Marketing versus Sales

In a lot of companies there’s always a tug-of-war between sales and marketing. They are considered to be two independent functions.

My way of looking at it, is a little different. I have always considered marketing and sales as one consolidated function. Maybe this has to do with my predominant background in B2B rather than consumer.

As I look at it , the job of both the functions is to get a client for whatever you make. If that be the case, then a sales person’s job is to sell face to face and close a deal. Are you still with me. However a sales person has limited bandwidth.

Whenever you’re entering a new account, that customer will do business with you only when they trust you.

This where marketing comes in. It helps you build trust and creates the environment, so that the sales person is able to close more deals faster. So its like “canning” whatever the sales person does on a mass scale, without getting in front of the customer.

With marketing the advantage you get is that you can automate a lot of the tasks, which would not be possible with sales. This allows you to create non-linear growth for your company.

Now I am not sure, if large companies would look at it this way or consumer focused companies would look at it like this. However if you’re an emerging company in the B2B space, this kind of a model will give you both efficiency and effectiveness.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The B2B sales person’s tight rope walk

B2B, Sales

The sales person is the face of the company but she is also the interface of the customer. So while the company pays the salary, its the customer who gives the business, because of which the company earns revenue and can pay salaries.

So whose orders should the sales person take…..this is a very big dilemma. When I was young and new in sales , I actually ended up offending a few customers, because I literally took my boss’s orders on some issues.

Luckily I was able to salvage the situation and some of those customers gave me business for a long time after that. This situation could have happened with any sales person not only in B2B.

In B2B the challenges are that we are a looking at more than one person with whom you deal. In addition there’s long term business at stake because B2B buyers don’t change suppliers quickly. So if you offend one person, the news may spread and you may also lose business with the other buyers over time.

There’s another peculiar situation in B2B. You may be doing business with one buyer, let’s call him Sam. You may try to explore business with another buyer in the same company, let’s call him Tom. Now Tom is even willing to talk to you, but Sam wants you to route all your interactions through him and if you try bypassing him, he gets upset and holds your payment or other such issues.

You later find out that Tom and Sam are actually not on speaking terms and therefore Sam is penalizing you for talking with Tom.

This is a very delicate situation. You want to expand the business because that’s what your company and you want, but if you offend Sam you may actually even lose the business that you presently have.

If you think, I have an answer that can solve this problem for you….no I don’t. Each situation is different and has to be handled carefully, it really is a tight rope walk.

However one tool which I tell my team members to use is to “make me the bad guy” . Meaning for this situation, my team could tell Sam,’ you know my boss is such a jerk , he wants me to get the business from Tom at any cost, what do you think I should do’ . This works in a lot of situations for my team members because the sales person now earns sympathy of Sam.

See if this works for you and let me know. Also let me know in the comments below if you have come across some other things which have worked.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

The concept of Value – in Services – 2

B2B, Product Management, services, Value, value proposition

In the post yesterday we had seen how services can have different values for different people and its our responsibility as sellers and product managers to create the value differentiation.

If we look at the B2B segment, there’s a very clear difference between how the value is seen if it is helpful in getting revenue or is it about cost.

Anything which can help increase revenue is always more valuable, versus anything that is about cost is always going to be seen as less valuable.

Therefore any proposal on the cost side will take longer to close, until and unless there’s an emergency of some kind, versus a proposal which talks about increasing revenue.

Even when you’re going from the “gate” which brings in the revenue, you have to be able to showcase how your service forms a solution to their overall problem of increasing revenue. As an example,you can’t go in saying I am a content writer and therefore I can increase revenue….you won’t be able to move ahead.

On the other hand if you understand the problem that they have and how content writing can be the solution to their problems then you have a bright road ahead.

Its happened with me many times, where , we created an amazing offering for the cost side and were not able to get it to move with customers because they were already solving the problem in a different way. But we started getting traction the moment we moved towards re-orienting the solution from the revenue side.

This is a key thing to learn for all of us who are in the services business of any kind.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Leverage – Sales

Leverage, Sales, Time

For a sales person, the biggest consumable she has is time. If it’s gone or wasted on worthless prospects or prospects who are only out there to take “gyan” or knowledge then your income reduces by that much.

For most people who work for someone else, they sell their time for money. With sales people the advantage is that they can get incentives which can really multiply their earnings. So there is a lot of leverage on their time. And the more leverage that they can build, the more they can get rich.

So one is clearly identifying the accounts you want to work with. Sometimes the company would decide this and you have little options. Sometimes the company that you work for may also limit the products/services that you are allowed to sell. That makes life a little more challenging.

In that case the other big leverage that you can get is by using referrals. If you can create happy customers and they can refer other customers to you, then you can get an amazing amount of leverage on your time. Happy customers are always the best source of new business because then there are less hurdles to cross even with the company you are referred to.

Most sales people however feel scared to ask for referrals because they think the customer is doing them a favour. I also used to feel the same way and used to ask it in a very apologetic manner. However, has a friend asked you for help identifying a good “Chinese” restaurant. You have felt happy to recommend a restaurant, if you have had a good experience. This thought was brought out to me by Dean Jackson and Jay Abraham and since then I keep thinking about various ways to be in front of my customer when they are having a conversation where I can be of help. Think from this angle.

Everyone has a time constrain, but for sales folks it has direct impact on their earning capability so choose your customers well and figure out ways that you will create happy customers and then create ways to get a steady state of referrals.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!