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With the pressure on, the blame<br />
game was in full stride. Ask sales<br />
to define the problem, and it said<br />
marketing wasn’t doing its fair share.<br />
Good leads, strong marketing materials<br />
and demos result in more closed deals<br />
– period. Ask marketing and the story<br />
was flipped. You cannot close deals<br />
using antiquated sales techniques.<br />
Once these beliefs had calcified in<br />
the minds of the teams, they were<br />
hard to dislodge. They had all allowed<br />
themselves to succumb to willful<br />
blindness. They ignored the facts that<br />
supported the other side of the issue.<br />
As Setili recalls, the heads of sales<br />
and marketing called their respective<br />
teams together and demanded that<br />
they find a resolution. Their pitch<br />
was to come up with a joint plan for<br />
AMANDA SETILI REMEMBERS IT<br />
AS A TEACHING MOMENT. AFTER<br />
A STRING OF STRONG REVENUE<br />
GROWTH INEXPLICABLY BEGAN TO<br />
PLATEAU, HER COMPANY’S SALES<br />
AND MARKETING TEAMS WERE<br />
WORKING AMID A DEADLOCKED,<br />
AWKWARD SILENCE. NOTHING<br />
EITHER TEAM DID SEEMED TO<br />
BE ABLE TO REVIVE THE ONCE<br />
ROBUST NUMBERS.<br />
demonstrating sales growth in just four<br />
of the 25 sales districts. “By forcing the<br />
teams to develop a plan, and limiting<br />
the scope to a controllable subset of<br />
prospects and customers, the problem<br />
became much more manageable,”<br />
says Setili, who now runs the strategy<br />
consulting firm Setili & Associates.<br />
The prospects in each district were<br />
split into two groups, giving sales and<br />
marketing two different approaches<br />
to test. The discoveries from the pilot<br />
revealed quite a few surprises on both<br />
sides of the argument.<br />
“The intent to reach consensus can<br />
be either an ally or a roadblock in the<br />
team environment,” Setili says. “When<br />
the stakes are high and leaders need to<br />
make a fast decision on which course<br />
of action is best, it’s tempting to allow<br />
different factions and functions to<br />
act autonomously.”<br />
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff<br />
Bezos calls the strategy “disagree<br />
and commit.” Bezos believes that<br />
constructive debate is a crucial<br />
component of good decision-making<br />
and that it’s actually a bad sign if<br />
everyone is in agreement.<br />
Gaining input from across<br />
your company – from different<br />
geographic regions, functions, levels<br />
and perspectives – is critical when<br />
entering uncharted territory. “You<br />
want to have a diverse team made up<br />
of some who are especially creative,<br />
some who are very analytical, some<br />
who know the nuts and bolts of how<br />
things work, and some who are good<br />
at building buy-in to the decision<br />
reached,” Setili says.<br />
Having diversity of thoughts,<br />
perspectives, propensities and<br />
experience enables you to build a<br />
more robust and practical plan and to<br />
anticipate and prepare for roadblocks.<br />
And here’s the thing – Setili says<br />
you need to add a few skeptics and<br />
naysayers into the mix.<br />
These are the kinds of conversations<br />
that Setili has with her clients today,<br />
which include brands like Coca-Cola,<br />
Delta Airlines, The Home Depot, UPS<br />
“To move<br />
forward with<br />
the speed<br />
needed to<br />
succeed today,<br />
you simply need<br />
to reach a point<br />
at which a few<br />
stakeholders<br />
define the best<br />
course of action<br />
and their<br />
colleagues can<br />
live with the<br />
decision.”<br />
– AMANDA SETILI,<br />
PRESIDENT,<br />
SETILI & ASSOCIATES<br />
4 <strong>REACH</strong> MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER <strong>2017</strong>