Are the lines betwen sales and marketing being blurred?
I’ve been spending a lot of time lately pontificating on the differences between marketing and sales.
Or maybe better put, the likenesses between marketing and sales.
We humans love to compartmentalize our stuff. We like hard lines separating the this from the that. We like black and white.
Ironically, if life does nothing else, it shows us just how many different shades of gray there are, and our quest for clear separations is futile. This is especially true when trying to understand the differences between marketing and sales.
I’ve heard it described a lot of different ways. Some say marketing makes the phone ring, while sales picks it up and makes it happen. Others say marketing builds awareness, and sales creates customers.
It’s all true, to an extent. But I think it’s a lot more complicated than that.
What Is Good Marketing?
First off, in our search for hard lines, we think it’s right for marketing to hand off leads to the sales guys and then move on. When the lead is generated, the work is over for the marketers, some think. But that doesn’t make sense, because the good marketers are in touch with customers forever. Apple doesn’t want you to just buy one product; they want you to buy 10. And they want you to tell your friends.
Good marketing is a part of every single touchpoint with the customer, be it branding, copywriting, communication, whatever.
More than that, good marketing knows how to close. The web is showing us just how possible it is to create an entire business online, when the customer and “the sales guy” never meet in person. This is where the design and copywriting play as much of a sales role as anything else during the process. These traditional marketing tactics are more salesy than ever before.
What I’m saying is good marketers now need to be good salesmen.
What Is Good Selling?
Likewise, it’d be silly for a salesperson worth their salt to simply wait for the phone to ring. Good sales reps know they have to “make their luck.” They have to conjure up their market, whether their marketing department is doing it or not. They have to help in the process, adding a personal touch to the brand-building. They have to sync up with the brand, and make sure that what the prospect expects is what they get in their first impression of the sales rep.
More so, good sales reps now can’t just be “closers.” Because simply closing doesn’t really close anything anymore. People don’t like to be closed, and now, they usually don’t have to be. It’s too easy to just jump over to Amazon and find just about anything you’re looking for.
It’s easy, that is, unless you really like your sales rep.
Now, the good rep is just as involved in discussions, networking and community as they are demoing and “selling to VITO.”
In other words, the good sales rep has to be a good marketer.
Let’s face it, marketing and sales have always been tough to define (at least consistently). So let’s stop trying, and realizing that both are highly co-dependent upon the other, and both are simply two different ways to describe parts of what makes for a successful business.
How do you manage to treat your own marketing and sales? When does one stop and the other begin? And is that how it should work? What would you do differently if you were in charge?
Brett Duncan loves sharing marketing ideas and tips at his blog, MarketingInProgress.com. He’s also worked on the corporate side of the network marketing industry since 2002, and currently serves as the Senior Director of Global Online Solutions at Mannatech, Inc. He lives with his family in Irving, TX.
This post is brought to you by the good folks at Dale Carnegie Training of the Bay Area, providers of professional development and management development courses and information in the Bay Area. We would love to connect with you on Facebook and Twitter.
Photo credit: roland
