Thanks, Julian!

Hi Phil, Thanks so much for your comment. I agree that the politics can be challenging. And I think one leader means that they will lean more heavily toward either sales or marketing. The trick is in them having an open mind and a curiosity to learn and evolve their knowledge in the less dominant discipline. I'm starting to see instances of it being really effective.

Hi Stuart, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. As for the sales and marketing culture, please tell me that it's a matter of when, not if :) Ardath

Hi Dan, thanks for the comment. That is an interesting discovery, but it doesn't surprise me. And I love that it validates the point :)

Thanks, John! I feel your pain :)

Hi Mark, Interesting post - thanks for sharing it. But I'd argue back that you can help prospects avoid pain by showing them the positive outcomes you can help them to achieve. Kind of splitting hairs but it's in how you go about it. And I'd also agree that there are both carrot and stick-driven people. This being said, I also know that the programs I help clients run that talk about positive outcomes result in more sales conversations than do the more "painful" ones. When a buyer meets with your salesperson and holds up a printed version of a web article your company published and says, "show me how 'this' would look at my company," you've made an emotional connection. So perhaps it's dependent on seniority and level of comfort and position in their role. As you become more senior, have more experience, perhaps this makes it easier to rely more on intuition than data. What do you think?

It does - thanks!

Hi Stephanie - thanks so much for sharing the reports. The link doesn't work, though. Can you repost it? Those excerpts make the point. I agree there is a lot of opportunity. Success will be based on how well we can identify commonalities that allow us to ramp emotional relevance when communicating with a segment, rather than one person at a time.

Thanks, Matt. Interesting how out of sync things can get.

Hi Phil - you make a good point with "short-term" focus and the possibility of desperation. However, I see many more instances of this type of messaging than what I've posted here. It's not an isolated incident. And, it doesn't mean that being irrelevant and screwing up a prospect's impression of the company is going to help them do so... Just saying :)

Hi Dara, Thanks for sharing your experience. As for SLAs, it's an interesting thought, but I'm not sure they apply well to relevance. This is more of a process and tools issue. It's also about developing the mindset of "customer first." I do agree that there must be a champion to affect change.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Yasmine. You make a great point about accountability and transparency.

Thanks, Carmen! Your example is even worse than mine.

So, Geoff, what you're saying is that it's okay for salespeople to be irrelevant and irritating if the buyer hasn't been nurtured? And it's not frustration as much as it's wondering how much of a hit marketing performance is taking based on how salespeople attempt to engage.

Thanks for your comment, Alex, and for writing the post. Three blog posts makes for a nice little dialogue! Your question about why things haven't changed is a good one. Change is hard, no one likes it, but it is the order of the day. We need to become better at adapting.

Thank you, Nida!