Often people get confused when marketing their business and overlook the sales process. Are they the same or different? Mix them up and you’re in trouble! Why is that?

It is not unusual when I first meet with a client interested in my services to express their desire to “grow” their business, but they just don’t quite know how they should go about doing that. What they are really thinking is, “How do I market my business and bring customers to me who will buy from me?” I’ve noticed that when people are having trouble converting prospects into clients, they are usually doing one thing wrong—they are selling when they should actually be marketing. This is a very important distinction, worthy of exploring.

A good working definition of marketing is that it is truly any activity directed toward making an exchange intended to satisfy human needs or wants; the process of establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders of the company to facilitate exchanges.

“Whether a company is high tech or low tech,
operating in an age-old industry or one of the newer service or knowledge ones... its success will depend, more than anything else, on the satisfaction of the needs and desires of each unique stakeholder.”
--Craig R. Hickman

Stakeholder? What’s that? In business, a stakeholder is any person or group that has a stake in an organization—primarily stockholders, owners, employees, management, customers, and suppliers.

So what is marketing then? Simply, marketing is any activity that prepares the ground for selling. Marketing is the process by which an individual or organization plans and executes the creation, pricing, promotion and distribution of products, services and ideas. This includes targeting your market, preparing your message and materials, and undertaking various marketing activities such as networking and speaking. Marketing is everything that you do to become visible in the marketplace; how you reach and persuade prospects.

It is imperative that you are also understanding your customers (internal & external) and ensuring that you add value to those customers while generating revenue for your business. Marketing includes such things as market segmentation, branding, the 4 P’s (product, place, price and promotion) all fit under the marketing umbrella, but their purpose boils down to understanding customers and adding value while generating revenue. Your marketing consists of the measures you use to reach and persuade your prospects that you are the company for them; the one whose services solve their problem or challenge. It consists of advertising, public relations (PR), brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail. It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sale.

Marketing and sales really seem to be two sides of the same coin. Without marketing you would not have prospects or leads to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy your closing rate may depress you. If you've ever wondered something similar, you may have lost sight of a very important truth—the way to win the marketing game is not to collect the most leads; it's to make the most sales. Marketing ends when you get to the selling conversation.

As you can see, marketing takes some thought and planning in order to implement the development and distribution of goods to fulfill and produce profits. Marketing activities that increase your number of sales are good, and activities that don't are simply a waste of time, even if they bring in plenty of leads. If you don't follow up on the leads you gather, you are throwing away your time and money.

Sales, on the other hand, is the activity of selling a company's products or services. Sales is the delivery of value to customers in return for money or other compensation. The sales process is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract. Basically sales is focused on the short-term results that generates revenue to keep the business running day-to-day, and marketing is the long-range efforts to keep a steady flow of potential customers for sales through the future. Both marketing and sales are necessities to the success of a business. You cannot do without either process. By strategically combining both efforts you will experience a successful amount of business growth.

However, by the same token if your efforts are unbalanced it can detour your business growth. Paradoxically, it’s not unusual for me to hear from new clients that they hate selling! I can practically see the stereotyped used car salesman dancing in their mind while observing white knuckled fear and a look that says, “No way, I can’t do that – I can’t sell!” I’m not sure if they think that once you start a business customers will miraculously and automatically line up to purchase services or buy a product. After all, the marketplace is competitive!

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
-- Ronald E. Osborn

Importantly, the sales process consists of interpersonal interaction. A one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking often help to facilitate an introduction to your business that could lead to success. As a matter of fact, years ago when I was President of a local business networking association, I would often let our members know that I was in the business of relationships! Without relationships, even if I have the greatest product or service in the world, without marketing who would know of it and who would buy it? Sales then, is anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance.

The selling conversation happens when the prospect is ready to explore working with you. This consists of learning about the prospects situation, their goals, challenges, and yes, their values! When you discover what truly motivates your prospect and move toward mutual synergy by aligning your values, selling becomes easy. At this point when you present your service or product that will help them reach those goals and overcome those challenges, you’ve piqued their interest in a win-win relationship! 

Tip: Learn how to have marketing conversations or pre-selling conversations.

Marketing conversations are very different from selling conversations. Whether a large business or small, the message you share through your marketing position and interaction with your clients and prospects must be simple, repeatable, and viral. Let’s take a look at the elements of a marketing conversation.

When someone asks you what you do,

• Respond with your problem-solving rendition of, “I work with people who . . . (have what problem or challenge?)
• Followed by your Ultimate Outcome —The real ‘reason why’ they want this problem solved or what they want to obtain.

So, now you’ve got their attention, what next? This next step is where many people fail because we typically want to rush the process by “telling” them how we accomplish those results – after all we have a captive audience. Instead,

• Tell a story that keeps your prospect engaged about the issues that the prospect is facing.

You are in the process of informing not selling as a continuation of the marketing conversation.

If you hold off on telling “how” you actually can solve their problem, you’ll keep curiosity high and be better positioned to transition from the marketing conversation to the selling conversation. And what is the selling conversation? It is the invitation to join you in discussing their particular issues goals and challenges and to learn more details about how your services work as a solution to those.

Seth Godin’s bottom line difference between marketing and sales is

“Marketing tells a story that spreads and sales overcomes the natural resistance to say, ‘Yes!’”

How many businesses lose out because their customers don’t know how to share their message?  How many businesses are sharing an outdated message that does not resonate in today’s economy?  How many businesses aren’t clearly articulating their value?

Your marketing story brings them in. Your sales story reduces their resistance. It makes you credible and trust worthy. It demonstrates your value to the potential buyer. Bottom line… good stories make your job a whole lot easier. A good story is short and powerful. It can be as short as 1-3 well crafted sentences. While it’s a lot easier to tell a long story, long stories, unless extremely well crafted, bore people.

TIP: As you develop your short powerful story include these elements:

• Curiosity - Incorporate unexpected things, open a loop with an incomplete thought you have to stick around to finish
• Make it about the people who buy from you either explicitly or implicitly
• Keep it logical - Stories have a plot. Therefore, a person like the people who buy from you must have an urgent challenge or problem that is resolved as a result of the actions they took.

When you do this, remember that your story does need to:

• Speak to the right people
• Share the right message
• Tell your story the right way
• Connect with people at the right time
• Focus on the right reasons people want to act

Ultimately, you must make a clear distinction between marketing and sales or else you’ll try to sell too soon and lose the opportunity to set up a real selling conversation. The challenge is that you may tell a compelling story that nonetheless doesn't result in sales. Just as I may build sufficient trust and credibility that I can overcome resistance to saying yes without a story, without in fact, anything more than a promise. And this can be more difficult than the stories of a new-found alignment between marketing and sales promise.

Distinguishing your marketing and sales conversations in an Internet-based world is critical to your ability to communicate what your business is all about, who you are marketing to, and why your product or service serves to provide solutions to your special market, so that your potential customers can truly hear your unique message of benefit and ultimately satisfy your goal to succeed in business. Further, by being aware of your interpersonal interactions you can co-create synergy for all and more. It will depend upon you to consistently deliver a unique and valuable experience as a values-centered business professional.

Wishing you Inspired Business Success in all your conversations!