Tweet

Dont Send in Your Infantry without Air Cover

Written by: Alec Schibanoff

Article Overview: No military commander would order the infantry to advance without sufficient air cover. And no business should have its sales force making sales calls without the support of a comprehensive, lead-generating marketing program.

Dont Send in Your Infantry without Air Cover

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

Related Articles
  What is the best way to develop my sales skills?
  How can you make more of your customers open your emails?
  Profitable Online Business Ideas and the Recession Part 2
  Know your magic numbers
  Contribution

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Re: Please review my business plan - Send me a private message with your email and I will send you back the business plan
Re: How to Promote Your Blog – The Definitive Guide to Promoting - Great Post! Dont forget to put your blog in Anchor Text For SEO purposes for the keywords you want when getting backlinks (for example with article marketing)...Very important. You can conquer quite a few small Niches and get your site on the number 1 spot in Google!
Re: Due Diligence, Market Research.. Ahead of the curve. - Congrats! A few months ago I wrote extensively on market research. Check in the Inventors corner for the posts. Let me know if I can help further! Dont spend a dime on a protype or advertising until you do some research! Jude
Re: Who hates cold calling? - I saw this and had to chime in. I HATE COLD CALLS. lol its terrible and a wast of my time. Something i have done is gotten online and found all the networking event happening in my area for the next 2 months and i try and go to about 3 a week. Even just for an hour. Dont bring any business cards. Just meet new people ask them alot about what they do, not too much about what i do and follow up the next day or 2. Has worked well
Re: Businesswomen in the news - [quote="TheRainmaker":2susnvqs] Dont forget that the media is out for the media and scare tactics and bad news gets the coverage.... J[/quote:2susnvqs] This is true....


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Paint A Word Picture - Excite Your Customer

Convening a focus group for a niche product

Igniting Your Unstoppable Business Destiny

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.