The Classic Chicken and Egg - Sales and Marketing

A fellow “EventPeeps.com" colleague asked this question - to paraphrase, I am tasked to sell but I think like a marketer and I know our leads are not high quality. Do I overlook my boss and concentrate on developing better marketing?

Here is the answer I sent her:

April,

Having been a sales person, sales manager, marketing manager, marketing consultant and now event marketing ROI consultant, I feel I may be able to shed some informed perspective on your delimma. What you describe is a situation that many of us are familiar with and the answer is probably a little different than you might expect.

First, there is no more important function in a company than sales, marketing included. The entire financial structure of a company begins and ends with the sales forecast and sales results. Therefore, most companies are unwilling to tolerate any slow down or redirection of focus from direct sales activity, even if the marketing needs work. The link between marketing and sales is a topic of discussion at every level. At worst it is perceived as a disconnect. At best, to build an effective marketing program where little or no good marketing exists is perceived to be a lengthy process. So your boss is coming from a perspective that he or she probably has little or no choice but to keep the pressure on direct sales effort. And, I agree to a point, that near term sales results come from a large number of contacts with prospects. If targeting is bad, the close ratio will be lower, so more contacts are needed. A classic catch 22.

Targeting is the key to effective marketing and sales. Effective marketing should result in placing well targeted individuals directly into an identifiable step in the sales funnel for your company. Prospects reached through your marketing must commit to a step (action) that your sales people will agree is a step in their process. If you do this, the proverbial gap between marketing and sales will be erased.

So what am I suggesting, 1) you must keep selling. 2) focus your marketing development activity on two things a) define and find the targets, b) interact with them in a fashion that commits them to a specific action that your sales team agrees with. Events are a good way to do this. On- line and direct marketing are as well. If you want more background on this my website has some case studies and papers in the Solutions Center section.

“http://constellationcc.com"

Good luck. I hope this was helpful. Drop me a line and let me know.

Ed Jones
President
Constellation Communication Corp.