I work for a large national telecommunications company. My company separates sales (outside sales reps), sales operations (inside sales reps and warehouse staff), sales support (corporate retail call center and training) and marketing (corporate channel marketing, customer retention, and creative services). I work in the field at a small regional office doing marketing, but report within the sales structure. They are talking about having us report through the sales support structure, since our efforts support the outside sales team. I think this is all backwards. We should be working with the corporate marketing team. The way the various departments works is very silo’d. There is poor communication, we are often focused on fire fighting rather than strategy, opportunities are lost due to inter-department red tape, regional offices aren’t given access to all the same resources, and I could go on and on.

My question is, how do I propose a corporate structure change that would involve a much needed addition of marketing operations in addition to redefining a portion of the reporting structure? I have written marketing plans before, but this seems to be different. Plus I’m not very high on the totem pole so I need to be sure it would be clear and convincing. Any tips or advice would be helpful in addition to any ideas for an outline.

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Jay’s Answer: First, you need some “proof” that your idea is good. Find case studies of organizations that made similar changes and the effect on the bottom line.

Second, since you don’t have much authority/power, you need to align yourself with those that do. Selling a shift like this can be tricky, so you need a story to go along with the hard data. I suggest reading “Squirrel, Inc.” for a description of how to craft a story for internal company storytelling. Once you have your story, find people higher up in the organization (or think laterally – Human Resources or even a Quality Circle) who might listen to you.

Lastly, you might decide if it’s better to let it be, fight, switch positions, or even switch companies.