[blihp]

There has been some good advice on how you can work on your social skills but that's only part of your problem. The other part of your problem is the type of customer you're dealing with. Sales/marketing folks are often highly non-linear thinkers who live and die by their soft skills. So you are probably going to find that how they feel about you is going to dominate your relationship and status with them more than any actual results. In most sales/marketing environments I've seen you can pretty much toss things like logic, formal processes and written specs out the window. The mental space they live in and environment they operate in is very different than say finance or engineering which tends to be at the other end of the spectrum.

Something to seriously consider is trying to get out of that environment... it's not for everyone. You don't necessarily need to leave the company, but rather as you develop your social skills try to start building relationships in other departments and use them to find a path out. Politics are everywhere but the degree to which politics drive things can vary considerably from department to department and is often less dominant in less 'squishy' parts of the business.