Team Effort Talk is cheap; failed marketing programs aren't. To get results, get sales and marketing teams working together.

Is there a disconnect between the marketing and sales functionsin your business? If so, you may be wasting thousands of marketingdollars and employee time to boot.

According to IT market analysis firm Aberdeen Group Inc., asmuch as 80 percent of marketing expenditures on lead generation andsales collateral are wasted because these efforts are ignored bysalespeople. Marketing teams make an equally damaging blunder byoverlooking critical input from salespeople regarding customer dataand needs, causing salespeople to spend as much as 40 to 60 hoursper month creating their own customer-relevant collateralmaterials. Even worse, this problem may go unrecognized for years,causing a downward spiral in sales results.

The bottom line is that marketing exists to support sales. Yourmarketing department can develop a great product strategy, butit's up to your sales staff to implement it. And when themarketing and sales departments (whether they consist of two peopleor 200) fail to share the right information, the companysuffers.