When I sit down to discuss software needs with business owners I often notice a blurring of the line between marketing and sales. While these aspects of business are closely related, it is important for anyone running a company to understand both sales and marketing individually. They pose different challenges that require specific solutions.
My favorite summary is: ‘Marketing brings people to the door, sales gets them through the door’ . Marketing is responsible for bringing people to the door of you business. So making them aware of your existence. Letting them know that you may have a solution to their problem or a product they desire. Once they initiate contact with your organization is when sales comes into the picture. Sales take someone who has arrived at your door over the threshold. So your sales team should use their skills to turn vaguely interested leads into paying customers.
You can also gauge where marketing ends and sales begins by looking at the level of interaction involved. For example marketing has less interaction and tends to be more one sided. You run an ad in the paper which someone reads. At this stage there is no back and forth between you and the consumer. The sales stage tends to be more interactive. Calls and emails may be exchanged between interested leads and sales representatives. Or they may sit down to a face to face meeting where the customer has the opportunity to ask questions about the product. A good salesperson will also ask the potential customer questions to ascertain their specific needs and point out the features of the product (or service) which are most relevant to them.
One of the biggest sources of confusion are situations where one of the processes is short or missing completely. Let me ask you a quick question: If you send out a sales letter with an enclosed order form and the customer fills in the order form (including payment details), without ever contacting a sales rep is this process sales or marketing? There was no interaction but the customer still came ‘through the door’. What’s your answer?
When I pose this question I often get a variety of answers. However I would argue that the above situation falls under the marketing banner. Sometimes your marketing will have a message sufficiently powerful to induce a sale without any sales interaction but it is still a marketing activity.
So why is this distinction important? If you want to have a successful business you must achieve a balance between marketing and sales. If you have a strong marketing department coupled with a poor salesmanship you will get plenty of leads but struggle to turn them into paying customers. While a strong sales team is useless if they don’t have enough new leads coming through to keep them busy. By understanding marketing and sales as separate activities you can locate your weak link take action to bring your organization back into alignment.
