Can it be true what the title beholds? Do sales people really know more than marketers about marketing? Well, obviously I don’t think so, but I met a couple of regional sales reps yesterday, on the Piccadilly Line, that truly did.

I guess the most frightening admission was that I approached two strangers on the tube and started talking to them. Yes, I must have looked like a lunatic. I felt like one.

In short, I was on the Piccadilly Line, late morning, on my way to a client meeting. During one unscheduled stop [in a tunnel], I overheard two people having a good stab at their [IT] marketing department, with lines like “I have no idea what they [marketing department] are doing down there with their glossy leaflets”, “They are a waste of resources”, “they just need to do some TV advertising” and “They have the cheek to send direct mail to my clients”… and so on. They were on a roll.

I do not think of myself as the ‘marketer’s freedom fighter’, but their blatant disregard for marketing got me going. Hence, I spoke out. This is the bit where I felt like a lunatic. However, I kept it quick and tried to make light of my impromptu comments.

I told them who I was [naturally they were unimpressed] and asked them why they thought their marketing department was so bad. There was a load of hyperbole based on pure prejudice towards marketing. So much so, as I quickly found out that they had never met a marketer in their company. They also had no real idea what the marketing department’s plans were. Hence, their own marketing ideas must have felt like pure original-thinking genius. It was then the tube door opened; I got off, and ran.

Not much of a story really. However, it truly got me thinking about the conundrum. Marketing should be an essential and must be executed to the benefit of all business; but they, the salesmen, had a point. Not as if they knew what it was, but a point none-the-less:

With so much time and energy spent on client facing marketing strategies, some marketers score an own goal. They forget to market themselves internally and forget to inform and engage with the rest of the business. No wonder sales people think that marketers are rubbish if they never meet them and cannot see or feel the benefits of the marketing effort.

So much has moved forward in the world of B2B marketing, yet some departments stay clear of engaging directly with the sales department. It could be because there is no encouragement, or that there is no perceived need, or that they have tried and have received a tepid response. Either way, engagement with the wider business, and especially sales, is essential.

So what can we take from this? (a) It is still best not to talk to strangers on the tube and (b) that the irony is still alive, where some marketers, so adept at promoting their business, are terrible at promoting themselves!