Some years ago, neighboring furniture company owners, one making indoor furniture and the other outdoor furniture, agreed to collaborate to expand their dealer networks. They planned a joint trip to visit their dealers. The indoor furniture manufacturer would introduce his dealers to the outdoor furniture maker and vice versa.
Since the two companies shared fundamental values and business ethics, they hoped sharing their dealer networks would create new accounts and sales opportunities for both companies.
The outdoor furniture manufacturer, whom we’ll call Carl, brimmed with confidence as he and his friend arrived at one large dealer of indoor furniture. This is exactly the type of client I serve well. I should easily be able to connect with this dealer and gain a new dealer for my outdoor furniture.
Despite his best efforts, Carl could not convince the store owner to try his furniture. What a disappointment!
Over the next few years, as the outdoor furniture business grew, Carl began to work with Rosewood to fine-tune his marketing materials. One day, he received an order from a new dealer for an outdoor dining table and chair set. Why does this dealer’s name sound so familiar? Carl wondered. Then it hit him! This was the customer he had tried to recruit on his trip.
“What convinced you to order this product from us after all this time?” Carl asked the dealer.
“I saw your ad in a magazine. When I saw the photo of the table and chairs, I knew I could sell them. That’s why I placed an order,” the dealer replied.
Carl was dumbfounded. A beautiful photo in an ad could convince a prospective customer, while a live human salesperson could not.
However, the human touch can often close a sale when marketing tools cannot.
Another company, Apple Field Events, was struggling to sell enough tickets to fill its training events. It tried increasing its marketing efforts by mailing more postcards and emails, but nothing worked.
Finally, two of Apple Field’s salesmen began calling people in their network who they believed would be good candidates for the training. The salespeople quickly filled the event with just a few calls. With minimal effort, sales accomplished what marketing could not.
These stories show how sales and marketing are two distinct functions with the same purpose. Sales and marketing should work together to generate revenue. This article will show you how to synergize the best of sales and the best of marketing through effective processes that yield highly desirable results, including positive experiences for your clients.
What Is Sales, and What Is Marketing?
Sales is about People. Sales is the action of a salesperson communicating with a prospect.
Specific activities of Sales include the following:
- Cold calling prospects.
- Conversations with prospects and customers.
- Mailing a sample.
- Asking for an order.
- Asking questions.
- Answering questions.
- Overcoming objections.
- Entering an order into production.
Marketing is about Tools. Marketing develops tools and products to empower salespeople and save them time.
Specific activities of Marketing include the following:
- Advertisements and billboards.
- A website and online advertising.
- A product catalog.
- Written copy (slogans, testimonials, founder’s story).
- Pricing.
- Product support documents (manuals, assembly instructions, directions for use).
- Methods to accept payment.
Sales activities and marketing tools need to work together in a healthy business. Yet many businesses get stuck here because of a common misunderstanding of how Sales and Marketing work together.
What Is the Proper Way to Think of Sales and Marketing?
1. Sales and Marketing are not independent functions in a company. Instead, Sales is a part of Marketing.
In a small company, the same person is often in charge of sales and marketing without a clear distinction between the two. In larger companies, the teams are usually separated and work independently. This separation creates gaps or overlaps, which results in inefficiency, marginal effectiveness, and frustration for all involved.
When developing your sales and marketing processes, you need to change how you think about sales and marketing. “Sales and Marketing” should really be called “Marketing,” of which sales actions form one significant piece.
2. Another major part of marketing is creating tools that help salespeople be more efficient and effective.
Marketing listens to the challenges that Sales encounters and works to solve them. Marketing helps train salespeople to sell effectively to the company’s target audience. Marketing creates effective advertisements that generate leads for the salespeople to nurture. Marketing produces catalogs, price sheets, and other documents to support and smooth the sales process.
3. The people creating tools and the salespeople need to collaborate to help each other instead of working independently.
I find it helpful to think of marketing and sales as a marriage. Marketing is the husband, and Sales is the wife.
- Marketing and Sales should work together like partners in a healthy marriage. In a healthy marriage, neither partner dominates the other. They work together and pull together like two horses in a team. As the lead horse, the husband sets the direction. In the same way, Marketing leads in the marketing/sales relationship.
- Marketing and Sales fill different niches in creating a customer experience. In a marriage, husbands typically focus on facts and logic, while wives are tuned into the softer, emotional side of life. In business, sales (like a wife) nurtures relationships with people. Marketing (like a husband) handles the heavy lifting of setting direction and creating systems and tools to support the salespeople.
- Marketing and Sales must each respect the unique role of the other. A good husband will listen to his wife and lead without domineering her. A good wife will respect her husband’s direction and work with him to accomplish his goals. In the same way, Sales partners with Marketing to accomplish the company’s marketing strategy. Sales respects Marketing’s decisions while still giving Marketing priceless feedback on the challenges the customers face in the field.
A successful business will consider Marketing one of its three major functions and focus on the shared goal of marketing tools and sales actions: generating revenue.
Marketing and Sales Models
Now that we’ve considered a process that synergizes sales and marketing, let’s examine several Sales and Marketing models that range from “only sales” to “only marketing” with integrated models in the middle. But first, a reminder of the three phases of your company’s prospects:
- Lead Generation: a lead is captured.
- Lead Conversion: the lead is converted to a customer.
- Delivery: Fulfilling the order and ongoing customer support (maintenance, technical support)
Both salespeople and marketing tools are part of your process, and both interact with the prospect at various points on their journey.
Now, let’s examine four basic ways sales and marketing interact in the prospect’s journey.
1. The People Model
A salesperson drives the People Model without any marketing involvement. My brother-in-law was once a soil and crop consultant. He visited farms and built authority with the farmers by knowledgeably discussing their problems and answering their questions. If his sales process was successful, the farmer signed up for his consulting program.
A new business often relies solely on a sales process. When Rosewood started, we didn’t have any marketing material. We acquired our first clients by going out and knocking on doors, talking to people, making phone calls, following up with those conversations, getting an agreement to do a project, and following up with the client to ensure they’re happy. It was a sales process. Initially, we didn’t use any marketing tools.
Another example of the People Model is a job shop that manufactures parts for another manufacturer. A job shop might not rely on catalogs, brochures, or websites. Work is generated by sales work, networking, and referrals. The salesman is the key to the relationship with the customer. The project specs, payment details, and delivery arrangements are all handled through conversations with a salesperson.
Subcontractors in the construction world also use the People Model. Tradesmen such as drywallers, electricians, and plumbers usually operate their businesses without marketing tools. Their business is generated from the relationship between the key people of the sub-contractor and the general contractor.
2. The Handoff Model
In the Handoff Model, marketing starts the process, but a salesman steps in to finish the process. Marketing might run ads and generate leads. However, when a lead enters the process, a salesman is responsible for nurturing and converting that lead into a sale. The salesperson is also responsible for asking for the order and moving the process to the point of purchase. The salesman may deliver post-sale support.
A typical example of the Handoff Model is an auto repair shop. The shop probably has a roadside sign. It might advertise online. Those are marketing tools. When a prospective customer calls or stops in with their vehicle, the process moves from marketing to sales. The person behind the counter in the repair shop begins to service the prospect and provide the customer experience.
A tree-trimming company may advertise tree services in the local newspaper or online. Then, when a customer calls or emails, an arborist steps in and completes the process.
A food establishment or coffee shop runs ads to attract customers. When a lead walks through the shop door, they look at the posted menu. Then, the person at the counter picks up the conversation and sells the food or drink.
3. The Integrated Model
The Integrated Model starts with marketing leading out in lead generation. When salespeople begin engaging the prospect, marketing continues to provide support. For example, marketing might produce a brochure to help sales with lead conversion even as a salesperson carries out the conversations needed to close the purchase. Marketing may provide technology or tools for receiving payment at the point of purchase, even as the salesperson walks the customer through the details of the transaction. Marketing may produce owner’s manuals or instruction manuals to assist customer support even as the salesperson answers questions and gives advice.
Although each industry and company functions very differently, most businesses utilize some form of the Integrated Model.
A retail shed business may generate a lead through a sign, a website, or a postcard. The prospect comes to the shed lot and starts working with a salesman. The salesman might give the prospect a catalog or a brochure (a marketing tool). The salesperson walks the prospect through purchasing options using various marketing tools in the transactional process. In the support phase, the salesperson will follow up with the customer to ensure their satisfaction and give them a warranty card, a marketing tool.
Furniture manufacturers, power equipment sales and service, and many other small businesses use the Integrated Model.
4. The Tools Model
The final model uses only marketing tools and does not involve humans in the customer-facing process. Marketing tools perform all the steps of the Marketing Process: lead generation, lead conversion, point of purchase, and post-sales support.
You may have already considered one current business using the Tools Model: Amazon. However, the Tools Model has been around for many years. The self-service roadside stand is still alive and well in rural areas today. Vegetables, baked goods, or crafts are displayed beside the road. Pricing is marked, and buyers can help themselves and leave payment in a designated box.
A vending machine requires no human interaction. It is positioned to attract customers, displays signage, and lists the prices of its products. The machine also contains tools to accept payment and dispense the product.
Marketing and Sales Process Integration
Now that you understand the differing roles of Marketing and Sales in the Marketing Process, it’s time to take practical steps to integrate them into your business. I encourage you to begin by listing the steps in your current Marketing Process.
Look for gaps in your process and opportunities for Marketing and Sales to support each other better. Everyone on your team will benefit from a written process showing how marketing tools and salespeople will engage the prospect on their journey to a decision.
Notice the Sample Process diagram accompanying this article. Let’s briefly walk through the marketing process for a retail shed business. Notice how sales and marketing work together in this model. Note that this process is oversimplified for the sake of clarity. In real life, this process has many variables that need to be addressed.
The shed business runs advertisements, has a website, and has a team of salespeople. The company sells custom sheds, so its marketing process provides custom quotes for the sheds its customers dream about.
- The process begins with marketing. A potential customer sees an ad displaying the company’s web address.
- The prospect visits the website and decides the company might remedy his problem.
- He decides to submit a quote request.
- The quote request comes to the sales department and the integration of marketing and sales starts to happen.
- A salesman reads the quote request, creates a custom quote, and emails it to the prospect.
- The prospect opens the email.
- He reviews the quote.
- The prospect has several complex questions, which he emails to the salesperson.
- After reviewing the questions, the salesperson decides it would be better to discuss them over the phone rather than by email.
- He calls the prospect.
- The prospect answers the phone.
- The salesperson and prospect have a productive conversation. The salesperson answers the prospect’s questions and overcomes his final objections.
- Next, the prospect visits the shed display lot to choose shed options and make final decisions.
- Face-to-face conversations work out the final details.
- The client orders the shed and makes a down payment.
- The salesperson enters the order into the production schedule.
Of course, we know this is not the end of the process. This custom shed will need to be built, delivered, and installed. The salesperson will follow up after the sale to ensure the customer is delighted with their experience with the shed company.
Notice how the marketing tools and sales conversations interweave into one grand marketing process.
Wrapping It Up
The key to driving revenue for any business lies in seamlessly integrating sales and marketing efforts. The anecdotes of the furniture makers and Apple Field Events demonstrate the importance of combining sales’ personal engagement with marketing tools’ reach and efficiency.
Sales and marketing are not competing entities; they are complementary forces that, when synergized, create a powerful mechanism for business growth. By reimagining these functions as two halves of a whole and fostering an environment of cooperation, businesses can more effectively capture leads, convert prospects, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
A harmonious synergy between sales and marketing is both desirable and essential for remaining relevant in a changing world.