Sales is from Venus...Marketing is from Mars!

Image Courtesy of Channel Marketer Report

The rarest thing to find is a great sales person who is also a great marketing person, or vice-versa.  This is because the skill sets for each position are polar opposites in most cases.

The best Marketing minds I have ever met in my life are also some of the most boring, analytical people you could ever imagine meeting.  They are in love with numbers, and obsessed with figuring out the mathematics behind everything.  Where sales on the other hand, though sometimes analytical, are more often your emotional creative types who also love problem solving, but rarely by the numbers.  Their focus is on making people happy and winning.

These differences in behavior is why I have emphasized to organizations to not group Sales and Marketing together under one flag, but to run them as separate teams that have leaders who work well together.  This way they can both be held to quotas and goals they both have the ability and resources to obtain:

Marketing - Generating "x" number of leads with "y" percent of those leads being qualified at an average cost per lead of "a" and a average cost per qualified lead of "b".

Sales - Convert "x" percent of the qualified leads with an average cost per acquisition of "y" and average revenue of "z".

The reason so many companies group these very different, but complimentary departments together is because the success of one can and most often is a direct result of the others success or failure.  But, by combining the two together what you typically see is a sales and marketing effort that is mediocre or that is more focused more on the sales end or marketing end, while the other, less focused on aspect suffers.

I believe all of you will agree that Marketing and Sales will always be tied at the hip.  But, it is important to also remember that for both to be successful, there must be a level of separation between the teams so both can focus on what they are the best at, Sales or Marketing, NOT BOTH!  This way the teams can both be successful, which in turn will make the overall organization that much more successful.

Because as any sales person will tell you, "Nothing happens till a sale is made!"


To Your Success & Prosperity!!!