What do rubber ducks have to do with the differences between sales and marketing? They represent marketing.
Solopreneurs do both marketing and sales.
But do you know the difference between the two? In the 1980s I co-owned an Apple computer dealership here in Toronto. When we were tiny and worked from home, the line between sales and marketing was blurred since my partner did both of them. But as we grew we hired sales people to sell and my partner did the marketing.
I found out the differences then! Marketers market and sales people sell – right? But where does one end and the other begin. Here are six of the differences.
Marketing creates the demand and sales fulfills it. This is an example of a symbiotic relationship. One of the best articles I read about this uses a scene in the 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” where the main character tests his protégé’s understanding of sales by saying to him “Sell me this pen” and holding out his own pen. You can read this blog post here.
Here are the 6 differences
- Marketing is one to many. Sales is one to one. I wrote an earlier post and put my version of a marketing and sales funnel in it to illustrate this. You can find it at Is Sales a Part of Marketing .
- Marketing is data (or numbers) driven. Sales is relationship driven. When you choose your target market you often choose by the number of potential clients in this niche – start with a big number and then whittle it down to far fewer by choosing a “niche” or subset of this market.
- Marketing people develop product or services. Salespeople don’t. Marketing includes research to find out what people want (and will pay for) and then creating it.
- Marketing can’t be tracked. Sales can. The most successful trade show that we did with our Apple dealership was in 1986. We tracked the number of people who came to our booth. They dropped their business cards in a bowl and how many eventually bought. We had our salespeople call, set up interviews, write proposals and close. We saw first hand how symbiotic the relationship between marketing and sales really is.
- Marketing looks after your brand’s reputation. Sales looks after what individuals think of you.
- Marketing analyses gives you the big data. Marketing brings you the average result not the specifics. Sales takes care of the ambiguities and details of each person.
- Marketing isn’t interactive. Sales is a conversation between two people.
See how they’re intertwined? In “big” businesses they’re two separate departments who often don’t interact with each other. One of the advantages you have as a solopreneur is that you do both.
Keep doing it yourself – that’s one of your competitive advantages as a solopreneur!
When you hire someone to do it for you, stay involved in all marketing and sales. Be sure the people selling or marketing you understand your brand and what you stand for and believe in.
Tell me whether you outsource or keep it for yourself to do. What have you had to do if you’ve hired someone?
