498: The Big Debate: Procurement vs. Sales w/ Donna Donato, Chris Donato, and Megan Dimmer

If procurement were based upon comic book rules, sales professionals would be the arch nemesis. The funny thing is, sales feels the same way in return. If we could just achieve more understanding, everyone would benefit. This week's episode uses a roundtable format to dig into the timeless struggle between procurement and sales - more honestly and personally than we've ever done before. Philip Ideson is joined by Donna Donato, CEO Americas at ChainIQ, in the 'procurement corner,' and in the 'sales corner' he welcomes Chris Donato, Founder & CEO of esellas, a revenue management company, and Megan Dimmer, CRO, esellas.  And yes, Donna and Chris are married. They explore procurement and sales alignment and discuss whether there are actually any opportunities to support each other.  As you might expect, they also had some interesting differences of opinion about the tactics and strategies sales and procurement use to make life more difficult for the other.  Listen as they debate topics such as: Why sales needs to feel good about the relationship with their customers and prospects before they can advocate internally for competitive pricing How procurement can work with and through sales to gain entry to the buying process when the rest of the business is not actively engaging with them The importance of procurement and sales being able to come together to agree upon desired outcomes and what success will ultimately look like