Business Symphony
In all businesses, there are a number of teams that have to work perfectly together in order for a business to really humm. To me, it looks a bit like this:
Product
This is the supply side of the business. Their job is create functioning products that people love. It all starts and dies with product. Product has to collect feedback from customers and the marketing department (who collects it from sales) and must, in return, build the most important features as quickly as possible and communicate what it is building and when people can expect subsequent features.
Marketing
This is the beginning of the demand side of the business. Their job is communicate the promise of the company. In other words, what should prospects expect to enjoy if they buy this product/service? How should sales people communicate the value prop of this product/service. They also need to constantly collect feedback from these two constituents to refine messaging, produce better materials and higher quality leads.
Sales
This is the other part of the demand side of the business. Their job is to find the prospects with the highest likelihood of buying and get them to pay. This means they have to navigate the waters of helping prospects buy and giving them the personalized information that matter for the prospect’s specific needs. In B2C companies, this usually looks like a live chat window. In B2B companies, it usually looks like a sales representative or account executive.
Customer
This is how the company can continue to exist and grow. A customer’s job is to pay for and use the product/service. Hopefully, they can also provide feedback as to what’s working, what’s not and what would make the experience better.
There are many nuances to each department, but if a company cannot execute on these basic principles, it will fail. If a company over indexes on any of these basic functions, it will fail. If a company doesn’t at least fulfill each of the responsibilities on any of the given arrows in the diagram (regardless of which department fulfills), it will fail. If a company that doesn’t measure how well it is doing on each of these responsibilities, it will eventually fail.
Sometimes, writing down this basic value exchange between departments can help you identify what your company is doing particularly well and what it is doing particularly poorly. That should help dictate where to focus resources.
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If you work at a company that is humming and doing everything above perfectly, I know a handful of incredibly excellent folks who would like to help you scale it. Reach me at jfccohen@gmail.com.
