My Boss Punched Me in the Face…

(or "How I learned the difference between Sales and Marketing")

[The following blog was written by a client of mine in direct response to last Friday's blog: Please Punch Me in the Face.  This is unedited.  See the comments section for my further remarks.]

I was ready.  I had memorized the research. Crunched the numbers.  Crunched ‘em again.  I had a “bulletproof” product marketing proposal. 

I was a young Product Manager working in the Marketing Department of a large, publicly-traded Company in a dynamic, high-growth industry.  My product line’s growth had slowed in one of our regions and we were losing share to a competitor.  This couldn’t continue.  Not on my watch.  I put on my best navy suit and power tie and was “armed to the teeth” when I scheduled the meeting where I would present my brilliant plan to my boss, who was the Corporate Officer responsible for Marketing.  I was barely 5 minutes into my presentation and I’d just finished the “Situation Analysis” part of the plan and I was ready to “hit” him with a one-two punch of revised (i.e., reduced) pricing and increased promotion.  You see, I am a classically trained marketer who grew up believing in the “Four P’s of Marketing [Product, Price, Promotion and Place] and every good plan had to focus on one or all of those areas.  My boss interrupted me and said…

“It sounds to me like you’re trying to solve sales problems with marketing solutions”.

 Gulp.  Suddenly there was less air in the room and I was having trouble breathing.  I felt like I’d been punched in the face… 

After he took me back through the situational analysis and reminded me of a valuable difference between our product that our competitor didn’t have and couldn’t easily match.  So, our competitor had simply changed tactics and we were getting “outsold”. 

We discussed a few different options that involved additional sales training, increased sales activity and more accountable sales management. 

60 days later and the story changed.  Our losses subsided and we were back on track with our growth plan.  All of that with no changes to the Product, Price or Promotion components of the marketing mix.  We simply changed the way we handled the Place (i.e., Sales, or where the “rubber meets the road”, as Sarah mentioned).

In the interest of full disclosure, my example featured a direct sales channel where the Marketing Department could physically (or virtually) communicate directly with the people who delivered our “Product” to the “Market”.  I realize this isn’t always the case with an indirect or online sales channel and additional pieces of the marketing mix have to be considered. 

Here’s how I see it:

1.       Start with the 4 P’s of Marketing:  Product, Price, Promotion and finally, Place.
2.       The first 3 P’s (Product, Price and Promotion) are traditionally known as marketing functions.    Clearly, there are significant differences between each of these areas. 
3.       The last P is the “engine” that drives the growth you’re looking for in your Marketing plan.  Think of Marketing as the car and Sales as the engine.  Even the best designed, hottest looking car won’t go anywhere without an engine.  
4.       You can have a “drop dead” Marketing Plan and if your distribution channel(s) don’t line up with your target market or if your salespeople aren’t as effective as they could or should be, then you won’t see the difference you’re looking for in your marketing plan. 
5.       Try to sharpen/improve the sales function before making any significant changes in product, price or promotion.  Remember, nothing sells like lower prices and it takes very little skill to spend more money to “outshout” your competitor.  This can be a “slippery slope” on the race to the bottom. 

I (mostly) view Sales and Marketing and different functions. 

However, I’ve seen Sales and Marketing integrated and used interchangeably most often in independent, mostly entrepreneurial professional services.  Think about it:   if you, your experience, knowledge and capabilities ARE the product and you set/negotiate the price and you promote yourself and your work online and offline, then you’re definitely engaged in the sales process in every step. 

Remember:  nothing happens until (or unless) somebody sells something.

-Randy B.

Please punch me in the face.

(aka, sales and marketing are not the same thing)

One of my very favorite clients once asked me to punch him in the face.

But before you think we have some weird Emogen version of Fight Club going on, I should explain exactly how that came to be. It all starts with a joke I heard recently that went something like this…

My wife and I were walking to our vehicle, a classic Land Cruiser, one day when a man approached us and said, “Please punch me in the face.”

I smiled, happy to honor his request.

As I was readying to land one square in his nose, my wife grabbed my arm and quickly translated that what the man had actually said was, “I really like your Jeep Cherokee.”

… So while not the funniest of jokes if you’re not a Land Cruiser fan (if you are, then you totally get it), I love this because all of us can personalize it with that thing that, when said, makes you want to claw out the eyes of the person who said it.

Now back to my client (who, by the way, is a dear friend and has had the pleasure of reviewing this blog before I posted it): we have come to learn, he and I, that we have some differences when it comes to sales and marketing.

The meeting where I heard “please punch me in the face” actually went down like this: in a brainstorming meeting about the coming year’s marketing plan, I began throwing out some ideas for cross- and up-selling the company’s current clientele, to which my customer said “Oh, that’s sales, let’s get back to marketing.”

Essentially, he believes that sales and marketing are separate animals. Cousins maybe.

But I say they are waaay closer than cousins. Where there’s one there’s always the other.

Marketing is, as the good ol’ Merriam puts it, the “aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer,” and sales is where the rubber meets the road, the actual interchange of money and product (or service). It is based on these definitions alone that I say if you’re selling, you’re marketing and if you’re marketing, I sure as heck hope your selling.

I’ll give him that sales and marketing are not the exact same thing, that you can’t always use the terms interchangeably, but still if you’re going to talk on one, then the other has to be included.

To exclude one might be like inviting only one of a pair of conjoined twins to a party. Like only one coming to the party could even happen!

Another thought is that our differences may stem from practical vs. academic perspectives. Because of my customer’s employment background, he looks at sales and marketing from a corporate vantage wherein you have a sales department and a marketing department. And, I admittedly tend to think of business in terms of the broad functional areas: Management, Marketing, Finance, Accounting and IS. (Note that sales is not mentioned in this list… because it falls within marketing!)

Still, even if you think of sales and marketing as separate departments or functions, the two activities should be closely coordinated for myriad reasons: messaging, tactics, budgeting, and on and on.

So, I think I’m right. And although I can usually be persuaded to the contrary, I think I’ll choose to remain right on this one.

Ask me to budge and you just might get a bloody nose. But don’t blame me… you asked me to punch you in the face.

~Sarah, Emogen marketer

Facebook’s free? Why didn’t I know this??

Although not quite an uproar, there’s a little nasty hum in the Facebook world over the changes that occurred yesterday. It’s a “circle of life” thing really… Fb makes changes, people complain, then others start scolding the complainers for grumbling over a free service that no one is forced to use. Wash, rinse, repeat.

People even take time to make cute little graphics about it.

I find this cycle mildly humorous, especially since the mental picture I get is of Mark Zuckerberg wearing a crown of thorns, suffering over the sacrifices he’s made to bring us, the humble masses, the great charitable service that is Facebook.

Puh-leeze. That dude’s suffering all the way to the bank.

Joking aside, I know Fb is free for users in the monetary sense of “free,” but don’t deny it: Facebook is big business.

For those of you living under a rock, the name of the Fb game is advertising. And, much like Google, the enticement for businesses to advertise on Fb is the wealth—like a crazy deep and wide amount—of information available, allowing them to target an audience with sniper-like ability.

And that information, my friends, is the price we pay to play in the Fb playground. So, while you may not be forking over cash to tell everyone you "Lurv @New Girl with @Zooey Deschanel," you pay your fare every time you post, like or update anything on Fb.

Ok, to make this blog useful then, what can small business owners learn from this?

It might be a little stretch, but I think it can apply to any business’s pricing model. I suggest you not think of the price of whatever it is that you’re selling solely in terms of a dollar figure. There are intangible costs that customers pay, whether or not they knowingly acknowledge it. In addition to cash, customers also pay in terms of the time they are/aren’t willing to wait, the level of quality they want, and the level of service they need.

Not a new concept, I know, but maybe a new way of looking at it. Consider this: why not offer a sliding scale that adjusts your price up or down depending on a customer’s requirements in respect to time, quality and service.

For example, businesses charge all the time for “rush service.” But why not flip that around and offer “now and later” pricing. Maybe instead of charging extra for rushes, your “regular” price is for the fastest turnaround you can accommodate, but then you offer a hefty discount for customers willing to wait a little longer.

Same could go for quality and service. If you, Customer, are willing to do your own X then we’ll take X% off the price.

So… maybe not entirely related to the great debate of Fb being free or not and our right to complain or not, but something to ponder nonetheless.

Good talk, Folks, now let’s go make some money…

~Sarah Warren, Emogen marketer

How to Plan Advertising Placement

When putting together an advertising or promotion campaign, one of the major decisions before you is how to get your message out. The options for promoting your message are many: traditional media (tv, radio, print), online advertising, social media, direct mail, sales promotions, sponsorships, public relations, events and trade shows, merchandising, and actual sales efforts. Enough choices to make you cross eyed. And broke.

Small businesses tend to focus on traditional mass media because it’s what we as individuals know best. We think: people still talk about last year’s Super Bowl commercials and nobody even remembers the direct mail piece they received yesterday, so TV must be king.

The trouble is that mass=money, so most businesses either opt to do nothing or opt to take out a second on their house, neither of which are good—or necessary—options.

The key is to figure out with whom you are hoping to communicate, and then determine the best way to start a conversation with them.

If you’re McDonald’s and your market is, say, 90% of the population and you need to make several thousand sales per minute, then mass advertising, like a run-of-network TV campaign across the entire US, is spot on (no pun intended!).

But say your prospects are people in Northeast Louisiana with a liquid net worth of $250,000 or more. That list quickly boils down to about 5,000 households. Then let’s say you really only want to do business with people in Ruston, LA. Now you’re talking about 750 households. Still a decent sized prospect pool, but say you only really need to gain one new customers per week out of that pool. Now we’re definitely not going to be able to justify the price of TV, even on the local networks.

Depending on the product/service being sold in the above scenario I’d mostly likely recommend personal (direct) selling, but let’s say that’s not possible for some reason (or maybe you HATE direct sales as much as most every breathing human out there does). Then I’d probably recommend direct mail (DM).

I love DM because of how well you can target it. Still, the typical response rate on most DM is something like 2%. But, if you mix it up and add well placed outdoor or radio advertising to a three-piece DM campaign, then you might be able to ramp up the response rate. Season in a little social media for brand recognition and we might be talking a great campaign.

Ok, so, I can go on and on with examples. Frankly, sometimes you need a chainsaw and other times you can use a scalpel. The concept I’m trying to hammer into your head is that not every channel works for every situation. The right channel depends on your target market and your goal.

Putting a little effort into defining your “who” and “what” will make figuring out the “how” much easier (and probably more economical to boot!).

~Sarah, Emogen marketer