In
many organisations I come across, sales force
& marketing are always at war - with disastrous
results. As a rule they are a separate key functions
& are expected to work together.
When
sales are down, marketing blames poor execution
of a brilliantly thought marketing strategy. Sales
team in turn claims, Marketing sets prices too
high or promotional activities resulting in 'bad
quality' enquiries. Sales tend to believe marketing
is out of touch with whats' going on in customers
premises. Marketing feels sales is too narrow
focused on individual customer feedback &
blind to a larger market sector.
One
should recognise the distinct role of marketing,
especially the small organisations. They do not
have separate marketing department at all ! Their
marketing ideas come from managers, field sales
& advertising agencies (!). They equate (confuse)
marketing with selling & do not recognise
the need of marketing to position their organisation
in the minds of decision makers.
However,
where ever sales & marketing are in sync with
each other (& of course the market !
)there is a substantial improvement in sales cycles
getting shorter,improvement in quality of sales
enquiries, reduced cost of sales etc. One of the
reason for this disconnect, arises out of lack
of clarity- where does marketing stops & sales
starts.
let's
look at the classic customer acquisition process.
The following chart explains how Marketing &
Sales influence's the customer's decision to buy.
|
Market
awareness.
|
Marketing
|
|
Brand
awareness.
|
|
Brand
consideration.
|
|
Brand
preference.
|
|
Purchase
intention.
|
Sales
|
|
Order
closing .
|
|
Customer
loyalty.
|
|
Customer
delight.
|
|
Marketing
is involved in the first four steps, by
developing the brand, marketing strategies
to generate quality enquiries, educating
the decision makers about the organisation's
capabilities. It is expected to be focused
on strategic activities & resist from
entering into individual sales opportunity.
Sales
group is expected to be responsible for
the last 4 steps. Typically, sales group
would work on its 'funnel' for the sales
task that need to be done during its first
two stages.(Funnel has: prospecting,defining
needs,proposal,negotiation & order closing.)
I
have often found due to lack of clarity,
there is marketing function inside Sales
& a Sales function inside marketing
! It results in waste of precious resources
- time & money, apart from employee
dissatisfaction (or should I say unrest
!).
|
