Sales and Marketing: Stop lumping them in together! And which is more important to hire first?

I try to stay aware of what companies are looking for in the job market. What I’ve found is that there are SO many jobs out there that are looking for a sales and marketing person. The problem with this is that they are looking for the same person to do both roles.

What it all comes down to is that in any successful and consistently performing company these two parts of a business have to work in partnership. They are like siblings. They will fight, but they are in it together and the more they work together the more everyone will win.

But there is a growing problem in collapsing these roles into a singular position.

STOP combining these crucial roles into the same position. What makes someone good at marketing doesn’t inherently translate to sales and vice versa.

Its obviously easier to pay one person for two positions, but they will only be able to thrive at one of the two in almost every case. And likely only parts of that one.

This isn’t to say that a sales person shouldn’t generate their own leads. But if your idea of that is cold calling, and you can’t provide at least luke-warm leads while they’re building expertise then you aren’t setup to be a thriving business in the 21st Century.

There is no quick fix or one person solution.

Which leads to a question....which should be hired first???

It depends.

If you have good marketing already in place and are getting leads, a sales person could be the more crucial role to hire, so that the sales can be closed at a higher rate and more, while allowing the leaders of the company to be more executives than technicians.

If you have a great product that sells itself, and requires less work to differentiate from your competition, then a marketing expert is smarter.

I was on a panel a few weeks ago with a marketing expert and CRM expert when this question was raised. My friend, the marketing expert, had a great response.

There are so many intricacies involved in successful marketing. And almost no single person can do that for a smaller company, much less a mid-sized company, and if they can you will not be able to afford them.

What was suggested instead is to hire a MARKETING FIRM to manage the marketing for a newer/growing company. You’ll get the full resources of a large team and sub-contractors, amazing insights that they’ll be able to provide, and will be done for likely near the same rate as a full-time expert to bring in-house.

Once you have flourished and are scaling, then you can likely keep that marketing firm, or then afford to hire multiple marketing experts onto your team to manage the various components of marketing that requires more than one area of knowledge.

Sales is very different however.....

There aren’t nearly as many components in sales requiring separate roles.

While marketing usually is done collaboratively behind the scenes, they almost never are personally talking to the prospect making it easier to have input and refinement from a team. On the other hand, the sales process is and should be run but a single point of contact with the prospect.

I’ve talked about how often companies try to hire sales people WAAAAAAY too early.

They try to hire a sales person without having a CLEAR and proven sales process, with at least bullet point pitches of what to say and ask to a prospect, and almost NEVER have a clear training program for how to on-board and train a new rep to quickly mastering the sales process.

Before you begin to CONSIDER hiring a sales person, ask yourself this... “If we brought someone on, what would we train them in? Who would train them? Are we sure, that if we trained them properly our process is good enough that they will be more than minimally successful? And lastly and most importantly, do we have enough leads coming in that will keep the sales person busy while they refine their lead generation ability for the product/service?”

If you can say yes to all those, then congratulations! You are ready to hire a sales person.

Until you have those in place, DO NOT TRY HIRING A SALES PERSON!

They will not be able to succeed, and if they do it will be in spite of the company. Which leads to resentment and a high likelihood of them leaving sooner than later.

And if you can’t successfully sell to a quality lead thats generated, then don’t hire a marketing team because you need more than a simple fix.

When these two are working together though...... MAGIC!

When the marketing team generates leads that are teed up, well educated, and are able to purchase....and the sales team closes those deals...you’ve got the magic formula.

How do you get there? Through working together.

Marketing should connect with the sales team about what’s working or not working in the sales pitch, what can be done in the marketing to resolve those issues before they get to the sales team. Often the sales team can give insight into potential wording or mindset of the prospects that can be used in marketing to set up the prospects for an easier sell.

And when sales and marketing are working together, the sales team can learn from the marketing team about the psychology of the prospect and how to tailor the sales pitch to have the maximum impact.

Stop pitting these departments against each other, or allowing discord between them. Do whatever it takes to get them on the same page and being best friends... who sometimes still bicker ??.