The Sales VP wants to know, what is marketing's goal?

Six month ago our client was hiring a vice president of marketing.  We had helped them re-write the job profile, shuttled some qualified resumes their way and were preparing the executive team to start the dating process.  It was important to have the team understand, to get A-Player talent, they would need to approach the interview process more like dating and less as a perfunctory obligation.

First dates can be awkward, so can job interviews.  On first dates people start off getting to know each other before diving into "tell me about your greatest weakness".  We coached the team on what questions to ask on the first date, what answers they might anticipate and how to ensure the right A-player gets the offer because we were not bringing them any B or C-players.

One of the key questions on the menu was; "in your opinion what should marketing's primary goal be?"  The answer varies with the interview. 

For the Chief Financial Officer, Return On Marketing Investment or ROMI is an appropriate answer, along with a brief outline of contributing factors of the calculation and questions about the hiring organizations exisiting ROMI efforts.

The Human Resource professional should expect an answer along the lines of revenue attribution and growth, team development along with creating a brand identity that attracts and retains and talent.

The sales leader should expect a variant of this answer; "to generate sales qualified leads that sellers can close."  Conversations on ROMI or brand identity are not marketing A-player responses for this first date.  Marketing A-players should be able to walk the sales leader through the buyer's journey describing how to create an ideal customer profile, providing criteria for stages and lead scoring.  This first date conversation will help the sales leader form a relationship with the marketing A-player; this is a person who can be trusted to help grow revenues.  A solid first date outcome.

On the second or third date, A-player marketers should be willing to discuss revenue based accelerators as part of their compensation package.  A-players are confident their marketing efforts will contribute to revenue growth. 

After six months, the CEO, CFO and Sales VP reported they had hired well.   They didn't just hire an A-player, the dating process had led them to the right A-player. The number of sales qualified leads had improved along with the close rates; revenue growth realized.