Business
If you are an entrepreneur or small business owner, it is easy to see why there's some confusion when looking at marketing vs sales. While both areas are crucial to any business it is important to understand the activities associated with each one. Traditionally, the thought of selling makes the average person cringe. The reason for this is that certain salespeople have created a bad reputation in the mind of buyers. Most people associate selling with the typical car or insurance salesperson. While this is unfortunate, here are some things you need to know for your business. What does a marketing person do?Does your business need marketing?Can you market without a budget?What does a salesperson do?Is this person essential for your business?Can any business survive without sales and marketing? While you may know the answers to some of these questions, you must understand the importance of each one for business growth. In this post, you'll learn all about sales vs marketing as well as the first person you need to hire as your business grows (spoiler alert: it's not what you think). What is Sales? According to Wikipedia, sales is the activity related to selling or the number of goods sold in a specific time period. In one sense this can be accurate but to be fair marketing is indirectly related to selling. I want you to think of the last item you purchased this week and you'll come to an interesting realisation. Many of us buy without the help of a salesperson. This is because most items with a price tag below $500 can be purchased online without direct contact with a person. I'm sure that no one tapped you on the shoulder to ask you to shop at your local supermarket. If you buy gifts, clothes or household accessories online, there is generally no contact with a person. Are you now wondering what motivated you to make a purchase? The answer to that question may lie in the definition of marketing. What is Marketing? So, because we got the definition of the sales from Wikipedia let's check them again for their take on marketing. According to Wikipedia marketing is the activities that a company does to promote the buying and selling of their products or services. Wait, what? Yes, marketing promotes buying and selling. So, in one sense marketing involves sales. Another way to look at it is marketing results in sales. A marketing person is targeted with revenue outcomes. So, everything that a marketer does must result in an action. If there is no action then that person is not accomplishing their job. Let's go back to the analogy of you going to the supermarket to buy something like bread. You get to the bread aisle and there are 50 different brands and types of bread. Why do you choose to buy one compared to another? It could be the taste, packaging, diet, price or an advertisement that you saw somewhere. Do you understand now why marketing is so powerful? Sales Activities As I mentioned previously, the price of a product normally dictates whether or not a salesperson will need to be involved in the buying process. Imagine going to a car dealer to buy a car and it is 100% self-service. That would be weird, wouldn't it? You are about to purchase a $5,000 or 10,000 dollar car. You have a look choose one then swipe your card grab the keys and go. Nobody likes a car salesman but everyone wants help to buy a car. Oh, the irony! So, maybe the problem is in the behaviour of the person, do you think that there's such a thing as a good car salesperson? Well, let's take a look briefly at the activities associated with sales. AdvisorMust have product knowledgeMatch the product's features to suit your needsHandle objectionsBuild trustEnsure a smooth buying journey At this point, you're probably wondering who I am and what qualifies me to talk about sales. The truth is I worked in sales for over 20 years and...