Marketing

The marketing-sales debate

On board my flight to London a few years ago I got chatting with a co-passenger. Turned out this individual was a sales person. For some reason our conversation veered into the area of marketing & sales. I do not remember much of the conversation but this comment from him remained, “Oh, marketing! You are a fellow sales guy. So, what do you sell?” I had forgotten this conversation until a few days ago.

Recently, I was explaining my career path to this individual who looked at my marketing experience and said I was a sales person. My statement: “No, those functions are marketing” did not cut any ice. She remained firm in her opinion. Let me outline what she read to reach that conclusion.

Responsibilities included:

• Product development
  • Discover what product or service to offer
  • Monitor competition offerings
  • Provide feedback to the product development team on features
• Support the sales team
  • Pricing the product or service
  • Lead generation
  • Building a brand recognition
  • Develop collaterals for the sales team
  • Write case studies, articles for newsletters and blog, and web-site content
• Manage promotions
  • Manage creative design
  • Managing media placements
• Manage client relationships
  • Conduct customer satisfaction surveys
  • Building and managing loyalty programs
  • Managing a referral program
  • Ensuring each client-contact point contributes to the brand in a positive way

Are you one of those people who think marketing is sales and vice versa. You are so very wrong then. Marketing and sales are totally different; yet they depend on each other to function like a well oiled machine. Here is the key distinction between them.

Marketing objectives: generate leads, generate awareness

Sales objectives: persuading a prospect (usually in a one-to-one interaction) to buy a product or service

So the next time I hear someone say “sales” where they should be using “marketing”, I am going to refer them to this post.

Not too long ago, a small business CEO (who doubled up as a sales person too) said to me, “I did not want to hire a marketing person. I see no value in marketing.” I’ll also refer such people to this post.

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