Your marketing team's vision clashes with the business strategy. How do you navigate this strategic dilemma?

Navigating clashes between marketing's vision and business strategy means aligning goals and fostering collaboration. Marketing focuses on narratives and engagement, while business strategy prioritizes financial goals and market position. Open communication is key to understanding concerns and motivations. Align goals where marketing supports business objectives like growth. Prioritize impactful initiatives considering resources. Collaborate on integrated solutions blending creativity with strategy. Test campaigns to evaluate effectiveness, adjusting based on feedback. Seek executive support if conflicts persist, ensuring alignment with overall goals. This approach integrates creativity for sustainable business success.

A pretty straightforward answer in my opinion. At the end of the day, the business strategy takes precedence. Marketing's role is to facilitate and support business growth. It's not about egos; it's about aligning everyone towards the common goal. Get to the heart of the clash. Have open, adult conversations where everyone can voice their perspectives. Identify where the visions diverge and discuss how to navigate these differences. Remember, it's all about working together to drive the business forward.

In my experience a bi-fold approach can work here Practice Empathy. Show genuine interest in understanding your marketing team’s vision and its reasons and provide Business context. Show genuine interest in understanding the marketing team’s vision and the reasons behind it. This will create extreme ownership in your team.

First, get to the root of the clash. Analyze the marketing team's vision and the business strategy in detail. Identify where they diverge and why. Is it a difference in goals, methods, or timelines? Understanding the specifics of the conflict is crucial. This isn’t just about identifying a problem; it’s about dissecting it to find actionable insights.

If this was the case, then there was a breakdown in communication. This is why collaborating with key decision-makers is crucial when making the scope. Marketing ideation should never exist in a silo as communications strategy threads through every department and touchpoint. It is our job to find alignment across stakeholders a well as discover what is and is not possible, to keep integrity in our storytelling process. Creative vision should always align with the business goals, unless the business goals are shortsighted — which in that case would mean that this clash would be a perfect opportunity to discuss the broader goals of the company and evolve the goals to think bigger.

Next, align the objectives. Sit down with both the marketing team and the business strategists to discuss their end goals. Ensure everyone understands the broader company vision and how their roles contribute to it. It’s about creating a unified direction where both marketing creativity and business pragmatism work in harmony. Aligning objectives isn’t a compromise; it’s a strategic realignment towards a common goal.

When sitting with the sales team, you must be an active listener because its the sales team that brings in the "bag", you must acknowledge their efforts and respect what they have to say. Sales team members have a foothold in the market and will know your customers like the back of their hands, however, you as marketer will know of potential customers. Whenever I'm in a meeting with my sales team, I always consider this: How can I help them achieve targets and bring in more revenue. Will my contributions be aligned with what they want for the quarter? Now of course, its a 2 way street and communication is supposed to be transparent in order to have an effective strategy roll out. Both teams need to be in sync in order to help the other.

Use structured mediation techniques to ensure all voices are heard and resolve conflicts systematically. You may come to a point where you need to make a decision, in that case ensure your team is heard and they are focussed on the outcome not on the disagreement.

Encourage both teams to innovate together. Collaboration can lead to creative solutions that neither side could achieve alone. Foster an environment where brainstorming sessions are a regular part of the workflow. Innovation thrives in a space where diverse perspectives are valued and integrated.