As most of my business life has been spent in direct selling functions I have studied sales and marketing deeply.
This downturn has prompted me to look again at some of my long-held assumptions and I have come to the conclusion that a fundamental concept drilled into me years ago by academics when I did my MBA is a complete misrepresentation of reality.
Jerome McCarthy and Philip Kotler's assertion that "Selling is part of the Marketing mix" - the 4 P's and all that junk - is, as we would say in the wilds of County Tyrone, totally arse-about-face.
This false notion, spawned for intellectual neatness, has misled corporate executives for years and resulted in a diminution in status of selling, diluted sales efforts, weakening of direct sales support investment and an associated inflation of costs in indirect marketing activity.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not dismissing marketing as an essential element in sales success. All I am saying - and this is vital - is that marketing is part of the selling mix; not the other way round.
As John King, one of Ireland's greatest businessmen, puts it "at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters in business is sales"
Successful selling has four key components, in each of which to a greater or lesser degree, marketing plays an important though subservient role.
1. Preparation - Leading to a comprehensive targeted plan.
2. Investigation - Looking for opportunity and diagnosing customer "pain"
3. Presentation - Communicating the solution
4. Negotiation - Closing the sale
Downturns are opportunities for a rethink on how we go about things. So, here are a few suggestions to help you "put marketing in its place"
1. Scrap your marketing function and make all marketing decisions within the sales function.
2. Abolish all stand-alone marketing titles
3. Elevate "sales and selling" in corporate importance and priority.
4. Make your sales function "own" all marketing activity
5. Treat your sales people as heroes.
6. Engage everyone in the company in support of selling.
Oh, and don't believe everything the academics tell you!
Find out more about Will at http://www.willmckee.ie/
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8 comments:
Hey Will, Salve !
Professor Curious Here and I love your grumpy style . I am as grumpy as the next guy and great thing is... I am always right !
I appreciate your take on Selling v Marketing . I even understand where you are coming from however ... while I do not disagree with you I have a slightly different take from my particular piece of high ground. Selling is essential . Marketing is essential as well . The two pretty much march alongside each other but like infantry and cavalry have different methods of reaching their objective.
Sales is about the objective of cash flow, doing the deal, getting to the money, moving product, creating deal flow ,
Marketing is about a vast number of things including , creating an ethos, a strategy and corporate personality , a way of approaching the market and out of this follows Sales Flow .
In my world both are essential . Both are working synergetically with each other . They are separate skills and yet they are linked .
Your expertise may be in Selling, mine may be in Marketing , I know we both recognise the need for S & M functions and we put different weighting on each . In reality they are both needed . I agree with you that Selling is not SOLD as a topic in business Schools . Some Academics think Marketing is more scientific or can be made to seem more attractive. That is because Selling is HARD. Anyway enough of my morning rant I hope I have SOLD you a different point of view. I will go now to my nearby MARKET and smooze a bit
ATB Prof Curious
P S Keep challenging the world !
Thanks Prof. Great comment. Yes we are essentially on the same page though I want to put the ultimate responsibility for creating the ethos, strategy, personality etc onto the Sales function where it belongs. Kotler just gave sales directors the option to opt out of this vital stuff.
Now, I wonder just who you are?????
Hi Will
Couldn't agree more with your views. This misunderstanding comes from terminology. In the US Marketing is the umbrella term of which sales is a key part. In the UK Sales is the umbrella term in which marketing is a part.
Thankyou Forde. Regrettably our public sector economic development agencies, our universities and many of our companies take the US approach you have suggested. Paradoxically in the US Sales as a profession has much greater status than Marketing and the reverse is true in the UK!
Alastair Wilson comments that Graduate Placement and Milkround Companies should take note of these pearls of wisdom. Marketing Graduates who are making their first career moves into any business should be made to serve their "Sales Apprenticeship" by spending at least two or three years in a highly competitive field sales environment. It is essential that they should prove and hone their sales skills before moving onwards and upwards. If they cannot cut it here they should not be allowed to continue and move into the safety and comfort of the "Marketing Suite".
I so agree Alastair; though under the Grumpy old Will regime the "Marketing Suite" has been abolished. So get out there and sell something!
So right, Will, I have long lamented the fact that MBAs delivered on these shores do not contain at least one sales module.
The more I work with SME's the lack of sales expertise is apparant and more so in the current climate - ah well perhaps it's good news for people like me.
Colly,
You and I should be the teachers! But I suppose it is polite to wait till we are asked. I'm not holding my breath.
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