marketing and sales on the same page…yeah right!

I wanted to do a series on different approaches to marketing, and on different skill sets and perspectives that marketers bring to the table: a designer, a copywriter, and a marketer focusing on small business. Today’s guest post comes from David Murphy. David is the founder of Bewater Marketing Concepts. Bewater Marketing Concepts specializes in working with small businesses.

Prior to Bewater Marketing Concepts, David was part of the Sage and Intuit teams working with resellers on creating a customized marketing plan, then helping with the launching, tracking, and optimization of each individual campaign.

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marketing and sales on the same page…yeah right!

If your company has a “Marketing” person and a separate “Sales” person, does this sound familiar?

Sales says: “What’s going on over in Marketing?! These leads are terrible!!
Marketing says: “What’s going on over in Sales?! They’re trained salespeople, not order takers – sell something!!”

To clarify, I define marketing as anything to do with branding and lead generation. Sales on the other hand is lead conversion.

Both sales and marketing have their own goals and accomplishments however most of the time the two don’t work as a cohesive unit for one combined goal - Growing the business. Marketing is often focused on response rates and the folks in sales are focused on their own immediate quota.

Imagine the possibilities if these two groups of vitally important functions of business worked in concert with one goal of increasing revenue? 

How about this…Rather than focus on marketing for marketing’s sake, take a step back from your business with more of an objective and strategic perspective. We all know that sales is what drives any organization. Knowing that, we also need to be clear that marketing is what drives the sales. If you keep this mind, you’ll already be a lot further along than your competitors.
Where do you begin getting marketing and sales on the same page? As a start, we recommend:

   • The Marketing department must become involved in the selling process.
      Let them walk a mile in a salespersons shoes.

•   Marketing and Sales must share information throughout the marketing and
    selling process. Communication between the two really is that important.

First things first. Great results start with a great strategy. Your marketing strategy is simply the process that allows you to concentrate your limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable growth and competitive advantage. I realize that’s a mouthful so in a nutshell, you must have a roadmap to get to where you want to go. Your company’s road map is a documented marketing plan.

Because marketing supports sales, start your marketing plan by having a sales goal in mind. From there, determine how many new clients, units sold, etc. you need to reach your sales goal. Next determine how many leads you need to close “X” amount of new deals. Your marketing plan should map out how your going to generate those needed leads.

Does your business have a roadmap for 2011? If not, the new year starts right now. Please contact us for a free marketing strategy template. If you need more assistance getting your sales and marketing on the same path, let’s talk.

David Murphy
Bewater Marketing Concepts
707-321-1183
dmurphy@bewatermarketing.com