Why every business needs a solid sales and marketing plan.
Many small businesses know that they need a marketing plan for their business but when it comes to sales, they might not feel spending money investing in a sales plan or sales training is absolutely necessary.
The truth is sales and marketing are two different fields of expertise, but you can’t have one without the other. Every business needs both a strong marketing and sales plan it’s not a one or the other choice, you need both in your business to be successful.
For the past 20 years, I have been involved in Corporate Sales for one of North America’s largest building materials manufacturers. My role has been in sales, but I could not have become the top sales rep if it had not been for a strong marketing department and without sales, the marketing department could not have had a strong marketing plan.
So, what’s the difference between marketing and sales, and how do they fit together?
Dictionary.com defines marketing as, “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.”
According to this marketing is sales or is it? What is the difference?
The dictionary defines sales as “the exchange of a commodity for money; the action of selling something.”
Why is marketing important for your business? Marketing is about “attraction” if you are going to sell your products or services you will need to attract new business. Marketers can help businesses with things like branding, website design, lead generation, SEO & SEM, Social Media Management, and much more but at the end of the day once those leads come into your business you will need to have the right set of skills to close those sales.
When new leads come into your business the lead might be at different stages of the sales journey. Marketing will attract new leads into your business by their messages and these leads will turn into “opportunities” for your business. I say “opportunities” because these new leads are an opportunity for your business to sell your products and services. These leads and opportunities will be at different phases within the sales journey. Let’s look closely at three different types of leads.
- A new lead might be considered a “cold lead” they have just heard about your business and they are now aware of your business and brand but are not yet ready to buy.
- The next type of lead is a “warm lead” this customer is aware of your business, in the market for your product or service but has not made a commitment to hire you or buy your products. I would now consider their potential as a “warm opportunity.”
- The last type of lead is a “hot lead” the type of buyer is both aware of your business, very interested in your products or services has made the decision to buy, but the sale has not yet been closed. I would consider this lead to be a very “hot opportunity”
Here is where it gets tricky, many small to medium-sized businesses take it for granted that if warm or hot leads come into their business, they will automatically close the sale. This is actually a misconception as it is actually quite common for a potential client to approach a business in the “hot opportunity” stage even walk through the business’ door and the sales rep fails to close the sale because they lacked the right sales skills.
Perhaps they failed to “listen” to the potential client. Seemed to “busy” to take time for the potential client or simply were having an “off day” and every one of these missed sales is costing your business time and money. Can you afford to have “off days”?
The truth is sales involves a set of skills, skills like listening, whether that’s learning to embrace active listening, identifying pretend listening, embracing empathetic listening, conscious listening, critical listening, and then understanding how to respond to each potential client in a way that will resonate with them.
Sales is about learning how to properly analyze and interpret a customer’s needs or challenges, learning how to use powerful questioning techniques as a way to gain insight, and earn your customer’s trust.
Sales is about learning to become self-aware so that you or your team can learn how to use and respond to a customer’s cues such as visual clues, vocal cues, and physical cues.
Sales is about understanding the psychology of persuasion, understanding how and why people make buying decisions.
Sales is an art. It’s an art that is learnable but it does involve learning new skills, practicing, and applying them. Sales is also learning to develop a “growth mindset” so that when business is challenging you can learn to adapt, pivot, and see challenges as opportunities in disguise.
In conclusion, it’s imperative that every business regardless of their size embraces both a strong sales and marketing plan. When it comes to growing your sales, you will need both. While the plans might be separate, they should align with your companies’ top-level goals, mission, and values.
Even if your business is small having the right marketing tools in place is critical and having a strong sales strategy in place will be key to your company’s overall growth.
Are you lacking both a solid sales and marketing plan to help you grow your top line sales? Call or reach out today to at 250-740-1844 or send us an email to info@evolutionbusiness.ca.
We have a full-service team of marketing experts to help you and are aligned with top-notch sales experts who can give you professional advice when it comes to growing or scaling your business.
Written by Sharon-Rose McNeil
Owner of Honor Sales – Helping your sales soar! Honorsales.com
Written for Evolution Marketing and Communications
Need help with your sales, reach out today at 250-888-4063 or send me an email to srmcneil@honorsales.com
