This program addresses the question of who owns the pipeline, sales or marketing and in doing so it becomes apparent that marketing not only owns it but is in the most powerful position in their company in nearly a century.
Why it's Important
Are salespeople just the closers and don't own the pipeline? 
The sales pipeline, aka the sales funnel, is the long-standing measurement of the past, present, and future for a company. In the not too distant past marketing dumped demand into the beginning (top) of the pipeline and sales took responsibility for the rest of the process.
For years marketing has chipped away, usually unintentionally, at various steps of the sales pipeline to aid the salespeople. Most of this is made possible by marketing automation and telemarketing being managed by marketing. After reading some of the more recent research from Velocify of late and comments by people I respect, I think that the sales pipeline ownership has finally shifted from sales to marketing. Marketing in more sophisticated companies probably manages more than 50% of the pipeline steps now and to me, that means ownership has shifted.
Jim Obermayer is the host with the commentary this week.
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