The CIM is mis-selling the concept of marketing
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Some professional paradoxes never fail to amuse me. Male hairdressers are invariably bald. Many small accounting firms are cooking their own books. Teacher’s kids are usually the worst behaved in school. And, closer to home, marketers are useless at positioning and communicating their profession to the public and other executives.
But no matter how jaded your appraisal of marketing’s general reputation, last week’s announcement from the Chartered Institute of Marketing should have taken you completely by surprise and then, as the implications sunk in, with horror.
CIM is celebrating its centenary this year and what better way to mark the occasion than to announce that marketing has reached an “evolutionary cul-de-sac” and advise that the discipline should be merged with the sales department?
No, I am not misrepresenting the institute’s argument. The CIM’s Marketing and Sales Fusion report lays out the case for repositioning marketing within the sales function. David Thorp, director of research and professional development at the CIM, says: “For too long the trend has been towards separating marketing and sales - and the marketing profession, in its desire to establish itself, undoubtedly contributed to this. We believe that, in the next decade, more and more companies will see reintegrating marketing and sales as a smart move that brings real rewards.”
No one would take issue with the argument that sales and marketing must co-ordinate their activities and work together, but the idea that the future of marketing lies inside a sales department is the last thing that will help marketers through the tricky decade ahead.
The CIM seems to believe that marketing and sales professionals do the same work. They may be united around common outcomes but the success depends on very different activities in both camps, which on occasion are set in direct opposition with each other. Not because marketing and sales are misaligned, but because they must often adopt fundamentally diverging perspectives for the good of their organisation.
The CIM lays out the case for repositioning marketing within the sales function
You need properly trained marketers to do things that sales executives find impossible to carry out. Proper targeting, for example, depends on focusing on one segment at the expense of others - something that most sales executives simply will not countenance. In the area of brand architecture, marketers have made huge strides in recent years by reducing the number of brands in a company’s portfolio to drive profitability - usually against the recommendations of the sales departments. And no matter how talented the sales teams I have worked with, I have yet to find any able to position the same brand in different ways for different target segments. These are the jobs that only marketers can do.
The danger of CIM’s recommendation is that most sales departments think they understand marketing. But they don’t, they think it means sales. And when you approach every strategic marketing challenge thinking that marketing should deliver immediate sales, you get many of the key strategic decisions wrong. You under-price the product. You target everyone. You position to everyone. And eventually sales start to decline because of the inherent and insistent focus on increasing them.
My argument isn’t that marketing is superior to sales. Most marketers couldn’t sell a bucket of water to a man whose pants are on fire, but the idea that blending the two functions into one will somehow synergise the organisation is utter nonsense.
CIM is a hugely successful and influential operation that trains and represents many of our best marketers. However, for it to suggest that marketing has nowhere left to go isn’t just incorrect, it’s professionally damning at the very time when marketers need to be able to defend their discipline.
Our own industry body - one that grew out of the need for a distinction between sales and marketing - is now suggesting we have nowhere left to go except back into sales.
And while I respect the bravery of David Thorp to release this report, I have to question whether an executive with an MSc in training and performance management is really qualified to make these enormously damaging claims about the discipline in which he now works.
If CIM is serious about this proposal, then I expect it has already drawn up plans to return its royal charter and is preparing to merge with the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. Like any organisation headed by sales executives, the ISMM includes marketing in its title but defines its mission exclusively as “representing the interests of the sales profession and providing practical support to sales people and organisations”.
A vision, perhaps, of the kind of future marketers can hope for if we listen to our own chartered institute.
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Readers' comments (17)
Anonymous | Thu, 15 Dec 2011 5:15 pm
Dear Mark,
firstly I would like you to be aware of me being a keen reader of your column week in and week out.
In my humble opinion and as a person that has studied marketing but works in sales for the past 5 years, I think that CIM does not understand that a marketer should be educated outside of the box, meaning needing to know the theories and, at the same time, reading articles, so as to be aware of every move of the industry they work in. If not every move, the most important moves of the industry; trends, how to, case studies, anything that can help them innovate/create/put together something better than their competitors to get them ahead of the game. Sales people do not need the same qualifications as marketers do - I am not saying that sales people are daft, but manners over the phone are not things that are taught at university but at home – plus, scripts are taught at work as well, scripts that are based on marketing theories but are adapted and taught in simple ways and words for the sales people to understand and implement on every call.
If a product is not marketed well, then the sales people will not be able to sell it. Even if a sales person is the best sales person you have, if the product is failing you then there is no point of selling it, as it will not sell itself. I, personally, am trying to educate my customers and make them think ahead and see the bigger picture when it comes to advertising, as I work within the media industry selling advertising space. If, though, the platforms' perception is of the worst within people's heads, there is no way people will buy into it. Hence, a very good marketing department who deals with the brand awareness of a company, a product, either tangible or intangible, cannot be compared with sales people that just want money in any way to hit their monthly target.
Thus, I am of the same mind that some of the things marketers do cannot be replaced by merging the sales and the marketing disciplines. Sales is part of marketing, Marketing though is a discipline on its own. Sales perceive it as a game of chasing a monthly number, which can be easily done and hit through brilliant marketing. If marketing fails, sales fail. If Sales fail, that does not mean that Marketing has failed.
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Simon Allen | Thu, 15 Dec 2011 5:50 pm
I think the words of David Thorp have been taken out of context and/or misinterpreted.
My understanding is that the two departments might best merge to ensure efficiency during austere times. That relates directly to organisations that are structured in such a way that marketing and sales are separate entities. Size, organisational culture and/or blissful ineptitude are the foundations of poorly structured companies.
From a strategic perspective (and flying in the face of much of what has been said on this report by the CIM), personal selling is one of five tools for deploying marketing strategy, the other four are, advertising, direct methods (formerly direct mail), promotional activity and public relations.
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Catalin Lascu | Fri, 16 Dec 2011 8:12 am
Mark, indeed CIM is mis-selling the concept
of marketing
but you say "My argument isn’t that marketing is superior to sales" ...
well, this story is about fundamentals of marketing and about fundamentals of business.
The marketing mix = the marketing strategy , includes the sales strategy in at least 3 of its basic P's. In other words, marketing gives the sales strategy. Sales itself (selling) it's a tactical level.
Therefore while an integration of the functions is case by case acceptable, specially in B2B, logically marketing cannot be subordinated to sales. For this and for attacking its own marketing fundamentals, CIM declaration could be considered at least hazardous.
Peter Drucker, quoted by Philip Kottler:
"Business has only two functions --marketing and innovation. All the rest are costs." and "The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. The aim of marketing is to make selling unnecessary.”
Marketing - with selling included at concept level - is the function producing company's revenue.
Therefore CIM is badly mis-selling the concept.
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Anonymous | Fri, 16 Dec 2011 9:41 am
I believe they will introduce a new certificate about sales, so sales people will not feel "stupid" that they dont have a degree. Plus, CIM will get more money from people, as not all of people understand how to market, but it's easier to understand how to sell. At the end of the day, it is a "yes" or a "no" situation, you got nothing at stake in sales apart from a silly target to hit. Marketing is more than sales. As this reader said, sales exist with marketing, but marketing can exist on its own as well. No-one should mix them two together when creating a marketing plan. Leave that to the marketers and use the sales people to sell that plan.
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Dan Williamson | Fri, 16 Dec 2011 2:33 pm
While I agree with your point, I applaud CIM's efforts in looking out for its members.
Marketing depts are going to be under even more scrutiny by FDs looking to cut costs during a tough Q1/Q2 in 2012.
Unless your efforts are fully measureable and show a clear ROI, then you're going to be a target.
While I don't think the two functions can merge, I welcome the adoption of a more analytical, data driven approach to marketing.
As a digital marketer, I enjoy that already. Let's hope the increasing shift towards digital marketing and the smarter tracking of offline channels will show just how effective these departments can be.
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Michael | Fri, 16 Dec 2011 4:23 pm
Dear Mark,
As a graduate from the CIM I was perturbed (but not surprised) to read your article regarding the CIM proposing the future of marketing lies within the with sales function. Through the franchise that is the CIM qualification method, it became quickly apparant that they did not have control within their own organistaion, with all parties involved seemingly pulling in opposite directions.This latest quotation from Mr Thorp further undermines CIM's position within the marketing community. I would like to know where this leaves the qualified Marketing Professional in terms of the validity of their profession and also in terms of the value of the CIM qualifications that they may have gained.
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mark ritson | Sat, 17 Dec 2011 3:57 am
All excellent measured points this week.
I feel there are three key points:
1. Marketing is different from sales but not superior
I would disagree strongly with any marketer who thinks that their discipline is somehow superior to, rather than different from, sales. In the same way I think marketing is different from sales, I think sales is different from marketing. There is no room for triumphalism. Just distinction.
2. Let's me clear (again) on the fact that my column and Marketing Week's coverage did not misrepresent the views of David Thorp. I did not "take out of context" his view that marketing had reached an "evolutionary cul-de-sac: - he said it: from the center of our own discipline. On its centenary. Tragic and embarassing.
3. I feel the pain of CIMs own customers here - the ones that paid to be certified marketers and who were taught quite correctly the difference between market orientation and sales orientation as part of their CIM studies. The syllabus is correct. The executives in charge are wrong.
Mark
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Anonymous | Sun, 18 Dec 2011 3:36 pm
10% discount on CIM courses until the end of the year...erm
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Anonymous | Sun, 18 Dec 2011 6:28 pm
Yet again this is the case of the CIM (for the want of a better phrase) not knowing the difference between its rear end and its elbow.
Having studied with the CIM they are very poor communicators, somewhat funny for a marketing organisation. Not only that but all they seem to be interested in is selling their books and to pass anything with them is all about the regurgation of their books.
This report may have been released at a good time though, with the AGM around the corner, it may well raise some interesting questions where hopefully somebody with a bit of common sense will come in and think before speaking, and giving a clear direction, which is something they have been lacking for a while now (in my opinion).
One valid point I think you raised was the suggestion that they should merge and hand back their charter, I assume that this was said to emphasise the mistakes being made by Mr Thorp, but this would raisa a valid point in that were this to happen they would lose a lot more money than gain, as who would want to be part of anything where there is no visible benefit at the end.
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Dr Brian Monger | Mon, 19 Dec 2011 3:49 am
Mark and Catalin - very good comments. I think the CIM has either decided they can sell more courses by following this - or they have lost their way. Perhaps both.
They see Marketing only as a department?? Not as the basic,primary activity of all organisations? That is fairly old fashioned thinking.
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