Which is More Important, Sales or Marketing?

Dear Reader

Which is more important, Sales or Marketing? Can you effectively grow your business using one and not the other? If you're on a tight budget, do you put your resources into just one activity? And if so, which one?

This issue of Scribbles looks at Sales and Marketing and discusses whether or not one is more important than the other. Please let me know what you think by clicking here to answer my latest question on LinkedIn.

Best wishes,

Chantal

Chantal@Appletreeuk.com

Which is More Important, Sales or Marketing?

Marketing is more important because …

… without Marketing you can't generate leads and enquiries into your business. If you don't generate new leads, you can't sell to them. Marketing is about telling the world what you can do to help solve other people's problems. It's about finding out what issues other people and businesses are struggling with and what they want to achieve. Then it's about you creating services and products that solve those challenges, which people are prepared to invest in. Selling without Marketing is like phoning someone who lives in a first floor flat and trying to sell them a conservatory!

Marketing is about creating a reputation for your business and getting people to talk about you. Without Marketing, how will anyone know that you exist?

Sales is more important because …

… you can generate all the leads you want, but if you can't sell and close the deal, how will those prospects become clients? Sales is about helping prospective customers identify a gap in what they have – their turnover or number of clients, for instance. It's about helping them to see the opportunity to fill that gap and then about you creating a solution that you can provide to fill that gap. If they can't recognize the opportunity to change, they will never buy what you're offering. Sales is about presenting the best solution that meets the needs of your prospective client – both their business and their personal needs. It's about showing why your solution is perfectly aligned to them and why it's the best solution.

Sales is about gaining the trust of a prospect – without that trust they will never sign the deal.

Sales and Marketing working together

As a Marketing Consultant, I might be tempted to say that Marketing is definitely more important than Sales. However, I've helped clients create great marketing materials, raise their business profile and generate lots of leads, only to see all the hard work come to nothing because they're not comfortable closing the sale.

On the other hand, I can see how important Sales is, because I've received many phone calls from complete strangers wanting to sell me something, who make no attempt to help me realize I have a need for what they can sell. They don't get very far!

I think the real answer is that Marketing and Sales have to work hand in hand. One without the other will cost a lot of money and produce fewer returns. To really maximise your efforts and investment, you need to make sure your Marketing and Sales activity (and people, if you work in a company large enough to have different departments) are working together. Companies who get their Marketing and Sales Strategy to work in unison can create really powerful results.

What do you think? Have you grown your business through Sales alone? Or do you think you can create a successful business just with Marketing? Is one more important than the other, or should they work together in equal measures. Share your views by clicking here to answer my question on LinkedIn.

Sales & Marketing Together

On 20 January 2011 I'm running a workshop on Marketing and Sales.

In this half day session we'll be looking at how you can use Marketing and Sales together, to generate all the leads you need and then convert them into new business.

The workshop will be held at Milton Park Innovation Centre, Oxfordshire, OX14 4RY. More details will be available nearer the time.

If you'd like to provisional book a place, click here to email me.

What are Marketing and Sales Really?

Here are two of my favorite definitions of Marketing that I found on the internet:

• Marketing is a Canadian business magazine about marketing and advertising
• selling: the exchange of goods for an agreed sum of money.

The last one is interesting because it says that Marketing is Sales!

And here's 'cheesy' one for Sales:

• Sâles is a municipality in the district of Gruyère in Switzerland.

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