The Difference Between Sales And Marketing

I was sitting in the Capital City Club, high above downtown Raleigh, surrounded by the city’s female movers and shakers. Our monthly speaker was, rather quietly, working his way through his PowerPoint presentation on business strategy. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the speaker threw out the question “What’s the difference between sales and marketing?”

Now, maybe it was a combination of the darkened room and the just-eaten turkey cutlets, but the room went silent. All these women business owners didn’t have a clue? Even I, seasoned marketer that I am, had to think for a moment before raising my hand.

You see, we don’t often think about the two topics separately. We lump them together in our vocabulary and believe that they go together like peanut butter and jelly. Ask a CEO what the difference is and you may get one answer. Ask the ad agency and you will get another. Ask the salesperson and you will most certainly get an entirely different answer.

So, what did I say? The difference between sales and marketing is that marketing paves the way for sales to occur. Good marketing opens the door for the sales person to close the sale. It stimulates interest, drives inquiries and creates leads.

Here’s what marketing does not do: make up for a company’s poor sales force or inferior sales process, improve customer service or sell a complicated, unwanted or badly devised product or service. In other words, marketing is the horse pulling the cart. The cart is the sales force and in the cart is a streamlined, efficient sales process, top notch customer service that is better than your competitor and a product or service that delivers on promises and meets the prospects’ needs.

Whew! Is it time for dessert yet?

Carolyn Rhinebarger is Chief Brainstormer for Strategic Guru Inc., a full service marketing agency located in Cary, NC. She may be contacted by email at carolyn@strategicguru.com.

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