Comments on: Ram Charan Turns to Sales: Is Marketing Next?

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:19:30 +0000

What is the reason companies do not take sales and marketing as seriously as they should (if this is true)?
I suspect it is true of some companies and not others but, the question remains, why would you not take these functions very, very seriously? They bring in the money!

By: Tony Eyles

Tony Eyles — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 23:18:34 +0000

Ram is of course generalising but sadly there are still many organisations that have no meaningful budgets for development of sales other than staffing. If you aren’t in a sexy industry, attracting the top sales professionals, how is the sales function to keep up with the changes we are seeing demanded by information power shifts? And marketing should not be too comfortable either – its often the marketers who don’t support sales channels with meaningful knowledge or material.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 05:08:46 +0000

Sales is very measurable. The points are dollars and you can count them. It is fairly simple to measure sales performance over other functions.

By: Tom Asacker

Tom Asacker — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 14:52:10 +0000

“My real concern in all of this, however, is that Ram’s next target might be marketing. Let’s just hope that he teams up with a good co-author if he decides to set his sights on the “broken marketing process”!
Your concern and wish has been realized: The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation Ram Charan and A.G. Lafley.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:15:32 +0000

Dana, I am not a 100% for what you say as ‘falling short’ of Ram Charan in his rendition. But again it is alright that certain things, even ‘dated’ matters are repeated. If the importance of Sales is not stressed often enough, it will keep getting the second fiddle status it gets in many orgs.
And yes, Your comments on the book will be a lot more credible and worthy if you could ‘finish’ reading his book and THEN critique it.

By: Dana VanDen Heuvel

Dana VanDen Heuvel — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:57:15 +0000

Thanks for the early commentary!
I think the comments are spot on, in many instances sales (and often marketing) gets ‘ignored’ in the face of larger, more seemingly measurable initiatives (not that sales isn’t measurable, but operational & financial sectors of the business often get a lot of love) or because the executive leadership have not come up through sales (as if many ever have). Where I still feel that Ram falls short is that the advice is dated. Perhaps I’ve been lucky to work in and with some really forward thinking sales orgs, but much of what he says (though I have yet to get through the whole book) are things that we’ve been doing for at least 2/3 of the decade. Ram’s view of sales is not a perspective (reality) that I’ve seen since the 90’s in some of the most lagging organizations.

By: Marc Meyer

Marc Meyer — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:52:27 +0000

I once worked at a tech company where the CEO said,”Give me a $50,000 marketing budget and I’ll give you 2 sales people for a year”. Who is going to generate you more money?

By: courtney benson

courtney benson — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:01:39 +0000

Dana -
I’ve not read the book but as a sales professional I’d have to agree with Paul – there are nuggets in some of his statements. I think it all depends on the sales leaders within an organization – they need to sell internally to the top brass to get what’s needed. I do believe that sales and marketing has suffered and will continue to do so within many companies. Firms that tend to pay attention have top sales management expertise, are more nimble,have learned the hard way and or have an affinity towards marketing and sales. You’ll find that many are successful tech companies who place a significant amount of attention on training, collaboration between marketing and sales and new technologies such as Web 2.0 type products/services to aid in generating revenue.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:10:53 +0000

Dana, enjoyed your commentary. Ram is, as you point out, an advisor to many Global 3000 CEOs. He is on the road more than 200 days a year. He gets a unique perspective because his insights are cross industry and he hears directly from CEOs in many countries. I’d say his views aren’t from 30,000 feet, but probably from 50,000.
That said, when he talks, it may sound like generalities and platitudes, but sometimes there are some real nuggets to be had. Take for example his first comment about sales being neglected. In this instance, he’s probably referring to the past 2-3 years where companies focused on operational efficiences at a detriment to investing in sales.
In many large companies, sales people are a dime a dozen and only as good as their last day or month. I cannot read his mind, but I’d say he was thinking a shift needs to occur back to the customer and back to salespeople who can fulfill their needs.