Ian Lowe on demolishing the sales-marketing divide

It's the divide that every marketer knows about, but is so rarely broached in the workforce. So what is it about sales and marketing that has polarised for so long? And why does this dynamic continue to exist when the outcomes of sales and marketing are actually the same?  This week on The CMO Show it's all about sales versus marketing. Or is it? We will ask the hard questions in an attempt to work out how these two historically divided fields are colliding and changing. Ian Lowe, founder and CEO at eccoh joins Mark Jones and JV Douglas to chat about why the marketing department should listen to the sales department (and vice versa, of course). With more than 20 years' experience in sales, Lowe's vision to pioneer a customer-centric sales revolution is reframing the sales and marketing space. "There's definitely a bit of tension between sales and marketing and I think part of that tension is because of the internal competitive nature of sales organisations," Lowe said. "Typically sales people are taught sales skills and sales techniques to control the sales cycle to produce the results that they want to produce. Typically marketers aren't part of that sort of training." Lowe's vision that the customer and their experience be central to the entire sales and marketing process is pioneering a new way of thinking in the Australian marketing industry. "I think sales is something that typically is fear based," he told Jones and Douglas. "Once we take away all that baggage and all that sort of negativity, people just are able to be themselves and be comfortable with who they are and flourish individually in their lives and in their businesses."