The functions of Sales and Marketing often get blurred in a business with the same individual responsible for both.  If you picture the business cycle as passing the hot potato throughout the business, you’ll see that marketing hands the potato to sales who sends it onward to manufacturing.

While they work very closely together, each function requires very different roles, tasks and measurables. The talented sales person who is great at closing may be terrible at planning a year long budget and pulling together a branding campaign that the company will use for the next 5 years.

Marketing efforts transfer the hot potato to Sales.  The Sales department transfers it to the manufacturing, shipping or client services department,.  Each function answers different questions in the business cycle.

Marketing functions provide direction
Which industries, which markets in which geography and ultimately which customers to approach?  What problems do these customers have that our products could solve?  What is the product offering at entry level pricing, for high volume/capacity or top of the line, custom goods? Based on what the company can produce, how should the company present its image: quality, service or price?  What’s the best placement of the advertising and PR – online or print?

Sales functions involve action and interaction.

Chris Brown is a marketing expert who publishes Branding & Marketing at www.brandandmarket.com and has run a successful marketing agency for the past 10 years.  Her company provides the marketing resources you need to get the sales results you want.