The question probably does come up every now and again in a lot of businesses as to which aspect of the organization is more important, the sales strategy, or the marketing strategy. The politically correct answer when dealing with the people in these departments is that both are of equal importance. But that’s not always the case.
What Type Of Business Are You In?
Depending on the type of business you are in, the entire organization might skew more towards sales or more towards marketing, just based on the nature of the market you are in. In my previous job at an FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) company, it was becoming more and more sales oriented, as costs were slowly going up, hence volume sales needed to move up to keep shareholders happy.
If you have a product which is already available in the market such as selling cars, but you intend to sell luxury cars, then marketing may be more important to you than sales. When I say this I don’t mean that you don’t need to sell any cars, but that branding your product may be actually more important to your needs.
You will need to figure out what is the best way of mixing your sales and marketing strategy to suit your market’s and products’ needs.
What Are You Better At?
Another thing to consider is what skill are you better at? For one man or small businesses, the sales and marketing strategy may actually be carried out by the owner him/her self.
Some people are great sales men whereas others are great at marketing their product and branding. You should play to your skills yet still try and maintain some sort of balance between the two.
I heard of a story once about a credit card salesman, who worked for bank A. While showing one of his interns around, he went to a rival bank, bank B and asked to see the bank manager. Once meeting him, this brave salesman asked if the manager would like a credit card from bank A instead of bank B. The manager was furious and shouted at him to get out of his bank, yet he persisted asking him if he would like a credit card. In the end, the manager agreed to at least give his business card to the salesman as long as he left the bank.
The salesman then went downstairs and sold bank A’s credit cards to some of bank B’s teller staff.
So if you’re good at selling, use the skill to your advantage.
How Is The Market Behaving?
Your must also carefully keep an eye on how your industry as a whole is acting. Trends come and go and it is during these times where you may have to switch your plans from marketing to sales oriented to keep up with the competition. The best example of this is when your whole country or state is having a ‘mega sale’, this might be a good time to switch to discounting and a strong sales oriented approach, albeit for the short term.
Carefully considering what are your needs, strengths and conditions of your industry environment are a great way of telling if your business should be marketing, or sales skewed. But the most important this is having a quality product/service to sell otherwise neither strategy will work in the long run.
