Competence and Good Communication

Tomorrow we have a trade show; we only do two or three a year so they are usually a big deal. Our marketing department was in a shambles so show preparation and staffing was being handled by other groups in the company. I was working on the live demo. Fortunately, all of our products are web based and can be demonstrated using any web browser. All I had to do was make sure our demo was still running and all the simulators were working.

The show is in New York; we would be driving down tomorrow to setup.

The main problem with our marketing department was the group leader. He has been in a feud with the director of sales for over 9 months. It is absolutely critical that sales and marketing work together every day. Marketing needs to provide sales with collateral and selling tools. Unfortunately, we had a complete communication break down between marketing and sales. Our marketing group leader failed to provide leadership and had let personal sensitivities get in the way of a professional relationship.

Make sure you have competent and professional people in leadership positions AND do not allow communication to break down between the groups.