Sales Vs Marketing: Understanding the Difference
From an outsider’s perspective, sales and marketing are just one entity. But as you go deeper to delve into the details, you will realize that insiders do not say sales and marketing but sales vs marketing. These are two separate functions which create way for one another. Peter Drucker, the management guru, once said “the aim of marketing is to know the client so well that the product or service fits him well or sells itself.”
Marketing creates prospective leads, and good sales strategies turn them into loyal customers. Simply put, marketing turns a narrow path between a salesperson and the prospective client into a complete highway, creating plenty of opportunities for the sales guy to cash upon. Both of these processes are crucial for any business and you cannot do anything without either of them. The sales vs marketing agenda is crucial and both of these segments of business go hand in hand. The general misconception between the departments arise when sales people believe that marketing people pass on ineligible leads, and marketing guys believe that salespersons are not good enough to close the deals. What they fail to understand is that both of these segments of business go hand in hand, they need each other. Marketing creates the lead, sales close the deal.
If the business can combine the efforts of sales and marketing strategically, it can experience phenomenal growth. For these two departments to work together, their strategies should be combined. For example:
Cold leads: You can mail the prospects and send out your promotions, newsletters. The idea is to convert them into warm leads.
Warm leads: Arranging for special seminars and training sessions are quite helpful. Follow up calls with sending sales letters convert cold leads into warm leads.
Warm leads are much easier to convert into actual sales. You can now proceed with individual sales techniques like one-on-one meetings, demos, proposals.
Although in large organizations, it is not possible for every sales and marketing effort to be combined but at the least, big companies can call for regular meetings at higher level between sales and marketing heads. The plans can be chalked out and then acted upon accordingly.
For a business to succeed there should be camaraderie and spirit of companionship between the sales and marketing departments . With dialogue and interaction, sales vs marketing should not give rise to internal competition with each other but a common success force for the business. Neither can do without the other.
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Tags: Marketing, sales, sales vs marketing