The Business Battle Between Sales and Marketing

By Kyle Reyes

Whenever I offer advice or guidance for a business on how to design a marketing strategy, I often have to differentiate to business owners the difference between "marketing" and "advertising".  I try and explain it like this.
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Marketing is the message.

Advertising is the delivery method.

It occurred to me yesterday that there's a third component here that may be a fatal flaw to the marketing strategies of many businesses.

It's called sales.

We received a phone call from a big Massachusetts firm.  They'd heard about us through some of our satisfied customers.

We had a great meeting and they asked us to put together a proposal to run their marketing.

We did.  And the response we got after they reviewed our proposal threw me for a loop.

"We'll work out a sales commission for you guys for every sale we generate."

We explained that we aren't a sales team - we are a marketing firm.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

No.  Not even close.

But the fact is, they aren't alone.  For example, I know many of you reading this run car dealerships.  And I'm SURE you have at one point had "sales and marketing assistants" as a position within your dealership.

While you're at it, why don't you have your lube technician apply the final coat of paint to the front end of that rebuilt car in the body shop?  I mean, it has to do with cars, right?

Wrong.  Very, very wrong.

I get it.  Many businesses, facing fiscal challenges, are trying to shave up dollars where they can.  So they consolidate positions.  Again and again and again.

Suddenly your sales team is running your facespacepinbook+ thing that people are calling "social media".

It's no different than a restaurant asking an executive chef to run the closing numbers for the front of the house.  Or to seat diners.  Sound ridiculous?  Perhaps that's because it is!

Let's break this down simply.  Your marketing team should be driving traffic to your website or your establishment, pushing more people into the buying funnel for you.  Your sales team are the soldiers that should be closing deals.

Sometimes it just helps to get a third party perspective about your marketing, advertising and sales strategies.  That's where The Silent Partner Marketing comes in.

And sometimes it just makes more sense to hire us to manage all of your marketing.

Not your sales.

So stop asking the lube tech to paint the car.  Give us a buzz today and let us apply our "stroke" of genius.

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Written by Kyle Reyes

Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology.  You can find him on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.  He's the Chuck Norris of marketing.  It's outrageous - we know.  That's kind of the point.