5 Actionable Ways to Improve Communication Between Your Product and Sales Team

Companies find it easier to get teams to work together through technology and a desire for transparency. As a company’s collective knowledge moves from employees' brains to collaboration software, employees can effectively learn anything they want about the company and the people they work with.

In addition to access to this information, growing teams are being built horizontally. Instead of building a hierarchy, modern teams recruit specialists to shore up weaknesses. It’s no longer odd for a new employee to work with the CEO just as often as their counterpart in another department.

If you have experience working at a growing startup, you can easily confirm this change in how modern sales, marketing, support, or executive teams work together.

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Collaboration isn’t Hard to Solve for Most Teams, Except Product and Sales

However, there are still two teams that rarely work well together: product and sales.

As a technical salesperson, I’ve spent most of my career playing referee between product and sales teams. I believe it’s more of a dark art than something you can easily fix or improve. I’ve experienced the challenging aspects of both jobs, so I naturally see both points of view.

Since most salespeople are not technical (yet), they don’t see the struggle of how the sausage is made. The same goes for engineers. They only see when the deal is closed, not the dozens of people who told the salesperson no before getting a yes.

We all need to appreciate that salespeople and product people are different creatures. Each of their crafts requires a completely different skill set to succeed.

For this post, let’s assume that the product and engineering teams are the same group of people. I’ll refer to both as the “product team.” Let’s face it—this is usually the case for early-stage companies anyway.

First, let’s point out the reasons why this is hard on both sides:

[Sales] Sales has set working hours, product does not.

It happens constantly: The sales team is pushing hard to reach a goal and is in the office early to make things happen. Then, they see some engineers strolling in around 11 a.m. or Noon and leave the same time they do.

This is rarely spoken because salespeople know this is a petty reason for causing animosity across teams. But it’s human nature. Salespeople have a set time to crush it (during business hours), while engineers and product people can work into the night and add value.

Many salespeople may not appreciate that the engineer was probably up late fixing a problem or working on a feature. A lot of their work doesn’t happen in the office.

[Product] The sales team sells features that don’t exist in the product and it leads to churn.

How many times have we seen this? The churn rate skyrockets because sales closed deals on features that haven’t launched or they misrepresented how the feature works.

Engineers will often see this as lazy or sketchy. It’s not. These days, a great salesperson has to be able to communicate complex concepts in significantly less time. Sometimes, things fall through the cracks.

[Sales] Every time I suggest a new feature, Product pushes back and makes me feel like I’m stupid.

Great engineers ask questions to fully understand why someone is requesting a feature, just like great salespeople ask questions to fully grasp whether a prospect is qualified.

The difference is that engineers may seem combative or push back to the salesperson when they suggest a feature. That isn’t their intent, but the salesperson takes it as criticism or condescending.

[Sales] + [Product] They don’t appreciate how hard the other team’s job is.

“Hey, Engineer! Have you ever been hung up on or cursed out? Ever had a qualified opportunity disappear on you?”

“Hey, Salesperson! Have you ever spent hours scouring through logs to figure out what’s causing something in the product to break?”

Both sides simply don’t appreciate the frustrating parts of each other’s jobs.

5 Actionable Ways to Improve Communication Between Your Product and Sales Team

Here are some actionable steps we’ve implemented at past and present companies I’ve worked with:

1. Have the Engineering Team Make Calls + Sit in Closing Calls

Engineers need to feel the pain a salesperson may experience occasionally. Set up a team bonding day where the engineers make calls with the salespeople.

The engineers call and qualify for the sales team. Give the engineers a script. The discomfort will give the engineers more context for how hard their job can be.

2. Allow the Team to Submit Product Feature Requests Asynchronously

How often have you seen a salesperson go into the Product/Engineering Slack chat room and say, “When or can we get X feature”? Then, like a bunch of sharks, the engineers scrutinize the idea so much that the salesperson regrets saying something.

Set up a Feature Request Trello board or spreadsheet to allow team members to add cards or rows with product features. Instruct the team to include an example or quote from a customer requesting the feature.

People who want to request a feature can look at the existing requests to see if it’s already been requested. They can also add comments to existing requests to indicate how much a certain feature is requested.

Then, the Product team can set aside time to go through the requests and ask follow-up questions.

3. Be Aware of Growing Tension Between the Teams. Let Each of Them Vent.

When things are good, you’ll be tricked into thinking that both teams are working smoothly. When features are delayed, sales are going poorly, or the product has downtime, tension starts to bubble up until there’s a melting pot that blows up one day.

Be aware of this and attempt to diffuse the melting pot by communicating with each team lead and letting their teams vent their frustrations.

4. On Specific Features or Disagreements Between Teams: Hear Both Sides of the Story and Defend the Side You Agree with.

Both teams will be territorial and make decisions in the best interest of their team. You can’t always be a neutral 3rd party. The sales team is sometimes right, but they may feel alienated on a team full of technical people. If they have a point, defend them and attempt to make it a priority to remedy their frustration.

Salespeople must cover the product team, bashing them internally and externally. Make it a point to communicate to sales to understand what’s so difficult about the Product's work.

5. When Each Team Suggests Something, Challenge Them by Asking the Same Question.

Steli recently shared how to achieve growth through alignment. In this context, any proactive sales and product team will push to do things. For sales, this could be offering a discount through a new promotion. For the product, it could be spending time fixing up some underlying backend infrastructure.

You should ask them: How does this help us achieve our company’s #1 priority?

At our most recent company retreat, Steli opened by setting the priority for what we should collectively think about during the retreat and for the next few months.

Unsure of what activities to include in your virtual retreat? Look no further than our virtual retreat guide.

He asked the team always to consider: “Will this make our current customers more successful OR bring us more successful customers? [ASAFP or “as soon as fucking possible”]

Since then, it’s common for him to chime in when a spirited debate opens up in chat or Asana:

‎As CEO, he’s the acting referee between sales and product, always seeking alignment to get the two teams to work together successfully.

Look Out for the Warning Signs

The interaction between sales and products isn’t always constant. Sales are busy selling, and the product may be headed down to work on features. Therefore, weeks could go by without you noticing any rift between salespeople and engineers.

It’s on you to poke the tiger and sniff out the warning signs, or at least work towards preventing a flare-up. You should always be asking yourself these questions:

• Are the salespeople still communicating customer feedback you’ve already received?
• Is the product actively asking sales for feedback on new features they are speaking out?
• When was the last time I saw a salesperson and engineer interact positively with one another?

This is not a situation where “no news is good news.” When neither side talks to each other, that’s almost as bad as conflict. The less they communicate, the further they drift apart.

Always remember: Besides resolving conflict, you’re also there to encourage healthy debate.

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