executive overseeing the dual sales and marketing function.

In reviewing a spectrum of practice across the 60 member firms of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, those exhibiting an effective and efficient connection between marketing and sales appear to have three “key linkages” in common: linkages in language, linkages in organization, and linkage in systems. This paper seeks to outline these linkages, and explore how they might be strengthened in business‐to‐business firms.

This is a viewpoint paper, developed by the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, after a full day‐and‐a‐half meeting of ISBM member firms discussing marketing and sales linkage, expanded with additional qualitative observations of marketing/sales linkage across a selection of the ISBM membership base of 60 firms.

The study finds that effectiveness of the linkage between marketing and sales requires strong communication. Often one sees marketing and sales professionals talking past one another – they are not aligned on the definition of key terms, concepts, the nature of their practice. Firms which pay attention to training and alignment on language achieve better results. Common definitions of key terms and attention to communications issues are key in developing a more effective linkage between marketing and sales. Organizational approaches which favor “mixing” marketing and sales, joint meetings and contact, joint sales calls, and a reduction of the boundaries between marketing and sales seem to produce more favorable results. Finally, firms that have thought through, mapped, and show artifacts of a “demand generation process” where the role of marketing and sales are clearly defined, and how one feeds the other is charted clearly, appear to get much better results.

A better understanding – and further research – of the dimensionality of the connection between marketing and sales, how marketing/sales linkages work, antecedents and consequences of strong linkages, and other approaches which produce better results are clearly indicated.

The “Three Linkages” approach points to practical and actionable approaches for managers in strengthening the effectiveness of their marketing and sales teams, such as: train the teams together to create agreement and clearer understanding of language; map the demand generation process and work as a team to understand, streamline, and strengthen it better ; pay careful attention to “handoffs”; and avoid siloed structures where marketing and sales only interact occasionally: implement joint selling calls, and organization structures which foster connection.

Although much discussion goes on with regard to marketing and sales effectiveness, the three dimensionalities of language, organization, and process surfaces as an approach to better understanding how the marketing and sales teams may be better aligned to produce stronger business results.

Effective planning and scheduling systems improve performance in every area of a company. Interfunctional communication and understanding must improve planning that involves joint plans, and schedules must be instituted. Sales and marketing are crucial to this process since they are the starting point with their forecasts and customer order demands. Sales and marketing's active participation in planning and scheduling creates a raised performance and a consensus‐based, trusting working relationship with all other functions.

The transition from marketing strategy to selling is seldom smooth. Too often it is left to chance but successful business results depend on effective management of this transition: coherent and consistent policies, and good communications all along the line from marketing executives to field salesmen.

The international marketing practices and foreign sales of US manufacturing firms are examined in order to identify those marketing variables which are most closely tied to international sales. Survey results suggest that few firms advertise internationally, although advertising is an important determinant of foreign sales, even if that advertising in non‐English‐speaking markets is in English and regardless of its level of standardisation. Results suggest further that manufacture abroad is a powerful stimulus to foreign sales, which is not matched by the presence of sales offices abroad.

The term ‘strategy’ is one of the most frequently used terms in business, and its application in marketing is particularly common. Company strategy, market strategy, marketing strategy, sales strategy, promotion strategy, distribution strategy, low pricing strategy – it would take a long time to list all of them. Although this term is so commonly in use, its definition is not as straightforward and it can be interpreted in different ways. In comparison with tactical decisions, strategy is much more significant for an organisation as it brings long-lasting consequences. It is implemented by higher level managers on a regular basis, and it is based on external, often subjective information, so decisions – especially at the time they are made – are difficult to evaluate.

Taking into consideration the fact that strategy refers to a long-term rather than a short-term period, strategic decisions serve as the basis for undertaking operational activities. However, marketing refers to the market and the competition. It is possible to claim that marketing strategy is trying to find an answer to the question to which path an organisation should follow in order to achieve its goals and objectives. If, for example, a company has a goal to generate a profit of PLN 1 million by selling 100,000 pieces of a product, the market strategy should answer at least the following two questions:

1. Who will be our target group, for example, who will purchase the 100,000 pieces of the product?

2. Why is it us from whom a potential buyer should purchase the product?

Who will be our target group, for example, who will purchase the 100,000 pieces of the product?

Why is it us from whom a potential buyer should purchase the product?

The target market will be defined if a reply to the first question is provided. The second question identifies the foundations of competitive advantage. These two issues, that is, target market and competitive advantage are the strategic marketing issues. You cannot change your target group unexpectedly while competitive advantage is the basis for changing decisions regarding prices, promotions and sales.

This chapter describes the measures of marketing activities which refer to strategic aspects and testify a company’s market position – the measures of the performance of target groups and competitive advantage. Readers’ attention should be also focused on the indices that are less popular in Poland and, therefore, may be underestimated. It seems that some of them, for example, the index of marketing resources allocation and the marketing risk index, provide a lot of valuable information and, at the same time, make it possible to show the value of marketing investments. Their wider use in the near future is only a matter of time.

Managers engage in marketing efforts to boost sales and in setting marketing budgets based on current or historical sales. Past studies have overlooked the reciprocal relationship between marketing spending and sales. This study aims to examine the nature of the relationship between sales and marketing expenses in the B2B market.

Five hypotheses on the relationship between sales and marketing expenditures were framed. A total of 30 of India’s dyeing firms provided data on revenues, sales (in units) and marketing expenditures over time. The structural vector auto-regressive model and the vector error correction model were fitted to the data.

The results show that marketing expenses and sales are related bidirectionally in a sequential way. Furthermore, sales drive the long-term equilibrium relationship to a greater extent than marketing expenditures.

The findings of this study should assist managers in predicting sales and marketing budgets simultaneously and devising precise marketing strategies and tactics.

Using econometric models in data-driven research is not a frequent practice in marketing. This study adds value to the body of marketing literature by advancing the theory of the relationship between sales and marketing spending using real-world data and econometric models in the B2B sector.

The development of a bank sales management system is described. Using a modified management‐by‐objectives planning procedure, sales goals and strategies were formulated. Then the tasks of the line sales organisation, the branch banking system and the staff sales department were identified. As a result the bank now has a framework for its selling efforts.

The purpose of this study is to provide a contextualized understanding of how business-to-business (B2B) firms use the sales development function for efficient and effective lead funnel management.

The authors adopted a qualitative field-study approach and interviewed 13 people from eight firms. While software as a service (SaaS) firms are the most prevalent application context for the sales development function, the authors also included respondents from non-SaaS firms to develop an in-depth understanding of the contextualized nature of the sales development process.

Sales development processes can be applied in outbound prospect-focused, outbound account-based, inbound prospect-focused and inbound account-based lead management contexts. The sales development processes of lead research, engagement and handover vary depending on the nature of the lead management context. These processes are supported by the appropriate design of organizational, technological and people platforms.

The authors explain how sales development as a form of inside sales can support effective lead funnel management in B2B firms through technology-enabled lead research and nurture processes designed to prepare customers for meaningful conversations with field sales.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus purely on the sales development function as a form of inside sales. They explain how the sales development processes relating to lead research, engagement and handover are conducted in four distinct application contexts to qualify leads for the outside salesforce.