The Yin & Yang of
Marketing & Sales—Part IV
NoSpin Debunker
#42: April 29, 2002
My
apologies, I’m way overdue for the next Debunker. This week I’m back debunking
with a co-author, Jack Varney who is a
Batavia, OH-based business consultant. We’re continuing the series: The Yin
& Yang of Marketing & Sales for at least a few more installments. Please
take 5 seconds and complete the new NoSpin poll for the week of April 29th:
Email
Marketing.
So where is the
division of labor between Marketing & Sales?
In Part I of this “Yin & Yang of Marketing & Sales” series we discussed the definitions of Marketing and Sales. This Debunker will dive in a bit deeper and discuss the difference more concretely—so where is the division of labor between Marketing & Sales? What should fall under the purview of Marketing and what should fall under Sales? Is it black and white? Is it worth worrying about for your business?
A brief review
of Marketing and Sales definitions from Part
I:
As a business function,
Marketing determines the right products/packages to sell, finds
the right markets and targets, crafts the right messages (including
presentations for Sales), and implements the best communications vehicles
(print, media, events, electronic, etc) at the right frequencies—all with the
single intent of getting more people interested, opening doors, and paving the
way for more Sales to happen—in mass, on a regular basis.
Marketing is about leveraging information and resources to
create prospects that, in turn, generate Sales—and profits for the company.
The Sales function
directs the overall Sales processes and manages the complete process from lead
to final sale: contacts the leads, qualifies them, monitors and prioritizes
prospects in the Sales funnel,
handles prospect meetings and presentations, does the pitches, follows-up with
prospects and convinces folks to say yes--to sign on the dotted line, to the
write checks, and to close deals that then directly result in additional
revenues and profits for the company. Direct Sales is all of
the collective work to bring to closure individual accounts that generate
dollars for the business.
Does your
company get “it?”
The fact is that
small and
medium-sized businesses often fail because they do not understand the difference
between Marketing and Sales functions in their
respective organizations. Many simply do not get “it,” and “it” becomes their
downfall—even if they have a great idea and even if they are well funded. Or if
not their downfall—“it” becomes their rate-limiting factor for growth. That is,
they hit a wall once those personal contacts are chewed up. This is simply
Business 101 but is missed by many companies that do not appreciate the
difference between Marketing and Sales
functions.
Marketing
First—Patton as a Marketing executive
Now let's talk a bit more
about Marketing. To a large extent
Marketing is the process of
identifying the right products/services and the best targets (by type, size,
geography, etc) and developing the right strategies and tactics to win over
those prospects. Great war
strategists and tacticians like Patton would have made great Marketing
executives.
Marketing needs to identify the
product/services and market opportunities by use of the best available
intelligence, get the attention of prospects though all the clutter (somehow)
and generate quality leads that are turned over to Sales. Marketing processes result in
specific actions that raise potential customers’ awareness and knowledge of the
company’s products/services. Then, hopefully a percentage of those potential
prospects raise their hands and identify themselves as true Sales leads—whether via an
email or web site contact, mail response, event contact, phone contact, etc.
In a Marketing-driven business, the rest
of the company that is not Marketing or selling really becomes
a marketing support organization and should be creating the product and/or
delivering the services. Marketing is a team “sport” in
every company—and should be lead by a top executive on the management
team.
Who owns the
“lead?”
Once there is a lead, it
is Sales’ turn to take over. Marketing passes the baton to
Sales and in so doing provides
as much timely, quality information as possible to give the Sales team the best chance to
sign those prospects up. The better
educated your Sales team is the better chance
they have at moving the customer through the Sales funnel more rapidly (or
rapidly getting it out of the funnel). The faster the better--as there are only
so many Sales cycles that any finite
Sales force can handle.
This brings us to a
valuable point: Who actually “own” the lead? So many companies just assume that
prospect information belongs to the Sales organization. Wrong. More
often than not, leads ends up on a single sales person's PC or PDA—or worse, in
a stack of disorganized business cards or manual notes--and that information is
not accessible by others, or is sometimes even lost. Knowing the status of each lead, as well
as all the information accumulated during the Marketing and Sales process is critical
information for the company. Quality leads are the lifeblood of the
business. While they may not be
customers today, tomorrow you never know unless you “Keep ‘em, track ‘em,
maintain ‘em.” Your business owns your leads—not Sales.
Your Sales people MUST enter and
update the contact data required. If your Sales team does not maintain
(or refuses to maintain) the required Sales lead information, then
you have the wrong Sales team--and that goes for
every member of the Sales team from top to bottom.
Remember, they work for the company, and you have spent significant resources on
bringing that lead into the organization.
Every business needs a
contact management/CRM system to track leads and current customer activity. You
do NOT necessarily have to use an expensive and highly sophisticated CRM (and
most are not worth the money), but you do need to make sure that you can
minimally:
·
Input and update key
(prospect & customer) contacts, sales, marketing, product/services
information via PC and synchronize that information others when online or tied
to your network.
·
Easily track information
not only by organization but also by individual contact(s) per
organization.
·
Download any subset of
information for Marketing analysis and subsequent
campaigns.
·
Include (integrate and
flag) both prospect and customer information.
·
Back-up this valuable
regularly.
Sales should handle the lead
input and maintain current data on prospects and their activities, but the
database itself must be accessible to Management, Marketing, Account
Management/Customer Services functions, etc.
Sales focus on
Selling
Today many small and
medium-sized organizations (even multi-million dollar organizations) try to
assign one person to manage the both Sales and Marketing functions, and as
mentioned in Part III, this
is normally a very bad idea for two simple reasons: 1) Usually these people
don’t have the time or focus for Marketing and Sales--and 9 times out of 10
Marketing gets the short shrift and
2) Marketing is usually NOT the top
Sales executive’s best talent
(and vice versa). So with a combined Sales and Marketing organization, you’re
usually not only doing a lousy job of Marketing—you are damaging the
Sales process as well.
Sales’ primary function of
turning a lead into a customer is a much different task than Marketing’s. A good Sales person can
manage no more then 4-5 concurrent Sales cycles at a time. When a
Sales person is also performing
Marketing functions, nine times out
of ten he or she is not turning enough leads into customers fast enough. Without a steady stream of customers the
organization will suffer from lack of cash flow. This lack of cash flow usually causes a
knee jerk reaction to blame someone (and do even less Marketing) and heads start
rolling. The vicious cycle and
downward spiral starts right there.
This proposed division of
labor is not absolute—there must be a give-and-take between Marketing and Sales on a regular—formal and
informal basis. Without such communications that must be fostered and managed by
the CEO and top lieutenants, neither Marketing nor Sales will perform optimally.
More
nitty-gritty about the division between Marketing & Sales
What about the
company’s actual contact database or CRM itself? Who’s in charge?
Prospect inputs come from
Sales, Marketing campaign information
comes from Marketing; Customer information
comes from Customer Service/Account Management. IT is the probably best actual
home, especially for a fully integrated CRM system, but that does not mean that
IT determines the necessary data fields, access controls, etc.
Who should develop
Sales presentations?
Sales should be involved in
developing presentations and continuously provide input, but they should not be
the creators of PowerPoint presentations, multi-media presentations, or other
presentation materials. Those are Marketing responsibilities. There is
a need for some level of consistent messages even though the exact words used
and sales approaches will vary. Presentations and materials are tools to help
make the sale, but they should be under the auspices of Marketing.
Who’s in charge of
pricing?
For many products and
services, Sales needs reasonable leeway
to negotiate final pricing on deals--but only based on pricing models and ranges
developed by Marketing and Finance—with ongoing Sales input.
What about
Telemarketing?
Most “telemarketing” is
really selling products (or services) directly on the phone and taking orders as
a result. Other telemarketing, though, is attempting to generate initial
interest and make an appropriate contact that turns into a Sales appointment. Both of these
“one-on-one” phone activities belong to Sales.
As mentioned in Part III, the
kicker in the comments above is that Marketing should be rewarded (at
least in part) based--not on the volume and growth of prospects created, though,
but rather revenues and profits. That’s what matters. That’s what gets
Marketing, Sales and others on the same
page.
OK—I’ll bet that some of
you are saying, “Sure that all sounds great in theory, but we just can’t afford
“Marketing” and certainly not a
separate Marketing organization. Next
Debunker I’ll tackle the ticklish chicken-and-egg question: How can you afford
to market and do it the right way?
Remember, if you didn’t get a chance to read about “The Best Web Site Planner” tool that I am now selling for only $19.99, please take a look. It’s a bargain and must-have marketing resource for any company that has an effective web site and wants to do some fine-tuning or start over—and turn it into a Sales and Marketing asset. Order it here.
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Tom Ranseen NoSpin Marketing 615.383.7157