Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Divide Your Marketing/Sales Pie Differently
I talk to a lot of agency owners and I ask them the same question: how do you plan to grow your firm? The answers I almost always get are these:
• “Do a better job of marketing”
• “Hire a marketing director”
• “Win more new business presentations”
• “Get more referrals”
• “Make the agency an account”
Now these answers aren’t totally wrong – they are just not the right one.
What agency owners and CEOs should be saying is. “We have to do a better job of sales.”
After all isn’t business development all about selling and winning?
So why don’t I get the right answer? I think it is because many people are confused about the difference between sales and marketing. So here are my definitions:
Marketing: The process of making a “universe” of potential business prospects know more about your firm and how you think
Sales: The process of persuading a potential customer to buy your services
Now where would you put the emphasis?
From now on divide your sales and marketing “time pie” differently – 75% of your time on sales and 25% of your time on marketing.
Making the time commitment is only the very first step of the sales challenge. I’ll be addressing other challenges and offering potential solutions in future postings.
• “Do a better job of marketing”
• “Hire a marketing director”
• “Win more new business presentations”
• “Get more referrals”
• “Make the agency an account”
Now these answers aren’t totally wrong – they are just not the right one.
What agency owners and CEOs should be saying is. “We have to do a better job of sales.”
After all isn’t business development all about selling and winning?
So why don’t I get the right answer? I think it is because many people are confused about the difference between sales and marketing. So here are my definitions:
Marketing: The process of making a “universe” of potential business prospects know more about your firm and how you think
Sales: The process of persuading a potential customer to buy your services
Now where would you put the emphasis?
From now on divide your sales and marketing “time pie” differently – 75% of your time on sales and 25% of your time on marketing.
Making the time commitment is only the very first step of the sales challenge. I’ll be addressing other challenges and offering potential solutions in future postings.
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