Far too many managers and business owners expect to little from their marketing and too much from their sales force. And that’s because they do not understand the important relationship and synergy between sales and marketing!
Selling (the infantry) is retail, while marketing (the air cover) is wholesale. Selling is a one-on-one interaction between a salesperson and a suspect or prospect (we will define those terms later on in the article), while marketing is the process of reaching dozens, hundreds, thousands or millions of suspects or prospects simultaneously. When an enterprise’s marketing and selling are synchronized and properly integrated, sales soar and profits increase at an even greater rate because the selling process becomes very cost-effective and time/resource-efficient!
First, however, you must understand the suspect-prospect-customer-client continuum:
§ Suspect: Any consumer or business that might have need of your products and services
§ Prospect: Any consumer or business that has learned about your products and services, and has an interest in them
§ Customer: A consumer or business that has placed at purchased your products or services at least once
§ Client: A consumer or business that considers your business to be the preferred vendor for the products and services you offer
Here is an example of the difference between a suspect and a prospect. Anyone person or business that owns a car or truck is a suspect to the local tire store. Children, those who do not drive or do not own cars, and the elderly or disabled who do not drive are simply not suspects to the local tire dealer. No amount of marketing, nor the world’s greatest salesperson, will ever sell tires to those who do not own an auto! When a vehicle has new tires on it, its owner is a suspect, and it will take a heap of marketing and a really hard sell to get the purchaser of a brand new car with brand new tires to buy a new rubber! But then there is the “until” of marketing.
§ Until that car accumulates 50,000 or 60,000 miles on it: Now it’s time for a new set of tires. The owner starts looking through ads in the paper, through the local Yellow Pages, fliers he received in the mail, or just starts calling or visiting tire stores that he’s been driving by for years. That suspect is turning into a prospect.
§ Until that vehicle gets a flat tire: Now the vehicle owner unexpectedly needs to get a tire repaired or replaced. She starts shopping around, and that suspect becomes a prospect.
§ Until Winter Comes: And the owner decides to put snow tires on the car. That suspect just became a prospect.
§ Until the Vehicle Owner Becomes Dissatisfied with the Tires Already on the Car! For some other reason the owner decides he does like or trust the tires on his car, so he starts to shop around, and that suspect becomes a prospect.
So here is the Suspect-Prospect-Customer-Client continuum:
§ Suspect-to-Prospect: Your marketing program hits a suspect at just exactly the right time, and it successfully turns a suspect into a prospect.
§ Prospect-to-Customer: Your marketing program turns that prospect over to one of your salespeople, and she turns that prospect into a customer.
§ Customer-to-Client: The products and services that customer receives and uses are of such quality and value that he decides to shop you first the next time he needs the products and services you offer.
Why not just have the salespeople call on all the suspects, skip all that marketing nonsense, and save all that time and expense? Many businesses try that, and it’s called Cold Calling. Just call up every consumer or business that might need your product (i.e., the suspects), and give them your sales pitch. There are numerous problems with that approach:
§ Inefficient: It is a waste of time, talent and treasure to talk to suspects who have no need for your products and services.
§ Ineffective: Your salespeople end up having to talk to dozens, hundreds or maybe even thousands of suspects until they trip over a prospect.
§ Demoralizing: Companies that require their sales forces to Cold Call have high turnover. That means more recruitment and training expenses.
§ Expensive: Businesses that do not provide marketing air cover for their salesforce infantry pay more for continuous recruitment and training of new salespeople than they would spent on marketing to support the sales force!
What happens when you provide air cover marketing for your infantry sales force? Your salespeople only deal with prospects (that’s called Warm Calling), their selling productivity increases, sales force morale soars, and sales grow dramatically.
§ Efficient: When salespeople are only talking to prospects, you multiple their effective many times over!
§ Effective: The selling cycle is shorter, and you have more satisfied customers that can be turned into clients.
§ Invigorating: Not only does sales force turnover go away, but word of your business quickly gets around, and you start receiving unsolicited resumes from highly qualified salespeople who want to work for you!
§ Inexpensive: For every 10% increase in sales, there is a 15% to 20% increase in profitability because you’ve made the Suspect-to-Prospect conversion process so efficient!
If your sales force is cold calling, it’s time to get your business into the 20th century! No, that’s not a typo. We mean the “20th Century” because enlightened business owners and managers abandoned Cold Calling 10 or 20 years ago! Putting resources into a lead generation program costs nothing. It is an investment that produces a high return in several areas:
§ Improved Efficiencies
§ Increased Effectiveness
§ Greater Productivity
§ Better Employee Morale
§ Lower Sales Force Turnover
§ Decreased Sales Force Recruitment and Training Costs
§ Increased Sales
§ Dramatically Increased Profits
§ More Satisfied Customers
§ Fewer Credits, Returns, Adjustments and Cancelled Sales
§ Short-Term, Intermediate and Long Term Growth for Your Business
Dont Send in Your Infantry without Air Cover - To learn more about this author, visit Alec Schibanoff's Website.
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Alec Schibanoff
(Visit Alec's Website)
Alec Schibanoff is managing director of
AAS Associates, a management consulting
firm specializing in business-to-business
marketing, sales, training and strategic
planning. AAS Associates offers a
comprehensive package of affordable and
effective services for companies that sell
their products and services to or through
other businesses.
These services include sales and customer
service training, sales force recruitment
and deployment, lead generation programs,
industrial public relations, new product
and new channel development, marketing and
business planning, technology transfer and
concentric diversification.
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