Hi there! 
I've created this category called "Sales and Marketing" because I want to get this subject out of the way. This will be my only post covering this issue. That's because this concept is a myth, and I'll explain why.
Sales and Marketing is the term that people commonly use to describe the selling function of the business. But it's wrong. It suggests that "sales" and "marketing" are distinct activities, or they are equal activities. They're neither. They're the same thing.
The best way to describe selling in any business is to use only one word: marketing. Marketing is the business function responsible for bringing in the sales.
I'll give you an example. I've been providing marketing support services since 1999 and went to visit a new client. As we talked, I was trying to edge him towards marketing, when suddenly he turned on me. "Look", he said. "I've enough problems with sales; don't bother me with marketing!" Actually, that didn't faze me. It was a response I'm used to. His sales team were well short of targets, and the firm's sales were actually falling. What he was planning to do was fire the entire sales team, but as we talked things through, he calmed down. It took some time, but eventually I proved to him that the cause of his selling problems wasn't incompetent sales people. It was poor marketing.
For instance, he provided no direction to his reps on the sorts of markets to target, nor on the types of customers that they should be looking for. As far as he was concerned that was their job, and it meant that they wasted lot of valuable time on barren calls. He had no systems for finding out what customers actually wanted, or what they thought of his products, so he couldn't be certain that he was arming his reps with the most saleable goods. Or if there were products that were more popular that he could be offering. All these are the functions of marketing.
I also discovered that two of his competitors had recently slashed their prices. Again, he had no marketing strategy to deal with this.
So, the point I made to him and I'm making here is that the key to successful sales growth is to think marketing. And learn how to use and apply marketing in your business. Otherwise, you will have a real problem with "sales".
